Quick Lit: What I’ve Been Reading Lately

Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrum edited by Leonard Marcus

Finally, finally, finally I have read this book I’ve owned for maybe fifteen years. What an absolute delight! Ursula Nordstrum was the third editor of children’s books at Harpers, serving as director of Harper’s Department of Books for Boys and Girls from 1940 to 1973. She’s arguably the most influential children’s editor of all time. Dear Genius is a collection of letters to her authors and illustrators over the decades. Readers will recognize lots of names: Margaret Wise Brown, Laura Ingalls Wilder, E. B. White, Garth Williams, Russell Hoban, Ruth Krauss, Maurice Sendak (whose artistic talents were discovered as he worked as a window display designer for FAO Schwartz!), and many more. I loved getting a glimpse into the workings of many well-known (and not so well known) books. It was especially satisfying to see the role Ursula took with her authors and illustrators — that of cheerleader, support, guide, and friend. (What a good editor still does today, I believe.)

If you are interested in children’s literature’s early days / golden era, I highly recommend this book.

Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail by Ben Montgomery

I have a new hero. Her name is Emma Gatewood. In 1955, when she was sixty-seven years old, Emma was the first woman to through hike the Appalachian Trail. Referred to as Grandma Gatewood in numerous newspaper articles, Emma hiked the trail twice more (!), walked the entire Oregon Trail (!!), and continued her walks well into her eighties. She was a bit of a folk hero in her time (and in hiking circles continues to be so). Mother to eleven kids, grandmother to 23, and great-grandmother to two at the time of her first adventure, Emma never told her family what she set out to do. She simply sent a postcard letting them know she’d gone on a walk.

I love this woman’s fascination with the natural world and her steady-on attitude. This was one of those books I had to tell everyone about. It was especially fun to read while my son Noah was walking the Camino de Santiago (starting in Porto, Portugal).

Author-illustrator Jennifer Thermes has written a lovely picture book biography called Grandma Gatewood Hikes the Appalachian Trail. Look for an interview with her later this year.

Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton

I have owned this book since I lived in Virginia. I know this because I remember the used bookstore where I bought my copy. (I moved from Virginia in 2004!) My book club read it in March, and oh my, I am so glad I have finally gotten to this book.

This is the story of a parson (umfundisi) named Kumalo who leaves his small South African town to find his son who is living in Johannesburg. The son, Absalom, is no longer writing home, and his parents are worried. Johannesburg is a sprawling, multi-town city, and Kumalo goes from house to house tracking his son from where he was last seen. It is a story of “the children that were growing up in Johannesburg without home or school or custom, and about the broken tribe and the sickness of the land… .” It’s about “kindness and love…pay[ing] for pain and suffering.” The language and cadence and style are beautifully poetic. Its simplicity is its power. I loved it.

While I started reading that copy I’ve had for twenty-plus, years, I finished with a library audiobook because…

What have you read lately?