Rereading Our Childhood

For this episode, we revisited The Borrowers, Mary Norton's 1952 novel about a family of tiny people who live under the kitchen of a house in the British countryside. We were as charmed as ever by the ingenuity of the Borrowers, who have a dresser made of matchboxes and a teapot made of an acorn shell, but there was a layer of darkness in the story that we hadn't remembered. 
Mentioned on this episode:
Other books in the series:
The Borrowers Afield
The Borrowers Afloat
The Borrowers Aloft
The Borrowers Avenged
Also by Mary Norton:
Bedknob and Broomstick
Film adaptations:
Bedknobs and Broomsticks, 1971 movie (trailer here)
The Borrowers, 1973 Hallmark Hall of Fame TV special (IMDB entry here)
The Borrowers, 1997 live-action adaptation (trailer here)
Arietty, 2010 Japanese anime adaptation (trailer here)
Also mentioned:
Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright, illustrated by Beth and Joe Krush, who illustrated the American edition of The Borrowers
All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown by Sydney Taylor, illustrated by Beth and Joe Krush
The English Bookshop, in Uppsala, Sweden and other locations
Independent obituary of Mary Norton
Independent obituary of Mark Norton, Mary Norton's son
Recommended by Mary Grace: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Recommended by Deborah: Stuart Little by E.B. White
Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes:
Rereading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Rereading Stuart Little by E.B. White
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

Nancy Hudgins joins us to talk about I'll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip, John Donavan's groundbreaking 1969 novel about a romance between two thirteen-year-old boys. Nancy is the author of Books Good Enough for You, a children's biography of legendary children's book editor Ursula Nordstrom, who edited I'll Get There.
Mentioned on this episode: 
Nancy's childhood favorites:
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White (an Ursula Nordstrom book)
The Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink
The House of Sixty Fathers by Meindert De Jong, illustrated by Maurice Sendak (an Ursula Nordstrom book)
More Ursula Nordstrom books:
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
It's Like This, Cat by Emily Neville
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
William's Doll by Charlotte Zolatow
Stevie by John Steptoe
The Secret Language by Ursula Nordstrom
Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik, illustrated by Maurice Sendak
Freaky Friday and A Billion for Boris by Mary Rodgers
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak. (You can read an excerpt from Books Good Enough for You about In the Night Kitchen, published in Publisher's Weekly, here.) 
Also mentioned:
Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom, edited by Leonard Marcus
Time magazine's 2021 list of the top 100 young adult books of all time, which includes I'll Get There
2009 Publisher's Weekly article about the 40th anniversary reissue of I'll Get There
2014 Los Angeles Review of Books article by Rumaan Alam about I'll Get There
Born Free (movie trailer here)
The audiobook of Books Good Enough for You, narrated by Barbara Rosenblatt
Recommended for fans of I'll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip:
Nancy: Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden; A High Five for Glenn Burke by Phil Bildner
Deborah: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger; Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
Mary Grace: Bertram Cope's Year by Henry Blake Fuller
Recommended Ursula Nordstrom books:
Nancy: All sixteen books discussed in Books Good Enough for You, especially A Hole is to Dig by Ruth Krauss
Deborah: Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh; Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
Mary Grace: Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes: Rereading Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink; Rereading Charlotte's Web by E.B. White; Rereading Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh; Rereading Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
The podcast is hosted by Buzzsprout at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com and is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms.
You can find Nancy at nancyhudgins.com, 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

Writer Alex Poppe joins us to talk about Deenie, Judy Blume’s 1973 novel about a girl, pigeonholed as the pretty one in her family, whose life is thrown off track when she’s diagnosed with scoliosis. Alex is the author most recently of the memoir Breakfast Wine.
Other books by Judy Blume:
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo
Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great
Forever
Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t
It’s Not the End of the World
Blubber (this is the book Alex couldn’t remember the name of)
In the Unlikely Event (this is the adult novel we couldn’t remember the name of)
Also mentioned:
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, the 2023 movie (trailer here)
Judy Blume: A Life by Mark Oppenheimer
New Yorker review of Judy Blume: A Life by Katy Waldman
Otherwise Known as Judy the Great by Selina Alko, children’s biography of Judy Blume
Michigan Daily article about Deenie by Rebecca Smith, a student with scoliosis
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Recommended for fans of Deenie:
Alex: Fight Night by Miriam Toews; “The River Nemanus,” a short story by Anthony Doerr from the collection Memory Wall
Mary Grace: Karen and With Love from Karen by Marie Killilea (MG)
Deborah: Braced by Alison Gerber
Previous podcast episode:
Rereading Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
You can find Alex at alexpoppeauthor.com, 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

We had completely forgotten about Eleanor Estes's The Moffats until a friend suggested that we reread it. Published in 1941, it's the first in a series about four children growing up in small-town Connecticut in the 1910s. 
Mentioned on this episode:
Other books in the series:
The Middle Moffat (1942), a Newbery Honor Book
Rufus M. (1943), a Newbery Honor Book

The Moffat Museum (1983) 
Other books by Estes:
The Hundred Dresses (1944), a Newbery Honor Book
Ginger Pye (1951), winner of the 1952 Newbery Medal
Pinky Pye (1958)
Also mentioned:
Many Moons (1943) by James Thurber, with illustrations by Louis Slobodkin
"Eleanor Estes: Chronicler of the Family Story," by Claudia Mills, on the UConn Archives and Special Collections Blog. 
"Celebrating Children's Books Week--and a pioneering children's librarian," on Mary Grace's blog, My Life 100 Years Ago
Recommended by Deborah: The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright; Beverly Cleary's books
Recommended by Mary Grace: The All-of-a-Kind Family series by Sydney Taylor
Other episodes:
Rereading The Young Unicorns by Madeleine L'Engle
Rereading Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary
Rereading Stuart Little by E.B. White
Rereading Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
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 the first episode of our fourth (!) season, we reread E.L. Konigsburg's Newbery Medal winner From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, which was published in 1967. This book, one of our all-time favorites, has one of the best plot premises of all time: a suburban brother and sister run away from home and camp out at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Mentioned on this episode:
Other books by Konigsburg:
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth
A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver
About the B'nai Bagels
Also mentioned:
Ban this Book by Alan Gratz
1965 New York Times article about the Metropolitan Museum's purchase for $225 of a statue that may be a Leonardo da Vinci
1996 New York Times article about a cupid statue at the French cultural center in New York that may be by Michaelangelo
Post on the Metropolitan Museum website about celebrating the 50th anniversary of From the Mixed-Up Files
2017 Smithsonian magazine article in which Johnny Doran reminisces about playing Jamie in a film version of From the Mixed-Up Files
Recommended by Mary Grace: Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Other Rereading Our Childhood episodes mentioned:
Rereading Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E.L. Konigsburg
Rereading Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
Rereading Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
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