Free Week :it’s Thanksgiving Week in America.
I have had some respiratory illness, so as much as I usually enjoy having a full house, (and often guests from out of town), this year is quiet and I probably needed for it to be that way.
Still, I miss a lot of folks eating a lot of food that I had lots of fun making.
This year, I didn’t make much; not many will come.
Yet as busy/unwell as I have been, I have been zipping through a number of YA and MG books that I have picked up.
The St. Vincent De Paul Store in the next fair-sized town over is fairly upscale and has become more of a consignment shop. Things are quite interesting there with many collectibles and antiques, although people can still pick up some used furniture, used appliances and great thrifty linens, since the local Marriot donates to them.
Then again, a person can spend a lot on a small hand-crafted box.
The book section grows weekly. They make a real effort to categorize them and that’s where we aim when we are in that town for any reason. I make an effort to go through the children’s books for old and out-of-print favorites. There are treasures to be found when an older family member passes on, downsizes or goes to a nursing home. The family generally dumps their books at a charity thrift and boy, grandmothers seldom throw out anything!
The one thing that I like is that this store even has separate shelves sections for both the Caldecott and Newberry Award winners. I picked up a number of Newberry books because generally, I find that there is a great message in them.
I keep those to hand on to other people, or to keep for myself.
Of course, there are others that I give back to other thrift stores.
And some I throw away.
But for an easy read, a book that I can get through in one or two periods in a car or waiting room, or while sitting in bed, waiting for medications to kick in, (or drowsiness to take over), I think you can’t beat a good MG or YA book.
I have discussed Angie Sage’s “Septimus Heap” and “Todhunter Moon” and Edward Eager’s “Magic” series that I enjoyed, (plus JK Rowling’s, “Harry Potter” books, of course), but I do like a nice stand-alone MG book, like the Newberry winners. Last week I particularly enjoyed Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s “The Egypt Game”, but the ending was obvious and seemed rushed compared to how well the beginning and body of the book was written. Sharon Creech’s “Walk Two Moons” was really good, even if I found the grandparents just a little ‘too much’.
Ellen Raskin’s “The Westing Game” is one of my favorite all-time books; I won’t part with it.
As for YA, Eoin Colfer’s “Artemis Fowl” series was truly enjoyable. Tonya Hardy’s “Ghost Girl” trilogy are fun reads with good heart. I don’t have the latter, but my niece picked up Colfer’s series for my grandson and I’m not letting go of them, either, nor does he want me to. He also asked me to hang onto the “Chronicles of Egg” trilogy by a former guest, Geoff Rodkey, another favorite MG series of mine.
I may have asked this, but do you read YA and MG books? I imagine those of you who WRITE YA and/or MG certainly read the genres, but do you do it simply for research or also for pleasure?
Do you have any favorites you could recommend?
Angela Schroeder
Patricia Kiyono
Elaine Cantrell
Jeff Salter
Joselyn
Tonette Joyce
Four Foxes, One Hound 
I love children’s books and still have a couple from my own childhood. As my kids were growing up, I loved reading to them and, of course, we acquired new books for them (or new editions of titles that I remembered fondly).
As a public librarian for most of my 30 years in the profession, I naturally had duties I preferred. One of my favorite things was to select books for the three levels of young readers: the picture books, the reading level material which kids use to hone their own reading skills (but often are read to them as picture books), and the type material (usually NOT illustrated… or with perhaps 1 or 2 illustrations) that kids in elementary and middle school would read on their own.
When I was in library school, I had a professor — Dr. Ruth Baldwin — who was near the end of her long career. She’s spent much of her life collecting “old” children’s books, often in rare or first editions. I forget the number, but she had many thousands — I was part of the team which helped her box them up before she relocated.
My point about Dr. Baldwin, however, is that her collection was so extensive and so valuable (& irreplaceable) that one of the universities in Florida created a special place for that collection and honored her with a “chair” of some sort. Now those books can live on… thanks to Baldwin’s loving and careful collection / preservation.
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Oh, I love that!
The actress who played the lady at the bus stop who told Forrest Gump that he could walk to Jenny’s also had an extensive library of children’s books, old and rare. The last I heard, some years ago, her husband was trying to figure out what to do with it. I hope it is preserved.
I often thought that if I won a decent-sized lottery that I could maybe convince someplace to keep our books. We have quite a few and most are worthy of a place, but my kids and grandkids would not/could not handle them all.
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St. Vincent De Paul sounds like a wonderful place. While looking it up, I discovered there’s one in Grand Rapids, MI too! As I mentioned on Monday, I don’t read much YA/MG, but I’ve come to enjoy reading books by a few authors who excel in that genre.
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I hope you feel better soo . I love reading YA and MG books.
That store sounds like a wonderful place.
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I love the St.Vincent dePaul stores, Patty and Angie, because they are truly charitable institutions, run by volunteers,( and in the case of the one in the town where I live, those who are putting in community service!).They do work with the homeless, have food pantries, give clothes and furniture when people have lost everything due to fires, etc. They also will help with one month’s bills for families who have hit an unexpected downslide, like illness or medical bills and the like, thinking that if they can keep them afloat, they will not fall into homelessness or poverty. They get all of my donations; I will shop at Goodwill, but I do not donate to them. They pay the employees under minimum wage, yet the honchos get millions.
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