Unlikely Reunion
Whenever my family and I go to a mall that has a Booksale branch[i], we always make it a point to drop by. Even going to such lengths as assigning it as our designated meeting area.
During a recent trip, I happened to come across a hardbound Great Illustrated Classics (GIC) edition of The Mutiny On Board HMS Bounty [William Bligh, Deborah Kestel (Adapter), Brendan Lynch (Illustrator)] and immediately picked it up as it brought back so many childhood memories.
Mom Knows Best!
During my teenage years, my mom mandated me to read the pocketbook version of several Great Illustrated Classics as a means of improving my vocabulary, sentence construction, spelling, discipline, and resoucefulness. Each night, I was tasked to read a chapter or two of books like Black Beauty, Great Expectations, and the aforementioned Mutiny on Board HMS Bounty[ii]. As soon as I was done, I was required to find five words that I wasn’t familiar with and then use them in a sentence.
Not as Easy as it Sounds
Back in those days, we didn’t have a Yahoo! or Google search engine to help us and needless to say, I became quite familiar with using a dictionary and thesaurus.
The 10- or 11-year-old version of me did not fully appreciate what Mom was trying to teach me back then. But the “present me” loves her for consistently putting my younger self through the paces–which has certainly contributed to shaping who I am today.
Thanks Mom.
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[i] They are growing fewer and fewer as the years go by.
[ii] I’ll update this entry as soon as the other GIC books that I read come to mind.
Tedi31.com 