Amelia's Fantastic Flight

Amelia's Fantastic Flight

Rose Bursik 1992

 The time has come to sort through and cull our book collection.  It's proving harder than I thought as each book triggers memories!  It's almost like going back in time and reliving when my kids were little.  Even books (like this one) that really aren't exceptional story or picture-wise take me back to when the kids were small and we read aloud a LOT.

When Madeleine and Henry were toddlers I belonged to a book subscription club and it really started off our collection (along with some of my own childhood books).  If I remember correctly this book came from there and was a popular one with Madeleine and Henry.  The text is short and filled with alliteration, but what they liked was following the trail of the airplane on the maps.  This will go in the bin for the yard sale on Saturday and hopefully new little readers will get their hands on it!

Amelia builds herself a plane to fly around the world and be home just in time for dinner.  Everything about this book is pure 1990's!

Miracles on Maple Hill

Miracles on. Maple Hill

Virginia Sorensen

illustrated by Beth and Joe Krush 1956

        This was such a heartwarming book with surprising gravitas.  Written in the 1950's, the father in this endearing story is implied to be suffering from PTSD from the war.  He's always tired and moody and isn't able to hold down a job.  So the family decides to have a change of scene and leaves the city for a rural house in the mountains that belonged to their grandmother.  Told through the adventures of the daughter Marley, the book follows the family through the year as they adapt and make a new life for themselves.  The children start a new school, meet a woodworking recluse and learn about country ways (especially tapping trees and making maple syrup) from their wonderful neighbors.  Meanwhile their father finds purpose and solace in the hard work of gardening on their land.  I absolutely love accidentally finding books like this, such forgotten gems!  

Some wonderful ways to read about this season of Springtime...  

    "Now the trees were growing up again, but there were tangled old limbs in piles and ancient stumps overgrown with lichens and moss and little green leaves and ferns.  If she stopped in the middle of all the thousands of things growing in every direction, she got what she called the 'push-feeling'.  Everything was pushing up into the sun, trying to grow taller and bigger.  She had never thought about it before in all her life, but all the miracles every week made her think about it."

    "So many things to begin again!  She knew how the leaves would come green on the trees, how their flowers would turn the soft maples red along the brook.  She knew where water would go tumbling as the snow melted, making waterfalls that were there only in the spring.  She lifted her face to the sun and laughed.  Spring sparkled already in the sharp air."

O Ye Jigs and Juleps!

O Ye Jigs and Juleps!

Virginia Cary Hudson

 This collection of sweet and humorous stories was written when Virginia Cary Hudson was 10 years old in 1904 and then published in 1962.   They are silly and charming and have a hint of Eloise to them.  There is some outdated language and sentiments that as a modern reader it's hard not to notice and be sensitive to.  But the stories (partly true and embellished) are pure childhood glee- playing baptism in the neighbor's rain barrel or recommended etiquette in church ("Never punch people in church, or giggle or cross your legs).  The book is filled with the kind of funny observations that children make, "Strolling is walking slow and easy like getting married.  I guess walking slow getting married is because it gives you time to maybe change your mind."   There's a cast of characters from the Bishop to Mrs. Harris and her fancy kin, all harkening back to that simpler era.

The Strange Voyage of Neptune's Car

The Strange Voyage of Neptune's Car

Joe Lasker 1977

 This is a pretty incredible true story about young Mary Patton who took over command of her husband's clipper ship, Neptune's Car, when he became ill.  Not only was she only 19 years old, but she was pregnant at the time!  Able to navigate and read charts, Mary brought the ship to harbor in San Francisco after rounding the most treacherous path of Cape Horn.  Joe Lasker's retelling is accompanied by his illustrations that resemble old photographs.

Rosie Revere, Engineer, Iggy Peck, Architect, and Ada Twist, Scientist

Iggy Peck Architect 

Andrea Beaty

illustrated by David Roberts 2007

Rosie Revere, Engineer 

Andrea Beaty 

illustrated by David Roberts 2013

Ada Twist, Scientist

Andrea Beaty

illustrated by David Roberts 2016

 These three books were a major score at the thrift store!  It all started with Iggy Peck, Architect, about a boy driven to build and design buildings.  He even makes a bridge that saves his class and wins his teacher over! From there Andrea Beaty imagines other classmates' stories including Rosie Revere who wants to be an engineer and has to learn the value in failing sometimes.  And finally Ada Twist who is alway asking the questions "why," while her parents learn to celebrate her endless curiosity.  The illustrations are what really set these books apart.  The patterns, the details, the mid century flair!  

The Sunflower Garden

The Sunflower Garden

Janice May Udry

illustrated by Beatrice Darwin 1969

 Beatrice Darwin's prints accompany this story about a "Algonkian" girl named Pipsa who not only saves her little brother from a snake, but also brings sunflowers to her village.  While Pipsa works hard taking care of her baby brother and helping her mother, her father doesn't seem to notice her.  It's not until she kills a dangerous snake that her father comes to see what has happened and notices the incredible field of sunflowers she has been planting and tending.  Not only does her father tell her he's proud of her, but the whole village praises her for bringing a "new plant and new ideas to her people."