Bruce Farrar's blog

October is Squirrel Awareness Month. Honestly, it is. It’s also Spinach Lovers Month, and I mean no disrespect for spinach lovers, but you won’t see any of them hopping from tree to tree or gliding across your back yard at night.  So, I will do my best to make your aware of squirrels.  Because when you see one outside you know they are aware of you.

We tend to think of the life of the English population a century and a half ago as quaint, cluttered, and repressed. However they saw themselves on the frontier of a great social change. The aristocracy saw their social position and role in society challenged by a new and wealthy class of merchants and manufacturers. Reform Bills were hotly debated and then passed by the parliament increasing the size of the electorate. At the same time traditional gender roles were beginning to be questioned and challenged. It was an exciting time and it produced a feast for fiction fans, especially fans of the weighty tome stuffed with intriguing characters and spiced with surprising, and often ironic, twists of plot and phrase. 

 Here are a half dozen new picture book biographies 

      Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek: a Tall, Thin Tale (Introducing His Forgotten Frontier Friend) / Deborah Hopkinson ; pictures by John Hendrix

When he was seven Abraham Lincoln fell into Knob Creek near his home in Kentucky.  He might have drowned. Luckily for him his friend Austin got him out of the water in time.  What would it be like to be there then?  Would you fish him out with a fishing pole, or jump in after him?