Sunday, March 31, 2013
Easter Encore
Posted by Catholic Bibliophagist at 6:53 AM 4 comments
Labels: Easter
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
"Katy was naturally fond of reading. Papa encouraged it, He kept a few books locked up, and then turned her loose in the Library. She read all sorts of things: travels, and sermons, and old magazines. Nothing was so dull that she couldn't get through with it. Anything really interesting absorbed her so that she never knew what was going on about her. The little girls to whose houses she went visiting had found this out, and always hid away their story-books when she was expected to tea. If they didn't do this, she was sure to pick one up and plunge in, and then it was no use to call her, or tug at her dress, for she neither saw nor heard anything more, till it was time to go home."
--What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge, 1872.
I always enjoy meeting kindred spirits, even when it's only between the pages of a book.
Posted by Catholic Bibliophagist at 12:59 AM 0 comments
Labels: Kid-Lit, Quotations
Monday, August 22, 2011
A Really Weird Summer
It's a story about four siblings who have been sent to spend the summer with a great aunt and uncle while their parents are working out the details of their divorce. All of the kids are miserable at being removed from their home, friends, and neighborhood. And they are sooo bored. And then certain elements creep into the story which seem to indicate that this will either be a fantasy or a book with supernatural bits. But alas! It all turns out to be merely psychological.
And I was kind of repulsed by the book's "lesson" which was that kids must stick together because adults cannot be depended on for anything. Family identity has shrunk to include kids only. As Nels tells his younger brother on the last page, "All us kids have to to stay together, that's the big thing. We've got to promise each other. If we stick together, then whatever happens outside -- whatever the grown-ups do -- it won't matter so much D'you see? We'll still be us."
Posted by Catholic Bibliophagist at 4:13 AM 1 comments
Labels: Kid-Lit
Saturday, May 14, 2011
May-Every-Day: Update
I'm not doing very well at meeting my self-imposed challenge to blog every day during the month of May. Part of the blame may be attributed to Blogger which has been doing Weird Things to its clientele. And now my modem is malfunctioning. Verizon says that the modem is communicating with them but ignoring my computer. They promised to ship me a new modem, but in the meantime I no longer have Internet access at home.
Posted by Catholic Bibliophagist at 1:52 PM 1 comments
Labels: May-Every-Day
Friday, May 13, 2011
Friday Frivolity: The Self Arranging Bookshelf
I was thumbing through Sunset Magazine the other day during my break at work when I saw something that caused me to squawk in dismay. It was an artsy home decorating article featuring clever storage ideas. I love that sort of thing -- especially when it involves bookshelves. But what raised my ire was the author's suggestion that the client arrange his books by color. How could you find anything with that sort of system? I may not have a degree in library science, but I must have a librarian's soul as evidenced by the fact that in our home library the fiction is arranged by author and title and the nonfiction is arranged by subject. (I have not, however, gone to the lengths of marking their spines with Dewey decimal numbers.)
Posted by Catholic Bibliophagist at 10:45 PM 5 comments
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
For Where Your Treasure Is . . .
'"Wicked people never have time for reading,' Dewey said. 'It's one of the reasons for their wickedness.'" --The Penultimate Peril by Lemony Snicket.
Posted by Catholic Bibliophagist at 7:14 AM 4 comments
Labels: Reading
Monday, May 9, 2011
On The Road With L.M. Montgomery
This week I've been on an L.M. Montgomery binge, thanks to my recent trip to Ohio.
Posted by Catholic Bibliophagist at 9:46 PM 1 comments
Labels: Kid-Lit, L.M. Montgomery