Well, while we're into remembering, I might as well post a vivid memory from childhood days. The photo below is one that I pinched from an eBay auction. It is a rare photograph of my most favorite reading books: the three volume set called Reader's Digest Encyclopaedic Dictionary. I've been searching for so long for these tomes--not just any edition but the 1962 RED colour edition. The only place I found them online was in this eBay auction in the UK.
My daughter, Hannah, who loves to read, asked me on one occasion, why I don't finish reading the books that I start reading. Frankly, I haven't read any books in their entirely for a long time...the exception being the Book of Mormon which I read all the time. But these volumes were the books that I read from cover to cover, over and over. Especially the 3rd volume. I so wish I could have these books in my hands again. I vacillate purchasing them because the postage is more expensive than the book themselves! I do love books but these were condensed information of hundreds of stories! And vocabulary words of so many disciplines--anatomy, astronomy, mythology, proverbs, foreign words... Oh the list to me seemed endless and exciting! Well...at least for a 7 year old girl from the slums of Manila.
The third volume contained common foreign phrases--many of them I still remember and committed to memory. There's a section on latin words and phrases. Another section full of famous quotes and proverbs. Then there's a section about Greek and Roman mythology and I memorized the names of these characters, gods and goddesses...and their stories. And I memorized the formations of the constellations named after some of them--Cassiopeia, Pegasus, Orion. I haven't touched this book since I was 10 and I still remember most of the pages as though they were photographs in a museum in my mind. I was about 7 years old when I started reading these volumes. I memorized many, many English words and tried to use them in sentences so I'd remember them. I have such vivid, happy memories reading this particular volume. I think I escaped into it. I have no idea why a 7 year old girl would love these books so much. But love them I did. I am getting all emotional thinking about this set of books and I don't even know why. But every time I go back in time and remember touching the pages of this particular volume, I feel happy. It was where my hopes and dreams were born and where I began to think that there's another world out there where I secretly belonged and needed to be. I think these books saved me from bitterness, hurt and hopelessness. While others were touched by Jane Austen or Ayn Rand or Shakespeare, the little girl that was me only loved reading these books: The Reader's Digest Encyclopaedic Dictionary. This was my Jane Austen and my Wuthering Heights.
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POST SCRIPT
The book ARRIVED today all the way from Devonshire, England. It is smaller than I remember. Of course, I was only 7 or 8 years old then. I just about bawled when I opened the packaged and pulled it out of the box. What a supreme joy to have it in my hand!! I will be reading it with joyful remembrance!!
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