Early in the twentieth century, a little Jewish boy surveyed his neighborhood in Brooklyn. Already, he had an interest in cultures not his own. Peeking into one church with stained glass windows, he reported seeing a lady with a shawl over her head holding a baby, tenderly and sadly.

As promised in my last blog, I write a companion piece with a recommendation for a particular edition of A Christmas Carol. Responses from that blog indicate that I am not the only one who makes this reading a Christmas habit. Those who know me well have added to my collection with many renditions of the book which leaves me choices each year.

I have two related books that need a review for your reading pleasure during this season. My dilemma was which to do first. I finally decided to do the newest first since you will already recognize part of the other.

Sometimes one thing leads to another which leads to another and another and on it goes – and never truer than with books. I was introduced to Ann Patchett books in 2005 when I read Bel Canto, her fourth novel and first breakout success, and in 2007 when I read Run. At this point, I remember little about either except that I enjoyed both.

My friend, Kimberly Willis Holt, posted a happy memory about a trip she and her sister took with their father to cut a Christmas tree of their own. That triggered a not-so-happy memory of finding one with my sister.

As we traveled home from family Thanksgiving in North Mississippi a few years ago, I was struck by the bleakness of the landscape. The memory of commuting to finish my last two years at Ole Miss brought back a vision of late Octobers and early Novembers that would rival anything New England in the fall has to offer.

Claudia in the Storm written by Denise McConduit and illustrated by Francesca Ficorilli, exemplifies the idea that an author who has lived through an event can write about it from that perspective in a way that draws a believable experience for the reader. While the book is fictional, it is set in New Orleans in the reality of Hurricane Katrina as the levees broke and the city flooded.

Evidently, inanimate objects may not celebrate 20 years the same way the rest of us do. At the twentieth anniversary celebration of the opening of the Oak Grove Public Library, my library card gave up the ghost.

Attorney Robin Lockwood begins her case with connections to some of the principal characters in the murder mystery Betrayal by Phillip Margolin.

Four years ago, we signed a check.

Four years ago, we received a deed.

The place was OURS,

or so we thought.

It’s a bonus when a good book plants thoughts that linger long after the book is finished. Our de Grummond Book Group recently read Jason Reynolds’s The Boy in the Black Suit. I will just recommend the book without reviewing it so I can get to the lingering thoughts.

I wish a belated book birthday to Anna E. Jordan’s Shira and Esther’s Double Dream Debut that came out on October 10. The author takes her own background to weave a story that becomes an enjoyable mirror for Jewish middle graders and a delightful window for those who are not familiar with Jewish customs.

My Facebook memory noted seven years. The boy was three and loved his bubbles. He also loved helping me cook even at that age.

Erica Bauermeister cites an epigraph before she begins her book, No Two Persons, and uses it as her basic premise.

“No two persons ever read the same book, or saw the same picture.” The Writings of Madame Swetchine, 1860.

In her wonderful family free verse collection, my friend Sharon Gerald recently posted a Facebook entry about daughters who had daughters in her heritage. I’m borrowing (or stealing) the idea with a bit of twist and only going back as far as memory takes me.

Gill Hornby takes what is known about Jane and Cassandra Austen and weaves a novel, Miss Austen, around their relationship.

The truth is that you can sign up for a library card any month you want to, but September has been set aside to highlight the benefits of a library card. These are a few that I know from personal experience.

As I review Kin: Rooted in Hope, a verse novel by Carole Boston Weatherford that is beautifully illustrated by her son Jeffery Boston Weatherford, I am going to suggest starting with the author’s and illustrator’s notes in the back. These notes will give a glimpse of the heart and perspective behind the book and set the stage for the book’s story.

One might wonder what a bare green pepper plant has to do with the newly crowned US Open women’s champion.

I’ll start with the pepper plant.

In my experience, most families with siblings raise children who claim that one or the other had a distinct advantage in the discipline department. Our two youngest children who are five and six years younger than their older brother vowed that he had a distinct advantage because he found a way to make me laugh when he got in trouble. It is possible that they have a point.