Bettina's Book Tagging Game

Finishing School: Further Studies in Schoolgirl Literature is primarily a group for literary analysis and general discussion of children's books.   This week, my friend Bettina posed a tagging game, asking for a book:

1. Containing a map?

I found several, and chose a book that was my mother’s before it was mine, At the Sign of the Golden Anchor by Ruth Langland Holberg (1947), set in Gloucester, Massachusetts, about an hour away from me.  The map is of Annisquam Harbor (Massachusetts), 1812.

2. With a Sunday School prize plate?

This took me much longer to find than I had expected!   Long Barrow by Gwendoline Courtney (1950) finally yielded a book plate – Nancy MacIntosh earned it for good attendance in 1956-57.   One can’t help wondering why they didn’t give her a more recently published book!  They must have been big Courtney fans like me.  I think Gill Bilski found this for me.

3. Showing defiant girl on the cover?

I think this heroine, a Paul Revere wannabe, looks pretty defiant in Midnight Rider by Joan Hiatt Harlow (2005).

4. With a character or place with your name?

Constance by Patricia Clapp is an old favorite.   She was a real person who sailed on the Mayflower and this book was Runner-up for the National Book Award for Children's Literature in 1969.

5. Which is a Puffin paperback?

I have quite a few but the first one I found was Thursday by Catherine Storr (1972). This is about a troubled teenager who disappears and Bee, his only friend, who tries to find him.  I am a bigger fan of her Marianne Dreams.

Three of these books are set in Massachusetts which is fun but unintended!