A Vivid Echo

I have a very bad memory. I don’t know if it’s a form of blocking un-pleasantries or not living in the moment or a combination of the two, but I’ve only very limited memories of childhood. Still, one has remained: a pleasant, vivid echo.

I’m in a large college library where my aunt has taken me while she studies. It’s the biggest library I’ve ever seen and I am enthralled. While my aunt sits at a table, I lay on the carpeted floor next to rows upon endless rows of books, higher than I can reach, farther than I can imagine. I’ve chosen a book about rats and am having the most enjoyable experience. I must be around ten years of age, but I don’t fidget or bother my aunt. The book is gripping, a real page-turner, the kind of book that spreads warmth to one’s very core.

Over the years I’ve considered that memory, one of the most vibrant of my few, and I’ve thought I MIGHT know which book I was reading. As a parent and a teacher I’ve measured what I thought might be its animated adaptation. But this week, with no ARC in sight, I decided to answer the call. I picked up Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh.

I first checked the copyright: 1974. I would have been ten; my aunt would have been in college, a perfect match. I read it over the past two nights, during a nice hot soak. As enthralling as ever, dummied down by the animated version, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh secured a life-long love of well-blended fantasy and science fiction in me.

By nothing more than coincidence, the Weekly Geeks challenge this week is to write of a fond memory of childhood books. ☺ Amazingly, serendipitous!
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