On the Way to East Dene

Candice Ransom
One day dur­ing this drea­ry Vir­ginia win­ter, I came across a talk by Susan Coop­er, giv­en at Sim­mons Col­lege in 1980. The talk was titled, “Nahum Tarune’s Book.” To explain the title, she begins by quot­ing an aston­ish­ing pas­sage from the intro­duc­tion of Come Hith­er by Wal­ter de la Mare, an anthol­o­gy of poet­ry first pub­lished in 1923: In my rov­ings and ram­blings as a boy I had often skirt­ed the old stone house in the hol­low.… more

Light vs Dark

The Dark is Rising
Do you have a book that you re-read peri­od­i­cal­ly? At least every few years? Some­times more often? For me, it’s The Dark is Ris­ing by Susan Coop­er. I have read thou­sands of books in my life­time, but this book stands out as the one that cap­tured my full heart, mind, and imag­i­na­tion. When I think of it, a hush falls over me.… more

Laughter and Grief

Reading Ahead bubble
by Vic­ki Palmquist There are books we remem­ber all of our lives, even if we can’t remem­ber the details. Some­times we can’t even remem­ber the sto­ry, but we remem­ber the char­ac­ters and how they made us feel. We recall being trans­port­ed into the pages of the book, see­ing what the char­ac­ters see, hear­ing what they hear, and under­stand­ing the time and spaces and breath­ing in and out of the char­ac­ters.… more

Skinny Dip with Susan Cooper

What animal are you most like? I'm a giraffe. A medium-sized giraffe, because I was tall when I was young, but now—to my fury—I've passed the age when you begin to shrink. A giraffe is shy, and doesn't make much noise: that's me, I think. The giraffe and I are both good at looking around and noticing things—though in my case I'm collecting material for books, and in hers she's looking out for the lion who wants to eat her.… more