A Tale, and a List, of Summer Books

A Tale, and a List, of Summer Books

Chapter One
Pink dusk was falling by the time Maria drove down the winding, rutted drive to Aunt Leila’s. Rolling down the windows to breathe in the dawn of a summer night, she'd felt her shoulders relaxing with each bump and bounce the old Rover endured.  This was the perfect spot for a summer holiday.  It always had been.  A rambling old house nestled into the cove where waves the colour of mermaid’s eyes licked a rocky beach and salted sea breezes blew through the always open windows.  Alice, Amanda and Anne had been arguing in the back seat (they’d been arguing since the car pulled out of the drive) and Maria chuckled a little to herself as she visualized their reaction to Aunt Leila’s lack of modernity.  She was prepared for the wailing when her daughters discovered the old lady had no internet and only spotty phone reception.  In fact, the only television was a twelve inch black and white that her aunt plugged in when a storm was blowing to see if evacuation was recommended, though to be honest, she’d never known Aunt Leila to heed a single one of those warnings.  It had been so late by the time they’d arrived, Maria and her girls had just tumbled straight into bed.

Now it was morning and Maria lay, as cool as a cat in the starched linen sheets, waiting.  It was already past nine, and she’d heard nothing from the girls. No expected declaration of boredom.  No histrionics, no arguments.  Maria sighed, and stretched.  Swinging out of bed, she felt the coolness of the wide wooden floors on her bare feet as she cracked open her bedroom door and gazed both ways down the hallway.  The old stairs creaked as she went down.  She paused for a moment to listen again.  All was quiet.  She walked through the fragrant sitting room where a tall glass vase held an armload of lilacs and into the sunny kitchen where she found Aunt Leila reading the paper at the polished wooden table.  

“Where are the girls?”, Maria asked.

“In the library”, said her aunt with a sly smile....

Perfect Summer Holiday Books to Capture
 Even the Most Distracted Imaginations:

The Great Unexpected 

by Sharon Creech

Splendors and Glooms

By Laura Amy Schlitz

Captain Scurvy’s Most Dastardly Pop-Up Pirate Ship

by Steve Cox and Nick Denchfield

How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare

By Ken Ludwig


Chapter Two

Peeking through a crack in the library door, Maria was astonished to see all three girls engrossed in their reading, little Alice curled up with Leon, her aunt’s placid old dog.   Shaking her head in disbelief, Maria tiptoed down the hallway to the bath. 

There she found a stack of enticing books, some cool lemon water and a bottle of Aunt Leila’s homemade bubble bath.  Maria could not believe her good fortune.  Which book to choose?

Summer Books to Get Lost Inside:

Independent People

by Halldor Laxness

The Professor of Poetry 

by Grace McCleen

The Golem and the Jinni

by Helene Wecker

Homemade Summer
by Yvette Van Boven

Chapter Three

Downstairs in the kitchen, Leila sat down her tea cup and listened.  All was quiet, blessedly quiet.  She could make her way to the studio now without interruption.  Pulling on her boots, she opened the back door and followed the pathway up through the garden, pushing back lilac blossoms as she went.  Ever vigilant, Leon heard the familiar click in the door that no one else heard and wiggled out from behind Alice to follow Leila.  He was beside her by the time she pushed open the weathered studio door.  She paused a moment before the painting by the window.  Still not quite right, she thought.  Too much teal.  Ah well, she would finish it later.  Right now she wanted to read.  Running her long index finger along the spines of her books, she wondered which one to spend the afternoon with.  Let’s see... maybe this one?

Summer Books to Inspire:

Daily Rituals, How Artists Work

by Mason Currey

E. B. White on Dogs

Edited by Martha White

Tell About Night Flowers

Eudora Welty’s Gardening Letters, 1940-1949

Selected and Edited by Julia Eichelberger

The Charleston Bulletin Supplements

by Virginia Woolf and Quentin Bell

Chapter Four

With everyone reading now, Leon breathed a long deep sigh and turned three times in his bed beneath open window.  He could hear the splash and shush of the waves.  He loved that sound.  Somewhere off in the distance, well over the back of the hill, he thought he heard the bleats and baahs of the neighbour’s sheep.  He thought of Pip the border collie and chuckled softly to himself as he thought of him racing back and forth beneath the sun in his eternal chase for those sheep. 

 Ah, thought Leon, much better to be the dog of a reader.

Especially on a summer’s day.

Chapter Five

.....Meanwhile...

 through a small round door under the third lilac bush from the sea path, 

far down below the floor of Leila’s studio,

in a house whose rooms are always chilly, always cozy, 

a badger sits reading his own special book by the light of a flickering candle.

Edward and I are happy to report that a brand-new shipment of 

From the House of Edward is almost ready. 

 For those who’ve been waiting a couple of weeks, watch your mailbox...
 it will be there soon.

  And for those who’ve yet to get one of your own, now’s the time!
Find it HERE

The wonderful illustration of the badger is by artist, Kevin Nichols.
You'll read more about him soon!

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