When I was 10 years old my parents took us to Canada and we visited different cities by train. I had never been on a train nor in another country and all the new and different sights, food, people, and languages really impacted me. It was so remarkably different from home that I felt like I was discovering a new world. During that trip they bought me a book about fairy tales and fables from around the world which I read while we traveled in the different trains we took and I remember thinking that this new and “strange” land felt like I was in one of the distant magical lands in my book. That experience fueled my passion for travel. To go see different lands, people and cultures is like entering into a fairy tale. I kept that book and I’m reading it to my granddaughters in the hope that it will birth a sense of adventure in them. I told them each to pick one country they want to go see, one picked France, another Japan and the other Australia. Grandma (aka the fairy grandmother) is saving her money to go take each one of her princesses to a far away land and go live out our own fairy tale. ❤️🏰
Mirtha! WOW! This is amazing and your granddaughters are so blessed to have you showing them this beautiful world. France is on our list too! I would love to go to Ireland, Scotland, Singapore...oh the list goes on and on. :) LOL Thank you so much for being here and sharing your adventures with us. I really want to take my children on a train now. Thank you.
I remember this! I remember different songs, but may favorite is "In The Garden". It seems like whenever I am in the flower garden I hum this hymn! Of course, I will never ever forget "You Are My Sunshine" as my Dad always sang this to me when I was a little girl. I know, these are not a book or movie!!! <3
Good morning Faith! I enjoy both those songs as well. "You are my sunshine" is my favorite and one I've been singing to Brindsley and Delaney since they were born. :) Thank you Faith for sharing. I hope the sun is shining your way.
The Time-Life series spoke to my interest in all things scientific. Imagine my surprise when I learned I was color blind while in the school library with some friends! As they took turns identifying numbers inside circles filled with colored dots, I failed to see many that were being called out. Otherwise I ate up the treasure trove of new material with the arrival of the next issue.
Hi Gary, I'm not familiar with the Time-Life series so thank you for sharing. I do remember those circles filled with colored dots...it was at an eye doctor appointment as a child. :) I was not color blind but had some other thing going on. I'd forgotten about that. It's funny the memories that will pop in and out. Thank you.
I believe the publication fell by the wayside at the turn of the century. 21st. As I’m 74, I would argue that learning through reading is critical for comprehension and deductive reasoning. Without a TV in our home until I was about 9, listening to radio theater after dinner was a key part of our entertainment. Such programs were broadcast on AM stations like WCFL & WLS in Chicago. WOWO in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. WBZ in Boston. WABC in NYC. The Lone Ranger and Tonto was action packed. Much later I learned that in Spanish and Portuguese Tonto means Stupid.
“Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.” Toby Keith. He wasn’t singing about Indians...
Hi Gary, Thank you for sharing more here. I did not know Tonto meant that...now I do.
As I get older, I tend to prefer reading the book over watching the movie/TV. I'm happy I enjoy reading and make time for it. Thank you for being here.
My wife and I go long stretches without seeing commercials on TV since we don’t subscribe to a cable provider and infrequently stream a movie or documentary via our ISP. It constitutes quite a shock when we visit friends or family that enjoy cable programming, commercials and all! Books? Yes! I’m quite glad to have followed the trail of breadcrumbs and found the writings by you and other thoughtful bloggers. 🦉🦃🐧
I'm with you and your wife. :) I would love to throw the TV out the window. LOL (My husband would NOT be happy). I'm happy you have found our community and I'm finding Substack is a great place to be. :) I'm connecting with some really generous and kind people. Thanks again Gary and I will be responding to your email today.
Produced and directed in 1982 by Richard Attenborough with an Oscar winning performance by Ben Kingsley as Gandhi, clearly shows the potential of the human spirit…
It’s an oldie. I have a VHS tape… and no VHS player. 🤭
There’s a bunch of short clips on YouTube that I’ve linked in my stories over the years. My longtime readers probably roll their eyes when I post them on repeat. 😂 JK… my readers are too kind for that.
I remember Old Yeller...I cried but such a good movie. The Little House on the Prairie Series was so good! I remember my grandma bought the entire series for my older sister. I was happy she let me read them too. Thank you for sharing Linda.
For me, A Wrinkle in Time was a book that meant a lot to me growing up. The characters spoke to me and assured me it was ok to be average...it was ok to not quite fit in...to question authority...to be a bit whiny...to seek adventure...and, to show others my hidden depths. I dove into that book many times because I didn't actually have the guts to put those things into place in my 'real' life.
Hi Jack, Thank you for sharing what book impacted you growing up. I just read this book last year with my children. We all loved Charles, we thought he was the most courageous. It was a book that sparked a lot of great conversations. It's a book we will definitely read again.
Hi Amie! I just finished reading this book to my children a few weeks ago. Oh it's so good. I'm certain I read it when I was young but for some reason it made more of an impact on me now at 43. HA!
Thank you for sharing Amie. It's interesting how the books that impacted us as a young child can still impact us today. I love that.
I had to think about this one. I enjoyed Harriet the Spy and Nancy Drew mysteries as well as musicals like The Sound of Music but not sure if they influenced me. Then I remembered reading essays in books by Harry Golden who wrote about immigrant life in New York at the turn of the century. I loved reading about Ellis Island and the lives of new immigrants in NYC. I'm not sure if I realized that Golden had later settled in my hometown of Charlotte but perhaps that's why these somewhat obscure books were available in the library. It hasn't affected my work so much but my perspective in learning other's stories as they enter new worlds including the United States.
Oh I loved The Sound of Music! Another great one. Julie Andrews is fabulous! :) I loved the songs in that movie and still sing them now. My daughter loves the Nancy Drew books right now. I'm not sure I never got into the mystery books.
Harry Golden's books sound very interesting and ones I would probably appreciate now. Julie, thank you for sharing some of your influences.
Jurassic Park was the first novel I read (I think I was around 9-10 years old) It had swearing it in and I remember that just blowing my mind. New world
Good ones! I would say Charlotte's Web ( the book) for me as well. Thank you Gail. It's fun to reflect back on books, movies, even songs that impact us. I'm sure we could all write a book just about that. :)
Annie was a movie that impacted me when I was a young girl. :)
When I was 10 years old my parents took us to Canada and we visited different cities by train. I had never been on a train nor in another country and all the new and different sights, food, people, and languages really impacted me. It was so remarkably different from home that I felt like I was discovering a new world. During that trip they bought me a book about fairy tales and fables from around the world which I read while we traveled in the different trains we took and I remember thinking that this new and “strange” land felt like I was in one of the distant magical lands in my book. That experience fueled my passion for travel. To go see different lands, people and cultures is like entering into a fairy tale. I kept that book and I’m reading it to my granddaughters in the hope that it will birth a sense of adventure in them. I told them each to pick one country they want to go see, one picked France, another Japan and the other Australia. Grandma (aka the fairy grandmother) is saving her money to go take each one of her princesses to a far away land and go live out our own fairy tale. ❤️🏰
Mirtha! WOW! This is amazing and your granddaughters are so blessed to have you showing them this beautiful world. France is on our list too! I would love to go to Ireland, Scotland, Singapore...oh the list goes on and on. :) LOL Thank you so much for being here and sharing your adventures with us. I really want to take my children on a train now. Thank you.
I remember this! I remember different songs, but may favorite is "In The Garden". It seems like whenever I am in the flower garden I hum this hymn! Of course, I will never ever forget "You Are My Sunshine" as my Dad always sang this to me when I was a little girl. I know, these are not a book or movie!!! <3
My dad used to sing "You are my sunshine" to me also -- and I sang to my kids.
It's such a great song, isn't it? Thank you Julie for being here.
Good morning Faith! I enjoy both those songs as well. "You are my sunshine" is my favorite and one I've been singing to Brindsley and Delaney since they were born. :) Thank you Faith for sharing. I hope the sun is shining your way.
The Time-Life series spoke to my interest in all things scientific. Imagine my surprise when I learned I was color blind while in the school library with some friends! As they took turns identifying numbers inside circles filled with colored dots, I failed to see many that were being called out. Otherwise I ate up the treasure trove of new material with the arrival of the next issue.
Hi Gary, I'm not familiar with the Time-Life series so thank you for sharing. I do remember those circles filled with colored dots...it was at an eye doctor appointment as a child. :) I was not color blind but had some other thing going on. I'd forgotten about that. It's funny the memories that will pop in and out. Thank you.
I believe the publication fell by the wayside at the turn of the century. 21st. As I’m 74, I would argue that learning through reading is critical for comprehension and deductive reasoning. Without a TV in our home until I was about 9, listening to radio theater after dinner was a key part of our entertainment. Such programs were broadcast on AM stations like WCFL & WLS in Chicago. WOWO in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. WBZ in Boston. WABC in NYC. The Lone Ranger and Tonto was action packed. Much later I learned that in Spanish and Portuguese Tonto means Stupid.
“Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.” Toby Keith. He wasn’t singing about Indians...
Hi Gary, Thank you for sharing more here. I did not know Tonto meant that...now I do.
As I get older, I tend to prefer reading the book over watching the movie/TV. I'm happy I enjoy reading and make time for it. Thank you for being here.
My wife and I go long stretches without seeing commercials on TV since we don’t subscribe to a cable provider and infrequently stream a movie or documentary via our ISP. It constitutes quite a shock when we visit friends or family that enjoy cable programming, commercials and all! Books? Yes! I’m quite glad to have followed the trail of breadcrumbs and found the writings by you and other thoughtful bloggers. 🦉🦃🐧
I'm with you and your wife. :) I would love to throw the TV out the window. LOL (My husband would NOT be happy). I'm happy you have found our community and I'm finding Substack is a great place to be. :) I'm connecting with some really generous and kind people. Thanks again Gary and I will be responding to your email today.
Gandhi, the movie
Continues to inspire me
A true masterpiece
Produced and directed in 1982 by Richard Attenborough with an Oscar winning performance by Ben Kingsley as Gandhi, clearly shows the potential of the human spirit…
Thank you Clark. I have not watched that movie. Sounds like a good one to watch soon.
I watched several years ago. Ooomph!
I will have to see if I can find this movie.
It’s an oldie. I have a VHS tape… and no VHS player. 🤭
There’s a bunch of short clips on YouTube that I’ve linked in my stories over the years. My longtime readers probably roll their eyes when I post them on repeat. 😂 JK… my readers are too kind for that.
Here is one of my favorites:
https://youtu.be/1Ihxyf7A1hg?si=x7jQvKIpWtrSNyvV
Oh I just love Pollyanna's voice...so sweet. I'm going to share this with my kiddos and play the glad game this week. :)
HA! That's too funny. I will check out what you posted here.
Hmmm… Old Yeller comes to mind and I loved the Little House on the Prairie series of books.
I remember Old Yeller...I cried but such a good movie. The Little House on the Prairie Series was so good! I remember my grandma bought the entire series for my older sister. I was happy she let me read them too. Thank you for sharing Linda.
The books! I loved the show and the books.
For me, A Wrinkle in Time was a book that meant a lot to me growing up. The characters spoke to me and assured me it was ok to be average...it was ok to not quite fit in...to question authority...to be a bit whiny...to seek adventure...and, to show others my hidden depths. I dove into that book many times because I didn't actually have the guts to put those things into place in my 'real' life.
Hi Jack, Thank you for sharing what book impacted you growing up. I just read this book last year with my children. We all loved Charles, we thought he was the most courageous. It was a book that sparked a lot of great conversations. It's a book we will definitely read again.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I was convinced I’d find a secret passageway to Narnia if I looked hard enough on my closet!
Also, the Nancy Drew mysteries. I had the whole collection. Every last one of them.
Hi Amie! I just finished reading this book to my children a few weeks ago. Oh it's so good. I'm certain I read it when I was young but for some reason it made more of an impact on me now at 43. HA!
Thank you for sharing Amie. It's interesting how the books that impacted us as a young child can still impact us today. I love that.
I had to think about this one. I enjoyed Harriet the Spy and Nancy Drew mysteries as well as musicals like The Sound of Music but not sure if they influenced me. Then I remembered reading essays in books by Harry Golden who wrote about immigrant life in New York at the turn of the century. I loved reading about Ellis Island and the lives of new immigrants in NYC. I'm not sure if I realized that Golden had later settled in my hometown of Charlotte but perhaps that's why these somewhat obscure books were available in the library. It hasn't affected my work so much but my perspective in learning other's stories as they enter new worlds including the United States.
Oh I loved The Sound of Music! Another great one. Julie Andrews is fabulous! :) I loved the songs in that movie and still sing them now. My daughter loves the Nancy Drew books right now. I'm not sure I never got into the mystery books.
Harry Golden's books sound very interesting and ones I would probably appreciate now. Julie, thank you for sharing some of your influences.
Jurassic Park was the first novel I read (I think I was around 9-10 years old) It had swearing it in and I remember that just blowing my mind. New world
HA! Thank you Adam for sharing. I could see that being a revelation in a book at that age.
So many come to mind! The books and films that built Gail.
Two from childhood that left deep and everlasting impressions are Charlotte’s Web and Pollyanna.
Good ones! I would say Charlotte's Web ( the book) for me as well. Thank you Gail. It's fun to reflect back on books, movies, even songs that impact us. I'm sure we could all write a book just about that. :)