In which I discuss the skinny volumes which accompany me on my travels, while the heavier volumes (like John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany and Callum Roberts' The Ocean of Life) remain at home. Juliane Okot Bitek was inspired to engage with the Rwanda Genocide in response to Kenyan-American artist
Judith Viorst’s It’s Hard to be Hip Over Thirty and Other Tragedies of Married Life New American Library, 1968 (Also published by Persephone Books, No. 12) When I was a girl, I used to pull Judith Viorst’s slim volumes off my mother’s bookshelves, but I was always disappointed. And, no
Beverly Cleary's Ramona Forever (1984) Illus. Alan Tiegreen This Ramona book came along when I was too old (in my young reader's opinion) to be seen reading Ramona books. And, so, I read it in the public library, at a table, with my textbooks and notebooks spread out around me,
Beverly Cleary's Ramona the Pest (1968) Illus. Louis Darling Readers first catch a glimpse of Ramona Quimby when she is very small, in the Henry Huggins series, but her first main appearance is in Beezus and Ramona. I was not, however, a Beezus fan. I was a Ramona fan. I
What is it about a title story? It always feels, to me, like the key to the collection. And while it’s true that sometimes a title story is my favourite in a collection, other times, as with “Dance of the Happy Shades”, I wondered why it was selected to bestow
