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

On this episode, we reread Elizabeth Enright's 1941 novel The Saturdays, about four children who pool their allowances and set out on solo adventures in New York.

Mentioned on the episode: 

Other books in the Melendy family series: 

The Four-Story Mistake (1942)

Then There Were Five (1944)

Spiderweb for Two (1951)

Also by Elizabeth Enright:

Thimble Summer (1938)

Gone-Away Lake (1957)

Return to Gone-Away (1961)

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes:

Rereading Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

Rereading Stuart Little by E.B. White

Rereading Henry Reed, Inc. by Keith Robertson

Rereading Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

Also mentioned:

Claude Debussy's "Golliwog's Cakewalk" (in the discussion about problematic aspects of the book) 

Under Two Flags by Ouida (1867)

Mary Grace's blog post on children's books from 1919, in which she talks about an illustrated edition of Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates with illustrations by Elizabeth Enright's mother, Maginel Wright Enright. 

Recommended for fans of The Saturdays: Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild and Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh (Mary Grace); All-of-a-Kind Family and its sequels by Sidney Taylor (Deborah). 

You can find Debby’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

Mary Grace and Deborah discuss Elizabeth George Speare’s 1958 Newbery Medal winner The Witch of Blackbird Pond, about a girl, Kit, who’s struggling to fit in in a Puritan community in colonial Connecticut.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s 1953 play about the Salem witch trials.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

Kit’s childhood reading includes The Pilgrim’s Progress and The Tempest.

The Bronze Bow, Speare’s 1962 Newbery winner about a Jewish boy living at the time of Christ.

Calico Captive, Speare’s 1957 first novel about a girl who was captured by Native Americans in 1794.

The Sign of the Beaver, Speare’s 1983 Newbery Honor book about a boy struggling to live on his own in eighteenth-century Maine.

Calico Bush, Rachel Lyman Field’s 1931 novel about a French girl who works as an indentured servant in colonial Maine.

Speare’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Award citation.

Commentary on thestorygraph.com

Goodreads reviews

Also recommended: Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes (Deborah), Nightbirds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken (Mary Grace).

Other episodes:

Rereading Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken

Rereading Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

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

This episode was edited by Adam Linder of Bespoken Podcasting.

Podcast website at rereadingourchildhood.com

On this episode, Deborah (a cat person) rereads, and Mary Grace (not a cat person) reads, The Hotel Cat (1969), a late entry in Esther Averill’s long Cat Club series.

Other books in the Cat Club series:

The Cat Club (1944)

Jenny Goes to Sea (1957)

The Fire Cat (1960)

Other podcast episodes:

Rereading Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

Rereading Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary

Rereading Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers

Rereading Stuart Little by E.B. White

Also mentioned:

The Flophouse podcast, Episode #302 – Cats

Lost Ladies of Lit podcast, transcript of Episode 64, Much Better than CATS — Esther Averill’s Jenny and the Cat Club

Celebrating Children’s Book Week–and a Pioneering Librarian, on Mary Grace’s blog, My Life 100 Years Ago

Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, edited by Leonard Marcus

The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden

Recommended for fans of The Hotel Cat: Stuart Little by E.B. White and Eloise by Kay Thompson (Mary Grace), other books in the Cat Club series (Deborah)

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, Mary Grace and Deborah read Virginia Hamilton's 1974 novel M.C. Higgins the Great, about a teenaged boy in Appalachia whose life is turned upside down when two strangers come to town. Hamilton won the Newbery Medal for the book; she was the first African American to win the award. 

Mentioned on the episode: 

Also by Virginia Hamilton: 

Zeely (1967) 

The House of Dies Drear (1968) 

The Planet of Junior Brown (1971) 

Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes: 

Rereading Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E.L. Konigsburg 

Rereading The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder 

Rereading The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum 

Also mentioned: 

Children's Books and their Creators, edited by Anita Silvey 

Goodreads reviews of M.C. Higgins the Great 

Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt 

Recommended for fans of M.C. Higgins, the Great: other books by Virginia Hamilton (Deborah), Where the Lilies Bloom by Vera and Bill Cleary (Mary Grace) 

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