Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace, a favorite book of my childhood.
When I was growing up I never imagined that I would be a writer. But I always loved to read. I recently discovered a list I made in third grade of all the books I read that year—47 of them! I actually made the list twice—first in the order that I read them, neatly printed, and then in alphabetical order by title, carefully written in cursive.
Most of the books on my list are fiction and all of them were checked out from the Minneapolis Public Library. (Although our family had a few Golden Books, and I occasionally got a book as a gift, we rarely bought books.) Most of the books on my list now seem terribly old-fashioned, but a few are classics, like Make Way for Ducklings and To Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street.
The cover of my booklet where I made my lists is a finger painting.
In my booklet I also recorded a list of the magazines I had read—mostly Jack and Jill, but also a few issues of Child Life and Highlights. And in the same little booklet with my lists I copied a poem by Annie Fellows Johnston called "Book Houses", which likens a book to a door to someone’s house. The third stanza reads:
And when I find a house that’s dull,
I do not often stay,
But when I find one full of friends
I’m apt to spend the day.
I recall many a day spent happily reading. Here’s my third grade list. How many of these titles to you remember reading as a child?
Books I have Read (Third Grade)
1. Betsy and the Boys by Carolyn Haywood
2. Two is a Team, Heim
3. The Cocoa Dancer
4. The Great Quillow
5. Tag-a-long Tooloo
6. Joan Wanted a Kitty
7. Make Way for Ducklings
8. Henner’s Lydia
9. A Pony for Linda—Anderson
10. Sonny the Bunny
11. Cow Concert
12.Little Stone House
13.Wishing Well
14.Pogo’s House—Jo and Ernest Norling
15. Joey and Patches
16.Cowboy Tommy-Sanford Tousy
17.How the Indians Lived – Dearborn
18.Little Pear – Eleanor Frances Lattimore
19. Two and Two are Four – Carolyn Haywood
20Kintu
21.Randy and the Queen – Margaret s. Johnson
22.Dog that Came True
23.Double Birthday Present – Mabel Leigh Hunt
24. Don’t Count Your Chicks
25.Jack-o-Lantern for Judy Jo
26.Holiday Roundup
27.Snipp, Snapp, Snurr and the Buttered Bread – Mag Lindman
28.Scratchy by John Parke
29.Coconut the Wonder Tree
30.Book of Jokes and Funny Things – Frances N. Chrystie
31.Dr. Trotter and his Big Gold Watch – Helen Earle Gilbert
32.A Kitten’s Tale – Audrey Chalmers
33.Blueberries for Sal – Robert McCloskey
34.Through Golden Windows
35. Our Little Friends of Norway
36.Little Lost Sioux – Martha Raabe
37. Nils – Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire
38.United States and Youth – Eleanor Roosevelt
39. Black Beauty – Anna Sewell
40.And to Think that I saw it on Mulberry Street – Dr. Seuss
41.Betsy-Tacy
42.Hide and Go Seek
43. The Most Wonderful Doll
44.The Young Aunts
45.North on the Great River – by Margaret G. O’Farrell
46.Penny Goes to Camp – Carolyn Haywood
47.Boy of the Desert – Eunice Tietjens
