Hello Barbara! What a delightful place to visit!

I love the picture - where did you ever find it on the Web? It is so reminiscent of pictures in books I perused as a child.

Under the covers with a flashlight - that was me and a book. Propped on the windowsill while doing dishes - ditto.

What good company they were.

I was taught to read by a retired school teacher before I ever entered the first grade and have never been without one or two, usually six or seven, from the library since. The weekly trip to the Library was such a treat when I was young - still is!

I'll be back - and loads of best wishes for the grand opening of this delightful site!

Hi Barbara,

This looks like it's going to be fun.

"Christmas isn't Christmas without any presents" grumbled Jo. Now that's from a faulty memory but "Little Women" is the book I remember the most from childhood. I call my daughter Elizabeth, Beth, part of my SN name is Megan because of Meg, I have a grandaughter, Amy, and the only Jo is grandson, Joe!

Eileen Megan

Ella and Eileen Looks like y'all opened the party -
Oh yes Little Woman and to think that it made that much of an impression on you Eileen. Amazing.
Ella did you ever hide a book behind the text you were supposed to reading in class?
What a life supoorting skill past generations passed along to us. It is goose bumpy.

Some of my best memories are about reading 'Childhood Literature' as a child and as an adult. I can still see in my minds eye the day my mother first enrolled me in the public library. Every other week my mother and I walked to the square so that she could do the shopping. Sometimes my sister 2 and 1/2 years younger then me, was left with the lady down the street and using the baby carrage to bring home the 'goods' we walked the 3 miles plus. I really think Mama wanted a safe place to stash me while she shopped but, what a favor she did for me thinking of the library. In the center of the square was a large grassy park with a very small Greek columned building to one side. That was the Library. When we went up the tight and winding stairs there was a room filled with cloth and leather and some paper backed books, a large polished wood desk that the slant of the sun caught the grain of wood with the librarian stamping books. I can still hear that stamp as we borrowed and returned our books. Åt age 6 and I was in heaven that day! With every book I read from then on I transported myself to a different world.

I especially liked adventure stories, - Oh yes and I adored Heidi. I was delighted to receive for Christmas one year a book called Heidi Grows Up how she became the school teacher in that small mountain place. I still have my originaly copies, all yellow with age of Robinson Crusoe, Black Beauty, Heidi and The Travels of Marco Polo. By the time I was reading to my children other Classics came along like The Secret Garden my grandboys especially like The Jack Tales a collection of old Southern stories and they like scary stories. It looks like we now have a whole new crop of Classics with the Harry Potter books on the best seller lists both here and in Britian. Sally my daughter-in-law grew up loving Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Are you drooling by now as you remember your favorites as well as, your favorite reading spot.

Well what should we read together? In the next couple of weeks suggest your choice and we will come to a consensus.

I would love to re-read Treasure Island Not only was it an exciting read but, I have fond memories of seeing Orsen Wells as Long John in the movie Treasure Island. I would love to re-examine the message of loyalty and how the relationship developed with Long John Silver. Seems to me there may be more to the story then my childhood memory of the pirates verses the gentleman English and scary old Long John and his pals.

My childhood differed a bit from yours...my early reading years were spent in boarding school. There is one special book that I will never forget from those years. Every evening for about 10 minutes before we went to sleep, Sister Cyrilla read a chapter of The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. I was from a family of five children and the number and the stories bore a hole right into my homesickness...unforgetable!!!

Joan I remember The Five Little Peppers... actually not from my childhood but, I remember reading it to my daughter when she had the chicken pox. Joan, were there other children listening to Sister Cyrilla or did you have her all to yourself? I bet they were lonely years - thank goodness for books to help fill the empty heart hole.

Joan have you changed your mind or are you still interested in reading Alice I remember in another discussion group you mentioned you would like to plumb the depths of ...Alice in Wonderland and The Looking Glass

You have a good memory, Barb. Yes, I'm the one with a life-long desire to make some sense of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. My mother was reading that to me when she died. I couldn't read yet, and was waiting for her to explain the puzzling parts! Later, when I learned to read, I tried to figure it out alone. Gave up, but figured there was something behind the words I was reading and that some day I would understand. That never happened.

Later I learned that there were others who were trying to figure what Carroll's intentions were. . A few years ago, I tore an article from the paper which indicated that each of the incidents in Wonderland represented the Zodiac, that Wonderland had to be read along with Through the Looking Glass in order to get the whole Zodiac. I think it would be intriguing! I don't think my mother could have explained the mystery of Alice in Wonderland, had she lived. Somehow that is comforting, though I would love to have heard her explanation!

ps. I had to share Sr. Cyrilla with 11 other beds at storytime...

This is a very nice site, Barbara. I, too, remember trips to the library with my mother at a very young age. We had to walk a long way, but I loved it. That is how my reading career started and never stopped. The librarian let me read adult books, which she had to approve, after I'd gone through all the decent children's books.

My earliest memory of being read to was hearing my mother read Peter Rabbit, which I absolutely loved. I still think to myself aha, Blackie the crow, when I see a common crow. And we spent a lot of time on poetry: Robert Louis Stevenson's, for example. I was so moved when I went to Edinborough with my mother a long time later and we saw the house where he'd spent time in his sick bed as a child and the source of Treasure Island and many of his poems. Mother bought me a little book of poetry called Silver Pennies, which I still have. June

What is the name of that series of children's book which had the two sets of twins? Someone gave me some of those for Christmas. I think the twins' names were Nan and Dan and Flossie and Freddie. I don't think they were really very good books, but they did have a gimmick. June

June I think from what I remember they were the Bobbsy Twins. I still own 2 of the Bobbsy Twin books that were my Mother's as well of 2 more that were presents to me at Christmas time. Remember when the little twin got locked in the Department Store? AND you had the great fortune to see RLS house!!! WOW. When you realize he lived in the eighteenth century and we are still relating to the books he wrote, time begins to have a different meaning. I didn't realize he was actually sick as a child. I remember the poem something about soldiers on the counterpane. I too was sick a lot as a child and used to make hills and dales with my legs under the covers and use little lead animals and farm people to play with. This was before there were any drugs to aid getting better and we seemed to be in bed forever.

June, are you going to join us as we read together and discuss a book from the Children's Lit. side of the library. We are still opened for suggestions. So far we have Joan suggesting Alice in Wonderland and at the same time Through the Looking Glass and the other suggestion is Treasure Island Hopefully we can choose a book and start the reading and discussion by Halloween. Come on, suggest a book and join us, it will be fun.

Joan I never heard about this zodiac connection and now you really have me curious. Seems to me there was an annotated Alice in Wonderland published a few years ago. I wonder if it is still in print. Now I heard that many of the characters were symbolic of British Royalty and high government officials as well as a tongue in check about some of the goings on in politics at the time. But this zodiac connection hmmmmm now I would love to hear about that connection.

There's a new Annotated Alice just out and another to be published soon. I had one about 35 years ago, but darned if I can find it... Probably it went traveling when one or the others of the children moved out...

But I too, have several Bobbsey Twins that I received as birthday gifts...

Notable in comebacks are the Winnie The Pooh and Christopher Robin books... These were favorites of my children when we read at night..

Yes, Barbara, I probably will join you in discussing whichever book you choose. I don't really have a preference. I have not been joining in discussions lately, because I have been sort of burnt out and have been coasting along with mysteries/thrillers from the library.

Re: RLS ... don't you remember he was mentioned (maybe by me, I can't remember) when we did The Magic Mountain. His illness was TB, from which he eventually died. Yes, I loved that poem, too, about the counterpane (quilt) and the toy soldiers marching across the patchwork fields.

And it was the Bobbsey Twins I was thinking of. I wonder where my books of them got to. June

Pat You would be the one that is up on the latest - how great a new annotated Alice and you too, another Bobbsy Twin reader. I looked and found my copies and have 6 books. My mother's two: ...at Home - ...on a Houseboat and my four: The Bobbsy Twins - ...on Blueberry Island - ...In the Country - ...at the County Fair I think these books were like the Nancy Drew books, written by different authors with the pseudonym of Laura Lee Hope and there are dozens and dozens of these books. Someplace along the line, about 15 or 20 years ago, there was all this about they not being appropriate literature for young people. For not being appropriate we sure didn't turn out so bad did we. Dated I could understand but not appropriate - hrmff.

And dear Pooh Bear and Rabbit and piglet oh yes, Kanga and Owl of course Eeyore - oh they are just too wonderful. I have several videos that the grandboys have grown beyond and I just hate passing them on, I love them so. Pat have you picked up any of the business books using the words and experiences of Pooh?

Wind in the Willowsis another original British aminal delight that I've only read in recent years. What was really fun, a few years ago, while in London, I found William Harwoods adaption (with permission) and continuation of the story The Willows in Winter. Read it on the plane coming home and was enchanted. Last winter, when I visited my daughter, at Christmas time, she found the video of Willows in Winter That was fast, the books was only published in '93 and released here in the states in '94. Recently found another that Harwood wrote that I haven't read yet Toad Triumphant.

June MM reminded me of doing scales - not very enjoyable but good for the fingers. MM almost did me in as well. Now Joyce was a marathon but I loved every minute. Maybe these drunks are charming verses the staid German. As you turn to thrillers for a mental whirlpool bath I have always turned to Children's Lit. Must say I do watch PBS mystery though every thursday night!

PBS... How about Wishbone?... My grandson loves this..in fact he turns off Power Rangers to watch this... So, of course Charlie has to watch too.... and turns it on even when Andy doesn't come after school.

Pat Oh yes! Wishbone - as a child did you have a dog and try to dress him up? That's what I think of every time I see that dog in those costumes. We had a dog but never thought to dress him and yet I remember visiting a younger cousin who did just that. I love the way they weave today's children and events side by side with the tale.

Pat how old is your grandson and does he have a favorite story? Or I should ask does Charlie have a favorite story?

Barbara, I forget to tell you that I'm going on vacation for a couple of weeks, but will check in when I get back. I don't know what date you had in mind to start the discussion (or even what we'll discuss! but, as I said anything will be fine with me). I will catch up when I return. June

June have a great time - nice time of year for vacationing - I too will be leaving next week for my daughter's in South Carolina but she is hooked up to the net therefore, with one day off for travel, I'll be right back chatting with everyone.

I'm not sure of a date when we will actually start. I'm hoping by the the third week in October or maybe even that weekend before Halloween. That way we can discuss a book before Thanksgiving. Then the holidays and there are so many children's books based around the holiday's, we may just want to settle in with waves of nostagia as we read in December.

Let us know about your vacation when you return.

Barbara, thanks for the good wishes and have a good time on your trip. I am going to visit friends in Ohio where I lived my whole life before we came to California in 1970. The changes of season where I live are very slight, some say nonexistent, and so I love seeing a real midwestern Fall. I am really looking forward to it. Talk to you later. June

If any of you run out of truly great children's Lit to read i would appreciate someone taking a look at my web page. I write children's tales through the voice of the Wee One. Possibly you could tell me what needs improving...other than the obvious which is my need for an editor.

I would really appreciate it. I could use the help.)

HUGS

Idres are your stories for children on the net? Do you have an URL adress. Would love to read your stories - Aren't Children's stories just so neat and special.

Here I am responding from my daughter's in S. C. - I was without internet and email service since yersterday morning. When I called some place there was optic wires cut while machinery was digging into the earth and supposedly all of Texas and Louisiana was without netscape. So I am back but in SC.

Yes they are Barbara. The URL is

Idris O'Neill /children's stories

Thank you for asking. )

Idris O'Neill I fixed your URL into a clickable for you. I will have time tomorrow to read your stories I can't wait - but I really want to visit with my daughter and we can't stay up too late since the children do have school in the morning.

Hugs to the little ones Barbara. Thank you for the clickable. )

This site is bringing back many good memories of the library. I,too, spent much time there with my mother and taught myself to read before going to first grade. My mother and dad always read to us before we went to bed and we did the same for our children. My favorites were the Heidi series, Black Beauty, The Little Colonel series, Nancy Drew, and of course," Lad, a Dog" by Alex Payson Terhune, " My Friend, Flicka", and some delightful books about a city girl visiting her hill grandmother and trying to improve her life. Her name was something like Hepziba. I loved all of Terhune's books. His hometown has a site and his home can be toured in New Jersey. His stories were true. Can't wait to see what books you do choose.

June MillerWhere are going in Ohio? You know Ella and I both live in Gahanna, OH which is a suburb of Columbus. If you are going to be near give us a call and we will meet you for coffee or whatever.

I'd vote for "Alice." My mother read "Alice" and "Through the Looking Glass" to me before I could read myself, and I re-read both many, many times over the years to the point where I could recite long passages from memory - and still can, though perhaps with less accuracy!

I have Martin Gardner's original Annotated Alice (c. 1960) and am delighted to find that an expanded and updated version, including his 1990 updates, is about to be published. We might want to wait until it is available. Gardner was a frequent visitor to the household where a dear friend of mine lived in New York in the early 1970's, and my friend tells great stories about him. It's wonderful that he is still going strong.

I still have a lot of the books I acquired as a child, including a complete set of Annie Fellows Johnston's "Little Colonel" books. They were long out of print in my childhood, and my mother accumulated the set by shagging used book stores over a period of years.

I don't see that anyone has mentioned Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books. I just finished reading a fascinating biography of her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, entitled "The Ghost in the Little House." The author, William Holtz, argues convincingly that it was Rose's revisions that made her mother's stories into classics. Rose was a very interesting character.

"Treasure Island" would be good too, but how about "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn"? There are a couple of books that have a lot more to them than meets the childish eye. And how about Booth Tarkington's "Penrod"?

The only problem is, there are so many possibilities, all of them intriguing!

Katie You are so right there are so may wonderful books to consider. Last week when I visited book stores I noticed the children's sections are just brimming with the old classics. I am sure they are stocking up for the holiday shoppers but ohhh, I could have spent hours just revisiting these old friends. It was like being at a family or class reunion recognizing titles, one after another.

Ann you brought up a title and author I am not familiar with. Lad, a Dog by Alex Payson Terhune. In fact I do not recognize Terhune - Ann what else did he write do you remember?

I wonder when this new addition of Alice annotated will be out - YES Katie - it would be grand to read Alice with the help of Martin Gardner. And you have a friend that knows Martin Gardner! I bet his visits were special in that home. Do you think you are in a position to find out when the new Annotated Alice will be available? I know Joan really wants to read Alice and June said she would join us regardless the choice when she returned by months end, and now you - that would make at least 4 of us which is one more then the 3 LJ used to say was needed to start a discussion.

The Little Colonel series - why I haven't thought of those stories in years. My daughter had only one of the series and it wasn't her favorite and so we never added to the series. There are just too many great classics - I loved the Leather Stocking tales - in fact my first choice was always some out-door adventure tale or seafaring tale except when I was really little and then I loved Heidi. When I was about 13 or 14 years old I received a copy of Heidi Grows Up and from then on, I believed teaching was more about the total child and meeting the child's needs first, rather then sticking to a subscribed curriculum.

We moved when I was in the seventh grade and in the attic the sellers left behind an old set of Encyclopedias - The hours I spent in that attic croutched on the wood flooring studying picture after picture and then reading what it said about the picture. These were all black and white sketches but to me, just facinating. I learned how to rig a square rigger, put together a canon, build a hen house and where to place the feathers on a calumet, reading those old books. All heady stuff!

Katie I am not home yet (visiting daughter in SC) but, on my home computer, I had bookmarked a site for Laura Ingalls Wilder. You might use your favorite search engine and find it. When I return home next week, I will post it.

According to amazon.com, the new "Annotated Alice" will be out in November. I've already ordered a copy for myself and one for my friend for Christmas.

Here's Amazon's review of the new book:

"The culmination of a lifetime of scholarship, The Annotated Alice is a landmark event in the rich history of Lewis Carroll and cause to celebrate the remarkable career of Martin Gardner. For over half a century, Martin Gardner has established himself as one of the world's leading authorities on Lewis Carroll. His Annotated Alice, first published in 1960, has over half a million copies in print around the world and is highly sought after by families and scholars alike--for it was Gardner who first decoded the wordplay and the many mathematical riddles that lie embedded in Carroll's two classic stories: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Forty years after this groundbreaking publication, Norton is proud to publish the Definitive Edition of The Annotated Alice, a work that combines the notes of Gardner's 1960 edition with his 1990 update, More Annotated Alice, as well as additional new discoveries and updates drawn from Gardner's encyclopedic knowledge of the texts. Illustrated with John Tenniel's classic and beloved art--along with many recently discovered Tenniel pencil sketches--The Annotated Alice will be Gardner's most beautiful and enduring tribute to Carroll's masterpieces yet. Celebrating his eighty-fifth birthday in the fall of 1999, the redoubtable Gardner has been called by Douglas Hofstadter "one of the great intellects produced in this country in this century." With The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition, we have this remarkable scholar's crowning achievement."

I can hardly wait!

I, too, loved Albert Payson Terhune's books and read all of them, but only from the library; alas, I don't have any of them. Most of them were about collies. Wasn't it Jean Kerr ("Please Don't Eat the Daisies") whose dog was named Ladadog?

When I was 5 or 6 years old, in the early 1940's, a door-to-door salesman sold my parents a set of the Grolier "Book of Knowledge" encyclopedias. I remember the salesman's visit! The encyclopedias turned out not to be very well organized for looking things up, but they were wonderful for reading. The books are long since gone, but I remember a lot: a touching picture of the Little Princes in the Tower (as I recall, the author thought Richard III did it); a photograph of a child gazing in wonder at a prototype TV set, a huge cabinet with a tiny screen. I mentioned the Book of Knowledge a while back (more than a year ago) in SeniorNet and found someone else who had those books and remembered many of the same things I did. Can't remember who it was, though. Maybe one of you?

World Book... Now on a C-D ... is really great... the children at school spend lots of time just looking.

Looks like Waterstones is selling an Annotated Alice for $13 through amazon Annotated Alice And this is the Annotated Alice with introduction by Martin Gardner Annotated Alice with intro by Martin Gardner Aha this looks like the new one with discount is $20.97Annotated Alice:The Definitive Edition And yes - here it is the Barnes & Noble link to both versions of Annotated Alice B&N Annotated Alice

Katie, so delighted to see you again. No, I've read all the Terhune books, too and I'm pretty sure LAD A DOG was his. Could be wrong. Tearing the barn apart to find SUNNYBANK, HOME OF LAD, which I do have as I have all his books and I can't find it anywhere, understand it's pretty rare but I'm not letting go of it anyway (especially since I can't find it in the first place).

Ginny

The Wilder books were my very favorite as I was growing up. I attended a one room school with 8 grades and after lunch each day the teacher would have us put our heads on our desk or just sit quietly and she would read a chapter or two from a childs book. The "Little House" books really made an impression and I can still recall some of the mental images from the stories. I just felt I was right there. One of my Grandmother's favorite books was "Little Women" and she reread it many times. Interesting what memories this brings back.

Larry

Ginny another reader of Terhune - Y'all have my curiosity up now to find some books by this author. I take it your barn is not a tobacco barn, where stored books wouldn't last very long.

Larry a one room school house, oh my. How many in the graduation class Larry? My sister went to a 4 room (2 classes together) schoolhouse where as, I was sent daily to the big parochial school that had this wonderful library. Larry, do you think the books read to us in school had as much, if not more, impact on us today then all the class work we struggled with? I guess I’m thinking some of those stories not only reinforced our learned values but actually set values that we still hold dear.

Barbara, it was a long time ago in the one-room school but think we had 10-12, really don't remember for certain. It has been about 44 years since I finished the 8th grade. I still remember several of my teachers, one in particular we had one year who was so organized that she had the lessons all outlined in a spiral notebook and that really impressed me.

I went on from there to our local highschool and graduated in the last class before it was consolidated with another school in a nearby town. There were only 6 of us in the graduating class and only 34 in all 4 highschool grades. Rather than take the traditional senior trip, we took the whole highschool on a trip to Chicago in one schoolbus. This last spring I attended my 40th highschool reunion and, while we are all alive yet, there were only 3 of our class there. We had only one girl in our class and she married my best friend. Unfortunately that marriage didn't last. She was at the reunion. Most of the members of our small class had very good careers and have done well. While I was concerned about being able to compete when I went to college, found I had no problem and went through college in three years by going summers. At this point I wonder why in such a hurry, but wanted to be able to get away from the farm, which I never liked. Thanks for letting me recall some pleasant memeories.

Several things influenced me regarding books as a child. Our one-room school didn't have a library or certainly not much of one but our teacher had the books or got them from the library. My father always had a book in his hand in the evenings when the farm work was done for the day and my grandmother loved reading and poetry. We did have a very adequate library in the college town and as a teenager I read a lot of books from there. I especially remember reading the Perry Mason books and a lot of others.

Larry

Ginny, I know Terhune wrote "Lad, A Dog." Jean Kerr's dog's name was a takeoff on it that always struck me funny.

Like Larry, I went to a small grade school, but we had 3 rooms for 8 grades. By the time I got to the fifth grade, they had moved Grades 7 and 8 to the high school because the elementary schools were overcrowded. But we always had at least two and sometimes three grades in a room.

My father grew up on a farm in Kansas. His father was a great reader, and my dad went away to college and became a university professor. So I grew up in a house full of books. Our school "library," however, consisted of a three-shelf bookcase, about three feet wide, in the back of the "middle" room. I must have read every book in that bookcase at least ten times from the third grade through the sixth.

One was "Hitty, Her First Hundred Years," a story about the adventures of a wooden doll. It has been reprinted in paperback and I got a copy a couple of years ago. Another was "The Birds' Christmas Carol," which I think someone here mentioned a while back. It was a sad story that always made me cry, about a little girl who was named Carol because she was born on Christmas, and who died (of what, I forget!) on Christmas Eve.

Ann, I didn't see your message till I got back home today. I visited friends in Dayton, where I lived for many years and had a marvelous time. The trees were beautiful, much better than California trees; we have aspens and birches, which change to beautiful golds, but nothing as great as the maples and sweetgums in Ohio. We also went birding at Lake Erie and from there to the Amish area south of Wooster, which is especially beautiful at any time, in my opinion.

Anyway, Barbara, are we going to do Alice if the new annotated edition isn't out till November? I will stick to my promise to read and discuss whatever the group selects. No one else will probably agree with me, but I am not certain that Alice is really a children's book. This does NOT mean that I don't want to read it, though!

I just have to add that I really loved the Laura Wilder books when I was little. June

June so glad to know your back - your trip east sounds wonderful with all the color or a northern autumn. I guess they knew what they were doing when they turned the Laura Wilder books into a TV series with so many readers loving the stories.

And yes, it is interesting the books that have been relegated to the Children's Lit. stacks. Edgar Allen Poe and even Mark Twain are published for children now and yet we have Pooh Bear teaching CEOs how to manage and lead their operations. So I agree Alice will be a challenge but then, maybe we really are on to something here with so many of these so called Children's Classics that really require maturity to grasp the authors work. So far no one else has really been excited about any other book and Katie brought to our attention the new Annotated Alice to be published, along with the fact, she had a dear friend who knew Martin Gardner. The idea of reading Alice first suggested by Joan, seemed to take strength.We are still open to any suggestion for our first read - we will aim for a choice of book and start date by next week

Katie I vaguely remember reading Hitty, Her First Hundred Years Did the book come with a metal hinged, stick like wooden doll with painted black hair with patterns to sew Hitty some early nineteenth century designed dresses? I am not familiar with A Bird's Christmas but I have an old book, published before the turn of the century, about a red bird (cardinal, state bird of Kentucky) that lives through a snow and ice storm in Kentucky. I haven't read it in years and the book is at home so I forget the title and author. As I recall the author was a Kentuckian of note. Spent my young adult life in gentle Kentucky and my babies were born in Lexington, Kentucky.

Back home and a sprinkly day - hurrah - we have had no rain since July 4 - The leaves were turning so beautifully in North Carolina where we drove into the mountains for a day and picked apples. Came home with a suitcase full of apples surrounded and cushioned by my sweats as well as some homemade chutney and jellies.

Well have your been reading about all the controversy over the Harry Potter books? Amazing and when I think of how many stories are written with wizards - even Merlin is a wizard - oh well everyone sees something different in a story. Well here is that link I promised for all the Rose Wilder Lane readers. Rose Wilder Lane - ENJOY!

Barbara, can you tell me where I can get the directions for typing someone's (yours!) name in color and in a large size when I make a post? I have a Macintosh computer, if that is a factor. Happy Monday, by the way. June

Mac or PC make no difference - it is what they call web design or HTML tags - a computer needs to be told everything and there is a language (HTML) to do that - all commands will have these two symbols on either side of the command< > In order for the command not to take place I will use ( ) in their place. The tag for font size and color is (font color="choice example; Red, RedOrange, aqua") the spacing and symbols are important so an example again using ( ) rather then < > (font color="Red") then so that the red stops - immediatly after the last word you want red (/font) to change size it is the same process (font size=5) followed by (/font) we are seeing our print in size 3 so that 4,5,6,7 would all be larger in degrees. In order to make some word stand out in bold (b) followed by (/b) - Again remember I am using parenthesis marks rather then those angular brackets located above the comma and period on your keyboard. There is also a system of numbers used to define colors in the discussion - Colours for the Web - in the discussion - Online Courses.

Good luch June - I would review Online Courses if I were in your shoes. That is where I learned so much of this along with the help of others that post.

One more repeat for color < will be (

so it is (font; then a space;the word, color; no space and the =sign followed with no space"; then the color which can be written if one color like red in lower case letters; followed with no space "; and no space the ) write what you want in color and follow it by ( no space, the backwards slash sign under the question mark on your keypad / followed by no space and the word font; no space the the symbol >

Barbara, Thanks for the instructions. I will try it later today. I didn't know you'd have to type all this out; I thought you'd just tell me where the instructions were to be found. But I am grateful that you did!

One more thing: where are the online courses you referred to? Thanks, June

Barbara, thank you so much for the Rose Wilder Lane link! I went and bookmarked it, although I don't have time to look into it right now. It looks like a great resource for testing some of William Holtz's assertions in his book about Rose and Laura.

I wonder what Rose would have thought about what has been going on in the Balkans. She loved Albania and had a home there at one time.

It seems to me that all of the really great literature for children has multiple layers of meaning. I had "Alice" and "Through the Looking Glass" read to me, and read them myself, over and over through my childhood and as a teenager and adult, and understood more and more every time. Of course, I didn't REALLY understand it until I was out of college and Martin Gardner's book came out! But I was surprised to discover how much of it I had understood on my own. I remember clearly the moment when I ran across the word "caucus" in the context of politics, and it suddenly dawned on me what the caucus race was all about! Until then it had just been a nonsense word to me.

Ok June the Online Courses discussions is in the list of SeniorNet Round Tables as: Online Courses (9 discussions) the site includes:

Learning Paint Shop Pro 5 (961 messages)
Web Graphics-Size and Compression (204 messages)
Introduction to HTML~~NEW (32 new messages)
Introduction to Making a Home Page~~NEW (111 new messages)
Want to see our Home Page? (294 messages)
Introduction to Making a Home Page~~READ ONLY (1750 messages)
Introduction to HTML~~READ ONLY (1500 messages)
Learning Paint Shop Pro 4~~READ ONLY (396 messages)
Colours for the Web (3 messages)

Katie I have not be a devoted fan of Rose Wilder Lane - who is William Holtz's and is Laura a sister? India, a poster on seniorNet (also lives in Austin) told me at our last Texas get-together that she and her husband had visited the Rose Wilder Lane home in Kansas by accident when they were driving on a vacation and Kansas was the Wilder's home.

Many grades schools at one time or another, read the Little House on the Prairie series and then do crafts, reports, act out scenes from the book... Our grade school did a field trip to Sommer Park in Peoria, where they spent the day in activities of the Little House Era.

It is a very popular series after the long running TV series with Michael Landon.

Pat did you and your family watch the TV series? We did and wouldn't miss a week - it was a lovely series - I often wondered how close to the book the series stayed. Now what is at Sommer Park in Peoria?

Sommer Park: a city park that has set up replica cabins (2), out door cooking areas.. wood pile ... small stream for wading on warm weather.. The children made butter from cream in an old stomper churn and in a wooden paddled Dazey churn... The boys split wood.. built the fire for the cooking... They made soup in an old iron kettle over the fire.. There was a small fee to cover cost of materials and food... $.75 each...

The link you posted earlier was for the museum/library at West Branch, Iowa... Herbert Hoover... It is supposed to be a National Historic site, but they think they rate with National Parks... We have visited there.. and it is nice ... but was quite expensive for what is there. We have the Golden Passport which is supposed to admit Seniors free to any National Park or Site... But they still charged us $10.00 a piece.

Pat are the cabins in the park depicting The little House cabins or just cabins and life of the times? Pat, as you have visited the museum in Iowa did you learn what the connection is between Herbert Hoover and Rose Wilder Lane.

Katie I tried to email you, as I have everyone else that has participated but, the email come back saying there was no connection. Do you have your correct email address in the preferences?

Great News! June emailed that she has already ordered Annotated Alice and Joan will join us after Chicago. Joan is leaving early for the Book Gathering in Chicago so she will be gone the 7th through the 15th.

Looks like I need to get on the stick here and order my book. If everyone has their book by the end of this month we could still start November 1 - I will leave that choice up to all of you.

Barbara, I'm sorry, my SeniorNet records must show my old e-mail address, which was on Prodigy Classic - which, of course, has died and gone to its reward. How do I get my new address into the system?

Rose Wilder Lane was Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter. She was born on her parents' homestead in North Dakota in 1886 (see LIW's "The First Four Years"). In 1893 Laura, Almanzo and Rose moved to Mansfield, Missouri, where Rose grew up and her parents lived for the rest of their lives on Rocky Ridge Farm. The story of the move is told in "On The Way Home," Laura's diaries of the trip as edited by Rose and published, as I recall, after Laura's death. Scholars differ over how much influence Rose had on Laura's writing, but there is no doubt that it was considerable.

The connection between Rose and Herbert Hoover is that Rose wrote a biography of him about 1920, just as his political career was about to take off. She met with him several times and with other people who knew him well, and she was a lifelong admirer of his.

William Holtz is a professor of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia. His biography of Rose is entitled "The Ghost in the Little House," and is available in trade paperback format.

Another "Alice" epiphany I remember well is the time I ran across a description of mock turtle soup -- perhaps in a recipe book -- and it suddenly dawned on me why the Mock Turtle had the head, feet, and tail of a cow, and mooed!

Katie How absolutly fab that you responded with so much info. Katie, I think you can go into the preferences and change your email address but if that doesn't work them let me find out what to do. The email message was essentially the same as post #47.

It really sounds like we would be so much better served if before we read one of Laura's books, we read William Holtz's Bio of Rose. And of course it was Missouri and not Kansas where India visited the Ingalls home. Talk about having everything backwards - my excuse though is typical Texan here, once you get north of the Red River everything runs together. Hehehe be sure you roll up your pant legs on that one.

And so it is Rose that had the connection with Herbert Hoover and she is a writer also. Katie how do you know all this? Are you a devotee of Wilder/Ingalls?

Had to look up the Mock Turtle Soup:nSoup made from calf's head or veal and spiced to taste like green turtle soup. Boy, could you have fun with that. Haven't had turtle soup in years. I wonder if there is a difference between Green Turtle soup and just plain turtle soup.

I am really looking forward to Alice That story really does provide all three focuses; rousing adventure, mischief making hilarity and high imagination. Vaguely I remember starting to read it as a child and then reading it to my daughter but it never had the impact on me as other books. I was never good indentifying with pretty little girls and this book was just so confusing to me. With the annotated edition I really feel like the story will become meaningful.

Katie, to get your new e-mail address on Seniornet, just click on the "Preferences" button right below the banners (2nd line) and you will see your preferences and can make the change. Don't forget to scroll to the bottom of that page and save the changes. I believe you will then see the corrected preferences page and that will causes anyone clicking on your name to see your current e-mail address, regardless of when you posted a message.

Regarding the "Little House on the Prairie" television series, it is being shown on a daily basis and sometimes for 2 hours on TBS, the Superstation on cable. I have to admit that Mrs. Olsen is my favorite character although have no memory of whether she was a character in any of the books.

Larry

Larry another devotee of Ingalls - wow - Larry I didn't email you about Alice I wasn't sure if you really wanted to participate in this discussion but Larry we sure would love to have you - what do you think - would like to travel the Carrol maze with us?

Thanks so about helping Katie with the instruction as to how to change her email information - wonderful you!

Barbara, I really wish I felt I had time to participate in the "Alice" discussion but know I just can't. In addition to my responsibilities here on SeniorNet I am working about 20 hours a week or more on my paid Internet job. Am also wanting to get away from the house a little more now that my interferon treatments are over.

I appreciate your invite and will be following the discussion. Hope I can join you on a later book.

Larry

Good heavens - not only is Martin Gardner considered the formost authority on Lewis Carroll but he is a prolific author, of all things, many books on Math, Calculus, logic and Physics as well as, games and magic. Here is a B&N link to his 108 available titles just to have a preview of the kind of books he writes Martin Gardner titles

OK, I found the preferences and think I got the e-mail address straightened out, thanks to Barbara and Larry.

So many things to comment on ...

Actually India may have visited a Laura Ingalls Wilder site in Kansas. "Little House on the Prairie," which was the second or third book in the series, is set in southeastern Kansas on the banks of the Verdigris River, where the Ingalls family homesteaded but had to give up their place when the Government ceded the area to the Indians. If I remember right, the Ingallses went from there back to Burr Oak and then Walnut Grove in Iowa ("On the Banks of Plum Creek" is at Walnut Grove). Actually, in real life they were in one or the other of those towns twice. When the railroad was pushed out west into Dakota Territory, they went out to the end of the line at De Smet, ND, and that is where "The Long Winter," "Little Town on the Prairie," and "These Happy Golden Years" are set. Charles and Caroline Ingalls and their oldest daughter, Mary (who was blind as the result of a childhood illness) homesteaded outside DeSmet but moved back to town and lived there for the rest of their lives. Laura met and married Almanzo Wilder in DeSmet, and as I mentioned before, after attempting a homestead they gave it up and moved to Mansfield, Mo. with their daughter, Rose.

There are LIW shrines everywhere -- now there is even one in Wisconsin, where "Little House in the Big Woods," the first book in the series, is set. I'm not sure exactly where that one is. There is a site near Walnut Grove where the dugout house was located in "Plum Creek," one in Kansas, the family home in DeSmet, and of course Rocky Ridge Farm in Missouri. I have visited DeSmet and Rocky Ridge Farm, but haven't been to any of the other sites. They hadn't been developed yet when my girls were young and we were traveling every summer.

Barbara, I think that when I ordered the Alice book we will read from Amazon they said that the book would be available in November, but not WHEN in November. So, we may not have it on the date you mentioned. I guess we could just suspend operations for awhile, though, but just thought I'd mention this. June

June thanks for the update - I am enjoying the chat this site is providing so much that I can see us just coffee klatching along till we have our books. June I do not remember, did you share that you did read Alice or will this be a new read for you? I'm hoping the annotations help me understand the significance of Alice growing smaller and then becoming too large. I never understood that bit. To me the many medieval fantasy stories had characters that changed their size and I never could understand someone without outrageous behavior changing size.

And Katie the information you are sharing about Laura, her family and daughter is an eye opener and continues to spark the engine of my curiosity. I remember reading Little House in the Big Woods as a school child. In fact I think I did read several of Laura's stories. They had just the right mixture of the American myth and childhood adventure. There was a period of time when I was reading so many books that they do not any longer stand out in my memory.

Katie do you know, are there any decendents of Rose still living? Also, did Rose write any novels or just the Hoover Bio. Sounds like you travel - do you choose an author and make an itinerary to see those locations particular to the author or in your travels do you just stop where ever there is a preserved author's home and over time you've accumulated previewed locations? Are you especially an Ingalls/Wilder fan or are there other authors that you have a more intimate acquaintance? I'm so glad you've found this discussion and are sharing your knowledge - this is grand.

Barbara, these days are frantic, but I want you to know I read every post and will be here for Alice as often as I can. You have no idea how happy I am that we have chosen this book for a starter!

I may have told you that this is the last book my mother had begun to read to me before she died - I was seven. I have waited my entire life for someone to decipher this strange story for me...always suspecting there was more to it than I was able to grasp myself. It is actually a relief to know now that others wonder at Wonderland as well! It isn't just me!

This may very well put an early issue to rest...finally! You will all become my surrogate mothers and hopefully I will "grow bigger" from the experience!

Joan

Joan thanks for taking time to peek in - just know how you are up to your eyebrows and we are all so grateful - Chicago is going to be so special because of all you have accomplished. Even your Great Books discussion will probably be a vacation as compared to the Good War discussion and reading Annotated Alice will be a walk in the park for you. We will be looking forward to your thoughts. Some days I'll wager we may all feel like cuddling up in our memories where as, other days the dawn's light will penetrate and Alice will finally tell us something.

Barbara, I have read Alice (in fact I have a battered copy), but not for a looong time and not with too much of a clue about what was going on other than the superficial plot itself. So, I will be glad to find out what was really in the author's head. In the meanwhile I am going to start on one of the Faulkner bios tonight and Absalom should be arriving from Amazon soon. June

I have been a Laura Ingalls Wilder fan all my life, it seems, having read all the books many times (and had them read to me) as a child, and then having read them many times to my own daughters. (Can't seem to get my 7-year-old granddaughter interested, which is VERY frustrating!)

When my daughters were growing up, my husband and I took them on a long car trip every summer. The stated purpose of those trips was to visit relatives, but we always enjoyed the journey the most. A perfect trip was a week from San Diego to Minnesota, two days with the family, and a week getting home. On the way we tried to take a different route every time and stop often to visit scenic areas, national parks, historic sites, and archaeological sites (my husband was an avid armchair archaeologist).

I especially remember reading "The Long Winter" aloud one summer as we were driving across the Dakotas in August in our 1966 Volvo 122S, with no A/C. It did seem to make us feel cooler, although I suspect the hand towels I dunked in the ice chest and hung around our necks helped even more. Still, picturing the frost on the nails in the ceiling, in the upstairs loft where the children slept, was enough to make us shiver!

Over the years we tried to get to all of the LIW sites, although there are several more now that didn't exist then. We did go down to the Verdigris River (not far south of Coffey County, Kansas, where my father grew up) to get a feel for the country, but there was no LIW museum or anything there at the time. I understand there is one now. I never had enough information to figure out where the Ingallses were in Wisconsin, or at Walnut Grove, but I understand there are museums in both places now and a reproduction of the dugout.

I HAVE seen Pa's fiddle, which (if I remember right) is in Mansfield. There is a great story about how some library association somewhere wanted to put on a LIW exhibit and asked Laura if they could borrow Pa's fiddle ... so she just packed it up and mailed it to them! Luckily, she got it back in one piece.

I don't believe Charles and Caroline Ingalls have any living descendants. Laura had two children, Rose and a baby boy who died before they left Dakota. Rose was married young but divorced Gillette Lane, and they never had any children. Mary never married. Carrie married a widower and raised his children, but never had any of her own. I believe Grace was married but don't recall that she had any children. So the only "descendants" are Carrie's stepchildren and their progeny.

Rose started out as a journalist. She wrote many magazine articles, and worked in public relations for the Red Cross and other organizations. She also wrote several books in addition to the Hoover biography. For Woman's Day magazine, she put together a book on American needlework with a companion set of patterns, some of which I hope to use after I retire if my eyesight just holds up!

Rose also wrote novels with subject matter similar to her mother's stories (Rose's novels were written before Laura's were), about homesteading and pioneering. "Let the Hurricane Roar" and "Free Land" are both available in paperback. There is also a book of short stories, all involving the same central character, a girl growing up in a small town, based on her childhood in Mansfield, Mo. The stories were written for magazines and later collected in a book. I can't remember the name of it right now ... maybe something like "Home Town."

I never realized until I read William Holtz's book how much Rose contributed to the "Little House" series. Laura wrote her stories in lined pencil tablets, and the original manuscripts still exist (perhaps in the Hoover library). Holtz compared the original manuscripts with the text of the books, and the differences are striking. I think we have Rose to thank for the classic books as much as her mother. Ironically, Rose's own novels and other writings are relatively obscure, and she gets no credit for the famous books.

Katie I almost do not want to post - I wanted your post to stand out and be read by every lurker. I know it sounds corny but I have read and reread you post so many times; It is such a beloved story. Not only filled with so much scholarly information but the story of you and your husband traveling with your girls and introducing them the the greats of Literature stole my heart. This post is like the many pages I read in magazines like Victoria or even Martha Stewart. I've copied it out - the imagery is so, all I can say is heartfelt.

Katie thank you for sharing a piece of your family history along with the great information!

While ordering another book from Biliofind I found all these discontinued copies of Lewis Carroll bio's and "THE STORY OF ALICE PLEASANCE LIDDELL HARGREAVES AT EIGHTY YEARS OLD AND HER MEMORIES OF BEING THE MODEL FOR ALICE, IN LEWIS CARROLL'S ALICE IN WONDERLAND WHEN HE WROTE THE BOOK, AND WHEN SHE WAS JUST A CHILD." So of course I couldn't resist and ordered.

I had no realization that math was so intwined in the understanding of Alice This is going to be fun!

Wow, Barbara, thanks for the applause <G>. I was afraid I had stopped the discussion in its tracks!

Have you had good luck with Bibliofind? I have ordered two books from listed vendors and got no results at all -- no communication, no book, no bill. No nothing. So I am a little discouraged. I would love to get a copy of Alice Liddell's memoir.

I have sometimes wondered whether, today, we might look askance at Dodgson's unusual interest in young children. We are so suspicious nowadays.

KATIE We shall see what we shall see; as Lucia says in the Benson stories - this is my first experience with Bibliofind and I have recieved 3 responses so far from the seperate locations where these books will be shipped from.

OK, what I did learn is that W.W.Norton the publisher of our sought after tome is saying that 'Sell' date is November 15. That if any online book house delivers prior to November 15 they are breaking their agreement with Norton.

Soooo we need to deside when to start this discussion - Do we wait untill the 15th to see how many have their books?? or just set a date now for say the 19th??

After finding the review I am really anxious and looking forward to this book. I sounds just wonderful, written more for adults then children. I can see us now floating back and forth with our memories as children reading or being read to and understanding the math riddles. The idea of math riddles just blew me away.

Guess what the postman brought to my house today! My beautiful, annotated Alice, and Through the Looking Glass with whimsical drawings...so wonderful you are want to pepper your heading with them, Barb! Some wonderful notes in the Introduction by Gilbert K. Chesterton! Oh my! Let's get started!!!

Mine came from B&N in three days...

OK Joan than I must put my order in - after talking to Norton I assumed we would have to wait till the 15th. This is teriffic. I'm sure you've had a chance to leaf through your copy, is it as wonderful as the review says it is?

Oh yes, Barb! It's a keeper! To go on your library shelf, not the yard sale pile once the discussion is over. It looks and feels....deinitive!!!

Have I ever thanked you all enough for starting with Alice, which has always been an issue with me? Thank you!

Joan

Jo-oan What witches brew did you stir?? How did you do that?? When I called B&N internet sales, they transfered me so that we could check availablility and the service people said there are none in the wharehouse and they expect it would be a 3 to 4 week dilevery??? }:-( Proceded to call our local B&N and received the same answer!!!

OOOOOOOOH! Either you are jinxed or I'm charmed! Anyway, I've got mine to fondle until everyone else gets theirs! Have quite a bit going on for the next few weeks anyway, so it's better that we wait.

But I wonder how I got mine so quickly? Do you think I got the last one?

Sorry.

Joan It must just be my trick or treat for 1999 ;-/

I just must share this wonderful email I received from my daughter. Ty is going to be 9 next month and Cade is all of 5. Kathamarie sent the email to several family members, some who do not have little ones:

We've had some Halloween fun already... A party last night given by one of the boy's school mates...And tonight we are headed to a hayride and bonfire party thrown by some friends in the Mts. of North Carolina.

I had a blast getting the boys all dressed up last night...It was a hoot! More fun dressing up than the party was.

[I do not know if you have heard about the characters that the boys choose to be....Have you heard about "Harry Potter"? The 3 Harry Potter books have been the on the New York Times best seller list since the 1st one was published about a year ago. They are WONDERFUL books!!!]

Well, Ty was "Harry Potter", complete with cape, round rim glasses, and a lightning bolt scar on his forehead...(you'd understand if you've heard about the books)....Ty's friends at the party were very impressed!! We had to spray Ty's hair 'black' as Harry has jet black hair....

WELL Cade choose to be "Ash Catchem"....[the boy on the cartoon series that catches all the "Pok-e-mon"...surly you've heard about "Pok-e-mon" ...it is such the kid craze now...] Well, Ash Catchum also has jet black hair...Sooooo I sprayed Cade's bright blond locks BLACK, also... He looked GREAT! All dressed like Ash... Ty was impressed...I was impressed! Poor Cade... he went in to see himself in the mirror... it terrified him----HE BURST IN TO BIG TEARS AND RAN SCREAMING "GET IT OUT"..."GET IT OUT OF MY HAIR"....

Well I immediately peeled his cloths off and put him in the shower ...scrubbed and scrubbed till he was back to blond Cade... He finally calmed down enough so I could ask him what frightened him so....I kept saying ..."didn't you look like Ash?" He mumbled ..."well yes"...Hmmmmmm I finally said..."OooooH! You didn't look like CADE ANYMORE and that scared you."... "YES mommy"...and more hugs and little sad tears....What a mommy moment!

Barbara,

I had just posted a message in "Fiction" about my own delight with my first encounter with a Harry Potter novel.

Your grandson, Cade's, terrified reaction when he failed to recognized himself in the mirror because of the Halloween hair dye, reminded me of a less happy item I had read elsewhere today: in an article on caring for an Alzheimer's patient, the caregiver was advised to "remove superfluous mirrors, as the patient coming suddenly upon his own reflection might fail to recognize it and become frightened..."

How aging conspires to close the circle...

Barbara-

Just got my latest QPB catalog and thought you might be interested in one of the books they're featuring: Tales of the Brothers Grimm Edited, DElected and Introduced by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D

Andera Hadn't heard about the mirrors - full circle! Andera you just need this link. The site is a long list of links to everything Harry Potter on the Net. I found the interviews with the author wonderful Harry Potter Links

Hmmmm Charles the Brothes Grim. Just too many books to read. I must say my favorite thing to do is to sink down on the floor and read childrens Lit. These stories transport me like no other to a fantasy world that is so rich and wonderous. When we think everything about an author, story, in this case collectors, can be written another insight to these wonders is published. Thanks for the tip.

This is what Maurice Sendak says about the Grim Brothers;

To me the Grimm tales were an extension of the stories my father told me; they are very like his stories, in which people got hacked and eaten and brutalized. And the bad people were really tortured to death, and that was such a great satisfaction.

The Grimms have remained central to my life and work. Theirs are the greatest tales; they have no equals. I think the story "The Juniper Tree" is a masterpiece. I'm not talking about children's stories, I'm talking about stories, period. And the two-volume set of Grimm's tales called The Juniper Tree (1972) I will say, immodestly, does them justice. [Sendak illustrated the collection.]

The 27 tales in that set are faithfully translated, meaning unedited, versions. Nearly all translations of Grimm are censored in some way or other. I could be wrong, but I believe I'm right. It was always presumed that the stories are too violent or passionate or sexual for children, so they had to be cut and touched up. But the Brothers never intended them for children. When they were collected, it was high society collecting folk tales from the hills. The farms were being abandoned and people were scattering due to the Napoleonic Wars and the Industrial Revolution--and the Brothers were wise enough to know that this would mean the end of oral story-telling. So they rushed off to the old peasants and sat there and took down the stories. The literati in Germany at that time got into the act, and it became fashionable to collect stories and give them to Jacob and Wilhlem Grimm for their collection.

When the collection was published, it was a big literary event. And soon, to the Brothers' horror, kids began reading the tales. What they didn't realize was that kids had nothing else worth reading then, just religious tracts showing that if you were bad you were going straight to hell. Suddenly, there were these blood-and-guts stories, where the ugly brother makes it because he's smarter than his handsome brother and where people have their heads chopped off. But if you make a mistake, "Well, sorry, honey," and you put the head back on. So you could fix bad things. And you could marry right, if you were good. And if you were bad, you would get it in the end, baby. Gradually the Brothers simply resigned themselves to the fact that, for some perverse reason, children loved what they themselves considered very strange, obscure, and "grown-up" stories.

Not to change the subject...I just found this discussion after seeing a reference in the Possession discussion...

Roger Lea MacBride has written books dealing with Caroline Ingalls and Rose Wilder as children. I believe he is connected to Rose in some way--possibly a stepson or nephew of her husband (or maybe 3rd cousin to her uncle's sister's father)? Also, Rose Wilder Lane is considered to be the inventor of the young adult genre, with Let the Hurricane Roar. I had read somewhere that Rose's chief influence on Laura's work was to make the government as unhelpful as possible. It sounds like there was more to it than that!

I have always loved Alice but didn't feel like I entirely understood her, either. I have a copy of the 1990 Annotated Alice; time permitting I hope to join in or at least lurk. BTW, Martin Gardner also writes fairly often for The Skeptical Inquirer, a magazine dedicated to the eradication of pseudo-science.

Other books I loved as a child (and still do): Narnia, especially The Magician's Nephew; The Great Brain books; Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (which gets my vote for Great American Novel), and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

Ellen So glad you found us - there have been several who have posted their interest in the Wilder Ingalls families. Katie Jacques has given us some memorable posts that will really be worth your while hitting the outline button and finding those posts that Katie has submitted.

Ellen this is a repeat but it was offered in a very early post and may be worth repeating - here is a great link to Rose Wilder Lane

The Annotated Alice discussion page will be up in the next day or two. Most of us will not have our books but there are beaucoup links to on-line Alice; Lewis Carroll bio.; Lewos Carroll home page; you name it. There will be a library of information that we can plumb and sate our appitite for all things Alice or Mr. Dodgson.

Now I'm anxious to find a Martin Gardner article in The Skeptical Inquirer, a magazine dedicated to the eradication of pseudo-science. Thanks for the tip Ellen.

Katie Jacques Ever since you mentioned Carroll's proclivity to young girlchildren I really wanted to learn more about that rumor. I had read it as a salacious bit of reporting. Well today some of the books I'd ordered came.

1. Morton N. Cohen's LEWIS CARROLL; a Biography
2. LEWIS CARROLL; Fragments of a Looking-Glass by Jean Gattégno, translated by Rosemary Sheed
3. Inventing Wonderland: Victorian Childhood as Seen Through the Lives and Fantasies of Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, J.M.Barrie, Kenneth Grahame, and A.A. Milne by Jackie Wullschläger
   
   The first a straight scholarly very complete Biography, the second addressing the direct life and place influences to his stories, the infamous photography and his identity crisis, and finally the third explaining the Victorian view of sexuality and innocence that children represent. His actions so far in my reading sound like voyeurism and all the authors featured have their sexual proclivity explored in light of Victorian repression.
   
   Katie, now I feel more comfortable exploring what you know about all this but hope we can do it in the Annotated Alice discussion.

I'll be out of pocket for a week. Going to Chicago for the SeniorNet Annual Book Gathering. I've never been to Chicago and looking forward to the experience. I'll be back Sunday night November 14, the day before our books are supposed to be available for sale!

Please, just go on chatting, posting your thought, memeories, and comments about Children's Literature --I'll read and respond when I return. For now y'all --Barbara

For Ellen ... Roger Lea MacBride was Rose Wilder Lane's "adopted grandson" (not in any legal sense) and was her sole heir. He was the son of an editor at the Reader's Digest and met her when his father took him along to a meeting with her in Danbury, CT in 1943. Roger was 14 at the time. They became very close and after he graduated from Harvard Law School, he became her agent and attorney.

At Rose's death in 1968, MacBride inherited her and her mother's papers and the royalty rights to the "Little House" books and Rose's writings. He published Laura's manuscript of "The First Four Years" in 1971, and in 1974 he edited Laura's letters home to Almanzo from the San Francisco World's Fair in 1915 and published them as "West From Home."

Like Rose (and no doubt under her influence), MacBride had a strong libertarian (with a small "l") philosophy. He was elected to the Vermont State Legislature as a Republican in 1962, and in 1972, as a presidential elector in Virginia, cast his electoral vote for the Libertarian Party presidential ticket. He ran for President of the U.S. on the Libertarian (with a capital "L") Party ticket in 1976. According to the Libertarian Party's web site, his name appeared on 32 state ballots and he received 175,000 votes. He rejoined the Republican Party in 1983 and was president of the Republican Liberty Caucus, a group of libertarians working within the Republican Party.

In recent years MacBride wrote a series of books for young people (age 9-12) about Rose's childhood and youth, as an extension of the "Little House" series. There are seven books in the series, and probably would have been more if MacBride had not died in March, 1995. The last one was published this year. I have not read any of them, but reviews suggest they are not as well written as Rose's work or Laura's books (as edited by Rose).

Rose certainly did edit Laura's stories to delete any reference to government assistance. She deleted a section describing how Mary's tuition, room and board, and books at the state school for the blind in Vinton, Iowa were paid for by the Dakota Territory.

P.S. I just ran across an extremely comprehensive LIW/RWL web site maintained by a Jennifer Slegg. One of you clever people can no doubt convert this to a clickable link for me (since I'm html-impaired):

http://www.pinc.com/home/jenslegg/index.htm

Katie,

Here is the clickable for the site Katie, which looks very interesting:

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Larry

Here is a little tip for any who are "html impaired" (BIG GRIN!!!!)...

If you put the complete URL in your post, making sure that you have a space before it and a space after it, the URL will be clickable. The software that SeniorNet is using does this automatically.

I edited your post Katie, and put the complete URL starting with http:// before the www. and it's now clickable.

Hope this helps everyone.

Pat

Barbara, when I was a fine art photographer I viewed a lot of old photographs, including many of those of Lewis Carroll. I don't think there is any doubt that he was taken with little girls, but I don't remember any evidence that he ever acted upon his interests in any way but with honor. So, to me it makes no difference. June

June I agree there seems to be no documentation that he acted on his fantasies but there seems to be an element of voyeurism suggested since he requested to have 2 hours alone with these girls and his letters to them sound like love letters. The one book Inventing Wonderland Victorian childhood as seen throught the lives and fantasies of Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, J.M. Barrie, Kenneth Grahame, and A.A.Milne by Jackie Wullschläger, speaks to his life-long dislike of little boys and his post in Oxford's Christ Church required he take Holy Orders and not marry; that his solitary life at Oxford as well as, his stuttering disappeared as he obsessively and desperately with friends, correspondents, at social gatherings, on trains, at the beach, in college from the age of twenty till death, collected little girls. His early photographs are sentimental, later the girls are posed naked with sexuality lurking, referred to in his diary as 'sans habilement'. The photos were ordered to be destroyed after his death.

I have not completed the book nor the chapter on Lewis Carroll. The thesis seems to be, the obsession Victorians had with the purity and innocense of children that men would have prefered examplified in woman but was idealized in children. All these authors have a strange fixation for children and a longing for childhood. Some are married and do not live with their wives and others never marry.

Katie that is the best link to Luara Ingalls Wilder, Rose Wilder Lane and the Little House genre. Just studying the background of these authors would be facinating let alone, reading one of the Little House books. I hope to start a list of links in the heading so that we can refer to them easily in the future. Katie this one is a keeper for that list.

Pat and Larry Thanks ever so much for helping out the last few days while we were off to Chicago.

Robby Won't you share just once in awhile, Pleeeaase? Enjoyed meeting you in Chicago --it is so much fun now that I have faces to image as I read some of the posts.

I've got it! I've got my Annotated Alice! Have you received your copy yet? Our B&N had a whole stack of them on display! Let's continue to wait untill Thursday as our start day so as many as possible of those joining us will have their book.

More on Roger Lea McBride and Rose Wilder Lane ...

Out of curiosity I ordered the first three of McBride's books in the series about Rose's childhood, and have read them all. I liked them better than I expected to, based on the reviews in amazon.com. Yes, McBride is a little wordier than LIW/RWL, but on the whole the style is very similar and the stories are told well. I plan to get the rest of the series, and would recommend them to those who love Laura's books.

There is also a series of three books about the childhood of Caroline Quiner Ingalls, Laura's mother and Rose's grandmother, written by Maria D. Wilkes, about whom I know nothing whatever.

Katie with all this background we may just have to get into the Ingalls after the holidays. We have a family tree of writers here. There is enough that someone like Ken Burns could do a documentary. Katie the names of the books Please?

Roger Lea McBride's books in the "Rose Years" series are:

"Little House on Rocky Ridge" (the trip from Dakota to Missouri, from Rose's point of view - compare with RLM's transcription of Laura's diaries in "On the Way Home")

"Little Farm in the Ozarks" (arrival and purchase of Rocky Ridge Farm)

"In the Land of the Big Red Apple" (the first year at Rocky Ridge)

"On the Other Side of the Hill"

"Little Town in the Ozarks"

"New Dawn on Rocky Ridge"

And one more, published this year, the name of which I can't remember at the moment.

The "Caroline Years" books, about Laura's mother's childhood, written by Maria D. Wilkes, are:

"Little House in Brookfield"

"Little Town at the Crossroads"

"Little Clearing in the Woods"

All of these books, plus the Little House series and a great many spin-off books, are published by HarperCollins.

Funny how one thing leads to another. In the second or third Rose book there is a reference to the Baldknobbers, a vigilante gang that ruled the Ozarks for some time after the Civil War. I was sure I remembered that some of the characters in Harold Bell Wright's "The Shepherd of the Hills" were Baldknobbers, or ex-Baldknobbers, and that the "Dewey Bald" mountain that figures prominently in SOH was supposedly the "bald knob" on which they held their secret meetings. So I drug out my antique SOH, and sure enough, Jim Lane and Wash Gibbs were Baldknobbers. (Not to be confused with the country-western singing group of the same name!)

"Shepherd of the Hills" is not a children's book, so it doesn't really belong in this discussion, but it was enormously popular in its day, and I read it for the first time when I was 10 or 11. I believe at one time it was the biggest selling book in history, second only to the Bible. The story and the country figure prominently in my own youth.

My father was a professor at the University of Kansas City (before it became affiliated with the University of Missouri). At the urging of a UMKC colleague, Dr. Bruce Trimble, my folks bought the lot next door to theirs in a newly developing subdivision south of the city known as the Hickman Orchard. We moved into our house next door to Trimbles' in June, 1940, when I was 4 years old.

After the war, Bruce and Mary Trimble spent a lot of time in the Ozarks, and one day in 1946 they came home saying they had bought a place near Branson and would be moving. They had bought the Ross homestead; J.K. Ross and his wife, Anna, were the models for Old Matt and Aunt Mollie in the novel. After the Rosses' deaths in the 1920's a woman named Lizzie McDaniel had bought the property. She lived in "Old Matt's Cabin" for a while, keeping the front room open as a museum, and later built a big, wonderful house on the property. Ms. McDaniel had spent many years collecting antiques and memorabilia from the SOH era. The Trimbles bought the farm after her death, all but the land on which the cabin and Old Matt's barn stand, and Inspiration Point, which were owned by the Branson Civic League. The Trimbles got a license to operate them as a tourist attraction.

Mary Trimble had a wonderful doll collection (which I adored as a child), and with that and the antiques that came with the house and that Mary collected over time, they made a museum out of the McDaniel house. In fact, they were operating it as a museum while they were still living in it! Eventually they built a new house across the highway, and the McDaniel house became solely a museum.

Dr. Trimble died in 1957, and Mary and their son, Mark, who is a few years older than I am, continued to develop the Shepherd of the Hills Farm, which is a major tourist attraction in the Branson area to this day (though the old HBW sites nowadays take a low billing, after all the country-western theaters!). Mark and Mary built the amphitheatre and started the Shepherd of the Hills pageant with local people playing the parts. Mark sold the place in the mid-1980's to a local man who had played Wash Gibbs in the pageant as a youth. The new owner, not Mark, built that ugly tower on Inspiration Point, just in case you've been there to see it!

In the early years of the Trimbles' operations we visited them several times. The first time, they were still living in the McDaniel house with no electricity and no running water except for a pump in the kitchen. I spent considerable time down there after it was up and running; I must have been 12 or 13 when I was leading groups of tourists through the museum and the cabin, describing the artifacts.

I even got to see, if not meet, one of the characters in HBW's book. Fiddlin' Jake was still living, and Bruce Trimble took my dad out to meet him. They made us kids stay in the car; old Jake was pretty cantankerous and Dr. Trimble didn't know him well enough to know how we would be received. He came out of his log cabin carrying a shotgun, as I recall, but he and Dr. Trimble and my dad had an amicable visit, and I was profoundly impressed to have actually seen one of the characters in the book.

Mary was a great fan of Rose O'Neill and had a HUGE collection of Kewpies. I wonder what became of them.

Katie, what an interesting tidbit of history. I remember going to the Shepard of the Hills play quite a few years ago and we really enjoyed it. That was before the development of the country music industry in Branson. Thanks for sharing your personal knowledge and experiences.

Larry

Katie I'm echoeing Larry but, thank you for sharing some of your history. I remember vaguely, reading Shephard of the Hills at about the time I was reading books like Trail of the Lonesome Pine and A Kentucky Cardinal all generic to Southern rural life.

I completly disassociated Shephard of the Hills with Branson now that Branson has become such the music mecca for the past famous. Thanks for making that reconnect for me. Branson has not been high on my list of places to visit but it now has a different aura for me.

Oh and a Doll Collection! It may be because I do not have any granddaughters therefore I may not be as aware but, it appears to me little girls do not play with dolls as I remember we did. I do see many lovlies in the shops, especially this time of year, with most of the really wonderful dolls made in Germany and priced more expensively then I would think the average Mom could spend for her little girl.

Katie you seem to have lived an interesting life. Did you attend UMKC? Was your husband an academician also?

I took a couple of night classes at UMKC when I took a year out of full-time college, but I got my B.A. at Oberlin College in Ohio. Which was my dad's idea, and I have to say it worked out well. I had a great time there.

My husband not only was not an academician, he never went to college a day. He spent 25 years in the Border Patrol. That's how we got to San Diego. He was a voracious reader and knew more about history and archaeology than most college graduates ever learned. He also spoke fluent Spanish, although he was half-Norwegian and grew up on a farm in northern Minnesota.

Our son-in-law, Michael,is Mexican-American. His grandmother speaks almost no English, and his mother is fluently bilingual, but she discouraged Michael and his siblings from learning Spanish because she thought it would hold them back. It was always funny when we would all go out together to a Mexican restaurant and the waiters would talk to Michael ... and Michael would look blank, and my husband, the Norwegian, would answer in Spanish!

I visited Branson briefly in March of 1993. I had taken my 3-year-old grandson to visit his father's family in Hot Springs, Arkansas. We flew to Little Rock and rented a car. To use my frequent flyer miles, we had to stay over an extra day after his dad and stepmom left. So I drove up to Branson to visit an old friend of my mother's, who had retired there about 15 years earlier. It was the off season so the theaters were all closed and the place was pretty much deserted. I was just amazed by the development since I had been there last. Of course, Mark Trimble had sold the Shepherd of the Hills place several years before, so I had no reason to stop there, just drove by and checked the place out. I wouldn't go there during tourist season for all the tea in China!

Katie I am so glad you have joined us. The variety of your life experiences has added so much and I love hearing you share. And yes, for one reason or another so many of us have lost our second language. For me it was German that was nixed after the Beer Garten my family danced and sang at nearly every Sunday night was smashed and marked all over with swastikars --in silent shock we walked home. During that walk my mother insisted to my Grandmother "no more German Mom, no more speaking German even at home."

And your son-in-law in the name of Americanization looses his heritage - sad and yet, here is your wonderful adventurous husband learning and accomplishing so much, including feeling secure in his American identity that another language spoken is a wonderful addition to his life.

Well, of course, my husband learned Spanish because he had to -- it was a requirement of his job! But he did believe strongly in the value of learning other languages. When his mother was a young woman, she taught school in an area of Aitkin County in Minnesota that had been settled by Swedish people, and then later in a Finnish neighborhood. She was born in Wisconsin, but had older siblings who were born in Norway, and spoke Norwegian from birth. So at one time she spoke four languages - English, Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish.

We make a big fuss nowadays about bilingual education, whether it is good or bad, how to do it right, etc. But in those days they just did it. If the teacher didn't know the kids' language, she learned at least enough to communicate with them. (Of course, all those languages are similar enough, like Romance languages, that if you know one, it isn't hard to learn another. Except maybe for the Finn, which I seem to remember is from a different family.) The teacher learned from the kids, and they learned English from her. It seems to have worked out reasonably well.

My great-grandfather emigrated from Germany after the Civil War. I don't really know when we lost the German language in my father's family, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't spoken at home when he was growing up. My dad knew a little German but I think he learned it in college. My great-grandfather had 13 children and as far as I know, none of them spoke German. (I do remember some of my grandfather's younger brothers and his sister.) So I don't THINK we lost the German as a result of WW I; it was gone before that. But it certainly was not the "done" thing to speak German in those days.

My family name (Misbach) is pretty obviously German, but I don't recall anybody ever making any insinuations about it during WW II. I certainly wasn't conscious of it as an issue. But we were culturally a long way removed from our German heritage. It's really sad that you lost yours, Barbara, as a result of such prejudice.

Alas, where I grew up, I fear we had more neighbors who thought Hitler maybe had the right idea about the Jews, than haters of Germany! I remember getting into some SERIOUS arguments about that.

We lost Norweigian in our family, too--my great-grandmother Clara emigrated when she was 18, along with several of her brothers. Her mother Severina came about 5 years later, bringing along a man for Clara to marry. The man was in his 50s, Clara refused to marry him, so Severina did! Clara ended up marrying a man who spoke German as his native language. Only English was spoken in the home, so my grandmother and her siblings spoke only English as well.

I live in Northern New Mexico, where there are multiple native languages as well as Spanish spoken in homes. I worked with a woman whose family has lived here since it was part of Mexico; they all speak Spanish and English. Incidentally, the correct term here is "Spanish" rather than "Hispanic." I also once interviewed for an ESL teaching position and was told I would not be allowed to speak the native language in the position because the language is too sacred for outsiders to learn to speak.

Ellenand Katie Both of you with Norwegian heritage in your family and you Katie, you married into the Norwegian heritage! Did your family Ellen, or Katie your husband, share or read stories of Norse myths or Norwegian fairy tales? Did you hear or read stories of elves and trolls during Christmas? And you both have some German! Do you remember any German stories or legends?

I remember just loving Hiedi. My mother first read it to me when I was about 6. Often she would tell me parts of it, slipping into German and then catch herself and go back to reading. I guess those intimate fay moments with her helped endear the story to me. I read it again and again. When I was about 13 I received a copy of Heidi Grows Up for Christmas. Heaven at age 13! I understand Heidi country is in Lichtenstein and its still on my list of 'things I want to do & places I want to visit'.

We still celebrate the Feast of Saint Nicholas all these generations later. Our Christmas season starts with Saint Nicholas day on the 6th of December. The night before, the children write their notes and leave them on the mantal or under their shoe on a window sill. ON the 6th, in the place of the note, is a simple token like a new toothbrush or notepad or special pencil and then the biggy --all the Christmas books topped by one new one is left along with, a new Advent Calander and the pewter advent wreathes with the 3 purple and one rose candles and finally the list or individual slips of paper with good deads to be performed in secret for members of the family. From the 6th onward all serious baking and sewing, wrapping and decorating begin.

I've split up among my children our collection of Christmas books but I did hang on to a few favorites; Miss Read and the Christmas Mouse and A Child's Christmas in Wales

Also, Ellen, did your Indians celebrate Christmas or a winter festival? Did you learn any of their stories or myths?

Amazing, my family also celebrated Dec. 6 as feast of st. nicholas, i remember we wrote our letters to nick and waited with anticipation to see what token nick would leave behind. our "santa's" were often graceful thin figures with long beards looking more like elves than the fat and jolly american santa, except for a rather tubby guy who would appear on the piano year after year. just about that same time the elves would secret themselves into the house, mostly hiding in the attic and watching us to be sure we were "good" until christmas day. my brother and i rarely made it and had coal in our stockings every year. also my older sister lived in kentucky when i was little and we would wait with great anticipation for her package to arrive, inside were wonderfully and creatively wrapped gifts. that box was probably more important to my brother and i than anything else that had become a christmas tradition. my sister seemed to know the perfect gift for each of us cigars for my father and usually a book for me. i still have them, Liddaby stories and one i recall about a young girl riding around in a horse drawn sleigh. as a child i did not like the cold or snow but would imagine myself wrapped in those long blankets with sleigh bells jingling on the coldest nights of the year.

YiLi Lin I'm going to cry! Oh my coal huh! I wonder if parants could even find a piece of coal today? I had a sister, just 2 years younger, who got an onion in her stocking. The onion was supposed to be for children who cried too much and were considered cry babies. Either the lot of children has changed and we give more attention to children's needs today or parants as frazzeled as they may be are not as freightened with little time for crying children - seldom hear the complaint anymore about children crying too much.

We are reading Annotated Alice just now and in the second chapter Alice cries creating a pool that she may drown in if she doesn't dry her tears. Wow that bit hit all kinds of buttons for me that did not make me feel very comfortable.

YiLi Lin if you scroll back there are some wonderful posts about other remembered childhood books. Katie Jacques seems to be our in-house expert on the Ingalls/Wilder authors. Ellen has a little guy, Teddy, just teething now. She has tought at the Indian School in New Mexico. Joan P. is the discussion leader for the Great Books here on SeniorNet, there are others that you will get to know - June and Lorrie, Ella oh so many.

So glad you found us, look forward to your adding to our conversation about Childhood Lit.

Just for you... Katie and Ellen with y'all's tad of Norweigan heritage. A small Christmas project...Troll pencil topper

Thank you for the Trolls I have made enough copies for the 1st and 2nd grades... And Trolls are Swedish too.

My favourite children's book is The Velveteen Rabbit. I always have a copy about the house. If a child comes and i read it to them...i give them the copy and then purchase another.

I think it teaches the same lesson as King Lear. Just my opinion.

Have a bright and shiny everyone. )

Merry Christmas to you all.

Idris O'Neill I have never read The Velveteen Rabbit I wonder if has been published after my children were grown? King Lear hmmmm. You have peaked my interest - I must read it the next time I'm in the book store.

A simple little Holiday Cheerfulness Have a Joy Filled Holiday Everyone! Click Here

I'm off to my daughter's Tuesday morning (so early it will still be darknight, flight leaves at 6:30 AM aughh) upon arrival, we will be very busy visiting so I may not be in here as often. Please post when you get a chance between baking, visiting, and playing Santa.

The Velveteen Rabbit, is not exactly like Lear, but it deals with the whole concept of love and when you know you have become "Real". The Skin Horse knows he is real because he has been loved. The Velveteen Rabbit learns that he is real because the boy loved him. There is a wee fae that eventually takes the Velveteen rabbit into the woods where he indeed becomes real. The book is by Margery Williams.

My webpage is made to look somewhat like the copy of the book, that i now have.

The Velveteen Rabbit dates back to the early 1920's, but for some reason I missed it too, Barbara. I didn't become aware of it until my daughters were teenagers.

Idris, I'd really appreciate it if you could expand on the relationship between the Rabbit and Lear. Certainly the power of love is a common theme, but I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Since Ben is reading at 5th grade level now, I dug out Charlotte's Web, Wind in the Willows and Stuart Little. The latter to show him how tv and movies murder good books. He's enjoying them. He's now re reading the Uncle Wiggley books that were mine. Enjoying them more now than two years ago when I read them to him--he's 8 now. When he's here we read together. It's such a pleasure to see him read so well.

Ruth I didn't read Wind in the Willows as a child but Ruth, several visits ago to London during the holidays, I found a copy of The Willows in Winter written by William Horwood with permission and the help of the Kenneth Grahame family. I was enchanted, having started the book flying home I couldn't even unpack until I finished reading and than of course promptly went out and bought a copy of Wind in the Willows. this year I found the soft cover of the Willows and Beyond which I liked it's appeal to a more aged generation although, it has that same sage and quiet beauty along with some hub bub that appeals to the young. Ruth these are delightful books and I truly hope you could find them to add to your enjoyment of Raty, Badger, Mole and Toad with you Grand.

Ruth What did you think if the movie version of Charlotte's Web?

all of Louisa M. ALCOTT especially Little Women and at 8 or nine Little Men Tom SAWYER dOES NOONE REMEMBER eLSIE dINSMORE

Winifred-- so many have found memories of Little Women. Did you see either of the movie versions? And no, I didn't read Elsie Dinsmore-- I sort of remember the name. Wasn't it a series? What age was Elsie and were did she live?

We really need to get another Children's Book going-- Harry Potter seems to have drawn us as it does the children but the oldies is where our hearts are.

I read all of Elsie Dinsmore. Didn't we discuss those books here, or was it in Library & Bookmobile? I think there were 22 or more books. Elsie lived in the South. I was between the ages of 9 and 13 when I read the books, so memory is vague. I believe she was a small child during the Civil War and a teenager afterwards. She writes of the first masked men who rode horses at night and terrorized people. That sticks out in my mind. She grew up, married, had babies, raised them, and became a grandmother, all as a gentle flower of the Southland!

I saw a copy of "Diddie, Dumps & Tot" in a museum in Fredericksburg recently, and was brought up short. I remembered loving the book and have often thought of the book for the past 60 years (being about 11 when I read it, and now I'm 71), but have been calling it "Diddie, Dumps and Dot" all these years.

Well, it is Tot!

Anyone else remember this book?

MaryPage-- thanks for the capsule of Elsie Dinsmore-- now that I think of it, aren't there paper cut-outs of her with costumes? I need to check on the series. We read The Little Colonel books but not about Elsie Dinsmore. My taste seemed to be more with girls that were tom boys as they were called, girls that rode or sailed with cousins or other men or, books about adventure even if the hero was a boy or men. I always imagined myself as the hero. Although, I did love Mary Poppins and Heidi.

I just found in an old trunk my copy of The Good Master by Kate Seredy. What fond memories re-reading that brought to me. I remember thinking it would be so neat to wear 18 petticoats and I think my love of having an annual flower garden, even as a child, stemed from my reading that book.

Barbara, Elsie Dinsmore was extremely old fashioned reading. I believe it was published in the latter part of the 19th century. It was no longer being published when I was a child (born 1929). The books I read were in the glassed in top portion of an antique secretary belonging to an aunt who had inherited the set and kept it for sentiment. I only read them when I went to her house.

Wow! I wonder if they were ever revised or if a library has them in their collection? Think I'm going to go on a little hunt just for fun sake.

In another book discussion here on SeniorNet, someone said she heard the books were being rewritten and published.

I just don't see the point in that. I think stories should stay original to their own times, like Jane Austen. I mean, who would Think of rewriting Her books! I hated it that they updated Nancy Drew and the Bobbsey Twins, too.

Oh well, I always say; what difference does it make to anyone except me?!

I'm with you MaryPage and from the way Carol Burnet presented the Tony Award for the Best Re-make of A Broadway Musical, naming those actor/singer/dancer's who made the original so grand, I think she felt that way also-- she added "and the torch is passed on" but with such a lack of enthusiasim! Leave the original alone to stand out in memory and if it is important to add to the collectve memory of this country, than just copy it without modernizing it.

How can you rewrite a book someone else has written. Somehow it definitely does not seem right. Why can't the Nancy Drew books, the Bobsey Twins, etc. stay where they belong? If the children today read them maybe they can learn what life was like before they were born. I didn't like when someone changed Heidi's hair color and style. In the original book her hair was short, dark, curly. The 2 sequels made her blond with braids.

By-the-way, I love the font color in this folder. How did you do that and what color is it?

Louise, I am assuming Barbara did that and I agree that the color scheme is delightful.

You get my point EXACTLY about the books being rewritten! I mean, WHY modernize them? You are absolutely right, let the children read and know how people lived way back when, just as we read Jane Austen and discover the social rules of courting back in the early 19th century! They are rewriting them so that the children of today "can identify" with the language and the household items, etc. Well, h--l, the Bobbsey Twins DID NOT HAVE TV, etc. and that is that! Nancy Drew drove an old roadster because her father was a wealthy lawyer, but she had no cell phone or 2-way radio or tape player, etc. Let them write today's books for today and read yesterday's books to find out about children back then!

So glad you cannot hear me grinding my teeth.

To me half the fun of watching an old tv show is to see how much has changed since the 60's or 70's or whenever it was originally made. The medical shows and detective shows all reflect their time frame. I get annoyed when they try to put the values of our day into a period show. They did that when they made the tv show based on Jo's boys and even a little bit with Dr. Quinn Medicine Women.

Louise glad you like the colors-- the orange is: E4860C The aqua is: 077F7E and the brown is: 5C4033

Several of those that help us with the headings have a program that reads the colors from whatever graphic we are using. It is PC software and I use a Mac therefore, they are kind enough to read the colors for me.

I guess all this modernization of the classics is to me what is adding to the dumbing down of education for our children. Where are all the authors with in-depth exciting stories based on todays lifestyles? My thought is they are writting for Hollywood and the story becomes a movie rather then a series of books for children to enjoy a good read. There are a few though like, the Goosebump books and of course Rawling's Harry Potter series. Even the Goosebump books are not filled with that much adventure.

I started to post this as an indignant reply but have changed my mind. I taught 8th grade last year and instead of getting to read classic American literature with the kids (books like Tom Sawyer) we had a book called The Fighting Ground, which was possibly on a 5th grade reading level. I was told that Tom Sawyer was a 6th grade book...not that the 6th grade actually read it, you understand....

On the other hand, we also read The Outsiders, which is set in the late 1960s but does contain "mature" themes (if teen pregnancy and gang fights can be considered mature).

I definitely oppose dumbing down, but the truth is that I didn't have many kids who were capable of doing the work. In my history class it wasn't a problem, but in language arts I thought if I dumbed it down any further, the kids would actually be stupider than they were when they arrived for class. Maybe half of them could reliably pick out a noun; half of those could always recognize the verb in a sentence. The ones I had who were best at grammar were the ones who had a very traditional teacher in 6th grade who had taught them to diagram sentences (I was told that this was not an effective way to teach students about language).

And reading skills! First I had to persuade them to do it at all! Then I had to retell the story. I also taught Diary of Anne Frank (the play, not the diary, which is "too long") by having the class read to themselves, then aloud together, then we discussed it. The day we did the review questions, one of my students said, "Oh! I didn't know Anne was in hiding, too--I thought it was just her family!"

Whew. I didn't mean to go off in a rant. I don't know what the root cause of all this is; teachers blame parents, and parents blame the schools, and politicians blame society. Me, I just wish the students realized that there are good books to read.

Ellen, WHAT a horror story! I can still remember my 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Cox at Fort Knox (which we thought, of course, giggle .. giggle, was EXTREMEly funny) teaching us to diagram sentences and giving us such vivid blackboard examples, complete with her drawings of wagons, etc., of how to tell the various parts of speech, that it has all stuck with me ever since and Never, Ever been a problem for me! IMAGINE not teaching that way! I'm sorry, but a thing is a thing is a thing, and there never WILL be a better way to teach those concepts!

I am still hard nosed and implacable about the time spent watching tv and hanging out being the cause for lack of book reading. Sigh! If ONLY the parents would unplug the tv and insist on homework being done and curfews being set and met.

Looking back, I think my favorite teachers were the strict ones because I believe they truly cared. Teachers now have so much to do dodging bullets and trying to get a word or two between pagers, cell phones and other side activities I don't suppose they have much time to teach. I am meeting more and more children who are being taught at home. To be schooled at home must require a lot of discipline on the part of both parent and child.

Louise, that is definitely a factor.

But sometimes the best teacher is the one who is most passionate about the subject being taught.

Over the many decades since I was in high school in the forties, the gals I have run into or met at reunions or visits together and I often, as we all do, rehash the teacher/student relationships and who we loved then and who we remember now.

And a funny thing happened to each and every one of us. We had our favorite teachers, mostly according to our Personalities. The same teachers, year after year, had their little groups of adoring girls. (I went to an all girls boarding school.) And also, at the time, the ones we spoke of as the "best" teachers were invariably the strongest personalities. That was then, and is a common story heard everywhere. But NOW we all look to another woman as being the best teacher we ever had, and there is no disagreement amongst us. This lady was a very fussy old maid type. Her fiance had been killed in WWI and she never got over him and never married. She taught English History and Jr/Sr English Lit. (the latter 2 being what are called AP courses today). She never could discipline well and it was easy to get her confused. We laughed at her a lot behind her back. And she was no ones' favorite; she had no "followers" and no girls looked her up or brought her little presents.

But boy, did she love her subject matter! And she knew it backwards and forwards. She made me love the British Isles and relish the history and literature of those islands. That love has never left me. I did not appreciate the woman herself back then, and I feel guilty about my stupidity now. But do you know, EVERY OTHER OLD GIRL says the same thing!

I too wonder Ellen, at the root of students seeming less able to digest books that I rmemeber reading while so young. Part of it I think, we are afraid to challange a child. If it is difficult the child will put up such a fuss and than we have parants marching on the teacher. Nothing worthwhile is easy - no not abusivily hard, but definetly work with some strain and effort.

This is where the priviate school still has the edge I think. Becuase if the student complains about the difficulty and puts up a fuss well they ultimatly will be asked to leave. The school doesn't cater to children that do not want to put out effort.

Unfortunatily many folks, not just children, have this concept that something worthwhile can be achieved easily and they measure the world based on this thinking. TV made entertainment so easily acessable that folks forget what it is like to do for themselves. Children took music lessons not because it made them better math and science students but because in order to enjoy some light hearted moments or the sound of music you had to play it yourself, just as jams and vegtabeles in winter were affordably available only if someone canned them. Bedtime stories may now be a time to snuggle but when I was a child even though there was a radio there was still the idea that family pleasure and education came from reading.

Oh but what they are missing by depending on TV and Diseny's version of the classics. The rich sound of words and your own imagination which is always so much more than what can be filmed. I always had several books going at once. One hidden in my room when I was supposed to be studying latin, another of course in the bathroom and one in the kitchen to read over the sink while doing dishes, another on the back porch to grab when I left the house to either go to school or bike out to my favorite tree and lean against it.

Barbara, what an image! I can just picture you, books here, books there, books everywhere. I always had just one book at a time, but especially in summer I read two or three books a day.

I've been weeding out old books today and came across some childhood favorites: Madeleine L'Engle. Actually, since I just bought one of hers a few months ago, I guess I'd have to say adult favorites, too. Not long ago, I re-read "A Wrinkle in Time;" I had forgotten how isolated the main character was, and how sad. At the same time I was astonished at the higher-level science that was accessible to the reader.

I did not have Madeleine L'Engle when I was little!

My Children did not have Madeleine L'Engle when they were little!

I remember when Madeleine L'Engle came out. I had Grandchildren already!

I bought them all for them, reading them first.

Just bought and read and wrapped up for my to-be-seven-in-October great granddaughter, Miss Emily, the following, which I hugely enjoyed and highly recommend for Your descendants!

"Three Tales Of MY FATHER'S DRAGON" by Ruth Stiles Gannett. "My Father's Dragon" was a Newbery Honor winner in 1944! This book is absolutely charming and original. Pure fun!

"Mistress Masham's Repose" by T.H. White, which was first published in 1947! Wonderful stuff for stretching children's imaginations AND for teaching them to read Literature with a capital L.

These books are available on line, or can be ordered at the best book stores.

MaryPage thanks for the hint. One of my favorites is from the 1930s The Good Master and The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy. I loved the illustrations.

Your suggestions sound like winners and I need to find them. The Three Tales Of MY FATHER'S DRAGON sounds like it could be a chinese tale.

Believe it or not my two grands visiting here from SC viewed the vidio with me of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Ty the 9 year old, going to be 10 in November, was really into it with lots of questions and Cade the 6 year old listened and watched with mouth ajar.

"Water, water everywhere and nought a drop to drink." Remember when we had to memorize poems for school? The Rime... was one that the boys loved while reading it in low musky tones.

Yes, I remember having to memorize that poem as well. Never liked it. Never liked Coleridge. Unfortunately, I can still remember the d--n poem!

My Father's Dragon DOES sound Chinese, doesn't it! Well, it is not. It would seem to be very, very American, I would guess. I think, actually, that is a pretty good guess.

hahahhehe Mary the poem was not your favorite I take it hehe! Well the title of The Three Tales Of MY FATHER'S DRAGON really has me intrigued now that your saying it isn't chinese. Hmmmmm need to find this one.

Oh how I loved her books. The first book I read was little women at age 6. I continued to go through the whole series. It would do children of today a power of good to have decent literature portraying family values!

I loved Jo, I used to write and still do and also was heavily involved in Childrens Drama. I could really identify with her! How I felt like slapping Amy! We had an Amy in our home. There were four girls and our Amy was also the youngest! She is still Amy at 40!

There are so many childrens classics I still love to read. Of course we must not forget Anne of Green Gables. My mother also read the Anne Books as a child. I still read them! I loved the TV adaptations too!

I could go on and on!

Carolyn (New Zealand)

Carolyn, I read EVERY SINGLE Anne book that L.M. Montgomery wrote, including Rainbow Valley and a book of short stories about her. I believe Rilla of Ingleside, a book mostly about Anne's youngest daughter, was the last of the series.

MY oldest daughter is Anne, with an E! She does not, sorry to say, have red hair.

Did anyone out there read this man's books? He wrote on nature for very young children. I lived in a lovely small village where the woods and fields came right into town because of a wide creek that ran through the middle of it. Nowhere in the town was more than a few minutes walk from real country. One of my favorite books was "The Burgess Flower Book for Children," in which Peter Rabbit discovers all the wild flowers that grow in the countryside, and it had many, many page-sized photos tipped in. I loved going out in the fields and woods and finding the flowers in the book. There was one on birds as well, which was another favorite. Finding those birds was years of enjoyment. As a teenager, and even later, my favorite aunt and I would walk in the woods for hours, talking and looking at the flowers, birds and animals. I left the U.S. recently to live in Portugal, and one of the last things I did was to find a copy of this old book (1946); then I had my aunt sign it. She's going on 96 and lives in a home, and very likely we shall not see each other again. In many ways - in my heart - she and the book have blended together into one large, warm memory stretching over years.

How lovely! Yes, I read him untold years ago.

Oh my - no I had not heard of Thorton Burgess nor his book "The Burgess Flower Book for Children." I must now find it - is sounds wonderfu. More than likely the reason I'm not aquainted with this book is the year it was published. IN 1947 I was a Freshman in High School and reading adult books. I read so much as a child that I had exhausted the children's section of our library. In those years an early marriage was the "plum" and so married a year out of high school and my first Baby a year later in 1953. My daughter in 1954. During her childhood the Tasha Tudar illustrated books were all the rage. Burgess would have been between us and I just never did come across his book-- But I wish I had.

There is a really good small shop left in Austin where he finds fore sale old books. He has a large collection of older children's books and so I will start there and see if I can find it.

Kvex thanks so much for bringing it to our attention. Sounds like a winner doesn't it Marypage?

Today, Tuesday, October 3, 2000, is Assembly-Line Kiddy Adventure Stories Day!

We could call it "Nancy-Bobbsey-Hardy-Rover-Swift Day"; except that to be accurate, we really should say "Edward L. Stratemeyer and Friends" Day. That's because the outfit that churned out all those erstwhile favorites of the younger set was known as the "Stratemeyer Syndicate." It was the brainchild of good ol' Edward L. (who was born in October of 1862).

He wasn't all that great a writer himself, but he apparently did come up with those questionable "Rover Boys" the first of the lot. Whatever, he sure had big ideas about how to get little kids interested in the printed page. So he created his syndicate. For his youngest, um, targets, he manufactured The Bobbsey Twins — yep, two sets in the same family. Plus a bunch of cousins, both near and far. And did they ever have adventures! They're introduced in "The Bobbsey Twins at Home."

Anyway, Mr. Stratemeyer single-handedly initiated an incredible body of work. He did it following a well-thought-out plan.

We smile at childhood fantasies. . .but if you've ever read any of the adventures of the Bobbsey Twins, or Tom Swift, or Nancy Drew, or the Hardy Boys, I'll just bet you sometimes catch yourself remembering some of them.

Right?

Remember all those "cliffs, hidden tunnels, haunted mansions, old clocks, secret caves, tower treasures and brass-bound trunks"? Would you believe somebody's still churning them out?

Here's a trivia question for you: How many books are in the original Hardy Boys canon? What do you think?

In the 1970s, Nancy Drew and the Hardys hit the small screen, with Shaun Cassidy, Parker Stevenson, and Pamela Sue Anderson hamming it up in the title roles and garnering quite a following.

Back to the original books. . .can't leave without a nod to Tom Swift.

I read them all. Usually the girls read the ones written for girls and the boys read the ones written for boys. But I read them both, and thought the boys had more fun. As for the Bobbseys, I can still remember they were Nan and Bert and Freddie and Flossie. At least, I think they were. My memory is much clearer and more adamant on the point than it is about something I read last week.

Oh yes Mary I loved the Bobbsey Twins. I have two books that were my mother's and than the ones that I recieved usually for Christmas. Wasn't it Freddie that was locked in the department store? And the ice skating and train rides and I think wasn't there something about the ice breaking or did someone fall in the ice and Bert to the rescue.

Oh yes I loved them too!

I also loved the once politically incorrect Enid Blyton Books, however Noddy is now back in the libraries with some minor changes. My granddaughter and I can share his adventures together some 50 years on from my first encounter with him!

I loved Grimms Fairy Tales

Hans Christian Anderson

All of the Brontes books

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. Many tears shed by a little girl over that one!

I could go on and on!

Carolyn

Carolyn, I knew and loved all of those except for the Enid Blyton books. Have never heard of them. It could be that they are not or have not been published here in the United States. Do tell us about them. Who was Noddy?

Noddy is a little toy boy with a hat with a bell on. He has a little red car and lives in toyland. Some of the other characters are Big Ears who is a Pixie or a Gnome, Mr Plod the Policeman, Tessie the Bear! Lots of others.

Stories have some sort of a moral in them. You could get them from a British Publisher. They are in a renaissance period here in NZ and I think they are in Britain! I still like watching the videos. They are simple stories, magic stories, wholesome stories! My grandaughter loves them and she is quite a sophisticated three year old Miss!

Carolyn

Carolyn, They sound absolutly delightful and magical but I hadn't heard of them either. Are they still being published or are they only available in resale books shops?

Still being published had to have alterations because of political correctness (phooey!) in soft cover and hard back. Videos too! The ones I had as a child only came in small hard back editions. I am sure you could get them. Author is Enid Blyton. She also wrote for older children The Famous five Series which also I adored! She is since deceased but her childrens books live on. In her biography her daughters say she was a very distant mother! Hard to imagine as she seemed to understand the minds of children well. Perhaps she never grew up!

Carolyn

Of course, old nosynose here, dying to know what was politically incorrect in them.

Or do I not want to know? There is a deep part of me always suspicious of this type of censorship. Then I remember back to some of the insensitivity in some of MY books when I was a child and realize their attitudes just would not sail today.

I can hardly believe it but they had cited racism because of terms (not offensive) used to describe a dear little black doll.

Then I believe there was something about anti -gay stuff! For the life of me I could not see it!

Sometimes these things go from the sublime to the ridiculous!

Carolyn

If you are buying for grandchildren. Try to get Lynley Dodds Hairy McLairy book series. All in rhyme but so fabulous for kids. The main hero is a little scruffy dog who lives at Donaldsons Dairy so it goes

Hairy McLairy from Donaldsons Dairy (Dairy is our name for convenience store) These books one day will be classics I am sure. Lynley Dodd is a New Zealander. Hope you can get hold of them.

Carolyn

You folks obviously don't watch enough TV with kids. Noddy is alive and well on PBS. It's charming, somewhat similar to the old Shining Time Station (Thomas the Tank Engine) series in that there are stories-within-stories, combining live action with animation. (Remember, Ringo Starr played the Conductor.) In fact, I didn't know this until just now when I went to look at the Noddy web site, but the current Noddy series was created by one of the developers of Shining Time Station.

Noddy himself leads a double life, as a toy in the live-action Noddy Shop and as a cartoon character in the animated Toyland. The animation was done for the BBC some years back and has been incorporated into the new program.

I had no idea, though, who created Noddy, nor did I have an inkling that the original stories had ever been considered politically incorrect!

November 13, 2000, is Robert Louis Stevenson Day!

This perennial favorite of the young and the young-at- heart lived only 44 years-- he was a victim of tuberculosis, died on December 3, 1894, in Western Samoa, where the people called him "Tusitala" — "Storyteller."

It is said that he was such a huge local favorite that when he died, the chiefs helped carry his body up a steep hill for burial.

The tuberculosis from which Stevenson suffered didn't affect only his lungs, which would have been bad enough; TB attacks other parts of the body, too, such as the legs. Stevenson was in bed much of the time, and when he was able to be up, he often needed help to walk.

He was born exactly 150 years ago, on November 13, 1850, in Edinburgh, Scotland. When he was in his mid-thirties, he was staying in an inn on the Firth of Forth; and, looking out his window, he watched the ships heading out away from land. His mind took him even farther — to pirate- infested climes via long sea voyages. And he imagined his way into one of the great adventure books, "Kidnapped."

He's also famous for writing Treasure Island,The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and A Child's Garden of Verses.

A complete collection of Stevenson's verses

He wrote — fiction, poetry, essays — His imagination was that active. For instance, consider the elements in Treasure Island a closely held treasure map, seasoned buccaneers, a blind pirate commander, mutinous schemes, cunning, bravery — and a character named "Long John Silver." That's adventure! The story had a neat origin: He and his stepson invented a "treasure map" while on vacation — and the rest grew from there.

He's also remembered for a particular letter he wrote in defense of Father Damien, who labored heroically on the Hawaiian Island of Molokai to help the lepers there.

Stevenson visited Hawaii for the first time in 1889, shortly after Father Damien's death. He visited Molokai where he saw and heard of the great work that Damien had done there. Later that year he was shocked to read that a proposed memorial to Father Damien was being abandoned due to the publication of a highly defamatory letter written by a Presbyterian minister, the Reverand C.M.Hyde of Honolulu. Hyde apparently incenced at the glory being heaped upon Damien, resorted to insulting Damien's person and morels, and attributed his contraction of leprosy to sexual activity.(sounds like the same fear tactic used when AIDS first hit our shores)

Stevenson's rebuttal "Open letter to the Reverand Dr. Hyde of Honolulu" has been called "one of the most searing philippics in English since the days of AlexanderHope."

This all happened at least three years after the publishing of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. So, even though it would be fun to think he'd named his monster after a man he didn't respect, it seems it was just a coincidence.

The real Dr Jekyll? In his tale of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, one of the first 'psychological' thrillers, R.L.S. portrays how two contradictory personalities - one conventional and 'good', the other an example of increasingly uncontrolled 'evil' - can coexist in one body. It is said that this was an idea modelled on the late 18th century case of Deacon Brodie, a respectable Edinburgh businessman by day who was a gambler, adulterer, armed robber and murderer by night - and nobody knew until he bungled a robbery, was eventually caught and hanged on a gallows of his own invention!

Another of his yarns, called The Master of Ballantrae, incorporates an old Scottish castle, a fatal rivalry, sea voyages, piracy, and buried treasure. Good reading on long wintry nights.

1. Scotsman invents sleeping bag!
   
   R.L.S. has a good claim to be the inventor of the Sleeping Bag, taking a large fleece-lined sack with him to sleep in on the journey through France described in his book Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes.
   
   
2. Who was Long John Silver?
   
   The one-legged pirate cook, the dark hero of R.L.S.'s most famous novel Treasure Island is said to be based on the author's friend and collaborator William Ernest Henley, whom he met when Henley was in Edinburgh for surgery to save his one remaining leg from Tuberculosis.
   
   
3. How did R.L.S. die?
   
   Although probably afflicted throughout his life by Tuberculosis, R.L.S. actually died in 1894 at Vailima, his home on the South pacific island of Upolu, Samoa, helping his wife make mayonnaise for supper, of a cerebral haemorrhage (stroke).
   
   Malaria in California. R.L.S. nearly died of it in San Francisco shortly before his wedding in 1880.

"Oh, how I love to go up in a Swing!"

A Child's Garden of Verses was one of my very favorites as a child. And forevermore.

"Up in the swing so high"

Oh yes, MaryPage and what was the one about having to be in bed before dark when the other children were still out playing. That was a reality for me and I remember my mother quoting the poem in answer to my sister and my woeful remarks. We had had a bath and in our nighties but it was still light and we could here the sounds of the nighbor children playing. Oh yes, and one more the counterpane one. I was ill a lot as a child. Without the modern medicines bed was often a playground. Rather then lead soldiers I had lead farm people and farm animals that I scattered among the hills and dales I created with my legs under the sheets and blanket.

Yes, I really related to both of those as well.

Loved his verses. Many of them I had to learn for my elocution exams when I was a child. Kids never go to elocution now !

Carolyn

I found it and it sounds more wonderful than I even remembered.

When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay,
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.

Kiwi did you have any favorites? Did you have a special book or did you find the poems in your school books or was it a book you borrowed from the library?

Barb: Are you going to be reading the Goblet of Fire anytime soon here? I'm asking because my daughter wants her copy back and I do not wish to relinquish it until we discuss it.

Ok Alf I emailed you the situation but as I said we should be up and running before thanksgiving and possibly this weekend with Goblet of Fire!

Thanks Barb. Hey out there, who else wants to read with us? any takers? Let me know Barb when you're ready and we will advertise it more to get her up and running.

Oh, I am the NUMERO UNO Harry Potter fan! Still only just past half way through the book, as I have been moving since November 1, but will BE THERE!

OK MaryPage just need to have the train ready to roll on track 9 and 3/4 and we can at least get started taking as much time as we need. Book four is a long one isn't it?

The definitive Thanksgiving site. Includes receipies, literature, Email Thanksgiving Card, History, Blessings, Poetry, Crafts, Quotes, Decorating ideas, lists of Children's Thanksgiving stories. Loads a little slowly and includes music. Thanksgiving Quick Index

Swamp, Chief Jake. Giving Thanks; A Native American Good Morning Message. Lee & Low Books Inc. 1995. Picture Book. (All ages)
Based on the Native American Thanksgiving Address, the words in this book are just as beautiful as the pictures. The Mohawk people traditionally teach all children to respect, love, and appreciate nature, and this is emphasized in this book. It is for all people of all ages and definitely helps the reader to reassess what he or she is truly thankful for in his or her life.

Jeffers, Susan. Brother Eagle, Sister Sky. Scholastic Inc. 1991. Multicultural. (All ages)
When looking for a more sensitive way of helping students to understand the true occurrences after the first Thanksgiving, first read them this story, and then read them the prologue. After the feast in 1621, the white settlers began a bloody war against the Indians, and in the span of a lifetime claimed all the Indians' land for themselves. Near the end of the battles, one brave chief spoke out to the white people the text of this book. It has been made into a very inspirational story with a most compelling truth about environmental awareness and our sacred earth. This is truly an exceptional and enlightening book.

After reading the review of Susan Jeffers' book Brother Eagle, Sister Sky I researched Thanksgiving and found this information on this most beautiful site Indigenous Peoples' Literature

Thanksgiving traditionally denotes a harmonious time in the cycle of seasons; further examination of the times suggest otherwise.

"Not to be aware of the past
is to be forever a child,
but those of us who forget the past
are condemned to repeat it.
Mankind is the sum of his ancestors."
George Santayana

For Algonquins, the beheading of King Philip, son of Chief Massasoyt, and the sale of the Wampanoags into slavery has a different connotation then being harmonious. During the time of the Puritans; every Church, every Synagogue, and every Quaker Meeting House was built on money generated from Indian slavery. (Professor Robert Venables)

Traditionally the many indigenous cultures that inhabited North America gave thanks to the Creator, not once a year, but after every harvest, be it agriculture or game. These celebrations would last for several days. One such celebration happened at Patuxet, alias New Plimmoth, now known as Plymouth Rock, in August of 1621. It is this celebration that many of us were taught to picture as the "First Thanksgiving."

Most of us believe "Some Pilgrims, who arrived at Plymouth, were fed by some Indians," and that the Pilgrims were very religious and both the Native and the Pilgrim lived in harmony. The myth is perpetuated and evolves from the lack of understanding the true history.

August 11, 1620, a cold, and windy night, the Mayflower forced to anchor in the Bay of Paomet, alias Cape Cod. The Pilgrims were traveling to Jamestown, Virginia. As their precursor, Columbus, they too were lost. Running low on supplies, they anchored in the Bay of Cape Cod. On August 15, 1620, religious leaders such as William Bradford and Edward Winslow following a guide book published in Europe by Richard Hakluyt titled Virginia Richly Valued, lead these God-fearing Pilgrims to raid graves.(Mourt's Relation 1622) In the midst of this sacrilegious act they were discovered by the Nausets, the local indigenous band of Algonquins who subsequently chased the Pilgrims off the Cape. This is when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.

The Algonquin band of Wampanoags, openly welcomed the Pilgrims, taught them how to farm thus, providing them with food and saving them from starvation. The first Native American to encounter the Pilgrims was Samoset, who was a sagamore or chief of a distant band of Algonquins - the Morattiggons, he was on an extended fishing trip visiting the Wampanoags, when he boldly walked into the Pilgrims camp saluting them in English, bidding them welcome. The Englishman noted, that on Friday February 16, 1621, that Samoset by himself entered boldly into their camp saying "hello Englishman," and bidding them welcome. They also noted "he was a man of free speech, as far as he could express his mind." Samoset spent that first night with the Pilgrims describing to them the whole Country side, and of every Province, and of every sagamore, and their number of men, and strengths. Samoset stayed the night, leaving the Pilgrims the next morning.

Samoset returned, March 22, 1621, with Squanto, who is most popularized by American schools. He was the only surviving native of the Patuxet, known to the Pilgrims as New Plimmoth. Squanto had just returned from London (he was one of the first twenty captives sold by Hunt, a Master of a ship, who then sold them to Master Slanie who took them to Cornehill, England) and found, upon his return, that his people who had inhabited Patuxet had succumbed to an extraordinary plague. (this is the same village the Pilgrims are calling New Plimmoth) It was Squanto who taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn, and to fertilize earthen mounds with fish i.e., herrings or shads. The following fall, after hunting fowl, the Pilgrims harvested 20 acres of corn, six acres of barley and peas all according to the manner of the Algonquin agriculturist, they invited the Sachem Woosamaquin otherwise known as Chief Massasoyt, (the Wampanoags chief who first welcomed the Pilgrims to share the land) to celebrate their harvest. Accepting, Chief Massasoyt brought five deer, and ninety of his men with him to the feast. So now we can sort of figure what was feasted on at the "First Thanksgiving:" a bird, corn, peas, roasted venison, and beer.

This feast lasted five days and was celebrated as a treaty, which was supposed to benefit both Algonquins and Pilgrims. Whether Massasoyt would have welcomed, let alone enter into an agreement with these Pilgrims had he known that the past August when the Mayflower crew were lost, hungry, and cold, they had blasphemously raided Indian graves in search for corn - to eat, and the personal artifacts of the dead - to reduce their enormous debt, no one will ever know. But within a generation of that treaty, the children of the Pilgrims who were at the first Thanksgiving, children not even born at the time of the feast, beheaded King Philip, son of Chief Massasoyt. They placed his head on a pole and left it in the fort for 25 years, as in a celebration. These children of the "First Thanksgiving," then sold the Wampanoag's and other Algonquin bands of people, without whom their parents would have almost certainly starved to death, into slavery in the Mediterranean and the West Indies.

Chief Massasoyt had fathered two girls and three boys, and before his death he asked the General Court in Plymouth to give English names to his two sons. The Pilgrims subsequently named the former "Alexander" and the latter "Philip." After Alexander died, probably of poisoning, Philip became chief, and became known as "King Philip." According to Josephy, (The Patriot Chiefs, 1976) King Philip was as racially proud as an Indian ever was. He saw clearly what the colonists were doing to his people, and from the beginning recognized them as enemies who would have to be stopped. Despite the friendship between Massasoyt and the colonial authorities, and although, he was out numbered two to one, King Philip went to war...

...To the God-fearing Puritans of New England, Philip was a satanic agent, "a hellhound, fiend, serpent, caitiff, and dog." Somehow, in their panic and wrath, they conceived of him as a rebel, leading a conspiracy and an uprising against established authority. It was as if invading Indians had landed on the coast of England and had then considered rebels and Englishmen who might have risen to throw them out. On August 12, 1676, the English, guided by Alderman who surrounded King Philip, and Annawon, Philip's war chief, while they slept. In the morning Philip was shot by Alderman, a traitor against his people.

We learn from reading Josephy that when it was discovered that it was indeed Philip who was assassinated, the English broke into a cheer and exultantly decapitated and quartered the sachem's body and carried his head back to Plymouth, where in celebration, it was stuck on a pole and remained on public display for twenty-five years. These are the actions of the people who considered themselves to be "civilized," and the Native American to be "Savages."

By rolling down on this site Thanksgiving informtion we learn-- At the end of the conflict most of the New England Indians were either exterminated or refugees among the French in Canada, or they were sold into slavery in the Carolinas by the Puritans. So successful was the early trade in Indian slaves that several puritan ship owners in Boston began the practice of raiding the Ivory coast of Africa for black slaves to sell to the proprietary colonies of the South, thus founding the American-based slave trade.

The Thanksgiving Celebration can actually be divided into distinct celebrations; (1) traditional celebrations of thanksgiving to the Creator by the indigenous population, (2) the thanksgiving celebrated between Massasoyt, the Algonquin Chief of the Wampanoags, and the thankful pilgrims for the knowledge received by the natives; and, (3) the beheading of King Philip and the selling into slavery the offsprings of the natives of the first thanksgiving. (4) The inception of the American slave trade.

The First Thanksgiving as explained by the Plimoth Plantation - a Living History museum of 17th-Century Plymoth.

As usual, our Barbara has led us thru a wonderful history lesson. It comes at such an appropo time also. My 9 yr old grandson, just emailed me the other day and asked me where he could find some information on the algonquin Indian Tribes origins.Barb, where DO you find this stuff? You always amaze me, thanks.

Barbara - Thanks so much for the wonderful and informative posts. I sent them on to my family as I know they will enjoy as much as I am.

Judy S

I've been reading so many adult books discussed here on Seniornet that I've been limited reading my favorite childhood classics. For my birthdy in January my daughter sent me a wonderful illustrated boxed set of "The Wind in the Willows." I just love the story. I didn't read it as a child and only started to read about Ratty and Badger and the rest when I picked up a copy of William Horwood's "The Willows in Winter." Just love these stories - I feel like I am right there with them and I know there is not going to be some mind boggling bit of information that will stir me to research.

The Rat crept into the hollow, and there he found the Mole, exhausted and still trembling. "O Rat!" he cried, "I've been so frightened, you can't think!"

"You shouldn't really have gone and done it, Mole, said the Rat. "We river-bankers hardly ever come here by oursleves. If we have to come, we come in couples; then we're all right. Besides, there are a hundred things to know -- passwords, and signs, and plants you carry in your pocket, and verses you repeat, and dodges and tricks; all simple enough when you know them, but they've got to be known if you're small, or you'll find yourself in trouble."

"Surely brave Mr. Toad wouldn't mind coming here by himself, would he?" inqired the Mole.

"Old Toad?" said the Rat, laughing heartily. "He wouldn't show his face here for a hatful of guineas."

The Mole was cheered by the sound of the Rat's laughter, as well as by the sight of his stick and his gleaming pistols, and he stopped shivering and began to feel himself again.

Ah the wonder and comfort of a good friend.

Read an amazing account of Tom Thumb tonight to my grandboy Cade, age seven as of Saturday - this version is in a collection of wonderful authors published as a series of 16 books pulled together by Collier.

This version of the Tom Thumb story takes place during the time of King Arthur and it is Merlin who visits the cottage and grants the plowman's wife's wish for a son that could be as big as her husband's thumb.

After he is dressed by the fairies, Tom has his adventures from being shaken by a boy who found him stealing from his bag of cherry stones to being almost eaten by a red cow and than to being almost boiled in a pudding that he fell un-noticed into the mix. When the pudding is thown out of the cottage because of Toms kicking a tinker picks it up and is frightened by Tom's cries. He is bathed in a teacup and later Tom accompanies his father into the fields, falls into a furrow, a Raven picks him up and flies to the sea where he is dropped and swallowed by a fish that is caught for King Arthur's supper.

Tom is brought to the King and becomes his favorite. The king dresses him anew. With each dressing there is a poem. This is the poem furthering the first dressing by the fairies.

"An oak-leaf hat he had for his crown;
His shirt of web by spiders spun:
With jacket wove of thistle's down;
His trowsers were of feathers done.
His stockings, of apple-rind, they tie
With eyelash from his mother's eye:
His shoes were made of mouse's skin,
Tann'd with the downy hair within."

The King knights Sir Thomas and his charger is a mouse. A gold castle is built for him and a coach is provided drawn by six mice. He is allowed to bring any amount of money from the King's treasury, that he can carry, back to his parents. It takes him two day and two nights with no accidents and resting more than a hundred times, he brings them a huge silver piece.

All this and when he returns to court, out of the clear blue, the queen, with no explanation as to why, is jealous. She spreads lies about him. When the guards search for him to bring him before the King, Tom hides in an empty snail-shell until he almost starves. Finally he rides on the back of a passing butterfly back to court and he falls off nearly drowning in a watering pot. The queen sees him, is enraged, traps him and wants him beheaded. A cat breaks the wire of the trap and saves him. Tom again is favored by the King till one day a large spider attacks him. He is overcome by the spider's poison.

He fell dead on the ground where he stood,
And the spider suck'ed every drop of his blood."

The king builds a monument over the grave and the story finishes with yet another poem about, "Here lies Tom Thumb, King Arthur's Knight..."

This is a very different version than I ever heard - are any of you familiar with this version?

From the pages of the Smithsonian Magazine is this great article with a list of books for children in three age ranges. Author-illustrator Leo Lionni has gone on to write and illustrate more than 30 picture books, which have sold millions of copies throughout the world and include four Caldecott Honor titles.