Author Archives: rereadingourchildhood

Rereading Nancy Drew: The Secret of the Old Clock, with Sara Fitzgerald

(You can find this episode here.)

On the first episode of our third season, we discuss The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene, the first installment in the Nancy Drew series, with writer and editor Sara Fitzgerald. The Secret of the Old Clock was published in 1930 and significantly revised in 1959. As we discuss, Carolyn Keene didn’t really exist; the series was the brainchild of Edward Stratemeyer, who farmed the writing out to freelancers—in this case, Mildred Wirt Benson.

Mentioned on this episode:

Other Nancy Drew books:

The Secret of Red Gate Farm

The Hidden Staircase

The Nancy Drew Files series

Other Stratemeyers Syndicate series:

The Bobbsey Twins

The Hardy Boys

The Rover Boys

Also mentioned:

The Silenced Muse: Emily Hale, T. S. Eliot, and the Role of a Lifetime by Sara Fitzgerald

The Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling

We’re not told which aria from Tosca is playing in the famous singing teacher’s house, but here’s Maria Callas singing “Vissi d’Arte,” the best-known aria from the Puccini opera.

Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly

Teen romances by Betty Cavanna

James Patterson and his collaborators

The CW Nancy Drew series (trailer here)

The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Little House on the Prairie, the TV show (trailer here)

A 2-star Goodreads review by a reader named Michelle, whose favorite quote from the book is “Oh, why can’t all people be nice like this scenery and not make trouble?”

Agatha Christie’s mysteries

Ada Twist, Scientist, Rosie Revere, Engineer, and Sofia Valdez, Future Prez, by Andrea Beaty

The Ada Twist, Scientist TV series (trailer here)

The Trixie Belden series

Recommended by Sara:

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Cherry Ames, Camp Nurse by Helen Wells, and other Cherry Ames books

Recommended by Deborah:

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

Recommended by Mary Grace:

The Long Secret by Louise Fitzhugh

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms.

You can find Deborah at deborahkalb.com and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s at My Life 100 Years Ago. You can find out more about Sara’s books at sarafitzgerald.com

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes

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(You can listen to this episode here.)

On this episode, we discuss Esther Forbes’ Newbery Medal-winning 1943 novel Johnny Tremain, the story of an apprentice silversmith in Boston who gets caught up in the events leading up to the American Revolution.

Mentioned on this episode:

Other books by Esther Forbes:

Paul Revere and the World He Lived In (1942), winner of the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for History.

The General’s Lady (1938)

Miss Marvel (1935)

Also mentioned:

The 1957 Disney movie adaptation of Johnny Tremain (trailer here)

Gadsby’s Tavern, in Alexandria, Virginia, which was built in 1770 and is now a museum and restaurant. Mary Grace went there with her sixth-grade class.

The Biggest Bear by Lynd Ward, illustrator of Johnny Tremain, which won the Caldecott Medal in 1953.

The American Antiquarian Society, of which Esther Forbes was the first woman member

Redcoat in Boston by Ann Finlayson

Recommended for fans of Johnny Tremain:

Mary Grace: Answering the Cry for Freedom: Stories of African Americans and the American Revolution by Gretchen Wolfe. (Deborah interviewed the author on her blog, Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb.) Mary Grace also mentions that there are several picture books about Revolutionary-Era African American scientist Benjamin Banneker. These include Dear Benjamin Banneker by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Brian Pinkney.

Deborah: The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare (1958)

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes mentioned:

Rereading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Rereading The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms.

You can find Deborah at deborahkalb.com and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

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(You can listen to this episode here.)

On this episode, we reread Frances Hodgson Burnett’s beloved 1911 classic The Secret Garden, about Mary, a neglected girl who discovers a garden on her uncle’s Yorkshire estate that has been locked up for ten years. We discuss the magic of secret places and Hodgson’s surprising ties to the United States, including periods living in a Tennessee log cabin and in Washington, D.C.

Mentioned on this episode:

Other books by Burnett:

A Little Princess (originally published as Sara Crewe) (1905)

Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886)

Through One Administration (1881), an adult novel about politics and society in Washington, D.C.

Also mentioned:

The serialization of The Secret Garden in American Magazine beginning in November 1910

The 2020 film adaptation, with Colin Firth as Mary’s uncle (trailer here)

The 1987 Hallmark Hall of Fame adaptation, also featuring Colin Firth, this time as grown-up Colin (trailer here)

The 1949 film adaptation, starring Margaret O’Brien (trailer here)

Deborah’s recommendations for fans of The Secret Garden: A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett; Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë; Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier; The Secret Garden retellings on Goodreads, including The Painted Garden by Noel Streatfeild

Mary Grace’s recommendations for fans of The Secret Garden: Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. (There is a brief review of the book on the 1919 book list on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.)

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms.

You can find Deborah at deborahkalb.com and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading Little Town on the Prairie, with Judith Kalb

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(You can listen to this episode here.)

We were delighted to welcome our first guest, Judith Kalb, to talk about Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little Town on the Prairie (1941), the seventh book in the beloved Little House series. Judy is, in addition to being Deborah’s sister, a literature scholar and a lifelong Laura Ingalls Wilder fan.

Mentioned on this episode:

Other books in the Little House series:

Little House in the Big Woods (1932)

Little House on the Prairie (1935)

On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937)

The Long Winter (1940)

The First Four Years (posthumously published in 1971)

Also by Laura Ingalls Wilder:

Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography (written beginning in about 1930; published in 2014)

Also mentioned:

The Complete Poetical Works of Alfred Tennyson (This 1875 version, which says Tennyson’s Poems on the cover, matches the description of the Christmas present Laura finds hidden in her mother’s drawer.)

Stuart Little by E.B. White, illustrated by Garth Williams

Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, illustrated by Garth Williams

The Beautiful Snow: The Ingalls Family, the Railroads, and the Hard Winter of 1880-81 by Cindy Wilson

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

The TV adaptation of Little House on the Prairie. (Here’s the trailer for the remastered edition.)

Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated by Alison Arngrim

A post on Little Town on the Prairie on the website American Indians in Children’s Literature criticizing the

Mary Grace expressed surprise that the phrase “lunatic fringe,” used by Pa to describe Laura’s bangs, dated back to the 1800. It turns out that this phrase originally referred to women’s bangs. Theodore Roosevelt is credited with its first political use, in a 1913 speech.

Recommended for fans of Little Town on the Prairie:

Judith: The rest of the Little House series, especially These Happy Golden Years

Mary Grace: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, Two are Better Than One and Louly by Carol Ryrie Brink

Deborah: Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes:

Rereading Stuart Little by E.B. White

Rereading Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

Rereading Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms.

You can find Deborah at deborahkalb.com and Mary Grace at My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Our Favorite Children’s Books from 60 Years Ago

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(You can listen to this episode here.)

For our last episode of 2024, we talked about our favorite children’s books of 60 years ago, which we defined as 1964-1966—a great era for children’s books.

Here are our favorites, but it’s more fun if you listen to the episode first. Each of us picked five. We disqualified three books from the period that we’ve done episodes on, Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken, and The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander.

Mary Grace’s top five:

5. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

4. The Strange Light by James Reeves

3. Ismo by John Verney

2. The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander

1. The Long Secret by Louise Fitzhugh

Deborah’s top five:

5. The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill.

4. Apples Every Day by Grace Richardson

3. The Noonday Friends by Mary Stolz

2. Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell and Lillian Hoban

1. The Long Secret by Louise Fitzhugh

Honorable Mentions:

Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper

Nightbirds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken

The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L’Engle

Henry Reed’s Babysitting Service by Keith Robertson

Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang by Ian Fleming

Other episodes mentioned:

Rereading February’s Road by John Verney

Rereading A Wrinkle in TIme by Madeleine L’Engle

Rereading Henry Reed, Inc. by Keith Robertson

Our Favorite Children’s Books from Fifty Years Ago

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. You can listen to it on Buzzsprout here.

You can find Deborah’s author interviews at Bo oks Q&A by Deborah Kalb and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

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In this episode, we read Susan Cooper’s 1973 novel The Dark is Rising, which was a Newbery Honor Book. It’s the story of Will, a British boy who discovers on his eleventh birthday that he’s the last of the Old Ones, destined to fight against the forces of the Dark. It takes place over the period from the winter solstice to the twelfth day of Christmas, so it’s a great holiday season read. (If the whole “magical British boy/eleventh birthday” thing sounds familiar, Cooper is widely considered to have influenced J.K. Rowling.)

Mentioned on this episode:

Other books in the The Dark is Rising series:

Over Sea, Under Stone (1965)

Greenwitch (1974)

The Grey King (1975)

Silver on the Tree (1977)

Also by Susan Cooper:

Dawn of Fear

Also mentioned:

The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. Nesbit, which a woman reads to the children of Will’s village during a snowstorm.

The 2022 BBC radio adaption of The Dark is Rising, available here

The Seeker, the 2007 movie based in The Dark is Rising, trailer here

Kids’ reviews of The Dark is Rising at Common Sense Media

2020 Backlisted podcast episode on The Dark is Rising

2022 Backlisted podcast episode on Ballet Shoes

The Lost Land of Susan Cooper, Susan Cooper’s official website

Other episodes mentioned:

Rereading The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright

Rereading A W r inkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Rereading Half Magic by Edward Eager

Rereading The Owl Service by Alan Garner

Rereading Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

Rereading The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

Rereading Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken

Rereading February’s Road by John Verney

Rereading The Children of Green Knowe by L.M. Boston

Recommended for fans of The Dark is Rising: the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling, The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander, and Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken (Deborah); The Once and Future King by T.H. White and the Callendar family series, including Friday’s Tunnel and February’s Road, by John Verney.

You can find Deborah’s author interviews at Bo oks Q&A by Deborah Kalb and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars

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(We made it through our backlog! There’s another episode coming on Thursday, December 12. You can listen to this episode here.)

On this episode, we reread Betsy Byars’ The Summer of the Swans, which won the 1971 Newbery Medal. It’s an evocative story of a 14-year-old girl who’s preoccupied with her big feet and her puce sneakers until the disappearance of her younger brother, who has an intellectual disability, forces her to look beyond her own adolescent thoughts.

Mentioned on the podcast:

The 1970 Kirkus Review review of the book

1971 Newbery Honor Book Enchantress from the Starsby Sylvia Louise Engdahl

Another 1970 book about an adolescent girl’s search for identity that, in Mary Grace’s opinion, should have won the Newbery: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret?.

Two post-Sumer of the Swans movies whose titles make startling appearances in the book: Bull Durham and Thelma and Louise.

Byar’s 1980 National Book Award winner The Night Swimmers

Byars’ 2020 New York Times obituary

Children’s Books and Their Creators by Anita Silvey

The 1974 afterschool special, which has appearances by two kids from The Brady Bunch but little else to recommend it.

Recommended for fans of The Summer of the Swans: The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers (Mary Grace), M.C. Higgins, the Great by Virginia Hamilton and Flight of the Doves by Walter Macken (Deborah).

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms.

You can find Deborah’s author interviews on her blog, Books Q&A by Deborah Kalb, and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Secret Pitch by Donald J. Sobol

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(You can listen to this episode here.)

On the second annual Encyclopedia Brown episode, Mary Grace and Deborah match wits with America’s most brilliant boy detective, and with each other, in solving the cases in the series’ second installment, Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Secret Pitch.

Mentioned on the podcast:

Goodreads reviews of Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Secret Pitch

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes:

Rereading Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective

You can find Deborah’s author interviews on her blog, Books Q&A by Deborah Kalb, and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright

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(We’ve been publishing episodes regularly but have gotten behind on the website, so we’re catching up. This episode was published on October 31. You can listen to it here.)

On this episode, we reread Elizabeth Enright’s 1941 novel The Saturdays, about four children who pool their allowances and set out on adventures in New York.

Mentioned on the episode:

Other books in the Melendy family series:

The Four-Story Mistake (1942)

Then There Were Five (1944)

Spiderweb for Two (1951)

Also by Elizabeth Enright:

Thimble Summer (1938)

Gone-Away Lake (1957)

Return to Gone-Away (1961)

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes:

Rereading Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

Rereading Stuart Little by E.B. White

Rereading Henry Reed, Inc. by Keith Robertson

Rereading Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

Also mentioned:

Claude Debussy’s “Golliwog’s Cakewalk”

Under Two Flags by Ouida

Mary Grace’s blog post on children’s books from 1919, on which she talks about an illustrated edition of Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates with illustrations by Elizabeth Enright’s mother, Maginel Wright Enright.

Recommended for fans of The Saturdays: Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild and Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh (Mary Grace); All-of-a-Kind Family and its sequels by Sidney Taylor (Deborah).

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. You can listen to it on Buzzsprout here.

You can find Debby’s author interviews on her blog, Bo oks Q&A by Deborah Kalb, and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

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(We’ve been publishing episodes regularly but have gotten behind on the website, so we’re catching up. This episode was published on October 17. It was our Halloween episode but, with its colonial American setting, it makes a good Thanksgiving episode as well. You can listen to it here.)

In this episode, Mary Grace and Deborah discuss Elizabeth George Speare’s 1958 Newbery Medal winner The Witch of Blackbird Pond, about a girl, Kit, who’s struggling to fit in in a Puritan community in colonial Connecticut.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s 1953 play about the Salem witch trials, which was a commentary on McCarthyism.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Kit’s cousin Mercy has Beth-like qualities.

Kit’s childhood reading includes The Pilgrim’s Progress and The Tempest.

The Bronze Bow, Speare’s 1962 Newbery Medal winner about a Jewish boy living at the time of Christ who converts to Christianity.

Calico Captive, Speare’s first novel, published in 1957, based on a real-life story about a girl who was captured by Native Americans in 1794 and taken to Canada.

The Sign of the Beaver, Speare’s 1983 Newbery Honor book about a boy struggling to live on his own in eighteenth-century Maine.

Calico Bush, Rachel Lyman Field’s 1931 novel about a French girl who works as an indentured servant in colonial Maine.

Speare’s 1989 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award citation.

Commentary on thestorygraph.com by a contributor using the name books_n_pickles who talks about the “love hexagon” in the book.

Goodreads reviews of The Witch of Blackbird Pond.

Recommended for fans of The Witch of Blackbird Pond: Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes (Deborah), Nightbirds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken (Mary Grace).

Other episodes mentioned:

Rereading Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken

Rereading Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms.

You can find Deborah’s author interviews on her blog, Bo oks Q&A by Deborah Kalb, and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.