Monday, February 11, 2008

YAs of Yesteryear

Irreverent, witty Cliff's notes to nostalgic, forgotten loves. As a former English teacher and total bookworm, I am overfond of this series by Jezebel called

'Fine Lines', the Friday feature in which we give a sentimental, sometimes-critical, far more wrinkled look at the children's and YA books we loved in our youth.
They've reviewed Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder and have a loving interview with Judy Blume here. Island of the Blue Dolphins review? Here. Great stuff -- especially if, like me, you realize that your plan to reread every book before putting it into your precious baby's hands was perhaps a tad optimistic.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, did you see you won the chocolate over at tinychoices? Congrats! :) Yum.

Lynn
http://www.organicmania.com

JessTrev said...

They emailed me, thanks. Great Valentine's Day surprise, eh? And thanks for the tip about Divine, I have sampled far too much and it's, um, delightful chocolate.

Laura/CenterDownHome said...

Hey, Mamabird -- Several years ago I was reading LHITBW to my kids, and got to the place where Pa is giving Laura a "whipping". We don't hit our kids with straps(wait, I mean we don't hit or "spank" at all), so I had to answer questions from my confused kids: "He hit her with a strap?" "Because she slapped Mary?" "What's a strap?" "But he said, "I told you girls you must never strike each other -- then he 'whipped' Laura with a strap."

Yeah. What was supposed to be a nice, quiet before-bed story became Mommy struggling for answers. Oh, well.

JessTrev said...

Laura, my condolences. I have been reading Mrs. Piggle Wiggle (one of my old faves) with my kid and I try to edit out all spankings too, but occasionally I slip and my DD is dumbfounded. You just put a finger on EXACTLY why I swore I would reread everything before sharing with my kiddoes. Ach, well, my whole parenting process has pretty much been "Mommy struggling for answers."