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Revisiting the children's books that made us who we are today
40 Episodes
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On this episode, we reread Frances Hodgson Burnett's beloved 1911 classic The Secret Garden, about Mary, a neglected girl who discovers a garden on her uncle's Yorkshire estate that has been locked up for ten years. We discuss the magic of secret places and Hodgson's surprising ties to the United States, including periods living in a Tennessee log cabin and in Washington, D.C. Mentioned on this episode: Other books by Burnett: A Little Princess(originally published as Sara Crewe) (1905) Littl...
We were delighted to welcome our first guest, Judith Kalb, to talk about Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Town on the Prairie (1941), the seventh book in the beloved Little House series. Judy is, in addition to being Deborah's sister, a literature scholar and a lifelong Laura Ingalls Wilder fan. Mentioned on this episode: Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography, by Laura Ingalls Wilder The Complete Poetical Works of Alfred Tennyson Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web by E.B. White Th...
On this episode, we read Susan Cooper's 1973 novel The Dark is Rising, which was a Newbery Honor Book. It's the story of Will, a British boy who discovers on his eleventh birthday that he's the last of the Old Ones, destined to fight against the forces of the Dark. It takes place over the period from the winter solstice to the 12th day of Christmas, so it's a great December read. (If the whole "British boy/eleventh birthday" thing sounds familiar, Cooper is considered by many to have influenc...
On this episode, we reread Betsy Byars' The Summer of the Swans, which won the 1971 Newbery Medal. It's an evocative story of a 14-year-old girl who's preoccupied with her big feet and her puce sneakers until the disappearance of her younger brother, who has an intellectual disability, forces her to look beyond her own adolescent thoughts. Mentioned on the podcast: The 1970 Kirkus Review review of the book 1971 Newbery Honor Book Enchantress from the Starsby Sylvia Louise Engdahl ...
On the second annual Encyclopedia Brown episode, Mary Grace and Deborah match wits with America’s most brilliant boy detective, and with each other, in solving the cases in the series’ second installment, Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Secret Pitch. Mentioned on the podcast: Goodreads reviews of Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Secret Pitch Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes: Rereading Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective You can find Deborah’s author interviews on her blog, Bo...
On this episode, we reread Elizabeth Enright's 1941 novel The Saturdays, about four children who pool their allowances and set out on solo adventures in New York. Mentioned on the episode: Other books in the Melendy family series: The Four-Story Mistake (1942) Then There Were Five (1944) Spiderweb for Two (1951) Also by Elizabeth Enright: Thimble Summer (1938) Gone-Away Lake (1957) Return to Gone-Away (1961) Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes: Rereading Harriet the Spy by Loui...
Mary Grace and Deborah discuss Elizabeth George Speare’s 1958 Newbery Medal winner The Witch of Blackbird Pond, about a girl, Kit, who’s struggling to fit in in a Puritan community in colonial Connecticut. Mentioned in this episode: The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s 1953 play about the Salem witch trials. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Kit’s childhood reading includes The Pilgrim’s Progress and The Tempest. The Bronze Bow, Speare’s 1962 Newbery winner about a Jewish boy living at the time of ...
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. 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,...
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 e...
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 ...
Mary Grace and Deborah commemorate the 100th anniversary of 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. Mentioned on the episode: Other books by Aiken: The Wolves of Willoughby Chase Nightbirds on Nantucket Jane Fairfax Also mentioned: The Shortest History of England by James Hawes Post on the blog A Son of the Rock questioning King ...
Deborah and Mary Grace discuss Beverly Cleary's 1968 classic Ramona the Pest. This was the first book starring Ramona, who appeared in Cleary's earlier books as Beezus's annoying little sister before going on to become Cleary's most beloved character. Mentioned in this episode: Other books by Beverly Cleary: Ellen Tebbits (1951) Henry Huggins (1950) Henry and Beezus (1952) Mitch and Amy (1967) Dear Mr. Henshaw (1983, winner of the 1984 Newbery Medal) Other Rereading Our Childhood episod...
Mary Grace and Deborah discuss Ellen Raskin’s 1971 mystery romp, The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel), about a woman’s decades-long search for her husband, whom she married as a child. (It’s a long story.) The book is full of word games, puzzles, and creative illustrations by Raskin, who was also a graphic artist. Other books by Ellen Raskin: Nothing Ever Happens on My Block (1967). This picture book, a childhood favorite of Mary Grace’s, was the first book Raskin wrote after il...
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) Mi...
Mary Grace and Deborah discuss The Book of Three (1964) by Lloyd Alexander. Other books in the series: The Black Cauldron (1965) The Castle of Llyr (1966) Taran Wanderer (1967) The High King (1968) Other books by Alexander: Time Cat (1963), discussed by Deborah on a blog post And Let the Credit Go (1955) Janine is French (1960) The Wizard in the Tree (1974) Park Avenue Vet (1960) Fifty Years in the Doghouse (1964) The King's Fountain (1971) Also mentioned: A 2012 School Library Journal poll...
Deborah and Mary Grace discuss Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery's beloved 1908 tale of a strong-willed and imaginative orphan. 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 Blythes are Quoted (short stories) Also mentioned: Some books and poems that Anne reads: "Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight" by Rose Hartwick Thorpe "The Lady of Shallot" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson Ben Hur by Lew Wallace "Marmion" by Sir...
Mary Grace introduces Deborah to John Verney’s 1961 novel February’s Road. Other books by Verney: Friday’s Tunnel (1959) Ismo (1964) Seven Sunflower Seeds (1968) Samson’s Hoard (1973) Going to the Wars (1955) A Dinner of Herbs (1966) Also mentioned: The Arm of the Starfish (1965) by Madeleine L’Engle, Verney’s illustrations. A post on the blog Clothes in Books. The illustrations of Edward Ardizzone. An obituary of Verney in The Independent. A post on the Farnham Trust’s website about Ve...
Deborah and Mary Grace reread Stuart Little, E.B. White's 1945 classic about the adventures of a New York boy who looks exactly like a mouse. They discuss their early memories of reading Stuart Little (or, in Mary Grace's case, having her mom read it to her), Garth Williams' wonderful illustrations, and pioneering children's librarian Annie Carroll Moore's vehement opposition to the book. Mentioned on this episode: Charlotte's Web by E.B. White The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. Whi...
On this episode, Mary Grace and Deborah discuss The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster's 1961 classic about Milo, a boy who's bored with life until a mysterious tollbooth takes him and his electric car to The Lands Beyond, where he meets the warring kings of Dictionopolis and Digitopolis and many other memorable characters. Jules Feiffer's numerous illustrations are as important a part of the story as the text. This is the last episode of our first season. We'll be back in May. Mentioned...
Mary Grace and Deborah discuss The Egypt Game, Zilpha Keatley Snyder's 1967 Newbery Honor Book about a group of children who create an elaborate game based on ancient Egypt. Mentioned on this episode: The Egypt Game: A Second Look, The Horn Book The Kirkus Review review of The Egypt Game A 2011 post on the website Banned Reads Project featuring three teenagers' perspectives on The Egypt Game The ACLU’s list of The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 The Was...
On this episode, Deborah and Mary Grace discuss Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint, published in 1956. In the first book of the popular series, Danny discovers a secret rocket project and, oops, accidentally launches the rocket into space. Discussed in this episode: A 2023 New Yorker article about Danny Dunn Other books in the series: Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine Danny Dunn and the Fossil Cave As Deborah mentions, Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint was illustrated by Ezra J...
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 Debora...
Mary Grace and Deborah discuss Pippi Longstocking, Astrid Lindgren's 1945 classic (published in English in 1950) about an anarchic Swedish girl. They discuss their love for the book as children, their mixed feelings on rereading it, and Pippi as a feminist icon. Mary Grace, who spent a month in Sweden earlier this year, talks about Lindgren's legendary status in Sweden, where she's literally on the money. Discussed on this episode: The BBC News survey on the 100 greatest children'...
Mary Grace and Deborah discuss Edward Eager's Half Magic, the first of Eager's seven books of magical adventures. Four bored siblings living in a Midwestern city in the 1920s find a magic amulet...except it only grants half of what you wish for. We talk about what has and hasn't held up in the six decades since Half Magic was published, about Eager's life, and about the real (and extremely inappropriate) silent movie they go to. Mentioned on this episode: Barbara, the inappropriate movie, r...
Deborah and Mary Grace read Carol Ryrie Brink's 1935 Newbery Medal winner Caddie Woodlawn, which is based on Brink's grandmother's childhood adventures on the Wisconsin frontier. Mentioned on this episode: Caddie Woodlawn's Family by Carol Ryrie Brink (previously titled Magical Melons) (1939) Two Are Better Than One by Carol Ryrie Brink (1968) Louly by Carol Ryrie Brink (1974) Mary Grace mentioned what she thought were two different blog posts on a website about portrayals of American I...
Mary Grace and Deborah reread one of their childhood favorites, Mary Rodgers' 1972 mother-daughter body-switching story Freaky Friday. They also discuss Rodger's posthumous 2022 memoir Shy, which was a New York Times Notable Book. Mentioned on this episode:The intro to the PBS show Mystery!, with animation based on illustrations by Edward Gorey. A Billion for Boris, the sequel to Freaky Friday, which Mary Grace and Deborah both enjoyed as children. Summer Switch by Mary Rodgers, in which...
Deborah and Mary Grace celebrate Halloween by reading two books about witches, Little Witch by Anna Elizabeth Bennett, published in 1953, and The Little Leftover Witch by Florence Laughlin, published in 1960. Both books are about lonely little witches who find homes with non-magical families. Other witch-related books mentioned on the episode: The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare (1958) The Active Enzyme Lemon-Freshened, Junior High School Witch by E. W. Hildick (1973) ...
Mary Grace and Deborah reread Madeleine L'Engle's 1962 classic A Wrinkle in TIme, about...well, it's hard to describe what it's about. A troubled girl. A missing father. A genius brother. Three mysterious women. Interplanetary adventure. An evil, throbbing brain. None of this does justice to a book that two science fiction-hating girls ended up loving, and that their grown-up selves had a wonderful time returning to. Discussed on this episode: Listening for Madeleine, Leonard Marcus's ...
Deborah and Mary Grace read John D. Fitzgerald’s 1967* novel The Great Brain, the first book in the series featuring John, the narrator, and his older brother Tom, the eponymous Great Brain, who wreaks havoc on their late 19th-century Utah town with his devious moneymaking ventures. Mentioned on this episode: The Amazon review that gives parents a heads-up about disturbing content in the book. Mary Grace recommends the Encyclopedia Brown books, featured on a previous episode, for fans of...
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 that plays out over every generation. Discussed on this episode: 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. The real-life di...
Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective, which was published in 1963, is the first of Donald J. Sobol’s 29-book series featuring Encyclopedia, the boy detective who always gets his man (or boy, or girl). The solution to each crime is revealed at the end of the book. In this episode, Deborah and Mary Grace match wits with Encyclopedia, and with each other, in identifying the culprits. Discussed on this episode: The full Encyclopedia Brown series on Goodreads. Two-Minute Mysteries, a collection of ...
Mary Grace and Deborah celebrate the beginning of a new school year by rereading "B" is for Betsy,, Carolyn Haywood's 1939 novel about a little girl navigating the complicated world of first grade. It was the first in a long series of books about Betsy and her friends. Mentioned on this episode: The twelve books in the Betsy series, on Goodreads Haywood's Eddie series, on Goodreads Haywood's Penny series, on Goodreads Mary Grace's blog page where she discusses Dorothy ...
Deborah and Mary Grace discuss Ballet Shoes, Noel Streatfeild's classic 1936 story of a trio of adopted sisters, Pauline, Petrova, and Posy, who attend a school for professional children in the performing arts in London. Ballet Shoes is the first in what became a series of "Shoes" books about children working in the theater, the circus, etc. Mentioned on this episode: Plays that the girls perform in: The Blue Bird, by Maurice Maeterlinck (a large chunk of which, weirdly, appears in the t...
Oops! Mary Grace made a mockery of the show title by picking a book that it turns out she probably didn't read as a child. What she (and Deborah) actually did read was The RIVER at Green Knowe. Nevertheless, they had a great time discussing The Children of Green Knowe, the first book in the series, which is about a boy named Tolly who goes to live with his great-grandmother in a mansion haunted by seventeenth-century children. Mentioned on this episode: The Amazon review that Mar...
Mary Grace and Deborah discuss Harriet the Spy, Louise Fitzhugh’s 1964 classic about an 11-year-old would-be writer, her spying career, and her interactions with her nanny, her classmates, and her parents. Discussed on this episode: Other books in the series: The Long Secret (1965) Sport (1979, published posthumously) Other books by Fitzhugh: Suzuki Beane, a parody of Eloise, written by Sandra Scoppettone and illustrated by Fitzhugh. Nobody’s Family Is Going to Change (1974). De...
Mary Grace and Deborah discuss Henry Reed, Inc., Keith Robertson's 1958 novel about a boy who starts a research business while spending the summer with his aunt and uncle in a small town near Princeton, New Jersey. This is the first in a five-book series about the adventures of Henry and his friend Midge. Other books in the series: Henry Reed's Journey (1963) Henry Reed's Baby-Sitting Service (1966) Henry Reed's Big Show (1970) Henry Reed's Think Tank (1986) As Mary Grace mentions...
Deborah and Mary Grace reread Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, E.L. Konigsburg’s 1967 debut novel. You can listen to this episode here. Discussed on this episode: Other books by E.L. Konigsburg: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Konigsburg’s Newbery Medal winner about a brother and sister who run away to the Metropolitan Museum. (George) A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver About the B’nai Bagels A Smithsonian Magazine article commemor...
On the first episode, Mary Grace and Deborah revisit Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, Judy Blume's 1970 classic of adolescence. Mentioned on the podcast: Other books by Judy Blume: Then Again, Maybe I Won’t, the boy equivalent of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great, the first two books in the popular Fudge series It’s Not the End of the World, the story of a girl whose parents are divorcing Forever, the much-banne...
On this episode, we discuss Esther Forbes's Newbery Medal-winning 1943 novel Johnny Tremain, the story of an apprentice silversmith in Boston who gets caught up in the events leading up to the American Revolution. Mentioned on this episode: Other books by Esther Forbes: Paul Revere and the World He Lived In (1942), winner of the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for History. The General's Lady (1938) Miss Marvel (1935) Also mentioned: The 1957 Disney movie adaptation of Johnny Tremain (trailer here) ...
For our last episode of 2024, we talked about our favorite children's books of 60 years ago, which we defined as 1964-1966---a great era for children's books. Here are our favorites, but it's more fun if you listen to the episode first. We disqualified books that we've done episodes on. Mary Grace's top five: 5. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. 4. The Strange Light by James Reeves 3. Ismo by John Verney 2. The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander 1. The Long Secret by Lou...
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