The Bottom Shelf: My Favorite Books As a Child

On the very bottom shelf of my book-case there is an odd combination of books, from picture books to slim learning-to-read chapter books the bottom shelf of my bookcase is home to the books I have loved so much in the past I can't possibly bear to get rid of them. Some of them are falling apart and all of them have been read multiple times, with creases on the pages and breaks is in the spine, these books have followed me from my childhood. While my bottom shelf is teaming with books there are three that stand out to me in particular.



Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus was my favorite book as a toddler, having forced my parents to read it to me on most likely a daily basis I had the story memorized word for word and could flip the pages along with the story without even knowing how to read. Leo the Late Bloomer is the story of a young tiger who is behind his friends in the areas of reading, writing, speaking, eating neatly, and drawing. Leo's father becomes concerned and Leo's mother explains that Leo is a late bloomer and by the end of the story Leo has "bloomed" and is able to do all the things he previously could not do.



Having purchased The T.F. Letters by Karen Ray at a school book fair in second or third grade it soon became one of my favorites. When young Alex finally looses her first tooth she writes a letter to the tooth fairy asking her to please leave the tooth behind when she arrives to leave Alex money under her pillow and help her fathers job as their family is moving from Texas to California. In a PS at the bottom of the page Alex asks the tooth fairy to please write her back and Alex's mother takes up the role of writing letters from the tooth fairy teaching Alex lessons and giving her words of wisdom along the way.



In fifth grade I went through the greatest obsession I ever had with a book, The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau remains one of my favorite books of all time. Having at one time kept a running tally of the times I had read it in the front cover I got all the way to fourteen times before I lost track. The city of Ember is an underground city built to protect the inhabitants from nuclear war, having been given resources to live underground for 200 years a box with instructions on how to return to the surface has been lost when being passed down from mayor to mayor. In the year 241 resources are running out and the city is running out of light bulbs, the only source of light in the city, and is experiencing frequent blackouts. Twelve year old Lina and her friend Doon piece together the puzzle of escaping and rescue the cities inhabitants before it is too late.