Search Results for: penderwicks

The Penderwicks at Last by Jeanne Birdsall

This final installment in the Penderwick saga ends with a wedding, another wedding, and a hint at future wedding possibilities. The Penderwick clan gather back where it all started at Arundell from far and wide, Skye flying in from California, the others driving in from closer points east, west, north, and south. Jeffery is coming from Germany to manage the music for the wedding, and Cagney and his wife live on the premises at Arundell as caretakers. So all the old crew is back for this last hoorah—as well as some new characters.

Ten year old Lydia Penderwick, in the Penderwick tradition of the first four books about this family, is both innocent and precocious at the same time. Lydia, who loves to dance and who almost likes everybody she meets (with only a few exceptions), is a joy and a delight as she dances through the chaos of wedding preparations and a new friendship with Cagney’s daughter, Alice. The girls encounter spiders, ghosts, and the fearsome Mrs. Tifton—all with the same courage and adventurous spirit that made the other Penderwick children so much fun to read about in the other books in the series.

I must say that there were a couple of jarring notes to the whole book, which is mostly a paean to love and marriage and and family and friendship. Lydia’s friend, Alice, has a brother who spends most of the book in Canada, visiting relatives. Alice, however, is jealous of her brother’s trip to Canada and spends a great deal of time texting him competitive photos and challenges as to who is having the best summer vacation. I guess it’s realistic, but not as much fun as the feisty but good-natured family teasing and joking and encouraging that goes on between the Penderwick siblings. Then, Skye’s and Jane’s attitudes about marriage are aired, and I just wanted to tell them to grow up. Skye insists that “marriage is an outmoded social contract,” but her actions seem to belie her words. And Jane says she’s too busy becoming a novelist to think about marriage or boyfriends, as if one precludes the other. It all feels so twenty-first century and so-so feminist and liberated and pretentious. In a book that’s celebrating marriage, it’s out of place.

However, those are minor false notes in a book that’s mostly a lovely finale to the Penderwick symphony. If you haven’t read the first four books in the series, I would suggest that you begin at the beginning. You’ll appreciate it more that way. And if you enjoy the first book, do read through to the end of The Penderwicks at Last.

The other Penderwick books:
The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy
The Penderwicks on Gardam Street
The Penderwicks at Point Mouette
The Penderwicks in Spring

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.
This book may be nominated for a Cybils Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

The Penderwicks in Spring by Jeanne Birdsall

May1

The Penderwicks are back! And the focus in this installment is Batty, who has grown to be a mature and thoughtful fifth grader, but still shy and retiring, and still quite musically talented. Her life’s motto is: Musica anima mea est (Music is my life).

Two more children have been added to the Penderwick clan: Ben, the sisters’ seven year old stepbrother, and Lydia, their two year old sister, born of the marriage between Mr. Penderwick and the next-door neighbor, Iantha. Ben’s passion is rocks. He digs for them, collects them, and studies them. And Lydia’s passions are princesses, crowns, flowers, dance, escaping her crib—-and big brother Ben. “Lydia loved everyone she’d encountered in her short life—never had a Penderwick been so pleased with the human race—but she loved Ben most of all. This was a burden no boy should have to bear.”

The older girls are back too. Rosalind is away at college, but not too far away to come home for visits frequently. Seventeen year old Skye is absorbed in her beloved math, still friends with Jeffrey, but decidedly not his girlfriend, “among all the Penderwicks, . . . least likely to want to discuss grief or any other emotion.” Sixteen year old Jane is still writing stories, trying to speak French, and presiding over the gang of boys who for some reason like to come over to the Penderwick home and devour pretzels and hang out.

Batty becomes unwillingly involved in and affected by the teen and grown-up problems of Skye’s love life, the Penderwick family’s money problems, and some misunderstandings about the family’s history. On the surface, it might seem that having Batty become entangled in such adult issues would be a mistake for a children’s book, but Batty comes at the problems from her own eleven year old perspective, and all is resolved and made right in the end. And the truth is that children are impacted by the problems and concerns of their older family members, so showing Batty dealing with her own issues in response to those of her older siblings and her parents is realistic without being too heavy.

Because the Penderwicks, like the Quimbys, are a happy family, nothing gets so broken that it can’t be mended in this story of misapprehensions, dealing with grief and fear, and clashing personalities. Lydia provides comic relief, a la Ramona the Pest, and Batty grows up just a little. But no one is so grown up that there can’t be a fifth (and final?) Penderwicks book, something I heard is in the works. Long live the Penderwicks!

If you haven’t read the first three Penderwick books, I highly recommend them, and then this fourth one. They keep getting better.

The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall. Winner of the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature in 2006.
The Penderwicks on Gardam Street.
The Penderwicks at Point Mouette.

The Penderwicks at Point Mouette by Jeanne Birdsall

Apr26

I finally got a chance to read this third book in the Penderwick series, and I can tell anyone who hasn’t already read it that it’s just as good as the first two books about the Penderwick family of four girls—Rosalind, Skye, Jane and Batty—having adventures and growing up.

In this particular installment of the Penderwick saga, Jane falls in love herself when she tries to write a romance for her bold protagonist, Sabrina Starr. Skye becomes the OAP (oldest available Penderwick sister) while Rosalind takes a vacation. And Batty collects golf balls, makes a new friend, wears a large orange life jacket through most of the story, and discovers her own special giftedness. Jeffrey, the girls’ friend from the first book, is back, and many of the adventures involve Jeffrey and his musical talents and his family trials and tribulations.

I truly think the Penderwick series is going to go down in history as classic children’s lit, comparable to Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books and Elizabeth Enright’s Melendy family series. I’ve picked a couple of samples of Ms. Birdsall’s spot-on depiction of sisters who really love each other, through thick and thin.

This paragraph is Skye, trying to decide what to do about Jane who has developed an unfortunate crush on a skateboarding BOY!

“Skye managed to get off the porch and outside without punching Jane in the nose and making it swollen all over again, and she was quite proud of that, at least. But now she was really concerned. How could she protect Jane from this idiocy? Wondering what Caesar or Napoleon would do in this situation was worthless. Skye needed a tree to kick now, immediately. Poor patient birch trees—this wasn’t the treatment they deserved. But kicking them calmed Skye down a little, enough to help her realize that she did after all have someone she could talk to about boys, crushes, and dancing with Popsicle sticks. Aunt Claire, of course. Skye apologized to the birch trees and began to plot how to broach these painful subjects without giving away Jane’s secrets.”

And here’s a totally different passage, different in tone and content, about the Penderwicks’ friend Jeffrey and his mentor playing music for them

“From Jeffrey’s clarinet poured a haunting, stirring melody, a soaring string of notes that floated out over the ocean. All alone Jeffrey played, his eyes closed in concentration, until it seemed that the song was ending. But then Alec’s saxophone joined the clarinet, and together the man and the boy again played the heart-stopping tune, note for note. The girls clung to each other, each one feeling as though she’d never really heard music before, and although the splendor of the music was almost too much, the players began yet once more, this time in rich harmony, finally ending with a flourish, so thrilling that when the music stopped, it seemed for a moment as though the world had to stop along with it.”

Now, that’s some fine writing. And the plot and characters are just as good as the writing. Just quit reading my pedestrian attempts to describe the Penderwicks books, and go read one, preferably starting with the first book in the series and then proceeding in order through the three books Ms. Birdsall has so far gifted us with. By the time you finish those, maybe there will be a fourth. I certainly hope we don’t have long to wait for another installment. (On her website, Jeanne Birdsall says it takes her three years to write a Penderwicks book and that there will be five books in all.)

Book 1: The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and Very Interesting Boy Z-baby listens to The Penderwicks. Semicolon review of The Penderwicks.

Book 2: The Penderwicks on Gardam Street Reviewed by Sarah at Library Hospital. Reviewed by Carrie K. at Books and Movies.

Book 3: The Penderwicks at Point Mouette Reviewed by Amy at Hope Is the Word.

Read Aloud Thursday: The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall

Dec10

Z-Baby’s been listening to The Penderwicks this week. Actually the full title is The Penderwicks: a summer tale of four sisters, two rabbits and a very interesting boy by Jeanne Birdsall.

Me: What did you like about the story?

Z-baby: It was funny when Batty, the little one (she’s only four), is there, and her dog, Hound, eats the map. Then Hound throws up. And Batty points to the throw-up and says, “There’s the map.”
It was just really, really interesting. One reason I listened to it a lot was because I didn’t always finish it.

Me: Which character can you relate to the most? Which Penderwick sister is most like you? Do any of them remind you of your sisters?

Z-baby: I’m probably most like Skye. She’s kind of mischievous, and she’s always peeking (spying) on people and losing her temper. She just does a lot of things I do. Rosalind is a tiny bit like Betsy-Bee. Sometimes she’s a little bossy, and so is Betsy-Bee. Betsy-Bee is also a tiny bit like Batty because Batty is really shy, and so is Betsy-Bee. Betsy-Bee also writes stories like Jane.

Me: What in the story reminds you of your own experiences?

Z-Baby: I’ve burned cookies before! And I’ve probably wished that I didn’t so something, but after a whlie once I get used to it, I’m glad that I did. Skye meets Jeffrey and bumps into him , and at first she wishes that she didn’t. But then later she’s glad that she did.

Me: The title calls Jeffrey a “very interesting boy?” Do you think he’s interesting? What’s interesting about him?

Z-baby: Yes, he’s interesting. His mother wants him to go to military school. And he kind of tells her that he doesn’t want to, but he can’t get that into her head. He wants to be a musician, not a military person.

Me; Anything else you want to tell me?

Z-baby: It’s a really good book, and you should read it or listen to it.

Me: Would you like to listen to the sequel, The Penderwicks on Gardam Street?

Z-Baby: Yes. Get it the next time you go to the library.

Here’s an account of our family’s original introduction to The Penderwicks almost four years ago.

The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall

Mar18

The urchins and I finished this read aloud book a few weeks ago, but I was waiting for one of them to write something about it. No luck. Then, I wrote a review, posted it, and my server went down and lost it. You’ll have to make do with my warmed-over observations.

First of all, Karate Kid, Brown Bear Daughter, and Betsy-Bee were enthralled with this story. Organizer Daughter (age 14) overheard us reading The Penderwicks, and she took it and read it to herself while we were doing other things. Every day I had to read at least two chapters because we all wanted to see what would happen to Penderwick sisters and their friend, Jeffrey. How would they get out of this scrape? And what would happen to Jeffrey? It was an excellent read aloud book.

The book did produce some “deja vu” moments. See if any of this description rings a bell. Four sisters live in a small cottage with one parent, next door to a grand mansion where a lonely boy, an only child, who loves to play the piano, lives and watches them from his upstairs window. The boy wants to become a musician, but his rich grandfather had other plans for the boy, and the boy is expected to follow his grandfather’s wishes. The four Penderwick girls become friends with the boy, Jeffrey, and the five of them have all sorts of adventures together. The eldest Penderwick sister, Rosalind, age 12, is just starting to become interested in boys. Another sister, Jane, age 10, is a writer and a daydreamer, and Skye, age 11, is a tomboy who says things without thinking first, sometimes getting the sisters into lots of trouble. Oh, and Batty, the youngest who is only four years old, is so shy that she hardly speaks to people outside the family.

Does any of this sound familiar? To any who are fans of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, it certainly does. However, this story, while it obviously echoes that of the March sisters, doesn’t feel annoyingly derivative or copied. It was just fun picking out the echoes. There are certainly enough new elements here in terms of plot and characters to keep the reader turning the pages and reading to see what will happen next. Some of the more exciting events in the book include an encounter with a bull, a fire in the cottage kitchen, and a soccer practice gone mad that collides with a Very Important Garden Competition to produce havoc.

The Penderwicks will join some of my other favorite fictional families such as the Melendy family (The Saturdays and Four Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright), the Fossil sisters (Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield), the Moffats by Eleanor Estes, the Austins (Madeleine L’Engle) and All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor. And of, course, I can’t forget the March sisters. Four children seems to be the preferred number in most of these books, although three is OK and five is also acceptable. Often, the families have two girls and two boys or alternately all girls. Parents are available but not heard until needed. Most significantly, the children in all these families share an adventurous spirit and loving family relationships, making these books a joyous romp seen through the eyes of children who are a lot like my eight urchins. One of my urchins won’t read fantasy or historical fiction or science fiction or anything else except stories about “real life children who are like me.” The Penderwicks is a great sample of this kind of a book, and since it takes place during the summer holidays (subtitle: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy), it would be perfect to read or listen to in the car during summer vacation.

The Alley by Eleanor Estes

May24

I really want a copy of “the other book about Connie Ives’s alley, The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode.” That desire is a good sign that The Alley was a good book. I actually had no idea that Eleanor Estes had written anything other than The Moffats and its companion books about the same family and of course, The Hundred Dresses, a story that is and will always be a classic story about compassion and repentance. However, as I look I see that Estes wrote several other books, including The Alley.

Connie lives in Brooklyn in a house that along with twenty-seven other similar houses backs upon an alley, not an ugly alley, but one that provides a place for the children of the Alley to play and imagine and swing and read and learn to follow rules and grow.

“In the Alley there was more space than you might think to ride bikes in, and at the bottom end of the ——–I was the Circle, excellent for turning around in and excellent for games.
Every yard had flowers. Now it was May, and the flowers were tulips, irises, lilacs.
The Alley–the little houses on the Alley–was an oasis in a great city of good people and of dangerous people. In this city, there were some burglars. ‘But then, that is life,’ thought Connie. ‘In the old days they had Indians, wild animals, pirates, and dragons. They had witches. Now–burglars. You have to take the bad along with the good.’ But Connie never thought much of the burglars there might be outside the Alley. She thought mainly of life inside the Alley, in the beautiful, fragrant Alley. Her life was made up mainly of school and Alley.”
p. 13

The Alley was a book every bit as good as The Moffats or The Penderwicks or Elizabeth Enright’s The Saturdays. Ten year old Connie is an only child, but she has plenty of substitute brothers and sisters in the Alley: her best friend Billy Maloon, Hugsy Goode, Connie’s next-best friend, Katy Star, the rule-maker of the Alley, June Arp, the girl next door, and the thirty or so other children who live along the Alley. And Connie and Billy and the rest have plenty to do: in addition to swinging on Connie’s swing set, they teach piano lessons, go to school, play Meece and other games, and investigate a burglary during the months of May and early June, with is all that the story covers. It seems, through the eyes of a ten year old like a much longer time, and yet the days are full of fun and quirky antics and adventures.

“Connie did not mind the long days that began empty and ended up full. Oh, the wonderful and long days of summer! Just to hold a whole day in your hand and have it and think that it was empty to begin with but that each moment could, would, contain so much.”
p. 280

Illustrated by Edward Ardizzone, The Alley is, according to the Chicago Tribune quote on the front cover, “a story not to be missed.” I agree.

50 Best Middle Grade Novels of the 21st Century

Jan20

In 2019 Booklist published their list of the “50 Best Middle Grade Novels of the 21st Century.” Go ahead, take a look.

They left off Harry Potter, Wimpy Kid, and Percy Jackson because they figured those already had enough attention. (I would leave off two of the three for reasons of poor quality and over-exposure, and HP for the reason they state.) They also “cheated” and included series as one book, so I plan to do the same. Anyway, I do have some reading background and expertise in this particular genre, and for your reading pleasure I thought I would give you my own list of the 50 Best Middle Grade Novels of the 21st Century (so far). There is some overlap between my list and Booklist’s list, so I’ll start with those books we agree on.

Booklist and Semicolon’s Best Books (14 selections):

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill. Algonquin, 2016.

Greenglass House by Kate Milford. Illus. by Jaime Zollars. Clarion, 2014.

Last Day on Mars by Kevin Emerson. HarperCollins/Walden Pond, 2017.

Lockwood & Co. series by Jonathan Stroud. Illus. by Kate Adams. Disney/Hyperion, 2012-2017. (5 titles)

The Mysterious Benedict Society series by Trenton Lee Stewart. Illus. by Carson Ellis and Diana Sudyka. Little, Brown/Megan Tingley, 2007-2012. (4 titles)

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt. Clarion, 2011.

The Penderwicks series by Jeanne Birdsall. Knopf, 2005-2018. (5 titles)

Race to the Bottom of the Sea by Lindsay Eagar. Candlewick, 2017.

Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin. Feiwel and Friends, 2014.

The Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan. I’ve only read the first book in this series, but I do plan to read more. Recommended.

A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park. Clarion, 2001. Newbery Award winning story of an orphan boy who wants to become a potter. Tree-Ear, named for a wild mushroom that grows without seed, lives under a bridge with his friend and mentor, Crane-man. His friend’s shriveled and twisted leg and foot makes him unable to work, and the two manage to eat and hold body and soul together by foraging among the garbage heaps. Then, Tree-Ear gets a job—and a dream of leaving the fringes of 12th century Korean society to become an artisan.

The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo. Illus. by Timothy Basil Ering. Candlewick, 2003.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. Random/Wendy Lamb, 2009.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon series by Grace Lin. Little, Brown, 2009-2016. (3 titles)

Then, Betsy Bird at Fuse #8 chimed in with the substitutions and changes she would make to the list.

Fuse #8 and Semicolon’s Best Books (3 selections):

Rules by Cynthia Lord.

A Drowned Maiden’s Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz. Historical fiction about Maud, an orphan, who is adopted out-of-the-blue by two elderly sisters. Her new guardians lavish her with new clothes on their way home to their large home, but then make her hide in the attic when guests come. They have a plan for Maud to help them in their spiritualism business, but Maud may be more than the sister bargained for.

Ghost by Jason Reynolds.

And, these are my selections—33 more books that I think are outstanding and will stand the test of time:

Heart of a Shepherd by Roseanne Parry.

Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce.

The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson. (On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, North! Or Be Eaten, The Monster in the Hollows, The Warden and the Wolf King) Waterbrook/Rabbit Room Press, 2008-2014.

The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd. 2008.

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt.

Alvin Ho series by Lenore Look.

The Casson Family series by Hilary McKay. (Saffy’s Angel, Indigo’s Star, Permanent Rose, Caddie Ever After, Forever Rose) Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2002-2008.

Maggie Valley novels by Kerry Madden. (Gentle’s Holler, Louisiana’s Song, Jessie’s Mountain)

Leepike Ridge by N.D. Wilson. Random House, 2007.

A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park.

Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster by Jonathan Auxier.

The Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle by Christopher Healy.

Boys Without Names by Kashmira Sheth. Eager to find work after his hungry family arrives in Mumbai, 11-year-old Gopal ends up locked in a one-room “factory” making beaded frames with five other boys so beaten down they don’t even talk to one another. The boys have no names because their boss manipulates them to distrust one another in the interest of keeping them in slavery. Heart-rending, but never preachy, and ultimately hopeful.

Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins. Charlesbridge, 2010.

Anything But Typical by Nora Leigh Baskin.

A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban.

Clementine books by Sara Pennypacker.

Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson.

Books of Bayern by Shannon Hale. (The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, etc.)

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo.

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander.

The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic by Jennifer Trafton.

The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen. The Ascendance Trilogy.

The Luck Uglies series by Paul Durham.

Tuesdays at the Castle series by Jessica Day George.

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo.

Chasing Vermeer series by Blue Balliet.

The Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner.

Circus Mirandus by Cassie Beasley.

Isle of Swords by Thomas Wayne Batson.

Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm.

Any Which Wall by Laurel Snyder.

Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce.

So, what do you think? What books would you add or take away from my list or Booklist‘s list? Or make your own list, and link in the comments.

Summer Reading Challenge: Books Set in the Summer

Jun28

I’m sponsoring a summer reading challenge in my library. The rules are as follows:

Out of the forty categories listed, choose the number your child intends to complete, one book per category from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.Children in grades K-12 can choose to read 10, 20, 30 or 40 books between June 1, 2019 and August 31, 2019. Books must be recorded and responses given on the official record sheet. You do not have to check out your books from Meriadoc Homeschool Library, but many categories may be easier to find in MHSL than in other libraries or at home. Books can be read and recorded in any order you choose.

The fifth category for this challenge is to read “a book about or set in the summer.”

Summer books for primary readers (grades K-3)
The Camping Trip That Changed America by Barb Rosenstock. Naturalist John Muir and President Teddy Roosevelt go on a camping trip to Yosemite.

The Seashore Book by Charlotte Zolotow. A beautiful, poetic picture book story about a trip to the beach.

Roxaboxen by Alice McLarren. A group of children in Arizona or New Mexico, somewhere dry and desert-y, make a play town out of old woden crates, rocks, cacti and desert glass.

Sailor Jack and the Ball Game by Selma Wassermann. An easy reader about submarine sailor Jack and his friend Beanpole and jack’s parrot, Bluebell, and a rather chaotic baseball game.

Betsy’s Busy Summer by Carolyn Haywood. All of Haywood’s Betsy and Eddie books are delightful, but most of them are school stories. This one tells about Betsy and her friends and their neighborhood adventures during one fun summer.

More summer reading for younger children

Summer books for middle grade readers (grades 4-7)
Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright. Summer has a magic all its own, but this summer is different in many ways. Portia Blake and her younger brother Foster are going to the same place they always go in the summer, to visit their cousin Julian. However, this summer they’re going all by themselves while their parents spend the summer in Europe. And this summer Portia and Julian discover a deserted resort town next to a nearly dried up lake. And this summer the children also become friends with the eccentric Minnehaha Cheever and Pindar Payton, elderly sister and brother who are the only inhabitants of the ghost town across the lake. What other “magic” will the children conjure up as they listen to tales of long ago and explore the remains of Gone-Away Lake?

The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall.

Henry Reed, Inc. by Keith Robertson. A great old-fashioned book about a boy who spends the summer in a small town with his uncle and aunt. Exciting things happen whenever Henry is around!

Galveston’s Summer of the Storm by Julie Lake. Very lazy Texas summer with Texas foods and hot weather and front porches and grandmother’s house. Then disaster!

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. Originally published in 1930, this book is the first in a series of books about a group of adventurous children and a sailboat. Swallows and Amazons introduces the Walker children—John, Susan, Titty, and Roger—their camp on Wild Cat island, the able-bodied catboat Swallow, and their frenemies the two intrepid Amazons, Nancy and Peggy Blackett. The children are living the free range kids’ dream as they camp all by themselves on a small island, cook their own meals, sail their boat up and down the lake, and engage in all sorts of mock-battles and adventures.

Ash Road by Ivan Southall. This one takes place in January, summertime in Australia. A small group of children are cut off by a raging wildfire in the wilds of the Australian outback. They have only two elderly adults to help them, or perhaps it is the children who must help each other to get them all out of danger.

A Few of the Best Realistic Middle Grade Fiction I Read (Published in 2018)

Jan6

The Journey of Little Charlie by Christopher Paul Curtis.

Hope in the Holler by Lisa Lewis Tyre.

Louisiana’s Way Home by Kate DiCamillo.

The Penderwicks at Last by Jeanne Birdsall. A good, solid ending to a great series.

The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden by Karina van Glaser. A good second book in a great series, maybe even better than the first.

Nowhere Boy by Kathrine Marsh.

Rebound by Kwame Alexander.

7 Joyful Tidings; or, Stuff to Be Glad About

Jun20

“[I]f God took the trouble to tell us eight hundred times to be glad and rejoice, He must want us to do it—–SOME.” ~Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter.

1) How Sunday School Sparked Revival in Egypt’s Oldest Church, from Christianity Today.

“We have been blown away by their care for the next generation. It takes two years of training to even teach a kindergartener.”

2) Even the writer of Ecclesiastes knew that not everything is meaningless:

3) The Things That Count by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Now, dear, it isn’t the bold things,
Great deeds of valour and might,
That count the most in the summing up of life at the end of the day.
But it is the doing of old things,
Small acts that are just and right;
And doing them over and over again, no matter what others say;
In smiling at fate, when you want to cry, and in keeping at work when you want to play—
Dear, those are the things that count.
And, dear, it isn’t the new ways
Where the wonder-seekers crowd
That lead us into the land of content, or help us to find our own.
But it is keeping to true ways,
Though the music is not so loud,
And there may be many a shadowed spot where we journey along alone;
In flinging a prayer at the face of fear, and in changing into a song a groan—
Dear, these are the things that count.
My dear, it isn’t the loud part
Of creeds that are pleasing to God,
Not the chant of a prayer, or the hum of a hymn, or a jubilant shout or song.
But it is the beautiful proud part
Of walking with feet faith-shod;
And in loving, loving, loving through all, no matter how things go wrong;
In trusting ever, though dark the day, and in keeping your hope when the way seems long—
Dear, these are the things that count.

4) Texas Builder Dan Phillips Turns Trash into Treasure

5) Some lovely old (new-to-me) books in my library:

6) Some relatively new books look as if they might be good news:

The Penderwicks at Last by Jeanne Birdsall (Knopf, May 2018) is said to be the fifth and final book in the Penderwicks series, and I have it in my reading queue. I’ve read good things about the finale, and I’m looking forward to reuniting with the Penderwicks and friends.

“Golden Hill by Francis Spufford (Scribner, 2017) is set in 1746 New York, pop. 7,000. When a young, handsome man hops off a boat from London with a promissory note for 1,000 pounds—a fortune in those days—locals whisper and conspire: Who’s he? A spy? Royalty? Con man? What results is a well-researched, comical, lyrical, action-packed story of wit-sparring lovers, local politics, Shakespeare, and mysteries.” —World magazine reporter Sophia Lee

The Lola Quartet by Emily St. John Mandel. Recommended by Ann Bogel at Modern Mrs. Darcy.

The Black Widow (Gabriel Allon Series Book 16) by Daniel Silva is recommended by both Marvin Olasky and Ann Bogel, so maybe I should read the first fifteen books in this series of spy novels, or should I just jump into this latest and greatest one?

7) Today I want to tell those that I love: be careful what stories you tell yourself. Be kind to yourself. Expect kindness from others. Give other people the benefit of the doubt. Don’t assume evil motives or hidden hostility.
Above all, TRUST in God’s love and concern for the person He created and sustains in you. You truly are His, redeemed, bought with a price, forgiven, renewed, the apple of His eye.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.