The Many Travelers through
The Hundred Acre Wood

Through­out my child­hood, my father and I trav­eled to the local library with a wag­on. He insist­ed that I fill the wag­on as high as we could with books. We went on hun­dreds of jour­neys with some of the most spe­cial char­ac­ters in children’s literature. The adven­tures of Win­nie-the-Pooh and friends in The Hun­dred Acre Wood was and con­tin­ues to offer excit­ing adventures.
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Poetry Teatime

On Halloween morning, Pooh Bear came for a visit on our porch. There was coffee for her parents and hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles for her, as well as a round of pastries for all. A lovely morning, however distanced and masked we had to remain.

Cynthia Grady

Wild Swans
In the begin­ning, before I found myself with­in the pages of a book iden­ti­fy­ing with this char­ac­ter or that one, I lis­tened to my grand­moth­er read aloud from My Book House while sur­round­ed by my eight sib­lings. The giant, mul­ti-vol­ume anthol­o­gy con­tains poet­ry from Moth­er Goose to Shake­speare, selec­tions from the Song of Solomon to Christi­na Ros­set­ti to Robert Louis Steven­son, folk and fairy tales from around the world, Aesop’s fables, as well as some not-as-old pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished sto­ries like The Tale of Peter Rab­bit by Beat­rix Pot­ter.more

Melanie Heuiser Hill

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
This stack is large­ly the Self-On-The-Shelf stack of my child­hood. There would be stacks of oth­ers, as well, you under­stand. I was sur­prised how many were miss­ing when I went to pull books for this col­umn, actu­al­ly. Where were all the Judy Blume books? Where was How To Eat Fried Worms? And, I sup­pose if I’m real­ly hon­est, I would need to include a small stack of Guin­ness Book of World Records from the late seventies…I wore the cov­ers off those books.… more

Aimée Bissonette

A few days ago, I scanned my many book­shelves in antic­i­pa­tion of writ­ing this piece. My charge was to assem­ble a small stack of books that had sig­nif­i­cance to me.  Per­haps, I thought, I’ll write about my love for mys­ter­ies. After all, I spent count­less hours as a young girl devour­ing the Hardy Boys and Nan­cy Drew mys­ter­ies before mov­ing on to Agatha Christie, Tony Hiller­man, and Sara Paret­sky.… more

Skinny Dip with Amy Baum

What keeps you up at night? The Disney version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I had to sleep in my sister’s room for 6 months after that terrifying cartoon. What’s the first book you remember reading? Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik. I loved Little Bear and his very functional family. Also, I thought it was simply magical that all of the letters spelled out a story.… more

Skinny Dip with Virginia Euwer Wolff

What’s your favorite holiday tradition? I have so many favorites. One of them is the hanging of the Christmas stockings. My aunt made felt and appliqué stockings for my two tiny children in the 1960s. Thirty years later, my daughter made felt and appliqué stockings for her husband, their two children, and me. She designed the appliqué motifs to reflect each family member.… more