On this episode, we reread Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers's beloved 1934 classic. We discuss the difference between the book and the movie version of the magical nanny, changes in the book to remove racist portrayals, and Travers's strange and interesting life. 

Mentioned on the episode:

Other books in the series:

Mary Poppins Comes Back (1935)

Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943)

Mary Poppins in the Park (1952)

Also mentioned: 

Kathryn Hughes' 2005 Guardian review of Mary Poppins She Wrote: A Biography of P.L. Travers.

A Goodreads review of Mary Poppins by Julie G that discusses racism in Mary Poppins. 

A post on Mary Poppins on the website "American Indians in Children's Literature" 

Travers's 1996 New York Times obituary (gift link)

The trailer for Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

 Alli Hoff Kosik's childhood rereading podcast, SSR, which recently signed off after seven years.

Recommended for fans of Mary Poppins: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Pippi Longstocking (Deborah), The Edward Eager magic books, Ballet Shoes, and Harriet the Spy (Mary Grace) 

Other episodes mentioned:

Rereading Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

Rereading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

You can find Deborah at deborahkalb.com and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Podcast website at rereadingourchildhood.com

On this episode, we discuss All-of-a-Kind Family, Sydney Taylor's 1951 classic about five sisters growing up on New York's Lower East Side. Over the course of a year, the girls experience joys (like celebrating Jewish holidays and the Fourth of July) and sorrows (like getting scarlet fever and, even worse, losing a library book), and spend a lot of time thinking about how to spend their allowance (one penny). 

Mentioned on this episode: 

Other books in the series:

More All-of-a-Kind Family

All-of-a-Kind Family Uptown

All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown

Ella of All-of-a-Kind Family

Also mentioned: 

Peter and Polly in Winter by Rose Lucia (1914), Sarah's lost library book. 

From Sarah to Sydney by June Cummins, a biography of Sydney Taylor)

Jennifer Weiner's New York Times review of From Sarah to Sydney

One of a Kind: The Life of Sydney Taylor, a children's picture book biography by by Richard Michelson (read Deborah's interview with Michelson here)

Recommended for fans of All-of-a-Kind Family:

Deborah: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Mary Grace: The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright, Meet Me in St. Louis by Sally Benson, Seven-Day Magic by Edward Eager

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes mentioned:

Rereading The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright

Rereading Little Town on the Prairie, with Judith Kalb

Rereading Half Magic by Edward Eager

You can find Deborah at deborahkalb.com and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Podcast website at rereadingourchildhood.com

On this episode, we discuss The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene, the first installment in the Nancy Drew series, with writer Sara Fitzgerald.

Mentioned on this episode:

Other Nancy Drew books:

The Secret of Red Gate Farm

The Hidden Staircase

Other Stratemeyer Syndicate series:

The Bobbsey Twins

The Hardy Boys

The Rover Boys

Also mentioned:

The Silenced Muse by Sara Fitzgerald

Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly

Teen romances by Betty Cavanna

The CW Nancy Drew series (trailer here)

The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

A Goodreads review by a reader named Michelle

Ada Twist, Scientist, Rosie Revere, Engineer, and Sofia Valdez, Future Prez, by Andrea Beaty

Recommendations: 

Sara: Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, Cherry Ames, Camp Nurse by Helen Wells

Deborah: Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

Mary Grace: The Long Secret by Louise Fitzhugh

You can find Deborah at deborahkalb.com, Mary Grace at My Life 100 Years Ago, and Sara at sarafitzgerald.com.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Podcast website at rereadingourchildhood.com

On this episode, we discuss Esther Forbes's Newbery Medal-winning 1943 novel Johnny Tremain, the story of an apprentice silversmith in Boston who gets caught up in the events leading up to the American Revolution. 

Mentioned on this episode:

Other books by Esther Forbes:

Paul Revere and the World He Lived In (1942), winner of the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for History.

The General's Lady (1938)

Miss Marvel (1935)

Also mentioned:

The 1957 Disney movie adaptation of Johnny Tremain (trailer here)

Gadsby's Tavern, in Alexandria, Virginia, which was built in 1770 and is now a museum and restaurant. Mary Grace went there with her sixth grade class. 

The Biggest Bear by Lynd Ward, illustrator of Johnny Tremain, which won the Caldecott Medal in 1953. 

The American Antiquarian Society, of which Esther Forbes was the first woman member

Redcoat in Boston by Ann Finlayson

Recommended for fans of Johnny Tremain:

Mary Grace: Answering the Cry for Freedom: Stories of African Americans and the American Revolution by Gretchen Wolfe. (Deborah did an author interview on this book on her blog, Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb.) Mary Grace mentions that there are several picture books about Revolutionary War-era African American scientist Benjamin Banneker. These include Dear Benjamin Banneker by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Brian Pinkney.

Deborah: The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare (1958) 

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes mentioned:

Rereading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Rereading The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

You can find Deborah at deborahkalb.com and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Podcast website at rereadingourchildhood.com

On this episode, we reread Frances Hodgson Burnett's beloved 1911 classic The Secret Garden, about Mary, a neglected girl who discovers a garden on her uncle's Yorkshire estate that has been locked up for ten years. We discuss the magic of secret places and Hodgson's surprising ties to the United States, including periods living in a Tennessee log cabin and in Washington, D.C.

Mentioned on this episode:

Other books by Burnett:

A Little Princess(originally published as Sara Crewe) (1905)

Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886)

Through One Administration(1881), an adult novel about politics and society in Washington, D.C.

Also mentioned:

The serialization of The Secret Garden in American Magazine beginning in November 1910

The 2020 film adaptation, with Colin Firth as Mary's uncle (trailer here)

The 1987 Hallmark Hall of Fame adaptation, also featuring Colin Firth, this time as grown-up Colin (trailer here)

The 1949 film adaptation, starring Margaret O'Brien (trailer here)

Deborah's recommendations for fans of The Secret Garden: A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett; Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë; Rebeccaby Daphne du Maurier; The Secret Garden retellings on Goodreads, including The Painted Gardenby Noel Streatfeild 

Mary Grace's recommendations for fans of The Secret Garden: Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. (There is a brief review of the book on the 1919 book list on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.)

You can find Deborah at deborahkalb.com and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Podcast website at rereadingourchildhood.com

We were delighted to welcome our first guest, Judith Kalb, to talk about Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Town on the Prairie (1941), the seventh book in the beloved Little House series. Judy is, in addition to being Deborah's sister, a literature scholar and a lifelong Laura Ingalls Wilder fan.

Mentioned on this episode: 

Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography, by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Complete Poetical Works of Alfred Tennyson 

Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

The Beautiful Snow: The Ingalls Family, the Railroads, and the Hard Winter of 1880-81 by Cindy Wilson

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser

Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated by Alison Arngrim

A post on Little Town on the Prairie on the website American Indians in Children's Literature.

Recommended for Little House fans:

Judy: The rest of the series, especially These Happy Golden Years

Mary Grace: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, Two are Better Than One and Louly by Carol Ryrie Brink

Deborah: Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink.

You can find Deborah at deborahkalb.com and Mary Grace at My Life 100 Years Ago.  

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Podcast website at rereadingourchildhood.com

For our last episode of 2024, we talked about our favorite children's books of 60 years ago, which we defined as 1964-1966---a great era for children's books.

Here are our favorites, but it's more fun if you listen to the episode first. We disqualified books that we've done episodes on. 

Mary Grace's top five:

5. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

4. The Strange Light by James Reeves

3. Ismo by John Verney

2. The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander

1. The Long Secret by Louise Fitzhugh

Deborah's top five:

5. The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill. 

4. Apples Every Day by Grace Richardson

3. The Noonday Friends by Mary Stolz

2. Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell and Lillian Hoban

1. The Long Secret by Louise Fitzhugh

Honorable Mentions:

Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper

Nightbirds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken

The Arm of the Starfish by Madeleine L'Engle

Henry Reed's Babysitting Service by Keith Robertson

Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang by Ian Fleming

You can find Deborah at her author website and Mary Grace at My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Podcast website at rereadingourchildhood.com

On this episode, we read Susan Cooper's 1973 novel The Dark is Rising, which was a Newbery Honor Book. It's the story of Will, a British boy who discovers on his eleventh birthday that he's the last of the Old Ones, destined to fight against the forces of the Dark. It takes place over the period from the winter solstice to the 12th day of Christmas, so it's a great December read. (If the whole "British boy/eleventh birthday" thing sounds familiar, Cooper is considered by many to have influenced J.K. Rowling.) 

Mentioned on this episode: 

Other books in the The Dark is Rising series:

Over Sea, Under Stone (1965)

Greenwitch (1974)

The Grey King (1975)

Silver on the Tree (1977)

Also by Susan Cooper:

Dawn of Fear (1970)

Recommended for fans of The Dark is Rising: The Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling, The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander, and Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken (Deborah); The Once and Future King by T.H. White and the Callendar family series, including Friday's Tunnel and February's Road, by John Verney. 

You can find Deborah’s author interviews on her blog, Books Q&A by Deborah Kalb, and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Podcast website at rereadingourchildhood.com

On this episode, we reread Betsy Byars' The Summer of the Swans, which won the 1971 Newbery Medal. It's an evocative story of a 14-year-old girl who's preoccupied with her big feet and her puce sneakers until the disappearance of her younger brother, who has an intellectual disability, forces her to look beyond her own adolescent thoughts. 

Mentioned on the podcast:

The 1970 Kirkus Review review of the book 

1971 Newbery Honor Book Enchantress from the Starsby Sylvia Louise Engdahl

Another 1970 book about an adolescent girl's search for identity that, in Mary Grace's opinion, should have won the Newbery: Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret?. 

Two post-Sumer of the Swans movies whose titles make startling appearances in the book: Bull Durham and Thelma and Louise. 

Byar's 1980 National Book Award winner The Night Swimmers

Byars' 2020 New York Times obituary

Children's Books and Their Creators by Anita Silvey

The 1974 afterschool special, which has appearances by two kids from The Brady Bunch but little else to recommend it. 

Recommended for fans of The Summer of the Swans: The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers (Mary Grace), M.C. Higgins, the Great by Virginia Hamilton and Flight of the Doves by Walter Macken (Deborah). 

The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms.

You can find Deborah’s author interviews on her blog, Books Q&A by Deborah Kalb, and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Podcast website at rereadingourchildhood.com

On the second annual Encyclopedia Brown episode, Mary Grace and Deborah match wits with America’s most brilliant boy detective, and with each other, in solving the cases in the series’ second installment, Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Secret Pitch.

Mentioned on the podcast:

Goodreads reviews of Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Secret Pitch

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes:

Rereading Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective

You can find Deborah’s author interviews on her blog, Books Q&A by Deborah Kalb, and Mary Grace’s adventures in the 1920s on her blog, My Life 100 Years Ago.

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Podcast website at rereadingourchildhood.com