The Quilt

An absolute delight to read as an adult - I truly wonder what my response would have been as a younger me - the depths it took me now, surely would have been missed in those shallow years. Regardless, a 5 star recommendation. I'm eagerly seeking out the #1 and #2 of this series to fill in the gaps. F......more

Thirteen years: that's the time frame in which Gary Paulsen published his Alida series. Long enough for a newborn babe to enter adolescence, or an elementary school kid to become an adult. Many who were young when The Cookcamp came out in 1991 had aged out of reading children's literature by the tim......more

This was lovely and had me in tears by the end. Gary Paulsen has painful memories of his mother but some wonderful memories of his grandmother, Alida. He spent summers with Alida and one summer, as a six-year-old boy, was particularly memorable. Alida and young Gary are driven on an old, lumbering t......more

After reading Yellow Star (which was a great insight on the holocaust by the way) I found this book very dissapointing. Although the author was in the war at the time I didn't find it real enough for me. I think he was a bit to young to comprehend what the 'war' was as a 6-year-old. This was an easy......more

During WWII, the boy is staying with his grandmother again when word comes via the party line telephone that Alida is needed on one of the outlying farms. The woman running the place alone (because her husband is fighting in the war) is about to go into labor. Naming cows and speaking Norwegian. Fre......more