What are you currently reading?
The Iliad by Homer
King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild
What did you just finish reading?
Sins of the Father by Thelonious Legend
Since You’ve Been Gone by Mary Jennifer Payne
A Little Princess by Frances Hodges Burnett
What do you think you’ll read next?
The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Pearl Harbor by Steven Gillon
Sometimes, I wonder if the old movies I grew up with are still making their rounds with kids today. I hope so. It is one of the things I do miss out on, not being a parent–getting to read my favorite childhood books and show my old movies over and over.
Shirley Temple was always one of my favorites when I was little. Even though she was way before my time, we watched her constantly in my house. She’s a classic, obviously, but also, she was especially famous in our family because my Nana looked so much like her when she was young. And, of all the Shirley Temple movies we had, the best one to me was, of course, the one about the clever book-addict, Sara.
I may have watched A Little Princess a million and a half times, but this was my very first time reading the book! Until I picked it up at a Goodwill sale recently, I never realized it was written by the same author as The Secret Garden!
The story was just as magical. Of course my Sara will always be Shirley Temple, although in the book she’s described as much skinner than Temple’s chubby little features. I suppose that makes sense, for someone who is starving. On one hand, the book is sadder–there’s no reuniting with the father at the end–although the ending IS happy, and I thought it was a much more likely, and very sweet ending. Maybe not as Hollywood, but I liked it better.
A Little Princess should be read over and over again, especially at bedtime to your young princesses. It’s a story of hope in a world where there isn’t much hope, and it’s a good lesson in humility and encouragement. The morals in this book are as true today as they were when Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote it in the 1800s, and I think it’s not one we hear very often anymore.
This fulfills PopSugar #33: A book from your childhood.
In my Nana’s living room (or there used to be, I’m not sure if they are still there), there are two pictures, side by side. Two black and whites of two little girls. If you didn’t know any different, you would think they were the same curly-haired, chubby cheeked sweetheart. When my Nana was little, she looked EXACTLY like Shirley Temple.
So of course, I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Shirley. My favorite movie of hers? A Little Princess. I finally picked up a copy of the book last month, and it sits patiently on my TBR shelf, pretty and pink and just waiting. I know it’s going to be as beloved as The Secret Garden.
As I Lay Reading 