Hello, old friends :)

My sister & I were in the crawl space below my parents' split-level house a few days ago (there are two low, wheeled stools down there that help us scoot around more efficiently, saving wear & tear on our backs & knees -- and, no doubt, our heads!  lol), looking for something for our mother, when she said to me, "Did you know there's a shelf full of old books over there?"  

She took me over to a dark corner where I seldom venture, and moved a few boxes aside. There, on a shelf, covered in layers of dust, were two shelves full of books from our childhood. We'd gone through several boxes of old books about 10 summers ago -- many of which went to the thrift store and/or garage sale. I hadn't seen these particular books in years and I assumed they were long gone too. I'd thought of some of them, on & off (and have mentioned some of them in this blog), and I was *very* happy to reclaim a few old favourites and set them aside to take home with me. :)  

Here they are, from bottom to top:  

• "On Indian Trails With Daniel Boone" (published in 1947) and its sequel, "Holding the Fort With Daniel Boone," by Enid LaMonte Meadowcroft (which is so obscure these days it doesn't even have an entry on Goodreads!). I borrowed and re-borrowed these books from the library as a child in late 1960s Saskatchewan, and LOVED them both. I also loved watching the 1960s TV series, "Daniel Boone," starring Fess Parker (who also played Davy Crockett). When we moved from Saskatchewan back to Manitoba in 1969, I could no longer access the books -- and so my grandfather, who worked as a caretaker at the local high school, asked the school librarian about them -- and she was able to order copies as presents for me & my sister. :) I was thinking about them again recently when I learned about a new book called "The Taking of Jemima Boone" by Matthew Pearl (which is on my currrent TBR list). I'm sure these would be considered highly politically incorrect by today's standards, but they were among the books that helped spark my lifelong love of history (American, Canadian & otherwise!).  
• "A Sundae With Judy" by Frieda Friedman. What I remember about this book (published in 1949):  Judy's dad owns a soda shop in New York City, and the family lives above it. She and her friends put on a concert. Looking forward to refreshing my memory further on this one! 
• "Snow Treasure" by Marie McSwigan. I was reminded of this one while watching "Atlantic Crossing" earlier this year on PBS. It's based on a true story about how a group of Norwegian schoolchildren use their sleds to help smuggle Norway's gold reserves out of the country during World War II, right under the noses of the occupying Nazis.  
• "Samantha's Secret Room" by Lyn Cook.  This book was a particular favourite because it's by a Canadian author and set in Canada (the Georgian Bay area of Ontario, to be exact). I was able to share this one with dh's cousin's daughter -- also named Samantha :)  -- and I wrote about the book and what that meant to me in a previous blog post here. 
• "A Room for Cathy" by Catherine Woolley. (First published in 1956.) The plot as I remember it:  When Cathy's father receives a promotion, the family moves out of their cramped city apartment to a large house in the country -- and Cathy is thrilled to finally have her own room. But when her dad's promotion falls through, the family -- and Cathy -- must make some hard choices. This was the first in a series of books about Cathy and her little sister, Chris. I read and loved them all.  :) (It also spurred my pre-teen demands for a room of MY own, too!)  
• "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George. I've thought of this book often in recent years, especially when I hear about "helicopter" parents who monitor their children's every movement. Even back in the 1960s and 1970s, when we were so much more free to roam around the neighbourhood unsupervised, this story (first published in 1959, and made into a movie in 1969) was pretty alluring to my friends & me!  It's about a boy named Sam who runs away from his home in the city and winds up living off the land, setting up residence in a hollow tree trunk in the forest (!). 

Did you read any of these books when you were growing up?