(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.