Category Archives: Young Adult

Rereading I’ll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip, with Nancy Hudgins

(You can listen to this episode here.)

Nancy Hudgins joins us to talk about I’ll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip, John Donavan’s groundbreaking 1969 novel about a romance between two thirteen-year-old boys. Nancy is the author of Books Good Enough for You, a children’s biography of legendary children’s book editor Ursula Nordstrom, who edited I’ll Get There.

Mentioned on this episode:

Nancy’s childhood favorites:

Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (an Ursula Nordstrom book)

The Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink

The House of Sixty Fathers by Meindert De Jong, illustrated by Maurice Sendak (an Ursula Nordstrom book)

More Ursula Nordstrom books:

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

It’s Like This, Cat by Emily Neville

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

William’s Doll by Charlotte Zolatow

Stevie by John Steptoe

The Secret Language by Ursula Nordstrom

Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik, illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Freaky Friday and A Billion for Boris by Mary Rodgers

In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak. (You can read an excerpt from Books Good Enough for You about In the Night Kitchen, published in Publisher’s Weekly, here.)

Also mentioned:

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

Time magazine’s 2021 list of the top 100 young adult books of all time, which includes I’ll Get There

2009 Publisher’s Weekly article about the 40th anniversary reissue of I’ll Get There

2014 Los Angeles Review of Books article by Rumaan Alam about I’ll Get There

Born Free (movie trailer here)

The audiobook of Books Good Enough for You, narrated by Barbara Rosenblatt

Recommended for fans of I’ll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip:

Nancy: Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden; A High Five for Glenn Burke by Phil Bildner

Deborah: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger; Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

Mary Grace: Bertram Cope’s Year by Henry Blake Fuller

Recommended Ursula Nordstrom books:

Nancy: All sixteen books discussed in Books Good Enough for You, especially A Hole is to Dig by Ruth Krauss

Deborah: Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh; Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

Mary Grace: Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes mentioned: Rereading Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink; Rereading Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White; Rereading Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh; Rereading Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers

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

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

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading Deenie by Judy Blume, with Alex Poppe

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(You can listen to this episode here.)

Writer Alex Poppe joins us to talk about Deenie, Judy Blume’s 1973 novel about a girl, pigeonholed as the pretty one in her family, whose life is thrown off track when she’s diagnosed with scoliosis. Alex is the author most recently of the memoir Breakfast Wine.

Other books by Judy Blume:

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo

Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great

Forever

Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing

Then Again, Maybe I Won’t

It’s Not the End of the World

Blubber (this is the book Alex couldn’t remember the name of)

In the Unlikely Event (this is the adult novel we couldn’t remember the name of)

Also mentioned:

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, the 2023 movie (trailer here)

Judy Blume: A Life by Mark Oppenheimer

New Yorker review of Judy Blume: A Life by Katy Waldman

Otherwise Known as Judy the Great by Selina Alko, children’s biography of Judy Blume

Michigan Daily article about Deenie by Rebecca Smith, a student with scoliosis

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Recommended for fans of Deenie:

Alex: Fight Night by Miriam Toews; “The River Nemanus,” a short story by Anthony Doerr from the collection Memory Wall

Mary Grace: Karen and With Love from Karen by Marie Killilea (MG)

Deborah: Braced by Alison Gerber

Previous podcast episode:

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

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

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

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Rereading The Young Unicorns by Madeleine L’Engle

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(You can listen to this episode here.)

For this episode, we reread Madeleine L’Engle’s 1968 novel The Young Unicorns, the third book in the Austin family series. We discussed 1960s New York, racial representation, family musical evenings, and how absolutely bonkers this book is.

Mentioned on this episode:

Other books by L’Engle:

A Wrinkle in Time (1962)

Meet the A ustins (1960)

The Moon by Night (1963)

A Ring of Endless Light (1980)

Troubling a Star (1994)

A Severed Wasp (1983)

New York Times review of The Young Unicorns by Maia Wojciechowka

Blog posts on The Young Unicorns on Pickle Me This (this is the one where the writer thinks L’Engle wrote Dave as a Black character) and Lady Fancifull

Article on The Young Unicorns by Mari Ness on Reactor

2004 New Yorker article about Madeleine L’Engle

New York Times article on race in the Wuthering Heights movie (gift link)

Other episodes:

Rereading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

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.

Rereading M.C. Higgins, The Great by Virginia Hamilton

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(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

Our Favorite Children’s Books from 50 Years Ago

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(You can listen to this episode here.)

Mary Grace and Deborah ring in 2024 with a special episode where they count down their five favorite books from 50 years ago, defined as published between 1972 and 1974. They (mostly) didn’t reread these books for the episode, so their choices are based on their childhood memories.

As Mary Grace mentions, the format was inspired by the Book Riot podcast, which has done a number of similar countdowns, including a fun episode on the top bookish phenomena of the past 25 years.

Here are Deborah’s and Mary Grace’s favorites–but we suggest that you listen to the episode before looking at the list!

Deborah’s Favorites

5. Nobody’s Family is Going to Change by Louise Fitzhugh
4. A Billion for Boris by Mary Rodgers
3. Victoria by Barbara Brooks Wallace
2. The Genie of Sutton Place by George Selden
1. A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver by E.L. Konigsburg

Mary Grace’s Favorites

5. A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle
4. Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! by M.E. Kerr
3. Glory in the Flower by Norma Johnston
2. A Billion for Boris by Mary Rodgers
1. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

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 Owl Service by Alan Garner

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You can listen to this episode here.

In this episode, Mary Grace and Deborah reread Alan Garner’s Carnegie Medal-winning 1967 novel The Owl Service, which tells the story of three teenagers, Alison, Gwyn, and Roger, who find themselves reliving a Welsh legend of love and betrayal. Word to the wise: read it, but not right before bed like Mary Grace did!

The Owl Service has had many editions, and many covers, over the years. Here’s the first-edition cover.

Here’s the current edition that Mary Grace and Deborah read this time around, except it’s much cooler-looking in real life because what looks orange in the photo is actually a shiny copper color.

Here’s a cheesy horror movie-style cover:

And another one:

Here’s a 2021 Guardian profile of Garner.

Mary Grace recommends Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain series and Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series for fans of The Owl Service.

At the beginning of the book, Alison becomes obsessed with a set of dinner plates with pictures of owls or flowers, depending on how you look at them. As Mary Grace mentions, the plates in the book were inspired by a real-life set that Garner saw at someone’s house. She rashly promised to put a photo of the plates on the website, but it turns out that it’s copyrighted. You can see it at the Bodleian Librarie s ‘ Facebook page.

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.