My field trip to Concord

I mentioned in my end of the year entry that I was going to visit Concord for a literary field trip. Mrs. Scully (who has left Newton North for a new job at Newton South) and I went to Concord together. We visited Orchard House, home of Louisa May Alcott.
If you have read Little Women, you would love this tour. My favorite part was seeing all the drawings by May Alcott (aka Amy March)...it seems that the Alcott's encouraged their daughter to draw directly on the walls!

After lunch at the Concord Inn in the center of town, we headed for the Old Manse. This house was built in 1770 by Ralph Waldo Emerson's grandfather, a minister in town. On April 18, 1775 the Battle of Lexington and Concord was fought just yards from Emerson's pasture. From an upstairs bedroom you can look out a window and see the bridge and imagine the British troops running away and the wounded Minutemen collapsing in the field. Those same windows are engraved with some amusing details of daily life by Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife, Sophia. They lived in the Old Manse right after they married. Ralph Waldo Emerson also lived there for a while and wrote the following lines you may recognize:

"By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world."

He wrote Concord Hymn while looking out that same window. I was inspired by my trip to plan rereading two books I would recommend to anyone. 1776 by David McCullough is a great look at the beginning of the American Revolution. It's fairly short and filled with wonderful stories and characters. The Peabody Sisters by Megan Marshall is my other reread. Sophia Peabody was married to Nathanial Hawthorne and her diamond ring was used to engrave on the windows of the Old Manse. The three sisters were amazing ladies and Megan Marshall (a Newton author) did a great job bringing them to life.



Next field trip: a visit to Mt. Auburn Cemetery. I recently finished The Escher Twist by Jane Langton. It's a murder mystery which combines math (Escher, Moebius Strips, etc.) and the history of the cemetery. Can't wait to track down all the landmarks in this amazing place. Want to come??

Summer Round-up of my "Best Books"

Yes, I've been reading all summer. No, not everything was worth writing about. Below you'll find the best of what I read, with a little something to see if you'd like to read it too. All will be available in the library sometime in September.

In Life as We Knew It, Susan Beth Pfeffer told the harrowing story of Miranda, trying to survive a natural disaster in rural Pennsylvania. In her new book, The Dead and the Gone, Pfeffer introduces us to Alex, who is trying to survive the same disaster in New York City. Alex's mother is working in a hospital on the other side of the city when disaster strikes. She never comes home, leaving Alex to try to survive on his own and to take care of his two younger sisters. The only beacon of hope in this violent and deprived New York is his school, where dedicated priests try to keep school open and food in the bellies of the hungry students. You will not soon forget Alex's difficult journey to Yankee Stadium. The stadium has been turned into a morgue and Alex is looking for his mother.

Rumors continues the story of Elizabeth and Diana, two high society sisters in 1890's New York. Elizabeth has headed West to find her true love and Diana, in love with her sister's former fiance, struggle to find love in the society world of decorum, rules and gossip. A solid sequel to The Luxe, this book needs to be read after reading the first. My favorite part of this book is the story of Lena, a former maid, trying to claw her way into high society. She doesn't have looks, she doesn't have breeding,but she is one determined lady and discovers how to lie effortlessly and often.

Cadel is a 7 year old genius who is so engrossed in his projects he never thinks about consequences.When he shuts down all the electricity in the city to see if he can, his adoptive parents take hime to a psychiatrist. Little do they know that Dr. Thaddeus Roth is really a henchman for notorious criminal Dr. Phineas Darkkon. Roth and Darkkon want to use Cadel for their own evil agenda. Will Cadel become a true Evil Genius or will he develop a conscience?