Orris and Timble: Star Stories by Kate DiCamillo

For the past three years, I’ve been featuring Kate DiCamillo’s Orris and Timble stories, with charming illustrations by Carmen Mok. Orris and Timble: Star Stories completes the trilogy about the rat and the owl. Although the series is designed for young...

Childhood Reads

I’ve been looking forward to today so I can see what books you remember reading when you were a child. Did those books lead you to the books you read today? I think they led me to mysteries, fantasy, and biographies. Before I was old enough to go to the library...

Bookworm by Lucy Mangan

I am the wrong nationality to appreciate Lucy Mangan’s Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading. She’s younger than I am, but her childhood reading in the ’80s is certainly different than mine in the ’60s. I preferred her Bookish, her memoir of...

Knight’s Castle by Edward Eager

“In days of old, when knights were bold,And journeyed from their castles,Trusty men were left behind;Knights needed not the hassles.” Jimmy Buffett While I read Edward Eager’s Knight’s Castle, it was the first part of the above refrain that...

Knight Owl and Early Bird by Christopher Denise

Two years ago, I fell in love with the illustrations and the little owl in Christopher Denise’s picture book, Knight Owl. It went on to become a Caldecott Honor Book, which means it’s celebrated for the illustrations. Yesterday was release date for the...