This is our favourite book from my childhood. My sister, Winda, and I were sooo proud of it because it was our first 'real book'.. it was big-and-thick, well-illustrated and written by an internationally-recognised author, Hilda Boswell.
I can't remember whether the book was in Indonesian (translated) or English. Somehow I have a strong feeling it was in English (because my parents had a rule that we could only ask them for extra money if we were buying books in English, while books in Indonesian had to be bought with our pocket money). We were in higher grades of Primary School then, and we were still very slow in reading it (I'm pretty sure it would not be the case if the book was in Indonesian).
One day, our water waste pipe were blocked by leaves and all the water flowed back into the house and flooded our house. The worst place was our bedroom (the one I shared with my sister), where all of our books were stored! We had a huge loss that night.. including our favourite book..
We tried to save the book, but after a while, the book started moulding in a lot of places, many of the pages were stuck together and the letters were washed off. We were very sad when we realised that we had to let it go along with other books that suffered the same fate because of the flood.
It was a sad day for us..
It was even more sad because no matter how hard we searched from one bookstore to another, we could never find our treasured story book again. I even tried the bookstores in Australia (during my university study) and airport bookstores (everywhere I visited), still.. the book was nowhere to be seen..
There was the end of our favourite stories!
I kept thinking about the books after all these years, but it started to become a hazy memory. It came back to me last night, while sitting in front of the computer with Ariq, my 6-year-old son, browing for children stories. The memory came so strongly that I decided to search for the book.
I couldn't remember Hilda Boswell's name though.. I was struggling through sites on Enid Blyton and H.C. Andersen.. :-P .. Until this morning, I sms-ed my sister and asked her if she remembered the book.. and SHE DID! She told me that it was Hilda Boswell's book!
Then, I remembered the title, 'Treasury of Children Stories'.. I found her books in Amazon.com , then, I found the image of our favourite childhood book.. it was the right book! Luckily too, there are many options on the price sides (the most important thing for me at this stage) with the used books :-)
It was the most beautiful morning! Finding the book really made my day.. :-) Now, I just have to somehow order the book from the seller in Amazon.com ..
This is what the book looks like Hilda Boswell's Treasury Children Stories
