We have a lot of Little Golden Books we've collected over the years, including both "collectible" (i.e. very expensive to replace and Emily can't have them) and junky reading copies. But one of our favorites is a tatty copy of "A Year In The City", which is dear to our hearts because someone -- a parent or teacher -- went nuts and started crossing out everything they obviously didn't think should be read aloud to children! Mostly the edits are completely inexplicable to me. See the best ones here.
The other alternative is that the kid hearing the stories was bothered or confused by certain elements ("why did he tear up the street? or "why are the boats screaming") and the parent altered the text to streamline story time.
ReplyDeleteHmm, there's a possibility for sure! 2 reasons I doubt it -- in context of the book, if that was the problem there's a lot more that would probably be altered. And, I know lots of people who read slightly altered versions of stories to their kids (we, for example, cut 2 verses from the Little Fur Family because Emily wants to get to the sneezing part!) and I've never heard of anyone needing to mark up their book to remember their "changes". But you never know! Anyone out there ever done this to a book to make it easier to read?
ReplyDeleteWho knows what goes through the minds of people who write in books. I have a paperback of "Red Harvest" in which all the characters' names are underlined consistantly throughout the entire book. Why? Why?
ReplyDelete