Blog
As a homeschooling veteran, I review middle-grade stories to help parents, librarians, and teachers choose good books.
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Editing Jane Austen!?!
A teen-aged Jane Austen wrote a novella that she never even titled, much less published herself. It's been called Lady Susan, and now it's been made into a movie, "Love and Friendship." Austen is known for originating the romance novel. She really hit the sweet spot...
Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool, a review
Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool Published 2010 by Delacorte Press, 351 pages Genre: Historical middle grade/tween fiction, Newbery Medal winner Twelve-year-old Abilene Tucker arrives in the dusty, underpopulated town of Manifest, Kansas, during the height of...
Book Review: Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi
Crispin: The Cross of Lead, by Avi, Book 1 in the Crispin trilogy Published 2002 by Hyperion Books for Children, New York, 262 pages Genre: Historical drama for tweens This book won the Newbery Award when it was published, and more recently the author has published...
Why is this car grinning?
Monster the car is grinning. He thinks he won. I've been fighting with this car ever since we got him, nearly ten years ago. Took him home, and our mechanic discovered somebody had put antifreeze where the brake fluid ought to be. The car had that cheesy grin then...
My mother, mom and opera singer
Jane Ruth Elder, my mother, grew up in Tacoma, Washington, during the Depression in the family of a teacher. In those days, teachers were paid little. It became apparent that her parents could not afford music lessons for her, even though that is what she wanted more...
My father, engineer
This slide rule belonged to my dad, the engineer. Eldred W. Hough, although he was the oldest son, wasn't named for his father, Thomas C. Hough. Instead, his younger brother got the name Thomas Hough. So, why did the younger one get the father's name? That's kind of...
Thomas Hough, immigrant and entrepreneur
Thomas Hough, an enterprising young man, was born in 1844 into a lower-class family in Yorkshire, England, and didn't like his prospects. His education stopped at the sixth grade, and his dad was a wagon driver. He got a job at the local cotton mill as a lift...
Granny Jennie’s mother, stuck on the prairie
This is about Granny Jennie's mother Mary Jane, who dominated the Illinois prairie around her in the late 1800s but may have longed for a trip to ... Switzerland? My great-grandmother, Mary Jane Robertson, always wanted to go to Switzerland, or so I imagine. So she...
Granny Jennie, a genteel lady
My Granny Jennie, born in 1885, hand-painted this pitcher in an art class in college. She had a college degree, rare for her generation, especially for women. I remember her the best of all my grandparents, because she traveled south to live with us in the winters...
My grandfather, a surveyor
I am sorting stuff from the attic and basement. I ran across my grandfather's precision surveying instrument. Later on I knew his wife Granny Jennie -- she was as mild-mannered as they come. But I never knew Grandpa Tom. He died before I was born. I've heard that...
The tale of Granny’s punch bowl: where next?
When I was a kid, Granny had a punch bowl in the middle of her dining room table. She was an old lady, with feet in the Victorian era. So the punch bowl is flowery and Victorian. It probably had belonged to her mother, a high-society lady for the small town of...
Am I a racist?
Racism is a topic that my heart keeps returning to. What is it? What causes it? Why is it so hard to escape? Why do many white people from outlying areas of my city avoid driving in predominantly African-American sections? Answer: They tell each other that the city...