Exploring Florida’s History through Children’s Literature: Lois Lenski’s Strawberry Girl In 1945 children’s author, Lois Lenski, wrote the fictional account of a Polk County childhood in her Newbery award-winning book, Strawberry Girl. The book tells the story of ten-year-old, Birdie Boyer, who moved to western Polk County with her…
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Not Just For Kids: Children’s Literature and the Rest of Us
Many years ago, I hired a young man, Kevin, to help out part-time during the summer in my bookshop on Waynesville, North Carolina’s Main Street. Kevin was about six feet tall, a bulky kid who was a rising senior in high school and an outstanding student with a great sense of humor.
One afternoon, I left the store and walked down the street to make a deposit at the bank. When I returned, Kevin stood in the back of the store weeping like a child. “Hey, man, what’s wrong?” I asked, hurrying toward him and thinking someone must have died.
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With its abundance of natural beauty, its easy access to the ocean and the bay, and its no-shoes lifestyle, South Mission Beach was a great place to grow up back in the day. Even if that day was during the early 1940s, when World War II was raging and San Diego was a big part of the wartime action.
Comfort and escape during a scary time. That’s what author Karen Cushman visualized when she thought about the joys of a San Diego childhood. Even if that childhood wasn’t hers.
For 50-plus years, Cushman’s husband, Philip, had been telling her stories about the barefoot joys of growing up in South Mission Beach. About fishing for perch and floating in a rowboat in the middle of the bay with a good book and a perpetual sunburn. Cushman liked the sound of it. All of it.