Picture Books

As a child I read all of "The Borrowers" series.  Little tiny people who live in the walls of a house and their adventures of not being seen by humans and staying away from the family cat.  Years later as an adult I saw one of the Borrowers books that I had never read.  What fun, I thought, to take a trip down memory lane and so I checked it out at the library.

After I was done reading it I thought how refreshing it was that there were pictures (black and white drawings) in it to go along with the story.  It took me days to remember that I had read a childrens book, not an adult book and that of course, it would have drawings and pictures in it.

Recently my daughter had me pick up Jodi Picoult's newest book that she wrote with her teenage daughter Samantha Van Leer.  I glanced through it just to take a look and discovered . . . pictures!  Several.  Some full page, some just a little something on a page.

Why don't adult books have pictures in them?  At what point did we as adults decide that we were too old for art? 

Childrens Journal

Many, many years ago when my children were young and doing cute things I came up with the idea of preserving these memories before they were forgotten.  I bought a journal for just this purpose.  Whenever my children did something cute, funny, memorable it went into the journal.

On their birthday, every year, we would get the journal out and read all about the birthday person.  The kids always looked forward to this and now that they are grown and living around the country I have fun getting it out and reading it myself.  What wonderful memories.

And someday when I am gone I am sure my children will stumble upon the journal and take a stroll down memory lane and just perhaps read it to their children. 

Influences

I know people read certain books when they are going through a trauma in their life.  There are several self-help books for divorce, weight loss, problem children, death, etc.  They purposely  pick up these books.  This summer I found myself reading the book Marley and Me while my own dog was having some health issues (he's fine now).  Makes me wonder if I picked up the book then, which was on my to-read list, because subconsciously he was on my mind. 

After all, what influences us to pick one book over another?  A friend's suggestion?  Best Seller List?  We like that author and will read anything they write?  The few times that I have grabbed a book off the shelf without any thought because I was headed some where and needed something to occupy me, didn't grab me.  That is not to say the book wasn't any good.  But at that time that's not what I was looking for.