I need your help on books

One of the great pleasures in having children is the way you get to revisit elements of your own childhood. This is nowhere more true than in reading. I have loved getting down from my mother's shelves the worn copies of books she read to me, to share with my own children.

When I started writing this post, there were three books that I loved reading as a child, whose titles and authors I can't remember. I thought you might be able to help, Bloggy Friends. A lot of you were avid childhood readers, I'm sure.

I say "when I started writing this post", because the three has been reduced to two. With the magic of blogging, as I was describing one of them, I remembered its identity. Ta-da! It's Thursday's Child, by Noel Streatfield. I have such strong memories of that one. I loved it. A girl runs away from an orphanage, and joins a family who lives and works on a canal barge. I remember how her job was to lead the horse along the towpath, how hard the work was, how affected by the weather, and I remember a scene which describes how she helped propel the barge through a tunnel, which had to be done by having two people lying on boards, one each side, and walking along the side walls, pushing the barge as they went. (Noel Streatfield describes that much better than I've done.) I remember that she is called Margaret Thursday because she was left at the orphanage on a Thursday, and how she fantasises that she is from a noble family, because she was left with finely embroidered linens.

So that was book number one. I highly recommend it for girls aged 8 to 12 (at a guess - it was a long time ago that I read it). Especially if you live near a canal, as I did.

Book number two is about a boy who befriends a dolphin calf called Wiki-wiki. I think it might be set in Hawai'i (do they have dolphins in Hawai'i?) One day there is what we would now call a tsunami, but in the book it's called a tidal wave, and Wiki-wiki is left stranded on the beach. The boy and his friends manage to rescue her. I loved that book. I read it several times. Can you help me track it down?

Book number three I remember very little of at all. It's about a girl who is something of a misfit, grumpy about life. She hears the most beautiful haunting music, played on a flute. The man playing the flute tells her it's by Debussy, and is called L'Apres-midi d'un Faune. The first time I heard that Debussy piece, in my early twenties, I suddenly recalled the book from my childhood, and thought "no wonder the girl was so captivated by this music - it's beautiful". I have never been able to hear that piece without thinking of the book. Do any of you know it? I would love to find it again. I haven't given you much to go on, but perhaps someone out there will recognise it.

While we're on the subject of books, I've just read one which I couldn't put down. It's called Cinderella Ate My Daughter (what a great title), by Peggy Orenstein. You should read it, whether you are in the business of bringing up daughters or sons, or just for interest. I can do no better (it's late, I'm tired) than quote from Amazon:

Pink and pretty or predatory and hardened, sexualized girlhood influences our daughters from infancy onward, telling them that how a girl looks matters more than who she is. Somewhere between the exhilarating rise of Girl Power in the 1990s and today, the pursuit of physical perfection has been recast as a source — the source — of female empowerment. And commercialization has spread the message faster and farther, reaching girls at ever-younger ages.

But, realistically, how many times can you say no when your daughter begs for a pint-size wedding gown or the latest Hannah Montana CD? And how dangerous is pink and pretty anyway—especially given girls' successes in the classroom and on the playing field? Being a princess is just make-believe, after all; eventually they grow out of it. Or do they? Does playing Cinderella shield girls from early sexualization—or prime them for it? Could today's little princess become tomorrow's sexting teen? And what if she does? Would that make her in charge of her sexuality—or an unwitting captive to it?

It's really well written, witty and clever, and very easy to read. A little depressing in one way (who would choose today's highly sexualised culture as a context for raising their daughter?), but I liked the opportunity to think about the issues head-on. I highly recommend it, and I've enjoyed the author's webpage too.