Sam, Bangs, and Moonshine is the first book I remember reading. Again, a gift from, I suspect, my grandmother, Mimi, the book felt like it was about me. Sam is a little girl who lives in an isolated house on an island with her beloved father, who is a sailor and often away from home. …
Continue reading 365 Books: Sam, Bangs, and Moonshine by Evaline Ness
Why do we like what we like? On the first page, Mrs. Pollifax's doctor - in 1966 - diagnoses her with depression. Her husband has died; her adult children have moved away. Although she volunteers and participates in the garden club, she feels she has outlived her usefulness. The doctor suggests that she take up …
Continue reading 365 Books: The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman
Everyone grumbled. The sky was grey.We had nothing to do and nothing to say.It was nearing the end of a dismal day,And there seemed to be nothing beyond.THENDaddy fell into the pond! Quick, who wrote that poem? I discovered this poem as a young child, in one of the first books I remember owning, Piping …
Continue reading Piping Down the Valleys Wild edited by Nancy Larrick
Would you stay the night in a haunted house? That's the question that draws the narrator into this creepy book. His friend, who has been acting stranger and stranger, since returning from family exile in Canada after the suicide of his elder brother, which caused the friend to unexpectedly inherit the family estate. An estate …
Continue reading 365 Books: The Plague Court Murders by Carter Dickson
Which should probably be re-titled, The I-Told-You-So Plague. Have you ever loved a book so much, been so enthralled by the action, so entranced by the characters, so high on a book that, the second you closed the back cover, you went back to page 1 and read it through again? And maybe again. That's …
Continue reading 365 Books: The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett
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