Tag Archives: children’s literature

Rereading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

(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 SpotifyApple 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 Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken

(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 SpotifyApple 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.

*Mary Grace took offense at this headline.

Rereading Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

(You can listen to this episode here.)

Deborah and Mary Grace discuss Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery’s beloved tale of a strong-willed and imaginative orphan who goes to live with a pair of middle-aged siblings on Prince Edward Island.

Other books in the series:

Anne of Avonlea

Anne of the Island

Anne of Windy Poplars

Anne’s House of Dreams

Anne of Ingleside

The recently published book of stories Deborah mentions is The Blythes are Quoted.

Also mentioned on the episode:

Mary Grace read Anne of Green Gables during her year of reading as if she were living in 1918 and reviewed it here. It’s #37 on the list.

Anne is a prodigious reader. Here are some of the books and poems that she reads:

“Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight” by Rose Hartwick Thorpe

“The Lady of Shallot” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Mary Grace misquotes the poem, saying “The mirror crack’d from side to side/the DOOM has come upon me, cried/The Lady of Shallot,” instead of “the CURSE has come upon me,” repeating a misquotation by a character in Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d.

Ben Hur by Lew Wallace

“Marmion” by Sir Walter Scott

Mary Grace mentions the attractive Word Cloud Classics edition of Anne of Green Gables, which she read in 2018. Alas, the print was too small this time around, so she read it on her Kindle.

You can see the original illustrations by William and Mary Claus, which neither Deborah nor Mary Grace are a fan of, in this scanned copy on HathiTrust.

“Suicide Secret of Anne of Green Gables Author,” The Guardian, September 23, 2008.

Trailer for Netflix series Anne With an E

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Recommended by Mary Grace for fans of Anne of Green Gables: Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

Recommended by Deborah for fans of Anne of Green Gables: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin, Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

“Bosom Friends: Lesbian Desire in L. M. Montgomery’s Anne Books,” Laura Robinson, Canadian Literature, Spring 2004

“A Visual History of Romantic Friendship,” The Marginalian

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