Saturday 12 May 2007

sally ann's

All the dead people stuff goes to the Salvation Army 'round here.

There are a huge proportion of polyester blouses and sprung suspenders, musty Christmas decorations and faded geegaws and doodads, all smelling old and tired and a little desperate.

Later in the summer the represented age group will shift - especially if there's a string of wet weekends, and then the thwarted garage sale things will flow thick and fast.

I was digging through the linens (I have a huge weakness for embroidered pillowcases) and spied something in the bin that made me stop and pick it up.

It was a book. And seeing it, suddenly I was thirteen and reading under the covers again, trying to get in a few more pages before my mother would demand I go to bed.

The Island Of The Blue Dolphins.

It even looked like my old copy - the same white cover with the Newberry Award leaping horse on it, same picture.


It could have fallen out of my thirteen-year-old self's nightstand. And now here it was, snuggled under three moth-ball smelling (horrible orange striped things) blankets, waiting for me.

So it came home with me, along with a copy of A Wrinkle In Time, because the two were jumbled in there together, and really, why break up such good friends?

Especially when suddenly I'm dying to re-read them both.

I may even break out a flashlight, just for old times sake.

9 comments:

Major Bedhead said...

Oh my god, that's the same copy I have! I loved that book! O recently read it and was all "Mum, you HAVE to read this book." Hah. Already did, darlin'. Long, long ago.

A Wrinkle In Time...I need to buy the whole series. I only have the first one.

Jess said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Evalinn said...

The book lookes lovely!

kimmyk said...

what a find! good for you!

Badger said...

Oooo, I love finds like that.

And I still HAVE my copy of Wrinkle in Time, and A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and Meet the Austins, and ... .

I never throw anything away, apparently.

StayAtHomeKat said...

two favorites of mine growing up!

meggie said...

What a brilliant find! Lucky you.

Sarah Louise said...

Oh fun!!

I love that line, "smelling old and tired and a little desperate."

IOTBD was one of my favorites...so sad though. I had such high hopes for the sequel, blecch!

M&Co. said...

The GirlChild read that last year and LOVED it! One of the only things I don't have to threaten to beat her to get her to read.

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