Juvenile and Young Adult Fiction

“The first thing that Dixie could remember was of being cuddled up to some one who was soft and comfortable and gave her sweet warm milk to drink. Somehow, she knew that this was her mother, and that her mother would feed her when she was hungry and keep her warm and take care of her and not let anything hurt her.

“…Did you ever hear of a cat taking in boarders? I never did till I heard of Peter. But he was a real cat, and this is a true story I am going to tell you… – From “Peter’s Boarding House”

“In throwing these various adventures together, I have followed as nearly as possible the actual course of my journeying from one country to another, so as to form the whole into a sort of continuous narrative, though in one case I jump from Brazil to Texas in order to bring in some relevant incidents which occurred long after the one related in the first part of the Brazilian story.

“By this time Tommy was six months old, and as full of pranks as a six-months-old kitten well could be. His education had begun the very moment he entered the Hartford postoffice, so it is not surprising that by the time he had spent half a year there he was really remarkable.

“I felt very unhappy after you drove off yesterday, and did not know what to do with myself. I went into the barn, and thought I would take a nap on the hay, for I do think going to sleep is one of the very best things for people who are unhappy; but it seemed so lonely without old Charlie stamping in his stall that I could not bear it, so I went into the garden, and lay down under the damask rose-bush, and caught flies…”

“Once upon a time I can’t say exactly when it was there stood a neat, tidy little hut on the borders of a wild forest. A poor old woman dwelt in this hut.

“One evening when a company of children and older people were looking at funny cat-pictures and telling cat-stories, a little ten year-old girl asked: ‘Why can there not be a Cats’ Arabian Nights Story Book?

“The Author begs to assure her young readers that the principal circumstances on which this little story is founded are true. The friendship between the two animals, the dog’s journey home, and return in company with his friend, are facts which occurred within her own knowledge.

“There is a superstition among railroad men which, strangely enough, is seemingly warranted by experience, that when one wreck occurs, two more are certain to follow. And, sure enough, two more did follow, though neither was so serious as the one at Vinton; which, indeed, still lives in the memories of those who helped clear it away as the worst that ever happened on the division…”

Pig Wisps and Shovel Ears, Balloon Pickers and Baked Clowns, Whitson Whimble and the Potato Face Blind Man are some of the people found in Rootabaga County. You can get there with “a ticket to ride where the railroad tracks run off into the sky and never come back… as far away as the railroad rails go and then forty ways farther yet.