This was first posted in March of '09 and over the years I've continued to get comments from folks who remember these books -- especially SINGING WHEELS. So here it is again for those of you who might have missed it -- and who remember these books...
There is a striking omission in my recent post listing 25 books that influenced my life and my writing. How could I have forgotten If I Were Going and Singing Wheels?
If I Were Going was my third grade 'reader' -- a wonderful horizon expander telling of life in Norway, Lapland, Brittany, Spain, North Africa . . . heady stuff for an eight-year old who could only remember traveling to Troy, Alabama.
I had never imagined that there was such variety in the world, in scenery and in people and their various ways of life. And this continues to fascinate me, even though my travel is mainly on the Internet.
The book's visit to England and its descriptions of English villages, thatched roofs, and country lanes is probably the catalyst for my life-long Anglophilia.
Along with the multiplication table, Singing Wheels was the focus of the fourth grade course of study. This textbook told of the pioneer experience in America, with stagecoaches and oxen and bee trees and spinning and all the daily minutiae of frontier life in the early 1800s.The book is a real treasure trove of how things were made back then (I'm pretty sure I could follow the instructions for candle-making and end up with candles), of wild animals and their tracks, everyday items in common use, types of trees, Indian arrowheads . . . all illustrated in nice little line drawings.
I think I can trace my first interest in the back-to-the-land life style to this book. ( I certainly didn't grow up on a farm or have relatives with farms to spark my interest. My grandfathers had left their farming/dairying days far behind and my parents were happy that it should stay that way.)
And I can thank the chapter about the spelling bee for helping me always to remember that there's a rat in separate.
(I hadn't realized till just now, but a substantial portion of Singing Wheels was taken from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy and Little House in the Big Woods -- booksthat I never read till I was an adult.)
I have no idea how long these books remained in the curriculum. Do any of you remember them?
