you can go home again

With a free half hour on my hands last night, I settled down in my comfortable chair and started the long-remembered and long-awaited A touch of magic by Betty Cavanna. I was hooked from the first pages and it is just as enjoyable as it was in my junior high years! But, my goodness, how the world has changed! Would you ever see a female character described as "gay and capricious" in a modern book? There is such an air of innocence in the book and the language is just delicious. I can't wait to spend another part of the evening with Hannah Trent and the Shippen girls.

After so many years and so many memories, I am absolutely delighted (and more than a little relieved) that this book is so much fun to read. I wonder what else I can dredge up from my memory that will bring so much pleasure. I think it will have to be a book because watching the TV shows of my youth (I'm thinking of Here come the brides with Robert Brown, David Soul and the much-adored (by other girls...I was strictly a Robert Brown fan) Bobby Sherman) makes me cringe now. Some things are better left as happy memories.

oh, joy! oh, rapture!

Back when I was a young lass in the 9th grade at Osseo Junior High, all of the 9th grade girls were in a swoon over a young adult novel, a little romance about a young Quaker girl who was seamstress to the notorious Peggy Shippen (she later married Benedict Arnold, equally notorious). There was a waiting list, strictly enforced by Miss van Rissighum (probably incorrectly spelled since we all referred to her as Miss Van, which she thoroughly enjoyed) which allowed each reader only one week to read the book as many times as possible.

Fast forward to my librarian years and that book just wouldn't leave my memory. I asked all of the other librarians if they remembered it and, alas, nary a one did. I resigned myself to never knowing what the book was, never being able to request it and read it again to see if the magic was still there. Sigh.

Tonight, during a quiet moment at the reference desk, I did a google search for "Peggy Shippen young adult novel" and, buried, many pages from the beginning, there it was: A touch of magic by Betty Cavanna!!!!! I did a quick search of MNLink and, glory be!, Minneapolis Public Library still has a copy! Unfortunately, my card isn't registered with MNLink and I can't request it. I'll make a quick trip to a St. Paul Public Library and update my card and, at long last, the book will be mine!

Lesson learned: never give up.

I'll let you know if it is as wonderful in reality as it is in my memory.