Blue Monday & Blue Books

Happy Blue Monday! Every Monday a group of us get together to enjoy a special day of blue posts at our happy hostess Smiling Sally's blog of the same name! Today, I took a hint from Sally, who's a big reader, and thumbed through my library for some blue book covers. Here are some of my finds...


First, these are three of my favorite books, accompanied by a blue Dollar Tree snowflake mug. I tend to prefer hardbacks to paperbacks (just look at the binding of the bottom book and see why), but two of these just happen to be paperbacks... it's okay with me when the author is as good as Langston Hughes or F. Scott Fitzgerald. The other book is a classic as well, and it's Stevenson's Treasure Island. I bought it to re-read several years ago because I had read it as a youth and remembered it fondly.



This book, Rabbit and His Friends, has been a favorite of mine as long as I can remember. It's a Little Golden Book, and I have had it since I was a wee one. The story is about a duckbill platypus who isn't sure what he is or where he fits in because he hatched from a misplaced egg. But the sweet little platypus eventually finds a home and fame as a diving performer. I love all the cute little critters that are his friends, too. As a child, I particularly loved the duck, and notice that he is dressed in his navy nautical shirt. The platypus also wears a cute little diving costume with a bright blue bottom. I loved blue even then! ;-) I'm not quite sure why the book was about Rabbit when the real protagonist is the duckbill platypus, but Rabbit was sort of the ring leader who gathered the group to go find the platypus when he went missing.



My cousin Barry had this book, Mister Dog, and when I would go to visit him, I always loved to read it before bed. It's the story of a dog and a boy who find each other and live in this adorable little house. I was always fascinated by the food they ate, the beds in which they slept, and their life together. Actually, their life was rather routine, but for some reason I found it captivating and loved this book! And when I was a grown magpie, I found a copy of it for my collection. It has my brother in law David's name in it. No, it's not a pilfered object, though it is very, very shiny to me still! ;-)



Lastly, I have a blue volume of Shakespeare's sonnets given to us one Christmas by that same brother in law who also happens to LOVE blue! It is a lovely volume. Let's take a look inside...



Each page is beautifully illustrated...



Here's one of my very favorite sonnets, Sonnet 130...



And another, Sonnet 116, which is my very favorite. This is one of the greatest love sonnets ever written: "Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments; love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, nor bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken; it is the star to every wandering bark, whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved."



Even the end pages of this book are lovely, and a very appropriate blue place to end...



That's my Blue Monday. Thanks to Sally for hosting us once again. For more Blue Monday posts, please join Sally at Smiling Sally's where you will find much blueness awaiting you!

Happy Blue Monday!

Quintessentially,

Mrs. Magpie (Sheila)