November Childhood Favorites with At Home With A Book

Hey y’all! I’m pretty much on break for the month of December, but I had to post my childhood favorites from November. Childhood favorites is where me and Starr from At Home With A Book each pick a book from our childhood, read it and share thoughts on it.

This month I picked

Starr picked

Starr:

The Borrowers: I am so sorry that Tasha had a childhood where this book turned out to be a favorite. 😭  Just Kidding. I can’t say that I  had even heard of this book. I thought it was like the movie The People Under the Stairs, but she told me that it wasn’t that story. ⠀⠀

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: I believe that Tasha said that she didn’t read this until high school, but I remember reading it in elementary (4th grade). I remember that my teacher was my first black teacher and that I made a story quilt about it. This may have been one that we read part of the story and not the whole thing, I don’t know.

My Thoughts:

The Borrowers: I remember this being one of the first classroom group reads I ever did in school. The book about a bunch of little people who lived in the walls was so fascinating to 6 year old me. I remember doing a project about the book and was so excited that it was a series. I can’t say that I read the whole series but I know I read the first couple. I’m curious to see how dated this book is considering it was pretty old in 1991.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: This was a book that we read together in my Pre-AP English class. I wasn’t a big fan of Twain then and I’m still not. Tom Sawyer was a mischievous boy who was always scamming people. That in and of itself isn’t bad but I just can’t get with Twain’s writing. We’ll see how this goes. 

Starr:

The Borrowers: I didn’t make it far into this one. I fell asleep in every chapter. Thinking that it was just my mood, I put it down and tried it again later.  I  just couldn’t do it. It could still be my mood, but nothing really gripped me about the story.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: This was my pick! I was so sure that if nothing else I was going to at least finish it. I thought that it might even be a bit nostalgia and I considered redoing the book quilt assignment. I was having a hard time just sitting and reading this book so I switched to the audiobook.  This gave me a good hour and half nap. I don’t know, I’m gonna chalk this up to the end of the year craziness and try to do better next time. 

My Thoughts:

The Borrowers: Overall, I really liked this but I don’t know if I would still consider it a favorite. The Borrowers are little people who live in the walls of great houses and “borrow” items from the human “beans” who live in the house. I really enjoyed the characters but this book definitely didn’t age well. It’s set during Victorian era and you can tell. This isn’t a hearty story but it’s fun enough. I gotta do better with my picks for next year. LOL.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: So, I was honestly dreading reading this because I attempted Huck Finn earlier this year. The dialect y’all, the dialect! I hate books that are written in dialect. However, this was so good. I really enjoy Tom as a character. He’s such a lovable jerk and I just want to protect him. I didn’t remember that the book was written in vignettes of Tom’s mischief, but that really lent to being able to enjoy him as a character. I think that I don’t have a problem with Twain, I have a problem with Huck Finn because I didn’t like him in this either.

So these are our thoughts for this month. We are taking a break in December to regroup. There might be slight changes next year that we are excited about doing. Also, follow Starr on Instagram @at_home_with_a_book to see her post.

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Much Love,
Tasha