What she left is not what I remembered
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When I was about nine years old I read a really cool chapter book I found on the bookshelf in my bedroom. I have no idea how the book got there and whose it was. It was a green paperback with a drawing of two girls on the cover. And all I remembered about it was that the girls found a pair of gloves in a drawer that were invisible but allowed the user to sew really well.
There was also a map, I thought, that allowed the kids to step on the city they wanted to go to and poof! They were there. That’s what I remember about the book. That, and the fact that it stayed in my mind for more than 30 years.
So I went on an insane search two or three years ago looking for a kid’s book about a witch and a drawer. I kept getting The Chronicles of Narnia, which is not the book I was thinking of. And then I found it!
Hurray! I jumped up and down with glee and then I moved onto the next thing I had to do that day. And promptly forgot the title of the book. Int!
In the last two weeks or so, that book has been quietly sitting in the back of my mind trying to be noticed. I don’t know why, but I just had to find it again. And of course I couldn’t remember what the title was.
Back to the insane searching and gnashing of teeth. It seems my efforts took longer this time. But finally I found a site that’s a bulletin board of search words for obscure kid’s books. And under “witch and drawer” I found the title!
Say it with me, “Jackpot, baby!”
It’s called “What the Witch Left,” by Ruth Chew.
Score! The cover is exactly how I remembered it.
So I went to my local library’s website and put a hold on it. My email informed me on Saturday that magical fun and nostalgia were awaiting me from 10 am until 6 pm. As you might expect, I hauled on over there as soon as the doors opened and checked it out.
Yeah, it took about an hour to read and I enjoyed every second of it. There was so much stuff I had forgotten and the two pieces I did remember were:
a. mangled
b. and inaccurate.
I was right about the gloves. They were magic and invisible once the kid put them on. But they improved everything you did with your hands. One of the things the girl did was fix a rip in her dress by sewing it with the gloves on. But she was also able to do a lot of other things really well, like playing piano, while she wore the gloves.
The map was the piece I was most excited about. I don’t know why that piece worked so well for me, but it’s the most intriguing memory I had about the book.
Guess what. There’s no map in that book. Well, technically a map is referenced once. But that’s it.
There are a pair of magic boots called the Seven Leagues boots. They allow the person wearing the boots to walk about 21 miles with each step. The two girls each wore a boot on their opposite foot and walked, hand in hand, from New York to Mexico (and back again) in the span of a couple of hours.
I swear I have a vivid memory of them opening up the paper map, smoothing it on the floor, identifying where they wanted to go and then stepping on that spot together while holding hands. But clearly I’m mistaken. Because nothing like that was in this book.
But that’s a fun idea for a kid’s book, don’t you think? Is there a book like this already? I’ve done a cursory search and haven’t found what I remembered.
There were at least three other magic items in the drawer, but you have to read the book yourself to find out what they are. It’s a fun read. I give it two Cardio thumbs up.
And since we’re talking nostalgic memories, hop on over to Hambox’s Advent Calendar where you can view a six-year-old Cardiogirl, circa Christmas 1974. There’s fashion, a golden hued photo from the ’70s — when I actually had blond hair — and a stuffed cat.
Two notes of interest. There’s the standard red eyes from photos of that time period. And check out the long golden cord to the rotary phone on the wall behind the cat. Remember when we were tethered to the phone by a ten-foot cord? Good times.
Isn’t that weird, when you think you remember something so accurately but your brain is joining dots at its own pleasure? I’m glad you found the book again, anyway. I hate that, when you can’t remember enough details to find a book.
He he, the picture of you over at Hambox is cute! I can see the resemblance from when you posted pics of your daughters, although they are darker. How fun!
I really was jacked when I found it again. I literally sped all the way to the library thinking someone else might somehow snatch it. Even though it was on hold for me.
Thanks. Don’t I look like a friendly vampire with those red eyes?
Memories of our childhood can be horribly inaccurate sometimes. I think it has a lot to do with imagination mingling with our perception of reality when we are children. Something like the stories that child weave in their heads all the time. A mix of fantasy and reality.
Somebody once told me that it is a coping mechanism.
And when remember that memory many years later, it takes on different details, like maps which were not there etc, etc.
Isn’t that wild, sanjay. It’s like family folklore when everyone gets together and tells the same story from memory with their own twist.
Loved this post! And the picture of you. I had long blonde hair as a kid too. Maybe you are my long lost twin!
Funny thing that you just read a kid’s book. I volunteer in the school library for my boys’ classrooms. When shelving books last week I found a series of books called Little House on Rocky Ridge. They follow the childhood of Rose Wilder, Laura Ingalls Wilder daughter! I loved the Little House books! I read them over and over. It kid of bums be out that I don’t have a daughter to share my love of those books with. I had never heard of this other series. I checked out the first one and I just started reading it. Now I don’t feel so ridiculous reading a kids book.
Alright, that settles it. We are long lost twins and I’m sending the adoption papers to your mother post haste.
I remember watching Little House on the Prairie on TV, but I never did read any of the books. And I had no idea Laura had a daughter. It’s fun to go back in time and read a kid’s book. Having kids just makes it okay, you know?
I LOVE that feeling of finding an old book that I last read in 2nd or 3rd grade. A little while ago at Fury’s school, I came across Harry the Dirty Dog. What a wave of memories that brought back!! It happens more and more these days of course than when I was a swinging single 20-something. Hmm wonder why? ;)
Oh how I loved Harry the Dirty Dog. That’s the only book I ever remember ordering from Scholastic Books in school. I was in second grade, in Miss Allen’s class, and it was so awesome being called and then walking up to her desk to receive my brand spankin’ new book. Love that one!
Ummmm……I think you were on acid the first time you read the book and I bet you got it from the drug dealer in the last post. JUST KIDDING! Drugs are not a funny business but your recollection of the book was too close the drug dealer post for me not to seize the opportunity to connect the two!!
Your picture is too cute! Thinking like a mother, I bet it was really cold when that picture was taken and your mom was afraid your chest needed covered up so you didn’t “catch a chill” as my British parents would say. Never mind that it only covered half the opening, I get her intention – I really do!!! I have been searching high and low for 24 month size onesies (easier if they stay tucked in) for my 16 month old grandson. It got really cold really fast down here and I don’t want him to “catch a chill”. Bloody Hell!
Happy Monday,
Susan
I must have been on something, Susan. But in my head that map was so incredible! I actually kind of can’t believe it’s not in that book. Maybe those undershirts were used for that reason. I don’t remember if I wore them in the summer. Probably not.
Thanks for explaining the reasoning behind that one. I guess if I were a conscientious mother I would run out and get some for my kids. But I never said I was conscientious :)
That’s so awesome you found the book and you still liked it. I hate when you find something you liked as a child and it isn’t as good in the present.
It does suck when the past doesn’t live up to the present.
I had a few books that really were magical to me when I was a kid. One was called “Gone-Away Lake,” in which these kids go to their cousin’s house in the country and find a group of houses from the Victorian era around a lake that’s dried up. Inside the houses lived an old man and woman, siblings, who remembered the lake and when it was pretty much a resort area for people back in the Victorian era. The book was written in the 40s or 50s, so of course, when the kids take the train to get to their cousin’s house, the girl’s dressed to the nines, complete with gloves, and the little boy is in a suit with short pants. Reading it as a kid in the 80s, that was so totally foreign to me, but fascinating as well.
Another book that made an impact on me was “The Hunky-Dory Dairy,” which took place in DC, near where I grew up, and was about this girl who somehow ended up in a time where milk was still delivered every morning to one’s doorstep. Sort of a dimension-hopping situation, if I remember correctly, because I don’t think anyone else could see the milk deliveryman.
And the third one was one whose title I can’t remember, and I’m not sure how to search for it online. It was about these two boys who somehow traveled back in time (I guess I’ve always been a sci-fi nut) to the Civil War era, but they’re out in the Old West, not where the battles were. I remember one of them getting hurt and needing to get back to his own time because medicine was rather primitive back in the 1800s. But I don’t remember much more than that; something about a gallows sticks out in my head, though why would there be a hanging in a juvenile novel?? I just wish I knew the title so I could read it again and see how badly I’m remembering it!
Isn’t that fun trying to remember the books that spoke to you as a kid. I am surprised that you enjoyed Victorian/Civil War era stuff. I still don’t like that as an adult. Of course I can’t find that bulletin board/website that I mentioned. Grrr. If I ever find it I’ll let you know.
Holy Cow I have that very same book. And I also found a book I had been searching for — “The Thing At The Foot Of The Bed” By Maria Leach!
Don’t you love it when you finally find something you have been looking for!!!
Isn’t that a great book?! I’ll have to check out that other one; my 8-year-old would probably enjoy it.
Oh please please link to the site you found!!! I have a book I’ve been trying to track down for years — something about a little girl finding a dollhouse where the dolls represented real people who’d been killed in a fire? And something about peeling away layers of wallpaper…? Is it any wonder I haven’t found it yet?
I also loved Harry the Dirty Dog.
I’m going to have to keep on searching for that site. I fell upon it on my many searches for witch, drawer, magic, children’s book, etc. But if/when I find it I will send it to you.
The memory you have (of the girls stepping on the city on the map they wanted to go to) sparked a memory of my own, even though I never read that book. It reminds me partly of the scene in Mary Poppins when the chimney sweep / sidewalk artist steps into his sidewalk drawing with Mary and the children.
There’s another memory stirred, but it’s tucked away and inaccessible.
The 21 miles boots sounds a lot like the ____ candle in Neil Gaiman’s “Stardust,” which was made into one of the most awesome movies I’ve ever seen.
Fern’s comment about the dollhouse reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode in which a mentally unstable man (and only he) would see his family and friends in a dollhouse. There was something tragic about those dollhouse people; they were missing or dead.
You know I’ve only seen bits and pieces of Mary Poppins, but now that you say that I can see that scene in my head. All the good ideas are taken, aren’t they? I’ve never heard of the movie “Stardust.” I’ll have to Google that.
Also, never saw that episode either but it sounds like a classic Twilight Zone. I wonder if the Twilight Zone is out on DVD yet. I’ll have to Google that as well.