Tag Archives: Virginia

cover of Gone Wolf by Amber McBride, girl's phase in black with hands in white covering eyes

Rereading Gone Wolf by Amber McBride, with Keiana Mayfield

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(You can listen to this episode here.)

Keiana Mayfield, an assistant professor of social work at George Mason University and the Diversity in KidLit Advocate for East City Book Shop in Washington, D.C., joined us to discuss Gone Wolf by Amber McBride, which was published in 2023. Gone Wolf is the story of two girls named Imogen, one in a future racist dystopia and one in current-day Charlottesville, Virginia. We also talked about reading diversely: what it means, why it matters, what the publishing industry is doing well, and what it could be doing better.

Discussed in this episode:

Other books by Amber McBride:

The Leaving Room (Deborah’s interview with McBride about this book is here.)

Onyx and Beyond

Also mentioned.

East City Book Shop in Washington, D.C., where Keiana hosts the W(h)ine and Angst book club for adults and several book clubs for children

The Xenogenesis series by Octavia Butler, including Book 3, Imago

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Interviews with Amber McBride in Publisher’s Weekly and Virginia Living

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

We Need Diverse Books, an organization promoting diversity in children’s literature

About the B’Nai Bagels by E.L. Konigsberg

Recommended for fans of Gone Wolf:

Keiana: The Last Cuentista by Donna Barbra Higuera, winner of the 2022 Newbery Medal; Candace, The Universe, and Everything by Sherri L. Smith; Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga; The Extraordinary Orbit of Alex Ramirez by Jasminne Paolino

Deborah: Candace, The Universe, and Everything by Sherri L. Smith (seconding Keiana’s recommendation; Deborah’s interview with Smith about this book is here); other books by Amber McBride

Other recommendations from Keiana: Rainbow Shopping by Qing Zhuang; The Village Beyond the Mist by Sachiko Kashiwaba; How to Walk a Dog by Joanne Levy

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes mentioned:

Rereading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Rereading From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsberg

Our Favorite Picture Books

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

You can find Keiana at keianamayfield.com, Deborah at deborahkalb.com Mary Grace at 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.