Childhood literature

I've always loved books right from when I was very young. My first children's books, now up in my loft, were secondhand gems picked up from either Petticoat Lane market near where we lived in Whitechapel or nearby little secondhand shops, equally fascinating.

Now as I am writing this something new occurs to me. Those two first children's books I owned at age 2 or 3 were bought for me by my wonderful, witty but - illiterate - grandmother! Yes, my grandma whom I called Booba in Yiddish, never went to school and so never learned to read or write - yet she bought me my first books! Perhaps she thought - that's not going to happen to my granddaughter, she's going to be - literate!

The books were brightly illustrated so I'm sure my grandma was attracted to the pictures - and I loved them too! One is about a boy called Timmy and it's called Timmy is a Big Boy Now - the drawings of Timmy and his daily routines still bring back memories of a feeling of love transcending language barriers - my grandmother couldn't speak English either!

To be continued:...