Tag Archives: American

The most enjoyable ‘collected letters’ I’ve ever read: 84, Charing Cross Road (and the Duchess of Bloomsbury street)

From 1950 to 1970, an American scriptwriter, Helene Hanff, embarked on self-education by book with the aid of some British secondhand booksellers. 84, Charing Cross Road is a collection of the letters which passed primarily between Hanff and the shop’s … Continue reading

Posted in 20th Century, American, British, Diary, General adult audience, Letters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Climbing trees, cutting your own hair and making messes with all the things you find in the kitchen: Maud Hart Lovelace’s second Betsy-Tacy book beautifully captures the experience of being 8 years old

Betsy-Tacy and Tib continues Maud Hart Lovelace’s engaging series of early 20th century American childhood. Betsy, Tacy and their new friend Tib are now 8-year-olds. Life is full of adventures, often with their genesis in Betsy’s fertile imagination. In this … Continue reading

Posted in 20th Century Children's, 5 years and up, American, Children's Classics, Novel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What would you do if your parent left you and your siblings in the car and never came back? That’s the start of Homecoming, a classic YA novel by Cynthia Voigt

The first in the Tillerman series, Homecoming follows the four Tillerman children after they are abandoned by their mentally ill mother in a car park. When she doesn’t come back they set out to find other relatives several states away. … Continue reading

Posted in 11 years and up, 20th Century YA, Young Adult | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Capturing childhood: Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace

I recently discovered Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy series doing a literature-map search of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Similarly, Lovelace’s series draws on her own American childhood and the target audience ages with the protagonists. In the first book, Betsy-Tacy, the girls … Continue reading

Posted in 20th Century Children's, 5 years and up, American, Children's Classics, Coming of Age/Rites of Passage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White

E.B. White is better known for Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, but my favourite of his books is The Trumpet of the Swan. It tells the story of Louis, a trumpeter swan who can’t trumpet, which has grave implications for … Continue reading

Posted in 20th Century Children's, 7 years and up, Children's Classics, Fantasy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

An insightful Christian analysis of modern sexual ethics: Sex and the iWorld by Dale S. Kuehne

Sex and the iWorld by Dale S. Kuehne is an insightful and helpful book for understanding the rapid changes in how western society thinks about sex and sexuality since the sexual revolution in the 1970s. Tracing these changes back to … Continue reading

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These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder

These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder is the last of the Little House books that Wilder completed and also my favourite. At the end of Little Town on the Prairie Laura received her teaching certificate. Now Laura has … Continue reading

Posted in 10 years and up, 20th Century YA, Young Adult | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder continues the Little House books. The Long Winter is over, the prairie is filling up and Laura is old enough to get summer work sewing in the growing town. When winter … Continue reading

Posted in 10 years and up, 20th Century Children's, 20th Century YA, Children's Classics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Light a Single Candle by Beverley Butler

Light A Single Candle by Beverley Butler is a great book written in the early 60s that I discovered in high school. Cathy Wheeler becomes completely blind in her early teens when surgery to treat glaucoma goes seriously wrong. As … Continue reading

Posted in 11 years and up, 20th Century YA, American, Coming of Age/Rites of Passage, Light Fiction, Novel, YA Realism, Young Adult | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder is the 5th of the Little House series about Laura’s pioneering childhood on the American prairies. It tells of the winter when the blizzards are so early, long and severe that the trains … Continue reading

Posted in 20th Century Children's, 7 years and up, Children's Classics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment