Inquiring minds might want to know: ARE there any ravens in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights? No, they aren’t mentioned–although they certainly suit its windswept, craggy wildness. They do appear in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, however.
Jane observes … Read More
As the school year comes to a close, all students and professors get a little exhausted, and this year I have a lot going on, so I have been especially feeling it. But I had a wonderful experience in class … Read More
After rereading Judith Kerr’s Bombs on Aunt Dainty, a very autobiographical novel that describes her first art classes, I decided it was high time I should read some of her self-illustrated picture books. And it turns out that, although Kerr … Read More
If you are a
n American reader who admired and loved Judith Kerr’s novel based on her family’s escape from Germany in the 1930s, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, there is something you need to know immediately. It is … Read More
This week’s moment of literary joy comes from chapter 11 of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, which I’ve just been teaching in my Nineteenth-Century British Fiction class.
Here’s the passage:
Fanny agreed to it, and had the pleasure … Read More
I had another “small world” moment today when I came across George Ella Lyon’s delightful nonfiction picture book, Mother to Tigers, illustrated by Peter Catalanotto (Atheneum 2003).
This is another terrific picture book to buy for children who … Read More
While I was thinking about what I learned about Baltimore history from reading Laura Amy Schlitz’s The Hired Girl, I happened to come across another book that taught me more about Baltimore: Lesléa Newman’s adorable picture book, Ketzel, … Read More
This week’s moment of literary joy (well, really there are two today!) comes from Shana Burg’s Laugh With the Moon (Delacorte 2012), a middle-grade novel about an American adolescent, Clare.
Clare has recently lost her mother and is taken, unwillingly, … Read More
I’ve just been reading Laura Amy Schlitz’s The Hired Girl (Candlewick 2015) with great pleasure. It has a compelling plot, it gives us a glimpse into Jewish life in turn-of-the-century Baltimore, and Joan is such a terrific character—an utterly believable, … Read More