Reading Children's Literature During The Holiday Weeks

A Little Hope And Positivity During A Stressful Time

I’m looking forward to reading A Christmas Carol this week

Hello!!!

This is Joyie and welcome back to my little bookish corner of the internet where I talk all things books!

Have you been reading anything this week? I just finished Convenience Store Woman today, but for most of this week I’ve been reading some children’s stories—Heidi by Johanna Spyri and also The Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen.

I generally do read a lot of children’s literature around this time of the year. I don’t celebrate Christmas, but I do love the holidays. I like the feeling of having made it through the year and I love to slow down a little and just relax. And maybe there’s also some influence from my childhood when I’d watch Christmas movies on TV with my brother–Home Alone being our favourite.

This year though, the situation is slightly different.

A few weeks back, I noticed a small lump on the side of my neck. When it didn’t go away after two weeks, I went to see a doctor. He dismissed it as nothing to be worried about. But it’s been a month and it hasn't gone away yet, so now I’m seeing a different doctor. I have a neck USG and an FNAC test scheduled for tomorrow. I took tomorrow and the 24th off, so that I could relax and read A Christmas Carol, but turns out I’ll be getting my neck jabbed with needles instead.

I was very scared at first, and it surprised me. Because I’m one of those ‘I so do not want to be alive’ type of people. But I guess the fear of death is something instinctive, it’s just the default setting of our brains. Everyone keeps telling me it’s most likely nothing serious, just the cold, and while I understand and appreciate the effort, I still am not convinced. My brain is always rushing to the worst possibilities, so I’m trying to keep myself occupied with other thoughts. That’s why I started reading Heidi.

I’ve always found children’s stories to be very comforting. I love their innocence, their optimism, the good over evil sort of messaging. They’re everything the real world is not. So sometimes I allow myself the luxury of getting lost in those worlds where no matter the trials and tribulations, things always work out in the end.

I in general have very pessimistic views of the world. The world I have seen and am still seeing, seems very bleak to me. However, I also understand this mindset is not the best to be living with in the world. In my case, I simply can’t help it. But I do think that at least for the kids, we have to make sure they start out with a positive outlook of the world. That's probably a reason children’s’ literature is one of the few if not the only place where positivity, even if it’s not realistic, feels completely permissible to me.

Anyway, I’m enjoying the overall festive mood and eating plum cakes. I think that makes the whole thing a lot easier on me. Now I'm waiting for the tests tomorrow and even if things take a turn for the worse, I still can look forward to reading A Christmas Carol.

What about you? What are you reading during the holiday season? I'd love to know!!!

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That’s it for today, I'll be back in your inbox next week.

Until then,

Joyie 🌻