Guess Who's Coming to My Tea Party

Scarlett and I have some pretty deep conversations during her bath time. Last week she was pouring me some "tea" and saying tea party over and over in her adorable little voice. I asked her who was coming to her tea party and that question instantly knocked a memory loose for me.

One of my favorite books as a child was Guess Who's Coming to My Tea Party by Barbara Williams. My father used to record my brother and me and on one of those archived cassette tapes you can hear my big mouth saying, "Guess who's coming to my tea party. Mrs. Brinkerhoff, my kindergarten teacher." Every now and then this will come up during family conversation - we all remember it very well.

I decided to hunt down this book so I could read its pages once again and see the illustrations that had made it such a big hit for me. I found a very good, used hardcover through Amazon and it came to me yesterday as a former library book from Westbrook, Connecticut. It is decorated with the finest of dust jackets and stamped Canceled by Librarian in the back of the book. It smells heavenly. Don't you love the smell of library books???

To my surprise, I actually remembered a few of the illustrations and a couple of the weird passages. It's a very strange book (which is probably why I loved it so much). I read it to Scarlett and she actually sat still in my lap from start to finish. She liked it! I love finding old gems like this. We all have those little dusty memories tucked in the way back, high on a shelf... and I find it so comforting when they make their appearance once again.

Did you have a favorite book as a child?