Erin at her blog Seven Little Australians has a post called Families of Six Plus Children about children’s books that feature families with six or more children. Her list includes All of a Kind Family by Sydney Taylor, The Mitchells: Five For Victory by Hilda Van Stockum, The Story of the Treasure Seekers by Edith Nesbit, Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner, Children on the Oregon Trail by A Rutgers Van Der Loeff, Seventh Pebble by Eleanor Spence, Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott (one of my favorites), First Farm in the Valley by Anne Pellowski, and Ten Kids, No Pets by Ann Martin. Read more about her selections at Seven Little Australians.

I thought children’s and young adult books about “Large Families” would be a good topic for a round of Book Tag. The rules are:

“In this game, readers suggest a good book (or series) in the category given, then let somebody else be ‘it’ before they offer another suggestion. There is no limit to the number of books a person may suggest, but they need to politely wait their turn with only one book suggestion per comment.”

I’ll start the game with my suggestion, Gentle’s Holler by Kerry Madden, the story of Livy Two and her little sister Gentle, who is blind. Each of the children in this loving but poverty-stricken family in the mountains of North Carolina has his or her own personality, standing out from the rest of the family in one way or another. The sequels are Louisiana’s Song and Jessie’s Mountain.

What are your favorite large family books?

How would you like to play book tag this summer? The idea for this game originally came from Carmon at her blog Buried Treasure, but since she no longer seems to be keeping a blog, I thought we’d play here.

“In this game, readers suggest a good book in the category given, then let somebody else be ‘it’ before they offer another suggestion. There is no limit to the number of books a person may suggest, but they need to politely wait their turn with only one book suggestion per comment.”

Last week we played book tag by suggesting books for my Dancer Daughter’s summer reading list. (You can still go to that post and suggest books for Dancer Daughter, age 23.) Now it’s time to go older, much older. My mom is almost 80 years old, and she likes to read on her Kindle so that she can adjust the size of the print. What books do you suggest for a “seasoned citizen” who likes to read classics and new books both?

These are the dog days of summer (where does that phrase come from?), and we have a dog. Not my choice, my son brought him home and foisted him upon us in a moment of weakness on my part, but he is kind of cute, both actually the dog and the son.

So let’s play Book Tag again. In today’s edition of Book Tag, please suggest your favorite dog book. If the dog doesn’t die in the book, you get extra points.

Remember the rules: In this game, readers suggest ONE good book in the category given, then let somebody else be “it” before they offer another suggestion. There is no limit to the number of books a person may suggest, but they need to politely wait their turn with only one book suggestion per comment.

I’ll start off with a classic, sort-of dog book, the series by Yorkshire veterinarian James Herriot that begins with All Creatures Great and Small. I’m not even much of an animal lover, but I love these books. The stories Herriot tells are funny, poignant, sometimes dramatic or sad, but always absorbing and full of human (and animal) interest–and lots of dogs.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes
I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Rivers are fascinating. And traveling down a river is such a rich metaphor for traveling through life. A river can be adventurous (Huckleberry Finn) or languorous (Langston Hughes’ poem) or perilous (River Rising by Athol Dickson). So in today’s edition of Book Tag, please suggest your favorite book, fiction or nonfiction, that features rivers.

Remember the rules: In this game, readers suggest ONE good book in the category given, then let somebody else be IT before they offer another suggestion. There is no limit to the number of books a person may suggest, but they need to politely wait their turn with only one book suggestion per comment.

My suggestion to start the game off is Athol Dickson’s River Rising. The book I’m reading now, Same Kind of Different as Me, reminded me of Mr. Dickson’s novel, since the man in my current book, Denver Moore, grew up in southern Louisiana, where Dickson’s story takes place. However, River Rising is about the Mississippi River flood, the greatest flood in modern history on the lower Mississippi River and about how such a flood can be horribly destructive, but also can provide an opportunity for cleansing and for a new beginning.

Your turn. What river-themed books do you recommend?