What's your ideal bookshelf?

IDEAL BOOKSHELF

The idea to create an ideal bookshelf came from this puzzle, using each book's title as a question.  Look at a handful of books that helped make you who you are today.  Can you come up with eleven books, one for each of these categories?

1. What's your most unforgettable book?
2. Can you remember a particular book a friend gave you?
3. What about a book that gave you happy tears?
4. Do you ever read a book again and again?
5. Is there a book you would grab to save from a fire?
6. What's the best book you've ever read?
7. What was your favorite book from childhood?
8. Can you think of a book that makes you look smart?
9. Or remember one that made you laugh out loud?
10. Was any book you ever read a super fantastic book?
11. And last, name a book you never finished.

Hey, I can't imagine wanting to keep that last one on my bookshelves.  Maybe it (and the many others I didn't bother to finish) did make me the person I am today, but I have no desire to keep or remember the rejects.  In my own inimitable way, I'm going to make a different list of books for MY ideal bookshelf and list really memorable books I've read.  But first, a slight detour:

WORD OF THE DAY

inimitable  / in·im·i·ta·ble / unique, imcomparable, matchless.  Example:  "In my own inimitable way, I'm going to make a different list of books."

(Okay, carry on with this blog post, starting at the very beginning, with a couple of childhood favorites.)

BONNIE'S IDEAL BOOKSHELF

One favorite book from childhood ~ Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman, 1899

Why?  Because he is such a clever little boy from India (click the title to read what I wrote over a decade ago about why it is NOT a racist book, as many people think).

Another childhood favorite ~ Epaminondas and His Auntie ~ by Sara Cone Bryant, 1907

Why?  Because I understood how hard he was trying to do EXACTLY what his mother asked him to do, even though it just never worked out as expected.

Book that seems to have stuck with me, even though I have not yet read it ~ Ella Minnow Pea ~ by Mark Dunn, 2001

Why?  Because I woke from a dream one day recently, having been wrestling (in the dream) with the alphabet in a book, thinking, "What was the name of that book with M-N-O-P in the title?"  Just before I woke, I had successfully come up with "L is Ella."  I was smiling as I came awake.  Yes, it was "Ella Minnow Pea."  Say that title:  "L M N O P."  Okay, you know I'm an inveterate word person.  I don't remember specifically thinking about this book in the nearly two decades since it was published, so why did I dream about the title?  Dunno, but maybe it's time to read it now.  So onto my ideal bookshelf it goes.  (And it's available at my library, whenever the stay-at-home order is lifted.)

Ideally, books on my shelves should only be ones I would enjoy keeping to re-read or books I've been meaning to read for the first time.  Any books I know I'll never read (or re-read) should be given to others for their enjoyment — and I am doing the Mount TBR Reading Challenge to try to get rid of the ones on my shelves as I read them.  Consider this the first in a series of posts I hope to write about books that should be on my shelves.  Oh, wait, I need to do one more....

WORD OF THE DAY #2

inveterate  / in·vet·er·ate / having a particular interest, activity, or habit that is long-established and unlikely to change.  Example:  "Okay, you know I'm an inveterate word person."