The Great Cataloging, Continued

While cataloging my enormous library, I frequently picked up a book and gasped and became excited anticipating reading the book. I realized I was acting as though I were in a bookshop or public library instead of at home looking at a book I already own. I have a great many books I haven’t read or that I’ve only partially read.

While cataloging with my friend, I’d see a book that would bring up memories.

The front cover of the original 1914 edition of Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum

One of the books I cataloged is the original 1914 edition of Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum. It’s been passed down in my dad’s side of the family and is how I know my great-grandparents escaped pogroms in Poland by 1914.

I also have a 1944 edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz — from my dad’s childhood. He was born in 1941. Though his sister Barbara was six years younger than him, she wrote her name in the front of the book.

A 1944 reprint of The Wizard of Oz (or The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) by L. Frank Baum

The bookplate in Tik-Tok of Oz features the name of my grandmother (Lucile) and her siblings, Pauline and David. My grandmother supposedly wasn’t born until 1917 — maybe she wasn’t honest about her age. The bookplate also gives the name of Aunt Kate, the person who gave them the book.