By Katherine Gould
This column appeared in the March 4, 2005, issue of the Crescenta Valley Sun.
This week, my daughters and I went through their books to decide which to keep when we move in a few weeks and which to sell in the garage sale. And I learned once again a hard lesson of parenting -- children don’t always share their parents’ interests.
I had expected the book culling to be an emotional, and largely useless exercise. It always is when I try to see if there are any books I can get rid of. I find that I can’t get rid of any of them. I might want to read them again. I might need to refer to them again. I might want to share them with someone. I can’t just get rid of them willy-nilly.
The last time I moved, I did manage to cull the collection; I got rid of two boxes of books. Most I didn’t miss; one I needed for a freelance project just a few months later. (Three years later, that still annoys me.) Now my collection is down to what I consider the bare essentials -- just 250 or so of the best and most useful. I can’t bear to part with any of them. I assumed my daughters would feel the same way and that after a review of their bookcase they would have chosen a handful they didn’t want anymore.
I was wrong.
They had already started sorting their “keepers” into one box and “garage sale” books into another by the time I joined them. I pointed to one box and said, “So these are the books to keep?”
“No,” one said. “Those are the ‘get rid of’ books.”
It was at this moment that truth of parenting kicked me hard in the gut. My children do not share my passion, my emotional attachment, to books.
I did not react with the calm, reasoned voice I try so hard to use in times of stress. I screamed. “WHAT?!? You can’t get rid of ‘On the Morn of Mayfest’!”
“But we don’t like it,” one daughter said.
“How can you not like this book! The girl has a bird on her head!”
“It’s boring,” the other daughter said with a dismissive wave of her hand (which, I had to admit, she learned from me).
“But it’s signed by the illustrator!”
“But we don’t want it!” they both said.
They didn’t want it. They didn’t want a BOOK. A good book. A book they used to like. They didn’t WANT it?
I clutched the book to my chest and explained with a voice that was not pouty, I swear, “Well I’m keeping it.”
I looked further into the box. “You can’t get rid of ‘Albert’! That’s mine,” I said.
“It’s ours.”
“It’s mine. Look, the author signed it to Katherine.”
“Whatever.” (They’re only 6. How is it they are already saying, ‘whatever’?)
There was more horror in the garage sale box. “Burnt Toast on Davenport Street,” “A Bad Case of Stripes,” even … I shudder as I remember this, “WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE.”
To my daughters, these are just books they don’t like anymore that could, through the magic of a garage sale, be transformed into cold, hard cash they could use to buy more My Little Ponys. To me, these books are treasures. “Oh My Baby Little One” is the book I read to them to help them understand that many mommies work and that I would always come get them at the end of the day, just like the mommy bird in the book. “Guess How Much I Love You,” a book they never liked, is a perfect description of a parent’s love for a child. You can’t just give that away.
Fortunately, it wasn’t all terrible. They agreed that we couldn’t possibly part with “Harold and the Purple Crayon.” Whew. I did not want to have a fight about Harold.
But they didn’t want many of the picture books. We’ve read through almost all of the 11 books in the “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events” series, so they’re too grown up for those little kid books. “We don’t want books with stories that aren’t real, Mommy,” Jocelyn explained patiently. “We want to learn about real things like mummies and volcanoes.”
“But you can’t get rid of ‘The Story of Ping’!” I said in my not-pouty voice. “It’s Ping! The wise-eyed boat on the Yangtzee River!”
In the end, the girls insisted that if I was going to hold onto so many books, I had to put them in my own pile. I ended up with quite a large pile.
When we get to our new place, the girls will put their books in their bookcase and I will put mine in my bookcase, alongside others that I have kept since I was a child -- “A Little Princess,” “The Secret Garden” and “The Phantom Tollbooth” -- and some newer favorites, including all five Harry Potter books (I have the sixth on order already).
The girls haven’t figured this out yet, but sitting next to the Harry Potter books -- on MY shelf -- are all 11 Lemony Snicket books. Just TRY to put those in a garage sale box. Those babies are mine.