Belinda Is a Treasured Childhood Memory. Book Thursday.

Cat. Doll. Cousins. Belinda Is a Treasured Childhood Memory.

Hey, Diddle, Diddle, The Cat and the Fiddle

Do you still have books, dog-eared with use, that you got as a child?

Do your parents still have your childhood books?

One of my favorites, discovered again when I got my mother’s things after her stroke, when she came to live with us, was “Belinda And the Magic Journey.”

Who Is Belinda?

Belinda was a doll made by a dollmaker for his daughter, when she asked for a companion.

Reading it now reminds me of when I asked my grandmother to make clothes for a doll she’d given me.

I had admired all the clothes she made to sell at her church bazaar and finally, in frustration one visit, asked why she’d never made any for the doll she gave me.

She sat right down and made an entire wardrobe, include a taffeta-lined velvet coat, before she left.

The doll, Nancy, and her clothes, are in an old wooden cradle in my den, tantalizing grandchildren who can now enjoy her as I did.

In the story about Belinda, a little girl lives with parents who make toys for a living. When asked, they agree to make a doll for Jane.

Jane names the doll Belinda.

Then What Happens?

Belinda goes on an adventure to look for a little boy to play with.

I won’t spoil the story by telling you what happens. But, reading the story with a grandmother’s eyes, it occurs to me grandchildren could easily write and illustrate their own story.

In this book, the illustratrations are photographs, with Belinda, the doll, placed in various settings.

Grandchildren, reading such a story as a model, could easily tell their own story with their toys as illustrations.

In fact, grandchildren don’t even have to make up their own stories. They can pose their stuffed toys to illustrate a favorite nursery rhyme, like “Hey, Diddle Diddle, The Cat and the Fiddle.”

I did this last year with my granddaughter and her friend. For each verse in the nursery rhyme, we got out their stuffed toys and I took pictures.

When I came home, I put captions on the photos from the nursery rhyme, printed out the pages and plastic-comb bound them, though you could easily bind a small book with staples.

Now, when we read “Hey, Diddle, Diddle,” the pages are illustrated with my granddaughter’s own toys in her own house.

Family Ties Bind Us

I haven’t seen the cousins who gave me the book, “Belinda and the Magic Journey“, when I was four, in forty years.

But, we are still regularly in touch, each with children and grandchildren of our own.

In my next letter, I need to tell them I still have this treasured book and will read it to my granddaughter on her next visit.

“Belinda and the Magic Journey”, published in 1948, is out-of-print.

But, you can still find it on ebay and amazon.

Click here to order the book on amazon.

Do you still have your childhood books?

Do your parents? Did you retrieve them when your parents downsized?

Have you read them to your grandchildren?

To you and the treasure of books passed down for generations.