Guest Post by Bish Denham - Author of Anansi and A Lizard's Tail

I'm thrilled to be doing a guest post on Barbara's beautiful blog. Because it's all about books I wanted to share a few of my favorite childhood memories.

I can tell you, having growing up in the Caribbean, that the tropics are not kind to books. Unless you have an air conditioned, climate controlled room, you can expect your books to deteriorate or be destroyed due to mold, bugs, humidity, or storms.

That I have books from my childhood that survived not only the tropics, but me, is something of a miracle. They are battered and worn, not only baring the scars of being well read but showing the signs of having lived in less than optimal conditions.

Stories That Never Grow Old

Eloise

Pinocchio

It was obvious to me that the blank white pages at the front and back of books were there for me to draw on.

Stories That Never Grow Old has the most of my artistic endeavors.

Grimm's Fairy Tales

 Andersen's Fairy Tales

 I love the end paper and the illustrations in this collection of Andersen's tales.

The Princess and Curdie shows all the signs of having been chewed on by bugs.

The Scarecrow of Oz

The Princess and Curdie

I recovered my beloved copy of A Child's Garden of Verses, along with the World of Pooh and the World of Christopher Robin, rendering them completely valueless

Little Brother and Little Sister, illustrated by Arthur Rackham and published in 1917, is another book I recovered to keep the pages from completely falling out. The paper is not acid free and every year they are a little more brown, a little more brittle.

A Doorway in Fairyland by Laurence Housman has exquisite black and while illustrations.

Many of which I thought needed to be colored, so of course I did 

I treasure these books. The scars they bare are a testament to the fact that they were well read and well loved.

Bish Denham was raised in the U. S. Virgin Islands. Her family has lived in the Caribbean for over one hundred years and she still has plenty of family there whom she visits regularly.

She says, "Growing up in the islands was like living inside a history book. Columbus named the islands, Sir Francis Drake sailed through the area, and Alexander Hamilton was raised on St. Croix. Then there were the pirates who plied the waters. Life for me was magical, and through my writing I hope to pass on some of that magic."

She is the author of Anansi and Company: Retold Jamaican Folk Tales and the novel, A Lizard's Tail, both of which are available on Amazon.

You can find her hanging out here:

Blog: http://bish-randomthoughts.blogspot.com/

Facebook: http://bish-randomthoughts.blogspot.com/

Twitter: @BishDenham


Dear Bish, all those childhood memories wrapped up in the pages of your books are priceless  - not worthless at all. Thank you for sharing the images and for taking the time to write the post.  I know readers of this blog will enjoy it as much as I did. Barbara x