The canon

Two years, 1 month, 23 days: Edith’s first exposure to one of her mother’s triumvirate of cherished childhood books, Anne of Green Gables.

We often start the day by reading. Edith’s books are arranged in her bookcase by difficulty level: board books on the bottom shelf, picture books in the middle, novels and other books for older kids on the top shelf, along with those books too fragile for rough handling. We aren’t actively stocking the top shelf yet: almost all the books there were inheritances from her parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

Edith spends most of her time picking from the middle shelf these days, with frequent forays back to the bottom. Yesterday morning, however, she went over to her bookcase and announced, “I want to read grown-up book” and promptly pulled my childhood copy of Anne of Green Gables off the shelf. Fortunately it is a hardcover illustrated edition. She sat in my lap and talked with me about each of the colored pictures, as I tried to tell her the little vignette behind each one. She seemed intrigued.

This morning, she returned to the shelf and again announced, “I want to read grown-up book. Where Anne?” She couldn’t find it in the place it had been the day before, and I didn’t immediately see it either. “What about this one?” I countered, pulling out Charlotte’s Web. She studied the cover for a moment, uncertain. “Or this one?” I asked, pulling out Black Beauty. “Horsie!” she exclaimed with pleasure. But then she spied Anne at the far end of the shelf and grabbed it.

Trying to get a grip on all three books she told me, “First read this one (Anne), then first read this one (Charlotte’s Web), then this one (Black Beauty).” She climbed into my lap. “Where Anne and Diana?” she asked, flipping busily through the pages of her first choice looking for a picture.

All of the books are beautifully illustrated and held her attention for a good amount of time. Charlotte’s Web is so filled with images—colorized in this edition, I confess—that I could tell most of the basic outline of the story from the pictures alone. We got as far as Charlotte’s eating the fly before Edith lost interest. In Black Beauty I was a little shakier, not knowing the narrative very well. But she didn’t get much beyond Beauty’s friendship with little Merrylegs, so I was okay.

Anne would be pleased to have Edith as a bosom friend. “What color is Anne’s hair?” I asked her before we put away that book. There is a picture of Anne on the cover that for me will always be what she looks like—much paler, taller, thinner, and more dreamy than Megan Follows. But Edith refused to answer. I thought maybe she didn’t recognize the braids emerging from Anne’s hat as her hair. I opened to other pictures and pointed. Still, she was silent. “I’n know what color Anne’s hair,” she insisted. Then, finally, she made her pronouncement: “Black.”

A kindred spirit, indeed.

P.S. How crazy to look from this post back to this one a mere ten months ago.