Author Archives: rereadingourchildhood

Rereading The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright

(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

Leave a reply

(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.

Rereading The Hotel Cat by Esther Averill

Leave a reply

(We’ve been publishing episodes regularly but have gotten behind on the website, so we’re playing catch-up. This episode was published on October 3. You can listen to it here,)

On this episode, Deborah (a cat person) rereads, and Mary Grace (not a cat person) reads, The Hotel Cat (1969), a late entry in Esther Averill’s long Cat Club series. You can listen to this episode here.

Other books in the Cat Club series:

The Cat Club (1944)

Jenny Goes to Sea (1957)

The Fire Cat (1960)

Other podcast episodes:

Rereading Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

Rereading Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary

Rereading Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers

Rereading Stuart Little by E.B. White

Also mentioned:

The Flophouse podcast, Episode #302 – Cats

Lost Ladies of Lit podcast, transcript of Episode 64, Much Better than CATS — Esther Averill’s Jenny and the Cat Club

Celebrating Children’s Book Week–and a Pioneering Librarian, on Mary Grace’s blog, My Life 100 Years Ago

Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, edited by Leonard Marcus

The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden

Recommended for fans of The Hotel Cat: Stuart Little by E.B. White and Eloise by Kay Thompson (Mary Grace), other books in the Cat Club series (Deborah)

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 M.C. Higgins, The Great by Virginia Hamilton

Leave a reply

(You can listen to this episode here.)

On this episode, Mary Grace and Deborah read Virginia Hamilton’s 1974 novel M.C. Higgins the Great, about a teenaged boy in Appalachia whose life is turned upside down when two strangers come to town. Hamilton won the Newbery Medal for the book; she was the first African American to win the award.

Mentioned on the episode:

Also by Virginia Hamilton:

Zeely (1967)

The House of Dies Drear (1968)

The Planet of Junior Brown (1971)

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes:

Rereading Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E.L. Konigsburg

Rereading The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Rereading The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Also mentioned:

Children’s Books and their Creators, edited by Anita Silvey

Goodreads reviews of M.C. Higgins the Great

Dicey’s Song by Cynthia Voigt

Recommended for fans of M.C. Higgins, the Great: other books by Virginia Hamilton (Deborah), Where the Lilies Bloom by Vera and Bill Cleary (Mary Grace)

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.

Podcast website at rereadingourchildhood.com

Rereading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Leave a reply

(You can listen to this episode here.)

On this episode, Deborah rereads, and Mary Grace reads, a book that needs no introduction: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, also known as The Wizard of Oz. They discuss weird sequels, the history of sunglasses, the monoculture, and, of course, the movie.

Mentioned on the episode:

Also by L. Frank Baum:

The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918)

Father Goose, His Book (1899)

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes:

Rereading Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken

Rereading Half Magic by Edward Eager

Also mentioned:

The Wizard of Oz, the movie. You can see the original trailer, which is fascinating (though blurry), with lots of talk about the book, here.

The Wiz, the adaptation starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. You can see the trailer here.

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire.

Recommended for fans of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz:

Mary Grace: Half Magic and other books by Edward Eager.

Deborah: Other books in the Oz series, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander.

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.

Rereading Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken

Leave a reply

(You can listen to this episode here.)

Mary Grace and Deborah commemorate the 100th anniversary of British author Joan Aiken’s birth by reading Black Hearts in Battersea, the second in her Wolves Chronicles series, featuring resourceful orphans and sinister plots in an alt-history version of nineteenth-century London.

(Note: Mary Grace thought for fifty years that Dido Twite’s first name was pronounced DEE-doh rather than DIE-doh, and she slips back to this pronunciation a few times.)

Mentioned on the episode:

Other books in the Wolves Chronicles series:

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

Nightbirds on Nantucket

Other books by Joan Aiken:

Jane Fairfax

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes:

Rereading February’s Road by John Verney

Rereading The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) by Ellen Raskin

Rereading Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers

Rereading Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary

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

Rereading The Owl Service by Alan Garner

Rereading The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

Also mentioned:

The Shortest History of England by James Hawes

Post on Black Hearts in Battersea on the blog A Son of the Rock (question King James’s Scottish accent)

“What’s Your 1918 Girl Job? A Quiz,” post on Mary Grace’s blog My Life 100 Years Ago that mentions Jane Fairfax. (Jane Fairfax also comes up on another post, “Jane Austen’s Life 100 Years Ago.”)

“Writing Without Limits: Joan Aiken’s The Wolves of Willoughby Chase Series,” Albion Magazine Online (discusses Aiken taking time to settle on a main character for the series)

The best and worst of April 1918: Magazines, stories, faint praise, and neologisms (Mary Grace’s blog post that mentions Conrad Aiken)

A well-known letter from T.S. Eliot to Conrad Aiken is quoted here.

The Practical Magic of Joan Aiken, the Greatest Children’s Writer You’ve Likely Never Read (The New Yorker)*

Blog on Joan Aiken by her daughter Lizza Aiken

Blog post by Lizza Aiken about Aiken’s partnership with illustrator Pat Marriot

Locus Magazine interview with Aiken in which she discusses The Chronicles of Narnia and the BBC adaptation of Black Hearts in Battersea

Suggested reading for fans of Black Hearts in Battersea: Other books in the series (Deborah), The Book of Three and its sequels (Mary Grace)

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.

*Mary Grace took offense at this headline.

Rereading Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary

Leave a reply

(You can listen to this episode here.)

Deborah and Mary Grace discuss Beverly Cleary’s 1968 classic Ramona the Pest. This was the first book starring Ramona, who appeared in Cleary’s earlier books as Beezus’s annoying little sister before going on to become Cleary’s most beloved character.

Mentioned in this episode:

Other books by Beverly Cleary:

Ellen Tebbits (1951)

Henry Huggins (1950)

Henry and Beezus (1952)

Mitch and Amy (1967)

Dear Mr. Henshaw (1983, winner of the 1984 Newbery Medal)

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes:

Rereading “B” is for Betsy

Rereading A Wrinkle in Time

Rereading Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

Rereading Pippi Longstocking

Rereading Anne of Green Gables

Adaptations of the Ramona books:

Ramona and Beezus, 2010 movie

Ramona, 1988-89 Canadian TV series

Also mentioned:

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton (1939)

“Stereotypes in Beverly Cleary’s HENRY HUGGINS” on the blog American Indians in Children’s Literature, February 24, 2023

Beverly Cleary’s New York Times obituary, March 27, 2021

Madeleine L’Engle’s Austin Family series

Deborah Kalb’s The President and Me series

Recommended for Ramona fans: Anne of Green Gables (Mary Grace), The Mouse and the Motorcycle and other books by Cleary (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, 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 Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) by Ellen Raskin

Leave a reply

(You can listen to this episode here.)

Mary Grace and Deborah discuss Ellen Raskin’s 1971 mystery romp, The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel), about a woman’s decades-long search for her husband, whom she married as a child. (It’s a long story.) The book is full of word games, puzzles, and creative illustrations by Raskin, who was also a graphic artist.

Other books by Ellen Raskin:

Nothing Ever Happens on My Block (1967). This picture book, a childhood favorite of Mary Grace’s, was the first book Raskin wrote after illustrating many children’s books written by others.

Figgs and Phantoms (1974), a 1975 Newbery Honor Book.

The Westing Game (1978), winner of the 1979 Newbery Medal.

Also mentioned:

Raskin’s obituary in the New York Times (August 10, 1984).

A 2023 article in Allure about whether eating chocolate is bad for your skin.

The 2012 School Library Journal poll about the best children’s novels of all time, with The Westing Game at #9.

The Goodreads reviews of The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel) (highlight: Jeremy’s.)

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes mentioned on this episode:

Rereading February’s Road by John Verney

Rereading Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

Rereading Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers

Rereading Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry

Rereading A Wrinkle in TIme by Madeleine L’Engle

Rereading Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective by Donald Sobol

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.

Rereading Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry

Leave a reply

(You can listen to this episode here.)

Mary Grace and Deborah discuss Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry’s classic 1947 novel about Misty and her mother Phantom, wild ponies from the island of Assateague, and Paul and Maureen, a brother and sister from the neighboring island of Chincoteague who long to own them.

Other books by Henry:

Stormy, Misty’s Foal (1963)

Justin Morgan Had a Horse (1945), a Newbery Honor Book

King of the Wind (1948), winner of the 1949 Newbery Medal

Sea Star, Orphan of Chincoteague (1949)

Misty’s Twilight (1992)

Also mentioned on the podcast:

The life of Thomas Downing, the proprietor of the famous 19th-century restaurant Downing’s Oyster House, is discussed in “Going Deep into Oyster Country,” New York Times, December 3, 2021. Downing, who was African American, grew up in the Chincoteague community.

Recommended for fans of Misty of Chincoteague:

Mary Grace: Homecoming (1981) and Dicey’s Song (1982) by Cynthia Voight. These stories and later books in the series tell the story of Dicey and her siblings, who make their way to their grandmother’s home on Maryland’s Eastern Shore after their mother abandons them at a shopping mall in Connecticut. Dicey’s Song won the 1983 Newbery Medal.

Deborah: Stormy, Misty’s Foal (1963) and Sea Star, Orphan of Chincoteague (1949) by Marguerite Henry (1963). Misty appears in both books.

An obituary of Maureen Beebe, the real-life model for Maureen in the story, appeared in delmarvanow.com in May 2019.

You can learn more about the real-life Misty in “The True Story of Misty of Chincoteague, the Pony Who Stared Down a Devastating Nor’Easter,” Smithsonian Magazine, October 16, 2018. According to this story, the account in Misty of Chincoteague of the original Chincoteague ponies escaping to the island from a shipwreck is just a legend; more likely, they had been owned by 17th-century settlers.

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.

Rereading The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

Leave a reply

(You can listen to this episode here.)

Mary Grace and Deborah discuss The Book of Three (1964), the first book in Lloyd Alexander’s five-book series The Chronicles of Prydain. Loosely based on Welsh mythology, the book chronicles the adventures of Taran, assistant pig-keeper to the oracular pig Hen Wen; Eilonwy, a strong-minded princess; and an entertaining cast of travel companions.

Other books in the series:

The Black Cauldron (1965), a Newbery Honor Book

The Castle of Llyr (1966)

Tara n Wanderer (1967)

The High King (1968), winner of the 1969 Newbery Medal

Other books by Lloyd Alexander:

Time Cat (1963). (Deborah discussed Time Cat on a blog post on her favorite children’s books featuring time travel.)

And Let t he Credit Go (1955), Alexander’s first novel, based on his experience working in a bank

Janine is French (1960)

The Wizard in the Tree (1974)

Park Avenue Vet (1960)

Fifty Years in the Doghouse (1964)

The King’s Fountain (1971), illustrated by Ezra Jack Keats

Also mentioned on the episode:

A 2012 School Library Journal poll on the best children’s novels, with The Book of Three at #18 and The High King at #68

Sam, Banks, and Moonshine, the Caldecott Medal-winning picture book by Evaline Ness, who illustrated the covers for the original editions of the Prydain Chronicles

Trailer of the Disney movie The Black Cauldron, based on The Book of Three and The Black Cauldron

2010 Slate article on the movie The Black Cauldron

Recommended for fans of The Book of Three:

Deborah: A Wrinkle in Time (discussed on a previous episode), The Phantom Tollbooth (discussed on a previous episode)

Mary Grace: The Owl Service (discussed on a previous episode), The Dark is Rising series

Mary Grace found a fellow The Book of Three fan at The English Bookshop, a wonderful bookstore in Uppsala, Sweden.

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.