Simply Grand Reading Rendezvous

Recently I found myself perusing through boxes labeled “Heather” which were stored in the basement of my parents’ home.

It was fun to look through old yearbooks, my blown glass collection, saved letters, and books I had read as a child.

I brought home the books I had discovered and J-man especially reveled in reading two of them.

Fortunately, I was able to check out the remaining books in the series through our local library.  Both are suitable for readers 8-11.

First is the series entitled The Littles.

Written by John Peterson (waay back!!) in 1967.

John Peterson (1924 - 2002) was an American author of children's books during the 20th century. He is best remembered as the creator of The Littles, which began as a series of books in 1967, later adapted into a long-running animated cartoon series by DiC Entertainment.

John Lawrence Peterson was born in Bradford, Pennsylvania on February 10, 1924, and attended Pratt Institute before volunteering and serving as a paratrooper of the 11th Airborne Division in World War II. After the war he returned to Pratt Institute and graduated in 1948. He lived in the Clinton Hill district of Brooklyn, New York with his wife Holly (Simmonds), also a Pratt graduate, where he had sons John Christopher, Matthew James, and Joel David Barnes, and a daughter Elizabeth Holly. Peterson later moved to Hankins, New York. His son Chris had nine children who have since produced seven great-grandchildren. Peterson died in November 2002 at the age of seventy-eight.

Peterson was a light-hearted man who enjoyed small tricks and fabulous tales. His legacy will always be renewed with the children; while during his lifetime he spoke all across the United States at elementary schools, volunteered for the Boy Scouts and directed a Sunday school class with his wife Holly at an Episcopal church, his Littles books will always be an aid for the imaginations of youngsters, offering a glimpse between the walls of their own homes into the world of the little mice-like people who live off their scraps.

• The Littles Go Exploring

  Here's the tiny family that always ends up in king-sized trouble! Only six inches high, the Littles have tall adventures full of fun!
  Years ago, Grandpa Little set off to explore and was never seen again - the mystery of his disappearance was never solved. Now Lucy and Tom have stumbled across Grandpa's old papers and maps. When they figure out the path he took into the wilderness, the family packs up and heads out. Surprises await them around every bend - huge turtles, river rapids, and a new family of tiny people!

            

The second series I refer to as “the adventure series”, written by Thornton W. Burgess:

Thornton Waldo Burgess (January 14, 1874 – June 5, 1965). Born in Sandwich, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, he was a conservationist and author of children's stories. Thornton Waldo Burgess loved the beauty of nature and its living creatures so much that he wrote about them for 50 years. By the time he retired, he had written more than 170 books and 15,000 stories for daily columns in newspapers.

THE ADVENTURES OF BUSTER BEAR

Gentle morality lessons, delightfully taught, in a tale about an amiable bear who comes to live in the Green Forest. Large, easy-to-read type and charming illustrations. The other animals are frightened when Buster Bear comes to live in the Green Forest, until he gets into trouble trying to steal blueberries from Farmer Brown's boy and they realize he is not very different from them.

               

It’s always fun to find books the kids love to read.

I want to instill a heart of thankfulness in our kids for the gift of books!  There are many children around the world who never have access to books like our children.

Here is a quote from “Books for Africa”. . .

Letter from a Peace Corps Volunteer currently serving at an elementary hostel school in a tiny rural village in Namibia:

“Though there are no chairs or tables in our library, and only a ragged carpet on a cement floor, the children line up outside, waiting anxiously for me to open every afternoon, excited to look through and read, yet again, the same book they read yesterday.

“The children spend long afternoons flipping mesmerized through picture books, tracing words with their fingers, asking for definitions or explanations. The library has become a place that not only creates a love of reading, but offers and inspires an interest in English, the national language of this still newly independent nation, and an awareness of a world outside the hostel walls.”

Happy reading. . .Happy Thanksgiving week!

Heather$