Saturday, June 4, 2011

Book Review: More Stories from Grandma's Attic

More Stories from Grandma's Attic. Arleta Richardson. 1979/2011. David C. Cook. 144 pages.

From The Nuisance in Ma's Kitchen
When Grandma called from the backyard, I knew I was in for it. She was using her would-you-look-at-this voice, which usually meant I was responsible for something.

"What, Grandma?" I asked once I reached the spot where she was hanging up the washing.

"Would you look at this?" she asked. "I just went into the kitchen for more clothespins and came back out to find this."

I looked where she was pointing. One of my kittens had crawled into the clothes basket and lay sound asleep on a clean sheet.

"If you're going to have kittens around the house, you'll have to keep an eye on them. Otherwise leave them in the barn where they belong. It's hard enough to wash sheets once without doing them over again."
I grew up loving the Grandma Attic series by Arleta Richardson. These books were definitely comfort reads to me. Books that I read again and again and again and again. Books with beloved characters that were my friends. I loved Mabel and Sarah Jane and Roy and Reuben. I did. So I was very excited to see that David C. Cook was reprinting these! The first two, In Grandma's Attic and More Stories From Grandma's Attic, are available now. The other two, Still More Stories from Grandma's Attic and Treasures from Grandma's Attic will be released in August. And a wonderful "treasury" of all four books will be released in October.

The stories from this collection are:

  • The Nuisance in Ma's Kitchen
  • Grandma's Sampler
  • Mrs. Carter's Fright
  • When Grandma Needed Prayer
  • The Stranger
  • The Big Snowstorm
  • Grandma and the Slate
  • A Pig in a Poke
  • Grandma's Day Off
  • How News Spread
  • Charlotte
  • The Slate Pencil
  • What Shall We Write About?
  • The Cover-Up
  • The Haircut
  • Grandma Makes A Friend


The books are decidedly moral, decidedly Christian. Most--if not all--stories have a definite moral or lesson attached to them. And these lessons are clearly stated or restated at the end of each story so there's no possibility of missing what the author wants you to know. Technically, I suppose this makes these stories didactic in nature. And technically, "modern" readers are supposed to frown on didactic literature whether they agree with it or not. But. You won't be hearing me complain. No. I still love these books. I do. There's no talking me out of it. Call me old-fashioned. But I will stay a loyal fan of these!



© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

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