The Childhood Tag

The Childhood Tag was created by Anthony Andrews. I found out about this tag from watching Portal in the Page’s video. I wasn't tagged, but I took the liberty of doing it anyway.

1. What was your favorite book as a child? Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith

A coming of age story about a sweet cinnamon roll of a protagonist, Jefferson Davis Bussey, who joins the Union Army during the Civil War, Rifles for Watie gave me all the fuzzies as a kid. It scratched my love for historical fiction, it gave me a slew of characters that I wished I could be besties with in real life. It also provided me with one of the few representations of a main Native female character. Lucy Washbourne wasn’t a stereotype. She was brash and competent and stubborn, and I wanted to be her so badly.

2. What was your favorite film as a child? Beauty and the Beast (1991)

To this day, that opening scene can make me hold my breath. I only have to hear those first few notes of the score to awaken a near Pavlovian response of awe and comfort. It’s a feeling that pervades throughout the rest of the movie’s 84 minutes.

3. What was your favorite song as a child? Straighten Up and Fly Right by Nat King Cole

Nat King Cole has always been my favorite singer. Today I enjoy his more romantic crooning, but as a child, I got such a kick out of the silly vulture and that sly monkey.

4. What was your favorite television program as a child? Arthur

I’d go to kindergarten, and when I got home I’d have an apple and peanut butter as I watched my favorite aardvark grow and learn among his misadventures, many of which took him to the classroom or the library. I identified greatly with this.

5. What was your favorite author as a child? Martha Finley

I happened across the first Elsie Dinsmore book in my elementary school’s closet of a library and eagerly gobbled up the whole series. Desperate to get more of the characters she had created, I found her Millie Keith series, which I loved even more dearly. Looking back I find much in those books I disagree with, theologically and politically, but I doubt I will ever stop loving those books.

6. What was the worst book you read as a child?

The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner

Like many kids, I read the Boxcar Children books. I always enjoyed the capers the children sleuths got up to. I figured it would be wise to read the whole series from the beginning. When I started with the first book, however, I found, not a fun mystery, but the harrowing story of four orphans barely surviving. It was such a drastic tonal shift from the series I had read and enjoyed, and it felt like I had been lied to.

7. What one character from your favorite book as a child would you like to meet and become friends with?

Noah Babbit

Rifles for Watie is rife with lovable characters. Jeff is high on my list of literary loves, and I already mentioned how much I aspired to be Lucy. But if we’re picking who I’d want to be friend with, the answer is Noah Babbitt. He was so kind and gentle. I found his arc of starting out scared of horses but eventually coming to appreciate them so endearing. As scared as I am for Jeff near the end of the book, when he finally gets back to Noah I can let myself breath again, because Noah means safety. I mean, how can you not love a man who would walk all the way from Topeka to Galveston, just to see the magnolias bloom?

Images: Goodreads, YouTube, Giphy

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