In my review of Here Come the Bears, I explained how delighted I was that Purple House Press is actively working to bring the Alice Goudey books back into print. These charming and scientifically accurate books are written for young readers, but are fascinating to the child at heart in all of us. Alice Goudey…
Tag: Purple House Press
Here Come the Bears
Listen Now: Years ago, a dear friend mentioned that she was collecting as many of the Alice Goudey books as she could find. She has the very best taste in books and she thought that they were charming and explained scientific ideas to children in a timeless and friendly way that is so rarely replicated…
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
This is part of Diane’s Literature Course II Series Each of the girls in my class has read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and last year we read Life on the Mississippi together. So they have had a good taste of Mark Twain’s usual style. This month we read Twain’s Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc. This…
Pickle-Chiffon Pie
Do you read dust jackets? Be honest. Do you? Do I? If I am honest, only sometimes. Last fall Jill Morgan sent me a box of some of her favorite Purple House Press books hoping that I would like them as much as she does. It turns out that I do. I. Really. Do. When…
Miss Jaster’s Garden
Miss Jaster’s Garden by illustrator turned author N. M. Bodecker is one of those picture books that every family library should have. The illustration has a daydream-like quality with soft watercolors, the story line is adorable and the kind that children love to giggle at, and the writing is charming and intelligent. If Anne Shirley-Blythe…
Purple House Press Picture Books
One of the things that I most looked forward to about becoming a mom was having a good excuse to read picture books again. There is something special about being able to escape everyday life and get lost between the pages of a magical imaginative, world that has been beautifully illustrated. When my oldest was…
Alexander
What is it about Alexanders and their no good days? One of my favorite books from my childhood is Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. In that story, Alexander has one of those days wherein nothing goes right and he is his own worst enemy. Little kids find…
The Little Old Man Who Could Not Read
The Little Old Man Who Could Not Read by Irma Simonton Black is a tender tale about an old craftsman who loves his toy-making work so much that he fails to make time for other important things – like learning to read. In this funny but educational little story, children learn, through the toymaker’s experience, why…
Miss Suzy
Miss Suzy By Miriam Young Illustrated by Arnold Lobel I’m only two years older than Miss Suzy, but I had never seen the book until last year. How did that happen? I didn’t get to share this sweet story with my kids when they were little, but my grandkids love it. Miss Suzy’s story…
The Blueberry Pie Elf
When the delicious smell of the baking blueberry pie stole out from the oven, the little elf sniffed. He wanted that blueberry pie so much that he almost got his nose caught in the oven door. Elmer is a house elf after my own heart! I too truly love blueberry pie, dear Elmer. I understand….
The Practical Princess
The Practical Princess by Jay Williams surprised me. Before reading it, I assumed that it was going to be yet another addition to the current craze of feminist reimaginings of fairy tales. I wasn’t entirely wrong about that, however, I was wrong about how I would feel about that. The other day in our book…
A Tree for Peter
“…Some of you have steady jobs now. Most of you work off and on…there is not one among you who is not a man after me own heart. Kicked around by life you were, sure. Only, I am the cop on the beat and I know that there is not one among you who has…
Little Britches in Hardbound
In our online Facebook group, Potato Peel Pie Book Community, we often bemoan the loss of good and great books which fall out of publication and quietly disappear while people forget about them. In fact, many of us have become vintage book hunters who are trying to build up our personal libraries with these kinds…
David and the Phoenix
“You never know what you will find when you climb a mountain…” While he was a student at Berkeley in the 1940s, Edward Ormondroyd had a vision of a “large pompous bird diving out of a window, tripping on the sill, and crashing into a rose arbor below” (from the author’s letter in the Purple…
The Mad Scientists’ Club
Bertrand R. Brinley lived a fascinating life. I suggest that readers read this article (written by his son) before proceeding. I think that it will help give some insight into the things that I must say. In short, Brinley’s early life was not dissimilar to that of Louisa May Alcott’s. After a peripatetic childhood (I…