Laura Ingalls’ nemesis in On the Banks of Plum Creek, duh, Nellie Oleson.
“Nellie Oleson was very pretty. Her yellow hair hung in in long curls, with two big blue ribbon bows on top. Her dress was think white lawn, with little blue flowers scattered over it, and she wore shoes.”
Snow Treasure is a story about Norwegian children assisting their motherland by smuggling millions of dollars of Nazi gold via sled, past the German army. Helga Thomsen is a 12-year old tomboy whose:
“black curls hung like sausages from under the cherry red of her hood”.
‘Nuff said.
I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. – “Fred” Scrooge, A Christmas Carol
Illustration from a 1915 edition of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, by Arthur Rackham, a famous late Victorian/Edwardian book illustrator. Ilustration is from the scene that Scrooge views in the Cratchit household whilst being escorted by the ghost of Christmas Present.
“In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered—flushed, but smiling proudly—with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.” [Dickens, A Christmas Carol]
Snack: Chompo Bar
Reference: A Birthday for Frances by Russell Hoban [Harper & Row, 1968]
“Chompo Bars have a soft nougat part inside, and there is a chewy caramel part around that, and the outside is chocolate with nuts.”
Although ambivalent about her little sister’s upcoming birthday, Frances uses her allowance to buy her a Chompo bar and four bubblegum balls. During the walk home from the sweet shop, Frances becomes increasingly obsessed with the Chompo bar, a soft log that becomes more and more desirable to both Frances and reader. It didn’t even matter that it just looked like a soggy log, it was suddenly the most mouth-wateringly delectable food product ever invented. And I couldn’t have one because Chompo Bars didn’t even really exist. Frances pops the bubblegum balls in her mouth and squeezes the Chompo bar harder and harder in her hot little paw. Even as the Chompo gets soggier and squishier, it never loses its desirability.
The other night I stumbled onto Franklin Court, Ben Franklin’s Printing Office and Bindery, Post Office and Bookshop on Market Street in Philadelphia
