The Black Arrow

by Robert Louis Stevenson is a GREAT book!

The main characters are:

Richard Shelton

Sir Daniel Brackley

Joanna Sedley

Sir Richard of Gloucester (Richard Crookback)

Sir Oliver Oates

Apparently, R.L. Stevenson had a good sense of humor; for while the book is rather violent in some places, it is very funny in others. At the end of the book Dick (and the reader,) have learned a few lessons.

It would make a REALLY GOOD read-aloud. My family and I listened to the seven (7) CD set in the car, and we all enjoyed every bit of it.

Florence Nightangale's Nuns

by Emmeline Garnet is a really good book. Although we often read about Florence Nightangale, we rarely read about the nuns and nurses who helped her.



P.S. There is a poem about her in Book of Americans, by Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benet.

Saint Elizabeth's Three Crowns

by Blanche Jennings Thompson is a really good book. It is so good, that I chose to do a book report on it in 5th grade.

Saint Margaret Mary

by Mary Fabyan Windeatt is a really good biography about St. Margaret Mary Alacoque; the Visitation nun who saw and heard Our Lord many times. Even when she wasn't believed by many, she did not get upset that she wasn't believed. (She was dissapointed though.) St. Margaret can teach us many virtues, especially the three following: faith, patience, and humility. This book would make a great read-aloud for a Catholic family.

"Mary Fabyan Windeatt Books"

These are books about saints. They would make great read-alouds for the Catholic family. Although I don't enjoy them as much as the Vision books, they are still great books.

The Innocence of Father Brown

by G. K. Chesterton. The Innocence of Father Brown is a mystery book, (as are the other "Father Brown" books,) and I cannot decide whether I like this or the "Sherlock Holmes" books better. Father Brown is definitely funnier. No priest but he would throw soup at the wall of a restaurant, switch labels on the fruit at the grocery store, and break a restaurant window, so that he would be followed and a criminal, (disguised as a priest, and accompanying him,) would be caught.

Escape from Warsaw

by Ian Serraillier is one of the best books I have ever read that takes place during WWII.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

by Elizabeth George Speare is a good book. If you don't like witches, this book is not about a bad witch, (or a good witch for that matter). In fact, it isn't about a real witch at all. The "witch" was called a witch by the Puritans living in Wethersfield, Connecticut because the woman, (whose name is Hanna Tupper,) was a Quaker. I probably wouldn't have read this book if I was not in a Literary Club.

Good Authors

Some of my favorite authors are listed below.

Louisa May Alcott
Carolyn Haywood, (author of the "Betsy books")
Eleanore M. Jewett
L. M. Montgomery


More may eventually be added to this list.

The Flag Goes By

by Henry Holcomb Bennet


Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
A flash of color beneath the sky:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!


Blue and crimson and white it shines,
Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines.
Hats off!
The colors before us fly;
But more than the flag is passing by.


Sea-fights and land-fights, grim and great,
Fought to make and to save the state:
Weary marches and sinking ships;
Cheers of victory on dying lips;

Days of plenty and years of peace;
March of a stronglands swift increase;
Equal justice, right andlaw,
Stately honor and reverend awe;

Sign of a nation, great and strong
To ward her people from foreign wrong:
Pride and glory and honor,--all
Live in the colors to stand or fall.

Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums;
And loyal hearts are beating high:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!

Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott's books include:

Little Women
Little Men
Jo's Boys
Eight Cousins
Rose in Bloom
Jack and Jill
...and more


Those I HAVE NOT read are in red

The Borrowed House

by Hilda van Stockum. This book is a good book, but it's for slightly older readers. It takes place during World War II' in Germany, and then Holland. It's about a 14 year-old German girl named Janna and a 17 year-old Jewish boy named Sef. Janna goes to live with her actor-parents in a "borrowed house" that was taken from a Dutch family by the Germans. Although Janna initially sees the Nazis as rather wonderful people, she learns about what they have done to thousands upon thousands of people from Sef, and has a  different opinion by the end of the book.