Six Degrees of Separation – from I Want Everything to Camino Island

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where it ends up.   This month’s starting point is I Want Everything by Dominic Amerena, which is about an elderly Australian novelist who was once accused of plagiarism.

I’m Deborah Sampson by Patricia Clapp

Title: I’m Deborah Sampson
Author: Patricia Clapp
Publication: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., hardcover, 1977
Genre: Juvenile historical fiction
Setting: 18th century Massachusetts and New York

Description: In this historical novel about Deborah Sampson, the Massachusetts native who famously disguised herself as a man to fight in the Revolutionary War, Clapp provides a convincing background for Sampson’s decision to enlist and her ability to carry out such an improbable undertaking.

Six Degrees of Separation - From The Proud Way to Little Women

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where one ends up.   This month’s starting point is Rodham: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld, in which the author reimagines Hillary’s life if she hadn’t married Bill.  My sisters liked her book Prep but I have no interest in reading this book which sounds so invasive. Leave Hillary alone!

However, it somehow reminded me of my first book, The Proud Way by Shirley Seifert (1948), a historical novel about Varina Davis, the First Lady of the Confederacy, married to Jefferson Davis.  Varina came from a slave-owning family in Mississippi but received a better education than most women of her class and, perhaps influenced by Northern relatives, did not approve of slavery.  Her birthplace, The Briers, is now a B&B, if I ever make it to Natchez.  This book belonged to my mother.

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!