Six books that make me happy

Thanks to Charlotte, who tagged me for this irresistible meme (thereby snapping me out of my blogging funk).  Now for my list.  About a year ago, I was poking around in my parents' attic and found several missing boxes full of my childhood books, mostly middle-grade paperbacks.  Most of the books on this list were in those boxes; they were the ones I read first. 

1. Mandy by Julie [Andrews] Edwards.  I loved Mandy's secret cottage and garden, and identified with her desire to care for a place of her very own.

2. Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild.  I've written about the Shoes books here.  Good news for Shoes fans:  Skating Shoes is available for pre-order on Amazon!

3. The Christmas Dolls by Carol Beach York.  I'm inordinately fond of this book and would read every Butterfield Square Story in the series if only I could find them (they're OOP).

4. Miss Happiness and Miss Flower by Rumer Godden.  I'm still waiting for someone to make me a Japanese dollhouse.

5. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  My childhood copy of this book, I'm sad to say, was not in the boxes.  Perhaps it fell apart.

6.  What Katy Did et al. by Susan Coolidge.  I own these in an Octopus Books omnibus edition which was one of my prized possessions.  I even had my school librarian wrap the jacket in mylar for me.  It wasn't in the boxes, either: it was on my shelf.  Surprise!  There are no British orphans in it.

Blair Lent

Blair Lent died last week.  Lent was probably best known for his illustrations for Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel (1968), which was a childhood favorite of mine (and perhaps you).  I bought the Owlet paperback for my own kids before I even had any.  They love it, too.  Despite its problematic text.

Then last year I discovered Baba Yaga by Ernest Small; illustrated by Blair Lent (1966).  I was in the process of reading every picture book retelling of a Baba Yaga story I could find at my library (there are many); this one--text and illustrations--was my favorite.  It was only when I read Lent's obituary that I realized that author Ernest Small and illustrator Blair Lent were one and the same person.  I don't think I've ever seen someone credited separately, by pen name and real name, for the same book, but I agree that Lent deserves a lot of credit.

Poetry Friday: Nevermore!

In honor of the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe's birth (this Monday, January 19); the opening lines of "The Raven:"

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore--
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door--
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--
Only this and nothing more."

[Read the rest--you know you want to--at poets.org)

I can't read Poe's "Raven" without being reminded of Mortimer.  He's Arabel's Raven (Joan Aiken; illustrated by Quentin Blake).  Another childhood favorite with several sequels I never knew existed before writing this post.  Nevermore!

Santa Lucia, Hugo and Josephine

Happy Santa Lucia Day!  This image of Lucia and her attendants comes from my childhood copy of Hugo and Josephine by Maria Gripe, with drawings by Harald Gripe (1962); translated from the Swedish by Paul Britten Austin (Dell, 1969).  Sorry about the poor image quality:  what kind of paper were Dell Yearlings printed on in the 1970s?  Anyway, there is Josephine as a maid of honor (May-Lise, the prettiest girl in the class, is Lucia) and Hugo at far left as a star-boy.

I read and loved the Hugo and Josephine trilogy as a child (Hugo has since gone missing); my other favorite Gripe book was the more mysterious Glassblower's Children.  Gripe's books must have been widely available in translation then:  Maria Gripe, "one of Sweden's most distinguished writers for children," had won the Hans Christian Anderson Award in 1974.  Now my library system doesn't hold a single copy of any of her books.  Not one.  Which is a shame:  Hugo and Josephine, the one I've most recently reread, is a delight: perceptive, often very funny, told in a distinctive present-tense and set in a place (Sweden) and time similar to but interestingly different than our own.  When I start my own press dedicated to printing neglected or OOP children's fiction, the Hugo and Josephine trilogy will be on my list.  Does anyone else remember it?