Guest post: At least the baby's library is ready
MAY
08
I discovered Kerry Clare when she reviewed My Mother's Daughter for her book blog Pickle Me This, which has since become a cozy armchair in my teeming, buzzing, sense-jangling online journey. To follow Kerry's reading is to share her pleasure in everyday graces from homemade scones to a conversation with a friend. Speaking of pleasure, she never reviews a book she doesn't like (how refreshing!). I've found that I can count on Kerry to uncover books I might have missed---and point out their most appealing, perplexing or just plain remarkable features.
Unlike me, Kerry is a baker: scones, cookies, you name it. When we downsized last year, she gave my unused electric mixer a home. I see from her blog that it's been getting a workout. But the best news from Kerry's blog is that she's about to be a mother. Now, some moms-to-be plan the baby's fashion statements; others can't wait to see their child on the piano bench or the playing field. In Kerry's baby dreams, there are lots and lots of books. Take it away, Kerry...
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I bought the baby its first book the day I found out I was pregnant. According to What to Expect When You're Expecting, which I bought at the same time, the baby then at five weeks gestation was not actually a baby, was barely an embryo, and had been classified as a "blastocyst" until a few days before. The baby most certainly didn't have ears, being approximately the size of an orange seed, but all the same that afternoon, we read the baby its first story. The book was Haiku Baby by Betsy Snyder, a sturdy board book with beautiful collage illustrations. Each page with a haiku about the weather or a season, the story ending (like all baby books, as I would come to learn) with nighttime and a not-so-subtle hint towards a good night's sleep: "in silver moonlight,/ whale sings a soft lullaby---/ good night, little bird".
The baby's library has been growing ever since then, subsequent new books I've purchased supplemented by those saved from my own childhood. These classics appear a bit battered beside the new books with their vibrant colours and pristine conditions (never been chewed!), but they're already beloved, including Shirley Hughes' Dogger, We Help Mommy with its distinctive Little Golden Book spine, my Madeleine books, Phoebe Gilman's Jillian Jiggs, Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney and Don Freeman's Corduroy.
Assembling my child's first library has been an exercise in nostalgia. Though I've also been acquiring children's books long into adulthood, since well before the baby. As a book lover, I don't discriminate by target audience, which is why I'm the owner of Ian Falconer's Olivia and several in Dick Bruna's Miffy series. My gifts last Christmas included Night Cars by Teddy Jam and Inside the Slidy Diner by Laurel Snyder. (Ostensibly, these gifts were for me and the baby, but both the giver and I knew that was untrue.) I had to muster up a great deal of maturity in adding these books to the baby's shelf, because they are my books, after all, and surely the baby would (in time) destroy them, whether by tearing fingers or inquiring gummy mouth. But of course, I want to teach my baby to share, and I'm determined to be an example. I also remain naively certain that I shall instill within my child a reverence for books- that pages are to be turned carefully, not dog-eared, the books to be delicately placed back on the shelf when we're finished with them (in alphabetical order, by author of course), and no writing/drawing inside the covers until baby is old enough for marginalia to mean something.
Just to be safe, though, I've lately been avoiding buying the big beautiful picture books I covet, sticking to board books instead. They're still destined for destruction, but will last a little while longer, and their form invites them to be experienced with all the senses. Avid readers always speak of "devouring" books, but only babies get to do it (almost) literally.
Of course I expect that motherhood will change me. An insistence upon a home library in alpha order is reason enough to desire a change, for there is such a thing as being too set in one's ways. Though I have a fantasy of the baby learning the alphabet by helping to catalogue the collection, I'm not optimistic. I am also very slightly aware that this baby that might not have respect for the alphabet at all. Perhaps it's not now swimming in my womb, dreaming of story time at the library with quite the enthusiasm I am. It might be the sound of Daddy's voice, and not the message of Guess How Much I Love You that makes the baby kick.
Sometimes I have to wonder who this library is for, me or the baby. How do you build a library for somebody you've never met, except by assuming they'll love all the same things you do? Why would you read a story to a barely-embryo, if not to enjoy the story yourself? All along I've been projecting my tastes upon this poor person who could well emerge into the world and not appreciate books at all.
Still, how else do you show somebody the world, except by highlighting its best beloved parts? And though the book I bought that first day wasn't really for the baby, it served to make the baby seem real. It began to prepare me for what lay ahead, the growing book collection since then sustaining the illusion that preparedness is even possible. That however much I can never be ready, at least the library is.
Copyright by Kerry Clare.
Posted by Rona May 08, 2009 @ 4:10 PM. File in What I'm reading, Guest Posts
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