Whether we're six or sixty, walk-up or penthouse, we all crave comfort at times, and nothing soothes like a story. Tonight, when you're all tuckered out from the Cure, instead of counting sheep (or threads!), try reading a bedtime story. Better yet, try reading somebody else one.
Here's one of my favorites:
In the narrow, crooked street, among several shabby dwellings, stood a very tall and very narrow house, the framework of which had given so that it was out of joint in every direction. Only poor people lived here, and poorest of all were those who lived in the attic. Outside the small attic window an old, bent bird cage hung in the sunshine; it didn't even have a real bird glass, but had only a bottle neck, upside down, with a cork in its mouth, and filled with water.
--Hans Christian Andersen, The Bottle Neck (Flaskehalsen), trans. Jean Hersholt
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
The Borrowers is a favorite of mine too, as is the Raoul Dahl story Danny the Champion of the World, about a son and single dad who live in a caravan and poach pheasants from the fat cats.
For more modern tales, Weetzie Bat takes my cake.
*A Childs Christmas in Wales* by Dylan Thomas
(for any time of year)
is my all-time favorite bedtime story.
http://www.bfsmedia.com/MAS/Dylan/Christmas.html
We're reading Casino Royale right now. Very fun, kitchy, melodramatic.
I find that a bit of Oscar Wilde before bed tends to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul.
My favorite-- and most friggin' traumatic-- was without question, "The Mush Men."
"Charlotte's Web" a close second, in both categories.
Dodd & Graham's _Security Analysis_ sits on the nightstand for a bedtime reminder of eternal verities...
...though I'll admit what I actually dipped into last night was _How I Learned to Cook_, a collection of essays from famous chefs.
The books i most enjoyed reading to my children were
"The Borrowers" series. And the Beatrix Potter stories when they were very small. Charlotte's Web still makes me cry though all those White stories are worth reading over and over.
And I raised the goosebumps on myself and my friend Anne when I launched into "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes. We discovered we shared a childhood fascination with it.
It was a big relief to me when my kids were old enough to listen to things like Charlotte's Web and then the Heidi books and Swiss Family Robinson and Treasure Island. As much as I enjoyed Ferdinand, and Frog and Toad, they did get repetitive.
For me now, nothing like a good mystery.
I'd add "Jame and the Giant Peach", too.
"The Borrowerrs"!!! One of the reasons I can never throw anything away!!!
Yes, "The Borrowers"!! Loved it. Also the PBS series. How funny, I wonder how many other people on this list were fascinated by the Borrowers and their brilliant adaptations for small-space living!