Mrs. Piggle Wiggle's sister

Well, not really. Betty MacDonald, known also as the author of The Egg and I, was merely the gifted creator of the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series. However, her sister, Mary Bard, was also a writer. The dust jacket of Best Friends at School provides this photo and bio below:The oldest daughter of a mining engineer, Mary Bard was born in Montana. Her father's work caused the family to move so frequently that she went to kindergarten in Mexico City, first grade in New York and second grade in Colorado, and did not complete one uninterrupted year of school until she was thirteen. Later, she studied at the University of Washington in Seattle.

In addition to her "Best Friends" books for young readers, Mary Bard is also the author of three books for adults: Forty Odd, The Doctor Wears Three Faces, and Just Be Yourself (a memoir about her experiences as a Girl Scout leader).

The author and her doctor husband have three daughters and live on Vashon Island near Seattle.

Thanks to Peter Sieruta and his blog, Collecting Children's Books, for sharing news of these and so many other authors I enjoy.

Duke to meet Butler in NCAA Finals

It was actually fun to watch unless you were a West Virginia fan, a Duke hater, or a gambler with the Mountaineers and 2.5 points.

Library Books

An appealing and diverse armful of books was waiting for me at the library tonight, but I already had Stairway to a Secret with me for the gym so haven't started on them yet . . .

The Grand Sophy

I am pleased to be hosting the Georgette Heyer Classics Circuit today, discussing The Grand Sophy, one of my all time favorite books. My mother introduced me to Heyer when I was in junior high, and I checked them out one by one from our shabby old library in Newton Corner (and started again at the beginning once I had read them all). Some of those hardcovers were the original US editions with beautiful Arthur E. Barbosa covers (see below). Sophy is appealing for a variety of reasons: first, she is a vivacious and entertaining heroine, and the reader never knows what she will do next. Second, this is one of Heyer’s most amusing books, containing humorous situations and quirky characters as well as a heroine who appreciates both and encourages others to see the funny or less expected side of situations. Heyer uses Sophy’s unpredictability and humor to turn the conventions upside down repeatedly in this novel. Finally, as someone who likes to organize people, I have always appreciated Sophy’s tendency to meddle – undertaken, as she says herself, with the best of intentions!

Reflections on Elizabeth Bird's List

Several weeks ago I submitted my recommendations for Elizabeth Bird's, a NYPL librarian, top ten list of middle grade novels. I could easily have chosen ten books that were beloved but not known by anyone other than me (and my family) but I tried to pick a mixture of books that were popular favorites and not just hidden gems. It was impossible to rank them properly and in some instances it was very difficult to pick one title by an author I love (such as Edward Eager or Maud Hart Lovelace). The minute I sent my list to Betsy, I thought of several I had inexplicably forgotten (The Mixed Up Files, The Sherwood Ring, an E. Nesbit). There are some books I have reread dozens of times like The Wizard of Oz or The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, or Swallows and Amazons that never occurred to me to include (perhaps because hidden from view on my overcrowded book shelves).
To the surprise and delight of many book lovers, Betsy has been counting down from 100 to 1 all the books that were voted on and her installments are eagerly anticipated. She has done an amazing job of including background on books and I also love the assortment of cover treatments she has included. Inevitably, her list has caused me to make my own lists: books I forgot to include, books I need to reread, books I never read, one book I never even heard of! Although her countdown is not done, I assembled a list of the books I have not read thus far. It was more extensive than I expected. Some are books that were published relatively recently. My nieces have read several I have not and helpfully lent me a couple they owned. I hope to have all 100 read before Betsy has the energy to ask for our top ten YA favorites (that list, I think will be more heavily skued toward recent pubs).

Here is my unread list (partial) of the Top 100:

97. Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane/DiCamillo #
96. The Witches/Dahl #
91. Sideways Stories from the Wayside School / Sachar #
80. Graveyard Book / Gaiman
77. City of Ember / DuPrau (I never even heard of this book!)
76. Out of the Dust / Hesse
68. Walk Two Moons/Creech #
67. Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher/Coville
64. A Long Way from Chicago / Peck
61. Stargirl / Spinelli
55. The Great Gilly Hopkins / Paterson #
54. The BFG /Dahl #
53. The Wind in the Willows /Grahame
52. The Invention of Hugo Cabret /Selznick *
50. Island of the Blue Dolphins / O’Dell #
49. Frindle/Andrew Clements #
47. Bud Not Buddy / Curtis
46. Where the Red Fern Grows/ Rawls
37. Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry #
34. The Watsons Go to Birmingham #
26. Hatchet /Paulsen (other than Arthur Ransome, I don't really like books with too much nature in them)

I really have no interest in The Wind of the Willows and did not like Harriet the Spy (which I sense will rank pretty high), so it may be a challenge to read all 100 but I am motivated. . .

# Indicates a book read by one or more nieces: nice for them to provide reading guidance to me for a change.

* My younger sister has read this so there is some partial family credit.

Mardi Gras

"Julia and Betsy . . . observed Lent rigorously for a time. Julia gave up dancing, a sacrifice Betsy could not very well make as the Crowd had not yet started going to dances. She equaled it, however; she gave up candy; she gave up fudge." Heaven to Betsy

There are nine mentions of fudge in Heaven to Betsy, so you know how important it was to Maud Hart Lovelace, but even before I brought the Betsy-Tacy books home for the whole family to read, my mother always gave up candy for Lent, and it was a tradition that we made fudge on Mardi Gras. To me that was just as important (not to mention religious) a ritual of the Easter season as anything! We always used the recipe from the Mystery Chef, a popular radio cooking host from the 40s to whom my grandmother used to listen - long before the Cooking Channel was envisioned.

Homemade Fudge

Ingredients:

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Grease an 8 by 8-inch pie plate with butter. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the sugar, chocolate, and milk. Over medium heat, stir until sugar is dissolved and chocolate is melted. Increase heat and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 6 minutes, add butter, simmer for another 6 minutes. Begin testing a tiny spoonful in a custard or tea cup of cold water as mixture continues to cook. It may take several times before it forms a soft ball. Remove from heat, cool until it's just barely hot, add vanilla and beat until well-blended and the shiny texture becomes matte. Pour into the prepared pan. Let sit in cool dry area until firm.

Don't put the fudge outside to cool or those Deep Valley boys might swipe it!

Football in Kidlit

Superbowl Sunday seems like an appropriate time to reflect on the children's books I enjoyed with football as a theme. Although I did not become a football fan until college, when I became a football manager of the Harvard team, I always enjoyed reading about it (in the same way I enjoyed nature so long as I could do it from a comfortable armchair inside the house).

All discussion of football in juvenile fiction must begin with Family Grandstand by Carol Ryrie Brink, which I found in my elementary school library. Set in a midwestern college town, the story delightfully depicts the Ridgeway family's absorption with the fortunes of the team and its star quarterback, Tommy Tokarynski. One of my favorite parts was how George, the only son, tries to make money parking cars in the family driveway during football games as they live just a few blocks from campus. I often thought that my family's involvement with college hockey was a lot like the Ridgeways' fun with football in this book.

Can't Blame This on the Post Office

Today I got a rejection letter for a job I didn't remember applying for with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts! Given that I have not updated my resume or applied for a job in a year, I was puzzled. I kept on reading and the letter helpfully told me the job had been posted on the Commonwealth's website in December 2008 and they had received my resume promptly! It continued:

"Please be advised that the Department has determined that the posting for this position will be rescinded. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."

Happily, I had not put my life on hold waiting for an interview so was not inconvenienced, thank you.

Forget about hiring lawyers, I think Massachusetts had better hire some more sophisticated/competent Human Resources personnel. After all, if you are going to wait 14 months to get back to your applicants, wouldn't it be more cost efficient not to waste $.44 on a stamp at this point? By then, they are not expecting to hear from you. Those stamps are coming out of my taxes, and I would rather you spent that money on the Commonwealth's health care plan.