Tonight, we’ll read the opening to the 1940 mystery “Danger at the Drawbridge”, part of the “Penny Parker” anthology written by Mildred Wirt, also known by Mildred Benson. The first episode was “The Green Door” and aired on December 5th, 2022. These stories aren’t consecutive so don’t worry if you didn’t hear the first episode. You can pick up on this one just fine!

Along with being the heroine of the series, Penny Parker was a high school student turned sleuth who also sporadically worked as a reporter for her father's newspaper.

Benson was a journalist and prolific writer, under many pseudonyms, who is best known for creating the Nancy Drew series.

The author Benson favored Penny Parker over all the other books she wrote, including Nancy Drew. Her obituary quoted her as saying, " 'I always thought Penny Parker was a better Nancy Drew than Nancy is." 

— read by V —

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Tonight, we’ll read the next part to “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” a classic science fiction adventure novel by French writer Jules Verne.

In the last episode, our narrator Arronax and his companions watch the underwater world float by, including some shipwrecks. Nemo appears after a long absence and tells Aronnax they're headed for the island of Vanikoro, the site of two famous shipwrecks back at end of the 18th century and early in the 19th century. We will pick up where Nemo and Arronax are discussing this. 

— read by N —

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Tonight, we’ll read “A treatise on the art of making good wholesome bread of wheat, oats, rye, barley” by Friedrick Accum, published in 1821.

Accum was a German chemist, whose most important achievements included advances in the field of gas lighting, efforts to keep processed foods free from dangerous additives, and the promotion of popular chemistry.

Following an apprenticeship as an apothecary, he opened his own commercial laboratory enterprise in London.

— read by V —

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Tonight, we’ll read “Surprise House” written by Abbie Farwell Brown and published in 1917. This children’s story depicts a legacy left by an eccentric old lady to her grand-niece.

Brown was a prolific American author of children’s stories and poems, who spent her entire life living in her family’s Beacon Hill Boston home. Her family was at that time the 10th generation to live in New England. Brown also penned the official song of the “Girl Scouts of the USA.”

This episode is guest narrated by Shann Vander Leek of the Anxiety Slayer podcast and academy. If you are interested in learning more, please go to anxietyslayer.com'

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Tonight, we’ll read the next part to “The Secret Garden”, a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett published in 1911.

In the last episode, we delve into the concept of how thoughts, good or bad, have power to change one’s experience of life. While Colin and Mary were filling their heads with happy magic and their lungs with moorland breezes, Master Craven was hiking across Europe and starting to find a change of heart as well. In a peaceful and quiet moment he remembers home and opens his mind to the possibility of good things again. He dreams his deceased wife calls to him to come home to the garden. And the next day, he heads home.

— read by V —

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Tonight, we’ll read a story from Hans Christian Andersen called “Little Thumbelina.” Thumbelina is about a tiny girl and her adventures with marriage-minded toads, moles, and doodlebugs. She successfully avoids their intentions before falling in love with a flower-fairy prince just her size. This episode originally aired in February 2021.

Hans Christian Andersen was born in Denmark in 1805 to a shoemaker. An only child, Andersen shared a love of literature with his father, who read him fables and fairy tales. Together, they constructed panoramas and toy theatres, and took long jaunts into the countryside. 

— read by V —

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Tonight, we’ll read the opening to “A world of green hills : Observations of nature and human nature in the Blue Ridge” written by Bradford Torrey and published in 1898.

The Blue Ridge extends as far south as Georgia and as far north as Pennsylvania. From there it dwindles to hills, however the band of ancient rocks that form the core of the Blue Ridge continues northeast through the New Jersey and eventually reaches The Berkshires of Massachusetts and the Green Mountains of Vermont.

This mountain range is known for having a bluish color when seen from a distance. Trees put the "blue" in Blue Ridge, from the isoprene released by them into the atmosphere. This contributes to the characteristic haze on the mountains and their perceived color.

— read by N —

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Tonight, we’ll read the next part to “Winnie-the-Pooh” a children’s story written by A.A. Milne and published in 1926. This collection of short stories features an anthropomorphic teddy bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, along with his friends Christopher Robin, Piglet, Eeyore, Owl, Rabbit, Kanga, and Roo.

In the previous episode, we finished chapter eight, in which Christopher Robin plans to lead an expotition to the north pole and then we just started chapter nine, in which piglet was entirely surrounded by water. 

— read by V —

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Tonight, by listener request, we’ll read the opening to Swiss Family Robinson, a novel by Johann David Wyss, about a Swiss family shipwrecked in the East Indies en route to Australia. This episode first aired in February 2020.

Wyss, a Swiss pastor, originally wrote this book to entertain and instruct his four sons. Years later, one of his sons, persuaded his father to allow him to complete and edit the unfinished manuscript. It was published in Zurich in 1812.

— read by M —

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Tonight, we’ll read from “Walker’s Manly Exercises and Rural Sports” written by Donald Walker and published in 1855.

Walker was a Victorian author of several books, including this one and Exercises for Ladies. He helped to introduce British society to an unfamiliar topic in the early nineteenth century: physical education.

The birth of modern physical education teaching can be traced to teachers in the 1800s who focused on nurturing a child's ability to use their body for self-expression, in combination with approaches from the 1960s, which featured spatial awareness, effort, and relationships.

— read by N —

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