At times I walk through our house with an eye toward what would I keep? What would I let go? So many tchotchkes. So many estate sale finds: our dining room table (1980); a Restoration Hardware lucite and chrome lamp (2016); yard tools, adn many other finds.

I’ve not yet mentioned the books, of which there are so many. So much truth, beauty, learning. I feel a kinship with the subjects of the biographies. And the books on religions and spirituality. I strive to live the teachings from many wise authors.

The most precioius of all are the children’s picture books. Of all the treasures on my shelves, I don’t think there is one I could part with. Each page is an esquisite translation of word and image. Often the words come first. Sometimes, with doubly gifted authors, the image comes first, calling  out for its own story. Children’s picture books offer up life lessons to the innocent and comfort to the aching heart.  They are works of art I can revisit whenever I like, the bookshelves having become akin to a museum where handling is the point and there are no closing hours.

I am blessed to have a few books from my earliest childhood as well. I have so carefully tucked away my 65 year old copy of Albert LaMorisse’s The Red Balloon that I cannot find it at the moment. But I do have Favorite Poems to Read Aloud which my Grandpa Abe gave me when I was six.  I only have to find the poem about the boy with a hole in his “pottet” to hear his voice and feel his embrace. I have written about Carmen Bernos de Gasztold’s Prayers from the Ark, but not Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle, a poetry book my mother gave me for my 12th birthday.  Its Langston Hughes’ poem Dreams has been a guiding light in my life. Marci Hans poem, Fueled, well, I think I shall include that one in the Wisdom drawer this month. Much better read and recited than recounted.

From my childhood to my chidrens’. There are the gems from their early years as well. Were Elliot to read The Creation, by Ori Sherman and Stephen Mitchell, respectively author and illustrator, would he hear my voice? Would my bedtime snuggles with Emma return to her in the pages of Martin Baynton’s Jane and the Dragon?  I think so.  I hope so. One of Leah’s faves was Esphyr Slobodkina’s Caps for Sale.  The book’s  lineage passes from Captain Kangaroo to me to Elliot and now the to our granddaughters.

That’s the magic of children’s picture books. Timeless museums of word and image, they are the repository of love from one generation to another.

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