Comments on: Book Keeping

By: penrise

penrise — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:53:54 +0000

so glad the Beatrice Potter didn’t get trashed (pity about the carrying case, though!). We’ve been able to pass many along to siblings, but also horded some favorites (and held onto the old family Beatrice Potter books, taped up and yellowed, but still in working order!)

By: L.A

L.A — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 01:08:06 +0000

Were moving into another house right now and we are going through all our stuff, so of course you get all the books and things you forgot about, and i have to say the one book i remember the most would be the lonley doll. It was my favorite when i was little and that wasnt that long ago, im going to be a freshmen next year.

By: jennifer

jennifer — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 13:04:26 +0000

And I’m still reeling that someone has 5000 books at home – here I thought MY collection had run amok. Guess you won’t be getting a Kindle, Goofdad.
Goodnight Gorilla is definitely a keeper too. Love Jamie Lee’s advice on a sure-fire laugh line for kids. Sigh. So true.
Have added Miss Potter to my ever-growing must-see list.
It’s nice to hear from other Lonely Doll groupies! Yes, her first name really was Dare. Her parents split and divided the children when they kids were very young, pretending the marriage and siblings never happened – sort of a real life Parent Trap. When Dare finally re-met her brother, she idolized him and this tilted into obsessive love. There is a sexy nude photo of Dare as a young woman on the beach – taken by her MOM. Dare’s relationship to men all her life was terribly unhealthy, to say the least. The weirdnesses go on and on. Oh yes, the Cleveland connection! Dare and her mom seemed to be constantly on trains between Ohio and NYC.
These are great comments, everyone, please keep chiming in! That’s part of the whole point of a blog! Such fun to read.

By: skellie

skellie — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 02:05:11 +0000

Lindsay I think you gave us our signed copy of Goodnight Gorilla! As for the Lonely Doll books, I loved them! The creepiness was part of the fascination for me. Dare Wright lived in Cleveland for a while and died penniless of course. My favorite Beatrix Potter character was Miss Tiggy-Wiggle, the fastidious hedgehog laundress who loved to iron!

By: lindacopy

lindacopy — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 01:53:32 +0000

I wanted to chime in about Beatrix Potter. The movie about her life, “Miss Potter,” is really delightful (Renee Zellweger, Ewan McGregor). She was quite an amazing woman and had a father who understood her talent. Peter and her other characters were so alive to her.

By: nikkibenner

nikkibenner — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 22:48:43 +0000

My childhood fave was The Velveteen Rabbit. I always cried at the end when the rabbit becomes real… and when the little boy sees him later, and remembers how he had a stuffed bunny that looked like the live rabbit… *snif!

By: Lindsay Todd

Lindsay Todd — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 21:45:13 +0000

PS: Met Jamie Lee Curtis at her own book signing nearly a decade ago and one of her favorite children’s books also Good Night Gorilla. She also said the way to make a kid’s book a hit is to use the word “diarrhea”, preferably in a rhyming sentence.

By: Lindsay Todd

Lindsay Todd — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 21:41:32 +0000

Can’t part with Good Night Gorilla and Very Quiet Cricket. Ten year old Spencer still wants me to read to him and when I say I am too tired he begs for a childhood board book. They have trouble parting with most of their things for the less fortunate, but are okay when they know things are going to their beloved cousin Jack.

By: Ed

Ed — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 21:13:56 +0000

I’ve never read the book, or the bio, and have had precious few dolls (stuffed-type) in my life . . . but with that subject matter, why did you even DOUBT Chris’ creepiness-quotient comment to begin with? And what does the bio say about the author’s ever-so-suspicious name? Is/was it pseudo?

By: goofdad

goofdad — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 19:49:23 +0000

I’m still reeling over the whole concept of a “Guest Bedroom” … With 9 kids, how big would my house have to be to have a “Guest Bedroom”?

And if it was … well, at this point in my career, I’d probably be filling that room with another Fosterling … but you already knew I was crazy!

Honestly, the room upstairs that currently is the “office” used to be the “library”, where all these treasures were found. The coolest thing I have from my childhood is a vintage collection of “Hardy Boys” novels, which so far none of my kids have been into. Maybe it’s because we’re the outliers on that “how many books do you own” survey the school sends out every year … Well over 3,000 at last count, and that was 3 years ago. I’d guess we’re over 5,000 now, since my older boys keep buying, plus we found some more books in the garagek from when we moved, yard sales, and everywhere else you can imagine. With so much to read (which is GOOD), the old stuff dad used to read is not so cool (kinda bad).

C’est La Vie.

Fortunately, I still have walls of bookshelves with books of all ages on them, so I don’t have to thin…

yet …