Our mostly-weekly survey of the tidbits that cross The Eight-Year-Old’s desk. This week, The Eight-Year-Old explores her class library and shares a very special book with her Gran. 

A sampling of this week’s books:

A to Z Mysteries: The Haunted Hotel by Ron Roy

The minute I walked into The Eight-Year-Old’s third grade class, I knew she would feel right at home there. The reason? The class library includes the complete set of A to Z Mysteries. The Eight-Year-Old has been discovering new favorites and rereading what she refers to as “the old classics” all week.

Tales Told in Holland by Olive Beaupre Miller

One of The Eight-Year-Old’s favorite things to do at her Gran’s is to browse through her Gran’s 1926 edition of Tales Told in Holland. I remember looking at this book myself when I was a child (although I don’t remember pouring over the stories with anything like The Eight-Year-Old’s attention to detail). The book is a collection of traditional folk tales, historical accounts, and poems from each of the eleven Dutch provinces that make up the Netherlands.

The Littles by John Peterson

The Littles are pint-sized people who live in the walls of the home of the Biggs. The Biggs allow the Littles to take whatever they need in exchange for keeping their house in good repair.  When the Biggs move out for the summer, they rent the house out to a family of slobs. The Newcomb family’s habit of scattering crumbs throughout the house soon attracts mice who compete with the Littles for space in the walls. Worse, the cat the Newcombs bring home to catch the mice is clearly far more interested in catching the Littles.  To me, this book sounds a lot like The Borrowers. The Eight-Year-Old tells me that’s a very good thing.

Related Links:

• What’s The Seven-Year-Old reading this week? (Caterpickles)
• What’s The Eight-Year-Old reading this week? (Caterpickles)
• More Book Reviews on Caterpickles