Summerbook #1 and 2: A couple of children's books
Doing well so far! I'm deep into a more serious book, but in the meantime I enjoyed TWO children's books from the UK that probably qualify as minor classics and which I quite enjoyed. Knock Three Times! by Marion St. John Webb: this 1917 fantasy tale reminded me of E. Nesbit in its Edwardian tone with humorous asides, but it was weirder. Nine-year-old twins Molly and Jack receive birthday presents from an aunt, and while Jack gets the paint box he'd hoped for, Molly gets a very disappointing pincushion shaped like a grey pumpkin. But! That night, Molly sees the pumpkin grow and roll away out of the house. She and Jack follow it through a tree portal into the Possible World -- a pleasantly bucolic and magical land, where the inhabitants are horrified to hear that the Grey Pumpkin is back. That Pumpkin contains an evil wizard who once menaced the kingdom, and who was imprisoned in a regular pumpkin (it turned grey from his wicked soul) and dispos...