"When my son was eight months old, it could truthfully be said that he devoured literature. Presented with a book, he chewed it. A bit of Henry's DNA has been permanently incorporated into the warped pages of Goodnight Moon, and the missing corners of pages 3 and 8 suggest that a bit of Goodnight Moon has been permanently incorporated into Henry. He was, of course, not the first child to indulge in bibliophagy. The great Philadelphia bookdealer A.S.W. Rosenbach deduced that one reason first editions of Alice in Wonderland were so scarce was that so many of them had been eaten."
--Anne Fadiman, "The Literary Glutton" in Ex Libris
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Childhood Bibliophagy
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3 comments:
In my view-you couldn't do much better than to have Good Night Moon as part of you. I still enjoy reading it to a young one-although mine getting a bit old for it now.
There were a couple of titles which I had two copies of: one for the kids to handle and love to death and the other for my own collection. The latter usually came out for family use when the first copy was starting the fall apart and the young bibliophiles, having developed finer motor control, were more capable of handling books with care.
Maya: A Dinosaur Grows Up by John Horner was a book in this catagory.
I love Ex Libris!
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