Tag Archives: animal books

Rereading The Hotel Cat by Esther Averill

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(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 Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry

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(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, 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.