Red Reading Boots

Little Peggy Ann McKay 

I might have insta­mat­ic flu,” said the young girl as her moth­er checked her in at the doctor’s office. “Let’s hope not,” her moth­er replied. Insta­mat­ic flu. Instamatic…flu…. The words bounced around in my head. “My mouth is wet, my throat is dry…” the girl said in half-heart­ed sing-songy voice as they took a chair in the

Bambi

by Melanie Heuis­er Hill When I was 16, my aunt gave birth to twin boys. We did not see them near­ly often enough as they were grow­ing up (we were sep­a­rat­ed by sev­er­al states), but the mem­o­ries I have of those boys when they were lit­tle are clear in a way they are not with regard to my other

Tales from Shakespeare

by Melanie Heuis­er Hill One of my favorite class­es in col­lege was a Shake­speare class. It was well-known, well-loved, hard to get into, and manda­to­ry for all Eng­lish majors. It orga­nized my life the semes­ter I took it. The rhythm it dic­tat­ed was this: Arrive at class on Mon­day hav­ing read the assigned play and accom­pa­ny­ing crit­i­cal literature.

The Nativity

by Melanie Heuis­er Hill It was my job to read to the chil­dren. There were many oth­er sta­tions — crafts and col­or­ing, games and songs — all built around the most impor­tant task of the morn­ing: The Try­ing On of the Cos­tumes for the Christ­mas Pro­gram, which was to be held lat­er that after­noon. I had my own lit­tle nook.

Red Reading Boots: Lucia Morning in Sweden

This week is full of prepa­ra­tions at our house. Lucia Day comes on Sun­day and our household’s Lucia wish­es to make the Lussekat­ter buns this year. I’ve learned not to stand in her way — she can­not be deterred. The mag­ic of St. Lucia was intro­duced to our fam­i­ly four­teen years ago. It was a dif­fi­cult Decem­ber for

Red Reading Boots: The Tapper Twins 

by Melanie Heuis­er Hill I’m gen­er­al­ly a read­er of “tra­di­tion­al nov­els,” by which I mean nov­els that have chap­ters with titles, para­graphs with gram­mat­i­cal­ly cor­rect sen­tences, and per­haps the occa­sion­al com­ple­men­tary art under the chap­ter num­ber. I’m inten­tion­al about expand­ing my hori­zons and read­ing graph­ic nov­els, hybrids, and the like…but I still have to be inten­tion­al about it, I’m

Judy Blume 

by Melanie Heuis­er Hill I had the extra­or­di­nary for­tune of see­ing Judy Blume a few weeks ago. I was going to say “see­ing Judy Blume in con­cert” — that’s sort of what it felt like, actu­al­ly. She’s a rock-star in my world. And she was inter­viewed by Nan­cy Pearl, no less, so the whole event felt like I’d won a prize and

Keeping Track 

I’ve not kept track. Not real­ly. I mean, I can peruse our many book­shelves and make a sort of list, but it would be miss­ing things. What about all the library books we’ve read togeth­er? I was in a book dis­cus­sion ear­li­er this week with a woman who keeps A Read­ing Jour­nal. She writes as she reads — notes and quotes, ques­tions and

Mouse and Bear Books 

by Melanie Heuis­er Hill When I plan a sto­ry­time, I always plan for the kid­dos first and fore­most. But I do like to give a nod to the grownups who have brought them when I can — some­thing they’ll “get” at a dif­fer­ent lev­el than the kids, a trea­sure they might remem­ber from their own child­hood, a book that will make them smile or laugh. The Mouse and

The Berenstain Bears 

Last night, I was remind­ed of our family’s love of The Beren­stain Bears books. (Hap­py Sigh.) Before I go any fur­ther in my homage, please under­stand — I’m not claim­ing these books are stel­lar lit­er­a­ture. I’m just say­ing that we read a lot of Beren­stain Bear books at our house once upon a time, and we loved, loved, loved them. And

Brambly Hedge 

by Melanie Heuis­er Hill  When they were lit­tle, both of our kids had a fas­ci­na­tion with anthro­po­mor­phic mice. One actu­al­ly had a set of imag­i­nary mice friends who pre­ced­ed us into anx­i­ety pro­duc­ing sit­u­a­tions, of which there are many when you are a small child. These benev­o­lent mice (who had names, spe­cif­ic jobs, and amaz­ing vehi­cles of trans­porta­tion) went

Enola Holmes Mysteries 

by Melanie Heuis­er Hill The summer’s road­trip is behind us — a won­der­ful vaca­tion had by all. We were in two cars this year due to dif­fer­ent des­ti­na­tions at the start, but we met up for the sec­ond half of the week. The car my daugh­ter and I drove was equipped with sev­er­al audio­books. The boys neglect­ed this detail, probably

Mockingbird… 

by Melanie Heuis­er Hill We are talk­ing a lot these days at our house about Harp­er Lee’s To Kill a Mock­ing­bird and Go Set A Watch­man. As a fam­i­ly we lis­tened to To Kill A Mock­ing­bird, nar­rat­ed by Sis­sy Spacek, last sum­mer on our vaca­tion. Every­one in the car was riv­et­ed to the story…but both of the kids will tell you

In Which the Boy Cleans His Room … 

by Melanie Heuis­er Hill We’re at the one-month mark before #1 Son leaves for his first year of col­lege. This is big for our fam­i­ly. (I real­ize it’s a big thing for every fam­i­ly, but it’s feel­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly per­son­al for us right now — indulge me.) It’s entire­ly right, he’s absolute­ly ready, and he’s going to a place that’s a good

Anne of Green Gables

by Melanie Heuis­er Hill I received Anne of Green Gables for my tenth birth­day. I fell in love imme­di­ate­ly. Absolute­ly In Love — that’s the only way I can describe it. For the next sev­er­al years, I received the next book in the Anne series each birth­day and Christ­mas. I could spot the book in my pile of wrapped gifts — I have the

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