Spring is here at last in the northwoods, with the grass finally starting to grow and all the birds returning. There’s still a tiny bit of snow here and there, but not much. And now I’m back to writing in my studio, Golden Moon Cottage. It’s not insulated and was buried under snow for four months! But now it’s accessible again, and it’s a joy to get to write in there again.

My reading has been rather sporadic so far this year, but April has been a better reading month. A few recent favorites: Ginnie and the Wedding Bells by Catherine Woolley, which was a total delight; Coal Camp Girl by Lois Lenski, and The Ghost Rock Mystery by Mary C. Jane.

I also started re-reading Elizabeth Enright’s The Four-Story Mistake, which I often read in the spring! (Even though it mostly takes place in the fall, LOL!)

I’ve been reading a chapter of Gladys Taber’s Stillmeadow Daybook each month, and this month I’m reading (of course!) the April chapter. Taber’s writing is soothing, gentle, and witty, and it’s perfect for perusing a few pages before bed.

The weather should be perfect for front porch reading soon! I have fond memories from last spring/summer reading What Katy Did Next by Susan Coolidge, The Well-Wishers by Edward Eager, The Growing Summer by Noel Streatfeild, and many others. What else will I read this spring? We will soon find out!

I’d love some book recommendations for spring, if you have any! Any fun vintage books or sweet new middle grade novels would be especially appreciated!

Last year, I read Heidi by Johanna Spyri for the first time. It had been on my TBR for years, and I finally decided to give it a try. It was an absolutely beautiful book! I loved it so much and it far exceeded my expectations. Another book that had been on my TBR for years was Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome, which I finally read with my Patreon book club members, and it was a delight to discuss it with them! At the end of 2024, I also finally read Marjorie’s Vacation by Carolyn Wells, one of the books in the Marjorie series that I’d been wanting to read for ages. (I read Marjorie in Command years ago and just hadn’t gotten around to the others yet. They are so fun!)

This year, I’d like to make a few more longtime TBR books a priority (I’ve been wanting to read Astrid the Unstoppable by Maria Parr for ages)! There are still some Beverly Cleary books I’ve never read and I want to get to those, too! But here’s another quandary: how do I prioritize which books to reread?

For example, here’s a list of some of the books I want to reread over the next few months:

• The Four Graces by D.E. Stevenson
• The first two Melendy books by Elizabeth Enright
• Emily’s Runaway Imagination by Beverly Cleary
• The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Anne of Green Gables & Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery
• Cherry Ames mysteries
• Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild
• Knight’s Castle by Edward Eager
• Pat of Silver Bush by L.M. Montgomery
• Ferris by Kate DiCamillo

How do you prioritize reading when there are so many books you want to get to? (Plus you always get in the mood to read books that aren’t on your TBR …) I may have to start doing my TBR jar again, because I just can’t decide! 🙂

Note: This post originally appeared on my Patreon. If you would like to see more posts like these (for both paid and free tiers), please consider joining 47 other subscribers!

It always happens: I start planning out seasonal TBR lists far too early. I start thinking of summer books when it’s still snowing, and I find myself planning cozy fall reads on hot July days. To me, there is something delicious about looking forward to what books will be just perfect for another time of year.

As Anne Shirley would say, “When I think something nice is going to happen I seem to fly right up on the wings of anticipation.” To me, anticipation itself is one of the nicest things of all!

And so, even though it was just snowing a couple of days ago, I’m daydreaming of summer days, sitting on the porch reading …

• I love summer adventure books, so I’ll probably pick an Enid Blyton to read.

• Which reminds me, I’d love to get a copy of The House in Cornwall by Noel Streatfeild; it was reprinted last year but only in the UK, so it’s not the easiest to find. Hopefully I can find it!

• I’d like to get a Catherine Woolley book, either another in the Ginnie series I’ve been loving lately or something else, if I can track one down. (These are largely out of print.)

• After reading Marjorie’s Vacation by Carolyn Wells at Christmas, I now want to find some of other Marjorie books I haven’t read.

• I read a book of Faith Andrews Bedford’s essays last summer, which was marvelous, so I’d like to read another.

• And I want to read the third book in Heather Vogel Frederick’s Pumpkin Falls mystery series, because it’s set during summer (luckily, I received a copy for my birthday)!

• Oh, and there have to be other mysteries, because summer is perfect for vintage mysteries, so I’ll probably reread a Nancy Drew or two.

• (Pictured in this post is Astrid Lindgren’s Seacrow Island, which is a perfect summer book, and I may just have to reread it too. Ooh, and Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery!)

Do you love seasonal TBR planning? I would love to hear what books you’re hoping to read this summer!

I wanted to do something a little different in this post and give you a quick look into two weeks (more or less!) in my reading life. 🙂

Typically I read 8-10 books a month, but lately it has been a little less because I’ve had so much going on (launching my latest novel and working on other projects), but I have been enjoying some great reading and wanted to share a bit about it!

A little over two weeks ago, I finished reading Spring Begins in March by Jean Little. It is a perfect springtime read (as the title might suggest!), even though the title is really more metaphorical than literal. It’s the sequel to Mine for Keeps, Little’s first novel. I have talked about this book before in my Best Books of Spring post, but it’s worth talking about again because of the charming, realistic characters and the delightful resolution. The best part of the book is when Meg’s grandmother reads aloud Anne of Ingleside to her. This scene was taken from one of Little’s own experiences as a child, when she “read ahead” after her grandmother finished reading for the night because she had to find out what happened to Anne!

When I first read Spring Begins in March, this scene made me want to read Anne of Ingleside, which I never had before. (I had read Anne of Green Gables countless times, but had never gotten to some of the later volumes.) So I read it and loved it! In a journal entry from that time, I wrote: “I like the little vignettes, like individual episodes of a sitcom.” Readers have criticized the episodic nature of some Montgomery books, but much of the time those ‘episodes’ make the books special and unique.

So when I revisited Spring, it put me in the mood to revisit Ingleside. But there was a catch: I have been trying to read the Anne series in order for the first time EVER. I started last April with AOGG and have been (slowly!) continuing throughout the months, and I needed to read Anne’s House of Dreams in order to read Ingleside.

I decided to challenge myself to read AHOD in three days. I have always been a slow reader—I read tons of books but it typically takes me a week to read a long-ish book like the ones in the Anne series. And I love a good challenge! So I dived in and (sort of) binged AHOD. It was terrific fun! AHOD is (like other Montgomery books) essentially stitched together from various short stories that LMM wanted to revisit, but everything is seamless. In my opinion, this is perhaps the most well-crafted Anne book because there’s nothing really extraneous—everything matters, and the various subplots all work well together in harmony.

Here is a two-page spread in my scrapbook that I created while reading AHOD:

So then I went on to Ingleside, but at the moment I am only about halfway through because of two things: life became even busier, and I also received some books for my birthday (yay!) and I am starting on those. Anne of Ingleside is such a joy to read, especially the original portions that were never short stories, LOL! I just find this to be another absolutely wonderful springtime selection.

I also recently read Lizzie by May Justus, a chapter book from 1944 that was reprinted a few years ago. I’ve embarked on a different kind of reading challenge this year—I want to try reading a book set in each U.S. state! So Lizzie was my choice for Tennessee; it’s set in the mountains and is very sweet. Nothing much happens in it, but since it’s so short, that’s okay. 🙂

I just finished one of the books I received for my birthday, Lois Lenski’s Flood Friday. I had a hard time putting it down because I had to find out what happened to all the children! It was based on a real flood in Connecticut in the 1950s, and Lenski is (as usual) excellent with bringing details to life.

The next book I’m currently reading is The Adventure of the Seven Keyholes by Augusta Huiell Seaman. I love her books—she wrote vintage children’s mysteries in the early 20th century and this one, from 1925, is quite good so far.

So that’s basically two weeks in my reading life. What have you been reading lately? I’d love to hear about the last two weeks in your reading life!

Recently, I announced that I teamed up with my friend Faith Elizabeth Hough (who blogs HERE) to create a fun reading challenge called Vintage Kidlit Summer. If you missed any of the details on how this challenge works, just go here and you can catch up! Basically, we’re doing 12 categories over 12 weeks, and each week has its own theme. All you have to do is choose a vintage/classic book that fits that week’s theme, read it, and share about it! You can write about it on your blog, or you can post your thoughts on Instagram (or Twitter) as well, by using the hashtag #vintagekidlitsummer. And if you’re in need of recommendations for each week’s theme, check out this blog post!

Our first week’s theme was Summer Vibes, and I decided to read Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright. Her books are absolutely perfect for summer! And if you’ve been reading my blog for a while now, you know what a major Enright fan I am. I previously blogged about all of her novels here (I’ve read every single one), and I even discovered what appears to be the beginning of an unfinished third Gone-Away Lake book.

Here’s what I had to say about Thimble Summer on my blog a few years ago:

A Newbery medal winner, this slim book is perhaps the most well-known of Enright’s works. There are delicious moments like when Garnet and her best friend get accidentally locked in the library, and when Garnet goes to the county fair. A fresh breeze of a book! This is also her first novel for children.

The fun of this book (and Enright’s writing in general) is in the delightful details. The book opens during the drought that has come to the Wisconsin farm where Garnet lives with her family, so the moment when the rain finally arrives, “heavy and silver as a waterfall,” is a wonderful one. The section that takes place at the fair reminds me of my own experiences attending a Wisconsin county fair, of entering the “barnlike building” to look at “hundreds of jars of jelly and pickles on the shelves … cut flowers in vases and growing plants in pots … dozens of different kinds of cakes … Each had a little card beside it with the name of the lady who’d made it.” These details are so real to me.

Many trademark Elizabeth Enright motifs appear in Thimble Summer: stories-within-stories (where an older person recounts a tale from their childhood), a big local event that takes place at the book’s climax, a newcomer who joins the family, and all the small joys of childhood.

There isn’t much plot in Thimble Summer. Enright books tend to be light on plot, but her well-written characterizations tend to make up for that. The title of the story comes from the fact that Garnet finds a silver thimble right before the rain that ends the drought, and she realizes by the novel’s conclusion that the thimble must be the reason for her glorious, adventure-filled summer. Like other vintage children’s books, most of the chapters follow their own mini plot in an episodic style that I’m quite fond of.

If you haven’t read this book yet, please give it a try! Read all of Elizabeth Enright’s books! You will love them too. 🙂

Have you started your Vintage Kidlit Summer reading? If so, please leave a comment so we can chat!

Three years ago, I invited my blog readers on a Summer of Vintage Kidlit, during which we read a bunch of delicious vintage titles over the course of summer.

Guess what? It’s back!

I teamed up with my friend Faith Elizabeth Hough (who blogs HERE) to create a fun reading challenge called Vintage Kidlit Summer, and it’s *going to be amazing.*

Here’s how it’s going to work:

We will have 12 categories over 12 weeks, so each week has its own theme. All you have to do is choose a vintage/classic book that fits that week’s theme, read it, and share about it! You can write about it on your blog, or you can post your thoughts on Instagram as well, by using the hashtag #vintagekidlitsummer.

Throughout the summer, we’ll also be hosting giveaways for participants, so you won’t want to miss it!

It’s going to take place from May 27 to August 12. Here’s the full schedule:

I’m already so excited about it, and starting to plan out what I’m going to read. I’m planning to write about each title on my blog, so stay tuned!

And if you are in need of recommendations for each week, we have those too! 

(And if you’re wondering what counts as vintage, I think anything pre-1980 counts!)

Please leave a comment if you hope to join in on the Vintage Kidlit Summer!

It’s been a while since I did a “general updates” post with what I’ve been up to lately, so without further ado, here it is!

What I’m reading …

I’ve been reading such fun books as of late! My current total of books read this year is 22, so I’m happy to be right on track with my reading goal for 2022. Recent top favorites include Where The Heart Is by Janet Lambert, Unearthing the Secret Garden by Marta McDowell, Golden Sovereign by Dorothy Lyons, and Ginnie and the Mystery Doll by Catherine Woolley.

What I’m planning to read …

I also have a set of new books coming in the mail, including two Janet Lambert novels I haven’t read yet. I’m very excited!

What I’m writing …

I have projects in varying stages right now! I’m deep in an edit round for one project, am planning and beginning to draft a couple of others, and have ideas for plenty more! I’ve been experimenting lately, having written my first picture book last summer and now my first TV screenplay this past weekend. 🙂

Most delightful of all, my upcoming middle grade novel, The Star That Always Stays, releases on July 12, 2022, and the preparations for it—final edits and marketing—have been so exciting! I was also invited to speak on a panel called “Another Time, Another Place” at School Library Journal’s upcoming Middle Grade Magic virtual event, which will be on March 10th!

What else I’ve been enjoying…

I’ve been doing some scrapbooking and drawing lately! I really enjoyed watching the 2022 Winter Cup on Saturday, the first major U.S. gymnastics meet of the year. Cheers to Konnor McClain, who took home the gold in the senior women’s all-around! My flower seeds have arrived, from several different seed companies, and it was a delight to watch them show up in the mailbox. I’m looking forward to planting all of my usual standbys, such as cosmos, zinnias, calendulas, and bachelor’s buttons, and I’m also trying out other flowers I haven’t planted before, including pink dandelions and lisianthus. I planted nasturtiums for the first time last year after reading about them in Jane of Lantern Hill and LOVED them!

What have you been doing to spruce up your winter days? Leave a comment! 

At the close of this first month of the new year, here’s a quick update on my current books (and other things)!

What I’m reading …

I read eleven books in January to kick off 2021! Among my (new) favorites: The Anne of Green Gables Devotional by Rachel Dodge, a heartfelt read full of inspiring verses with charming illustrations; Karina Yan Glaser’s The Vanderbeekers Lost and Found, the fourth volume in the Vanderbeekers series and perhaps the most poignant yet; Best Friends by Mary Bard (1950s fun about a French girl moving to the US); Francie on the Run, the second book in Hilda van Stockum’s Bantry Bay trilogy. Rereads included Kate DiCamillo’s 20th-anniversary edition of Because of Winn-Dixie (with slightly altered text), and Jane of Lantern Hill (L.M. Montgomery), which I am having the fun of discussing with friends in a book group right now.

What I’m planning to read …

Some brand-new books just arrived in the mail, and here’s why I can’t wait to read them:

Emily’s Runaway Imagination (1961): I’m working on filling in my Beverly Cleary library, having stuck mainly to the Ramona books and her “First Love” series. I just read Mitch and Amy (1967) and liked it quite a bit, so I’m eager to read this one, a rare historical story from Cleary set in the 1920s.

The Four Graces (1946): A Little Women retelling-of-sorts set in WWII in an English village and written by D.E. Stevenson? What could be better? 🙂

Carney’s House Party (1949): I just bought this lovely two-pack that includes both Carney and Winona, two Deep Valley novels by Maud Hart Lovelace. I just read Winona’s Pony Cart for the first time last year and greatly enjoyed it, and now I’m looking forward to rereading Carney’s House Party.

L.M. Montgomery’s Short Stories, 1907-1908: Montgomery’s short stories often have such wonderful characters and situations that I end up wishing she’d lengthened them into more novels!

Two Little Women (1915): I read the second book in this trilogy in 2009 and the third in 2010, and I have finally bought myself a copy of the first book! Carolyn Wells’ writing is so breezy and fun.

Not pictured but also on my list: Jennifer Dances (1954): A 1910s-era story by Eunice Young Smith about a girl who moves to Chicago to live with aunt and takes up ballet. It sounds so sweet!

What I’m writing …

I am nearly finished with my current middle grade novel – only about 7k left to write – and then I’m going to be focusing on a revision of a middle grade manuscript I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2018! I am so excited about it, and I’m gathering research materials and searching for inspiration!

What else I’ve been enjoying…

Scrapbooking, looking through old family photos, feeding sugar cubes to sweet ponies, listening to Annette Funicello songs and Strauss’ Annen Polka, doing writing sprints with friends, gathering quotes for an interview piece for Inside Gymnastics, watching Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, and other delightful things. I’ve also been planning this summer’s garden, buying seeds and calculating how many flower beds I’ll need. I am hoping for an early spring so that I can get a head start on my seeds, particularly the Madame Butterfly snapdragons. For the first time, I’ll be planting glorious orange nasturtiums (a flower found in Jane of Lantern Hill, as mentioned above), and I’m crossing my fingers that – unlike last year – my pink poppies will actually come to fruition!

What have you been doing to brighten the long January days? Let me know in the comments! 🙂 

My 2019 Reading Challenge was so much fun. I delved into more of the vintage middle grade books I adore, a few classics, a handful of newly-published novels, and some nonfiction as well! So without further ado, here is a general overview of my 2019 reading year. I’ve organized my favorites into categories, starting off with my Ultimate Favorite Books of 2019. Happy Reading!

My 2019 Reading Challenge

I pledged to read 75 books on Goodreads, and ended up finishing 122! I was planning to read a few longer books this year, such as Pride & Prejudice (which I found time to read) and Wives and Daughters (which I did not – maybe next year)! So that’s why I chose 75 for 2019, but I ended up reading a multitude of shorter stories instead.

My 2020 Reading Challenge

My Goodreads goal for 2020 will be to read 125 books. That will be a bit of a challenge, since I did not reach that number this year! But I think it’ll be fun to shoot a bit higher than before.

This year, I discovered several new authors, found myself enjoying nonfiction more than ever, and reread numerous old favorites that made me happy. Like in 2018, I had a fantastic book year, and I’m totally excited for 2020!

What were some books you loved in 2019? (Feel free to pass along some recommendations!

It’s been about a month and a half since I last posted here, and the reason is because I have been *very busy* with writing projects! For the past month, I have been deep in the first-draft process of a triple-timeline Christmas novel—it’s to 50K words thus far, so only about 25K to go!

I’m also in the midst of writing a delightful novelette that I’m hoping to release to my email subscribers next month. If you would like to receive this story in the coming weeks, just scroll to the bottom of my home page and punch your email into the subscriber box! 🙂

I recently joined Instagram—you can check out my profile here—and that’s definitely proven to be an enjoyable platform. I love sharing pictures of favorite books and snippets of my writing.

While I’m always sad to see summer and fall—and my flower garden—give way to the winter months, there are upsides: Hallmark movies on the weekends, soft sweaters, and plenty of time to pursue genealogy and (of course!) read delicious books. (See my list at the end of this post!)

Other bookish things I’ve loved over the past month or so…

• Conversations with my writing group and mentors: Since August, I have been enjoying the community of an amazing group of writers, and the two mentors spearheading this group have provided me with consistently thoughtful feedback, guidance, and thoughts on my writing journey.
• The books of Nina Rhoades: I recently discovered the children’s stories of Nina Rhoades, who wrote sweet novels set in New York City around the turn of the century. I’ve read three of her books so far and am currently on the fourth!
• Receiving critiques and exploring the revision process: Lately I have been seeking out critiques for my writing, and I love the process of exploring how I can learn from those comments. It is always a joy to better my craft!
• Reading groups: This autumn, I read Pride & Prejudice with one book group and am currently reading Noel Streatfeild’s Gemma series with another! Both opportunities to read, relish, and reflect with friends have been lovely.

Happy Reading!

Recently Read: Listening Valley by D.E. Stevenson, The Historic Christmas Tree Ship by Rochelle Pennington, The Little Girl Next Door by Nina Rhoades, Mrs. Sharp’s Traditions by Sarah Ban Breathnach

Currently Reading: The Children on the Top Floor by Nina Rhoades, Gemma Alone by Noel Streatfeild, The Journal of Beaver Island History