Title Talk, 04.2018: Book Girl Magic Reading Challenge

Dear readers,

I am the unreadingest (former) school librarian you ever saw.  Right here.  Writing this book review post.  Yup, that’s me.  Have read and reread and read again this month’s prompts for the 2 book challenges (was 3 but I couldn’t get the books read fast enough…see what I mean?) I am participating in.  But cannot keep the prompts straight in my head.  Not sure if that’s a reading problem or a memory problem.  Both?

Well, today I think I am sharing a review for the “Book Girl Magic Reading Challenge” (#BGRChallenge). Discovered this challenge through my friend Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks and her friend Carla at Rae La Soul.  But when I looked today for Carla’s latest review, I could only find one written in January.   Daenel has lots of great reviews, though…click here.

Researched a little further (being a former librarian and all) to discover that Renee is actually the Book Girl behind Book Girl Magic and this challenge.  Glad to have that all figured out.

Soooo, “Title Talk, 04.2018″…this month’s prompt is …

…’favorite childhood book’.  Which, for me is a toss up between Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Diary of a Young Girl.

Because both are so well known, I don’t think the world needs a review of either from me.  But if you haven’t read one or the other, I would encourage you to do so.

BOOK GIRL MAGIC READING CHALLENGE, 04.2018

Last year about this time, my daughter Lauren called me very upset.  Seems like I may have been out of town visiting my mom when she called.  Which is neither here nor there.  Lauren was looking for a box of books that she hadn’t seen since we helped the kids move from Houston to Albuquerque the summer of 2016.  In it was my father’s copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that I had read as a child and then had shared with Lauren.  She was so concerned that the box of books was nowhere to be found and felt like she had lost a book that was precious to me.

I tried to comfort her by saying that even though the book was lost, we had our memories of reading that book together.

For her birthday in July, I found the exact same edition of that Alice book on eBay and ordered it for her.  While I was at it, and apparently in the money, I ordered myself one, too.  July is a huge birthday month in our family.  Both daughters and grands were here for the celebrations.  The book was in the bag with her nickname “Buff” on the card in the photo below.

In the fall, in response to some kind of Q&A post here on the blog, I had shared that my favorite book of all time was The Diary of a Young Girl.  And then I checked my book shelves to realize that I didn’t have a copy of my favorite book of all time!!  So, I ordered it from Amazon.

A few months later, Lauren discovered her missing box of books tucked way up at the tippy-top of a closet and for Christmas returned my original Alice to me, along with The Five People You Meet in Heaven (another fabulous book and movie) and a third book I hadn’t until then missed.

My father’s copy of The Diary of a Young Girl.

So, altogether we now have 3 copies of the same edition of Alice and I have 2 copies but different editions of The Diary.  Someday both of my granddaughters will be able to have their own copies of these books.  But not for awhile!

The Diary of a Young Girl Revisited

Whew, thinking about all of that book losing and book ordering and book finding has made me dizzy.

I pulled out my father’s copy of The Diary of a Young Girl in preparation for this post, which hasn’t been much of a book review at all.  It has been so long since I read Anne Frank’s diary that I had forgotten much of what she had shared in her letters to “Kitty”.  As I skimmed through it again, I felt as if I was reconnecting with a long lost friend.  I began putting Post-its on pages that especially spoke to me.

None more than this one.

Saturday, 20 June, 1942

I haven’t written for a few days, because I wanted first of all to think about my diary.  It’s an odd idea for someone like me to keep a diary; not only because I have never done so before, but because it seems to me that neither I–nor for that matter anyone else–will be interested in the unbosomings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. Still, what does that matter?  I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart.

It was Anne Frank who inspired me to begin keeping a journal.  I have some of my own unbosomings in diaries written by a preteen me stored under my bed.  And in my loft, I have a drawer full of diaries and journals from my adult years.

I think that is 11 volumes by my count.  That’s a lot of writing!

For real book reviews on The Diary of a Young Girl, visit CommonSense Media, here.  The book has been reviewed over 2,000 times on Goodreads, here, and has earned 4.11 stars out of 5.  And there’s the original “NY Times” review of the book by Meyer Levin from 1952, here.  To read some of my other Book Magic Girl Reading Challenge reviews, real, true reviews, click here and here.

Nowadays, this blog serves as a version of a diary or journal of my life.  The ramblings of a retired school librarian and once hands-on but now empty-nest mommy with lots of time on my hands.  I want to write and this has become the place I do so.  Thank you for joining me on my journey to rediscover who I am. Glad you are here.

Your Turn

Are you a journal writer?  A diary keeper?  Won’t you share in a comment below?  I would love to know that Anne and I are not alone.  Have you read The Diary of a Young Girl?  I am conducting an informal survey so would invite you to leave a comment replying to that question.  Just wondering how many of us have read this book.

Have a peaceful tomorrow.  Thank you for coming by today for “Title Talk, 04.2018”.

Hugs and kisses,