Author Archives: Administrator

I used to get really irritated when people told me they didn’t watch television. I grew up on television. I saw the Partridge Family, The Brady Bunch, Bewitched all as first-run shows. But, not everything we watched was a sitcom. I remember watching Upstairs Downstairs with my parents on Masterpiece (when it was still Theatre).Continue reading “Am I Missing Something?”

When I was teaching composition, I used to have my students write an extended definition paper comparing and contrasting two synonymous terms that mean slightly different things. For example, “chef” and “cook.” Or “father” and “daddy.” Technically, they are the same things, but in the vernacular, synonyms can be quite different from one another. TheContinue reading “Bibliophile or Book Nerd?”

I wish I had time to read in the store. People come in every day and ask if I’ve read this or that book, and I feel guilty that I haven’t. It would be impossible for me to have read everything on the shelves. I am not a voracious reader; I’m a pleasure reader. IContinue reading “Death of the Novel?”

Over the past few weeks, I have been sharing a list of my favorite children’s books – and showing my age. I don’t think many of these are read anymore, and that makes me a little sad for those who grew up after me knowing only the Goosebumps and Babysitters series. Previous titles that IContinue reading “Children’s Books IV”

In the last couple of posts, I have discussed the children’s books that affected me as a child and what I feel I got out of them. Composing this list has allowed me to understand how my adult personality and skills were formed at an impressionable age. Everyone should try it. The first two booksContinue reading “Children’s Books III”

Recently, I began a short blog series on the children’s books that had the greatest influence on me. Last week, I talked about The Boxcar Children. This week’s book is My Father’s Dragon, by Ruth Stiles Gannett. This book focus on a young boy who runs away from home to Wild Island to rescue aContinue reading “Children’s Books II”

I recently found myself tracking down first editions of my favorite children’s books on the Internet. I credit my imagination, my creativity, and my love for the brittle and musty page to the books I read as a young girl. I often buy new editions of my old favorites for friends’ children, knowing, of course,Continue reading “Children’s Books I”

I’ve always been fascinated by the question “What famous authors, living or dead, would you like to have dinner with?” Sometimes that question is phrased in such a way that it’s a dinner party; sometimes it’s phrased in such a way that the meeting is one-on-one. As I do many other things in my life,Continue reading “The Age-Old Question”

My favorite place to read is in bed. It’s comfortable, it’s warm, and, I have made sure, it’s well lit. Because my biggest weakness is my dogs, I am most relaxed when they are within arms’ reach. Their snoring soothes me like nothing else. I won’t read at a table or desk because the dogsContinue reading “Reading in Bed”

When I was a little girl, I used to love libraries so much that I would make little pretend pockets for the inside of my Scholastic books and “check them out” to my friends. I always found comfort in the Dewey decimal system — so much so, that when I made a massive playlist (onContinue reading “Organizing Books”