A-Z Books My Parents Enjoyed: Elizabeth Enright

My mother read to me up through junior high. One of the series she read was Elizabeth Enright's Melendy series. My mom also read other books by Enright, including Thimble Summer and the Gone Away Lake books. 

I preferred the Melendy books, and I still consider them the closest to Japanese slice-of-life as any American series on record. I know the stories backwards and forwards and although I likely read the books to myself at one point, I suspect my mom read them to me more than once. 

Which brings me to my mother's reading voice. I don't remember it one way or the other, but I know she didn't use a "special voice." It wasn't her style. 

I bring up the issue because the current Melendy covers make my skin crawl. As illustrations, I don't find them "bad," but they seem to sell the books as "cute." To me, then and now, the Melendys were individual, human, and interesting, not innocent evokers of nostalgia. 

The Audible recordings, like the recent covers, seem to push the nostalgia interpretation. Considering the remarkable freedom of the Melendys (even in New York City!), I can think of no good reason not to simply read them as people rather than as CHILDREN. I don't think children like that kind of thing anyway. (Aren't you cute? Aren't you sooo clever? Aren't you delightful?) 

So, retrospectively, thanks, Mom, for reading kids' books to me as being about characters, not about SPECIAL YOUNG SOULS.