Hilda's tea party Book

Know who you should never trust for a book recommendation? Six-year-old me, that's who.

Forty-three years ago, when I was in the second grade, all the teachers of the Baltimore City Public Schools, including my beloved Miss Dean, went on strike. Back then, something happened that I can't imagine happening today: The show went on with the moms taking over the classrooms. There was a good bit of quiet reading time in the schedule before things returned to normal a couple of weeks later, which was just fine by six-year-old me (her opinions weren't entirely untrustworthy), and High Water at Catfish Bend (and I think The Owl Hoots Twice at Catfish Bend, too) was consumed and enjoyed.

The two skinny volumes lived on my shelves for over four decades, surviving purges and a cross-country move, out of sheer sentimentality for a memory of enjoyment that included only the circumstances and not one whit of the contents of the books. My book group's December selection was "a children's book of your choice," and I decided to reread these gems from my past. Alas, they were no true gems (I say "these," but I'm not going to self-inflict the second one). Good children's books delight adults, too, and this one did not. I didn't care about the characters, I barely cared about the plot, and the illustrations (not by the author) were just plain idiotic.

Plenty of other reviewers liked the book quite a lot, so perhaps there's some great quality I'm missing, but I cannot bring myself to care enough to root out any more value from it. And I think I'll spare my book group and find something else to share with them.