“Summer Aunts” I miss the aunts who gave us summers. Kitchen-steady, radios tuned to country and western. Racing bikes. Bactine unstinging skinned knees. Beaded pitchers of cherry Cheeri-aid in the fridge. Tuna fish, Fritos for lunch. Don’t slam the screen door! Lazy hammock afternoons, Little Lulu, Scrooge McDuck, chewing Juicyfruit till the sugar fades. Carload
Once, a girl read a lot of books and wrote stories and drew pictures and wanted to be a writer. At fifteen, the same age as Sleeping Beauty when she pricked her finger on the hidden spindle, this girl decided to write children’s books. She told her mother she needed a typewriter to be a
It’s been a month since my first symptoms of Covid. My doctor has declared me a “long-hauler.” This was a group I truly did not want to join. Long-haulers have been around since the first outbreak in March. They no longer have Covid. They are not infectious. But they retain the symptoms. Their stories are
You won’t find us in the daily Covid statistics. We test negative–more than once–or we’re too sick to be tested at all. Our symptoms are usually atypical. We’re often dismissed by the medical community who are overwhelmed with real Covid cases. I’ve read about us. We don’t have the flu or bronchitis or pneumonia or
My first inkling there was a thing called children’s literature came at a yard sale. I picked up a thick green textbook, Children’s Literature in the Elementary School, by Charlotte S. Huck. I marveled at the idea that people discussed and studied the books I loved and planned to write, that children’s books were literature,
I’ve been delving into my home library since March. Just yesterday I chose a vintage children’s book, an ex-library copy of a book I’d read (from a public library) when I was a kid. Look at the regulations pasted on the inside cover—particularly the last paragraph. As much as I’m enjoying my private library,
I could stand almost everything about this pandemic except the public library closing. The library is essential! We bought property to build our house based on proximity to the library. I stopped on my way back from exercise class four and five times a week. Some library systems let people know in advance of closing,
Over the years, I’ve often had a tote bag on the passenger seat of my little red truck that held a pen, notebook, and current reading book. But cloth tote bags are too flimsy and usually become grungy. Then I bought a canvas garden tote from Cracker Barrel because it was sturdy, had several pockets
Last night, I wrapped a box of the Boxcar Children books I’d written for a friend’s granddaughter. She is nine and into the Boxcar Children. I autographed each title, added a note as to why I am not Gertrude Chandler Warner, the original creator of the Boxcar Children, but a ghost writer, revealed a secret
Dear James Daunt, Some people don’t think you can save Barnes and Noble bookstores, but I’m cheering you on. You turned around Waterstones, that gem of a bookstore chain in Britain. You understand that we need bookstores, even Barnes and Noble, often the only bookstore in some areas in America. A good bookstore is
You wait years to take an important trip, saving money, carving out time from work and obligations, reading up on your destination. You finally go and see the places on your list and more besides. And then you come home, and friends and co-workers ask, “How was your vacation?” Because you know people aren’t really
Our farmhouse front porch needed refreshing. Changing the chair cushions and plunking down a few potted plants didn’t seem enough. I’d written a column for Bookology Magazine, “Richard Adams Gave Me Rabbits,” about how Watership Down was the last book that changed my life. That gave me the idea to makeover our porch with a