A year or so ago, my awesome sister Afton gave my oldest daughter some books for her birthday. One of them was a copy of The Egypt Game (1967) by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. As Olivia opened this present, all of us watching oohed and ahhed about the book, remembering how much we had enjoyed it... Continue Reading →
Reading Island of the Blue Dolphins for the First Time
I’ve just read Island of the Blue Dolphins (1960) by Scott O’Dell for the first time. What a delightful, wonderful book. I’m somewhat disappointed that I didn’t have the experience of reading it as a child, but I got to read it with my daughter, and it was fun. She started reading it on her... Continue Reading →
Late Nights with New Fairy Tales
I can’t remember how I discovered Franz Xaver von Schönwerth’s book of “newly discovered fairy tales,” but I am glad I did. It is called The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales (2015), and it is just that. Von Schönwerth apparently collected these stories from the Bavarian countryside in the 1850s, and a... Continue Reading →
Laura Ingalls Wilder Week: The Autobiography
Last week was spring break for me, so I took the time off to visit my dad and my grandmother, who is ill with cancer, in Missouri. My grandma finished her last radiation treatment while we were there, so we are hoping that things look good and that she’ll start to get stronger and be... Continue Reading →
Laura Ingalls Wilder Week: The Monument and Graves
Last week was spring break for me, so I took the time off to visit my dad and my grandmother, who is ill with cancer, in Missouri. My grandma finished her last radiation treatment while we were there, so we are hoping that things look good and that she’ll start to get stronger and be... Continue Reading →
Laura Ingalls Wilder Week: The Museum and Gift Shop
Last week was spring break for me, so I took the time off to visit my dad and my grandmother, who is ill with cancer, in Missouri. My grandma finished her last radiation treatment while we were there, so we are hoping that things look good and that she’ll start to get stronger and be... Continue Reading →
Laura Ingalls Wilder Week: The Rock Home
Last week was spring break for me, so I took the time off to visit my dad and my grandmother, who is ill with cancer, in Missouri. My grandma finished her last radiation treatment while we were there, so we are hoping that things look good and that she’ll start to get stronger and be... Continue Reading →
Laura Ingalls Wilder Week: The Comfortable Home
Last week was spring break for me, so I took the time off to visit my dad and my grandmother, who is ill with cancer, in Missouri. My grandma finished her last radiation treatment while we were there, so we are hoping that things look good and that she’ll start to get stronger and be... Continue Reading →
Social Class as a False Marker of Virtue: A Girl of the Limberlost
It turns out that A Girl of the Limberlost (1909) by Gene Stratton-Porter is a sequel to another book, called Freckles. I realized this as I marked A Girl of the Limberlost as “read” on Goodreads, and saw that it was labeled #2. And then I realized that a character in the book, Freckles, whom... Continue Reading →
Adventures in a Museum: A “Boring” Children’s Book
Do you remember reading this book as a child? Or being forced to read it? It is From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1967) by E. L. Konigsburg, and while it sounds boring, it isn’t. I recently reread it with my daughter. I had to read it to her, because although she... Continue Reading →