Spell the Month in Books – September

Spell the Month in Books is hosted by Reviews From the Stacks and occurs on the second Saturday of each month or maybe a bit later! 

Here is my installment for September:

My February 2022 Reads

Seven of my nineteen February books were rereads, a much higher percentage than usual; indicating some comfort reading, I suppose. Sometimes with Elizabeth Cadell and D.E. Stevenson, one can’t tell if it was read before until halfway through as both were prolific and the titles sometimes sound interchangeable even when the stories are distinctive.  But my favorite new-to-me read was Dead Wake by Erik Larson, the story of the Lusitania’s last voyage, which I highly recommend.

King Cake

Child Life Mystery-Adventure Book: Stories for Boys and Girls

Title: Child Life Mystery-Adventure Book
Author: Compiled by Marjorie Barrows and Frances Cavanah
Publication: Rand McNally & Company, hardcover, 1936
Genre: Children’s Short Story Collection

Description: Child Life was an illustrated American children's magazine that began in 1922 and contained stories, games, people profiles, and other columns. It was incorporated into Children’s Digest in the 1960s, which stopped publishing in 2009. I can’t tell if this volume of adventure stories was specially commissioned or was a compilation from that year’s issues. There are some prominent names included: writer-illustrators Genevieve Foster (a Newbery Honor recipient four times) and Marguerite de Angeli (Newbery Award winner in 1950 for The Door in the Wall).

Two by Constance Savery

I have been reading a lot of Constance Savery for a project and her prolific body of work includes a wide variety of juvenile fiction, including a family story and historical novel featured here. While her work was informed by a strict moral code, as I observe below, sometimes her naughty characters are more fun before they are reformed!

Redhead at School (1951)

Charity loved her haphazard life in a Yorkshire rectory, doing lessons with the young men her father tutors.

December 2021 Reads

This is a little late - I got distracted by choosing my end-of-year favorites.  The first two below were the books I liked best this month. December unexpectedly yielded lots of books about sisters, some missing, some suspenseful, and some just amusing.

Fiction

The Fair Miss Fortune by D.E. Stevenson – This is one of Stevenson’s lesser-known titles, happily brought back into print in January 2022! It’s about Jane, who moves to a small town with her old nurse, planning to operate a tea shop, and all the adventures that happen to her instead.  Review to come.

Favorite Reads of 2021 - A Baker's Dozen

Fiction

The Proper Place by O. Douglas (1926): After Sir Walter dies, his family is forced to sell the family estate and move to a modest home in Fife.  Nicole adapts to her new life with maturity and grace while her cousin Barbara is unwilling to accept their change in circumstances.  This was my first five-star book of the year!   My review.

Green Emeralds for the King: A Civil War Story by Constance Savery

Title: Emeralds for the King (American title)
Author: Constance Savery
Illustrator: Victor Dowling
Publication: Longmans, Green & Co., hardcover, 1945
Genre: Juvenile historical fiction
Setting: 17th century England

Description: Austin “Tosty” Farringdon, barely 13, is woken one night and told he can serve his king by finding lost treasure at his deceased father’s home, Yanburgh Manor.

September 2021 Reads

I got a lot of reading done in September considering I was away for more than two weeks. This may be why my suitcase hasn’t made it back up the attic and the lawn needs to be mowed!

Fiction

Royal Summons by Elizabeth Cadell – American Ellen Berg travels to her mother’s childhood home in England where she has to come to terms with the imperious aunt who drove her mother away.

WWW Wednesday – September 29, 2021

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?

What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll read next?

There are several books I have been in the middle of for years. If they were really riveting, I probably would not have put them down half-read.  But in Luvvy and the Girls, I read that not completing a book is a sign of weak character.  This belief conflicts with an occasional "life is too short" mantra so I finish most books unless they are dreadful.

July 2021 Reads

July was full of a variety of books and yet I have barely made a dent in my library books or other TBR piles. How is your summer reading going?

Enemy Brothers by Constance Savery - an unusual and appealing WWII story

Title: Enemy Brothers: A Story of World War II
Author: Constance Savery
Publication: Bethlehem Books, paperback, 2001 (originally published in 1943)
Genre: Juvenile Historical Fiction
Setting: World War II Britain

Description: When Flying Officer Dym Ingleford uses part of his leave for a flying visit to his brother in the Navy, he has a premonition that he is needed there – and he is right.

May 2021 Reads

May was a good reading month with several 5-star reads, including a few books I have not had time to review:

The Reb and the Redcoats by Constance Savery (an American rebel in England)

Title: The Reb and the Redcoats
Author: Constance Savery
Publication: Bethlehem Books, paperback, 1999 (originally published in 1961)
Genre: Juvenile historical
Setting: 18th century England

Description: The Reb is young Randal Everard Baltimore, an American prisoner of war, who encounters the Redcoats, the four Darringtons, children of a British officer fighting in the War of American Independence.