Basic reading. A memory
collection of books, comics, and magazines I read from elementary (McQueeney)
through middle school (Briesemeister). Ranging from very simple to what I would
describe as ‘cusp books’, that would lead to more adult reading. They will come
in batches; some are representative parts of series. Some we had; some we saw
in libraries. Most have appeared on the blog before, but I think arranged here
by category and time they can be more illuminating of certain aspects of my
childhood.
When we were kids, it seemed
quite obvious to us that there were vast patches of the unknown where the
mysterious and wonderful could still be lurking. Maybe not the centaurs,
satyrs, and dragons of old myth and lore, but creatures whose provenance might
yet be proved. While ghosts, haunted houses, and poltergeists were ‘occult’ and
‘demonic’ (didn’t things like the Manson Family murders prove the ‘Satanic’ was
real?) and therefore not to be trifled with, there were vast forests where
Bigfoot might yet lurk, the depths of the sea could hide any number of
monsters, and the unfathomable regions of space might spew any amount of aliens
and UFOs. Even fairies could possibly exist in some nearby spiritual dimension. Who knows what oddities from the Ancient World might have been forgotten or misinterpreted? While our arid and somewhat sterile form of religion might deny us any sense of
wonder, we stretched our imaginations pondering the possibilities of the
unknown, which especially in the Seventies seemed not unlikely.
I remember that when I
checked out Werewolves and Other Monsters sometime in McQueeney (we were
still mired in the Jehovah’s Witnesses) Mom actually went in to complain that
the school was making an ‘occult’ book available to children. Although I read Haunted
Houses at McQueeney, I never got my own copy until years later, for the
same reason. I checked out Irish Earth Folk (fairies) every summer at
the public library (it was more Celtic Twilight mysticism than folklore). And
Briesemeister brought me The Mothman Prophecies and The Alchemists.
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