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followers there s just one thing though i m still invested heavily into this blog my heart doesn t want to jump ship to some new trendy platform during this past decade people have recommended that i change to wordpress or try writing on medium while i was still assessing the medium idea that platform seemed to fade from my radar although i know it is still around being used and see here my justification for leaving bookstagram which i did try my best at for a while but now substack is surging to the fore i ve spent every week since 2014 adding to my history here when i introduce new pages with common themes it feels a bit like adding new wings to my castle what s more my dedicated building has begun to reap benefits by showing up high on search engines often when i google some vintage book or other my reviews pop up near the very top over a decade of quiet regular updating seems to have bestowed on this blog a credibility of its own which even search engines seem to pick up on in their own impersonal way my blog has taken years of steady updates to nudge search engines that it is around filling a valuable spot i m loath to turn my back on that by starting over fresh with substack this is an extremely modest blog which is undoubtedly evident but page views remain in triple or quadruple figure averages which increase over time surely they can t all be bots i don t often see these readers for they rarely comment but i appreciate this secret evidence that they re out there some of my blog posts do amazingly well my ranking of the bronte sisters seven books has collected around 20000 views to date my pages on my trixie belden marathon and the pollyanna series have also got far higher traffic than i expected hopefully the readers who visit are researching browsing quietly saving links and simply enjoying my takes on books both vintage and in the current spotlight the stats seem to promise that they are hey i invite you to type the vince review into the google toolbar of your phone and wait for the ai blurb to pop up it consistently boosts my mood with its accurate and complimentary summaries of what i do here in a nutshell i m going to doggedly stay put this blog is not trending or going viral or being talked about and that will never happen i know nothing about adding bells and whistles and incentives but i have reason to believe it is quietly doing its job it serves as a reading room a quiet resource library of sorts where people can pop in spend some enjoyable minutes or hours take what they need and hopefully return this blog is over a dozen years old as i write which can t be said for too many i read somewhere that the average lifespan of a blog before they crash and burn is three to four years so i ll resist the siren call of substack or any other shiny new platform and still be here in the future with reliably free content and i ll finish with this friendly reminder that you are welcome to subscribe to my feed in the toolbar and then it will show up in your inbox anyway even though it is not substack posted by paula vince at 5 30 am 4 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest wednesday april 29 2026 the penderwicks in spring by jeanne birdsall here is the fourth instalment of a five part series about a family of girls which has been likened to modern classics this follows the penderwicks the penderwicks on gardam street and the penderwicks at point mouette my thoughts the first three books in this series cover a fairly short time span but this fourth skips ahead six years which i welcomed because of the potentially changed dynamics batty now 11 years old takes center stage she s the same age as her elder sisters during most of their earlier escapades so rather than spreading the focus around it now seems more concentrated on one specific penderwick still i find it refreshing to have a shy and sensitive heroine when feisty bold young girl protagonists seem so popular with readers and publishers alike batty is such a private person that she hates writing book reports for school because a person s opinions are her own business it s ironic in a way that she proves to be endowed with such an up front talent as singing but at the heart of the story is the conversation batty accidentally overhears a devastating revelation skye makes to jeffrey the news sheds a horrifying light on batty s position within the penderwick clan making her consider herself as the girl who brought death grief is a major theme of this book at the very start we learn that beloved old hound died six months earlier and batty still struggles to cope with his loss one song her music teacher coincidentally chooses for her to practice is not a day goes by with that very motif even lydia the smallest sister is aware that her kindergarten teacher had to bury frank the guinea pig in a box perhaps this book should come with a warning for middle graders who simply expect a bright comical read even the title gives the impression that this is exactly what we ll get but it s not the case meanwhile rosalind has split up with tommy and currently dates oliver a crashing bore with a gorgeous face skye who still doesn t do emotions well tries her hardest to keep jeffrey at arm s length now that he extends romantic feelers toward her jane keeps her notebook of story ideas still keen on becoming a published fiction author i would ve liked even more of jane s bookworm antics now that she s sixteen although there is one fun incident in which she tries to embellish batty s dreaded book reports this book starts off fairly slow we re nudging the halfway point with still nothing more than a young girl walking dogs to save up some money for singing lessons sweet as that is it could ve been condensed the second half is when all the real action starts in all honestly these penderwick books tend to drag in spots but characterization is their saving grace i love batty even though she does a ton of crying even skye has grown on me a bit in her prickly way surely these two sisters relationship must always be fraught and awkward from now on a sensitive soul like batty will surely never forget how skye expressed what she said skye as we know is jane s opposite and she is also batty s but in an entirely different way rosalind still does the eldest sister role in the style of meg march and ben adds a bit of brotherly spice which does the story no harm now a free thinking eight year old he provides dashes of comic relief with his passion for digging up rocks and we have a brand new baby sister lydia who brings a fairy princess vibe i have a hunch that lydia will assume the pivotal role in the fifth and final book but i can t believe there s no lock on the bathroom door with all those teenage sisters floating around i agree with ben what the heck posted by paula vince at 5 30 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest wednesday april 22 2026 are you there god it s me margaret by judy blume i m always on a quest to revisit retro books from my youth and work my way through books i have on hand on my physical piles this one ticks both boxes my thoughts essentially margaret simon our 11 year old protagonist moves from new york city to new jersey with her parents she makes new friends conscientiously tackles school assignments grapples with a crush on the boy who mows their lawns and tries to compare different church services to choose the most outstanding on the face of it this doesn t sound like a book which deserves to have been banned many times since its publication in 1970 yet it has been even though it s now considered a classic to me this novel is less of a revelation than a recognition i first read it in the early 1980s when i was the same age as margaret and her tweenie friends back then my own secret girls club certainly found our current fixations mirrored in theirs it s a world of trainer bras which are basically strips of fabric for kids who don t really need them but simply can t wait my friendship group also had the same unofficial race to start our periods consequent period envy and fascination with our changing bodies not to mention those of the boys in our classes but the book s critics deem it too frank a forage into the mindsets of enquiring adolescent girls the content has been dubbed inappropriate by many parents teachers and librarians which sadly suggests these gatekeepers diminish the preoccupations of pre teen girls as unworthy of attention sure i find my own behavior a bit facepalmy in hindsight but this novel reminds me that the physical aspect of adolescence really seems the substance of magic while we re living it our metamorphoses are like spiritual portals into the secret and sexy world of adulthood i think being reminded of our feelings and having them normalised is probably a healthy thing the book has a great cast including mr benedict their young teacher fresh out of college poor well endowed laura danker who puts up with so much rubbish from her peers and philip leroy who behaves like a crass clown but gets away with it because all the girls agree he s so handsome and nancy wheeler margaret s best friend is such a diva using water works exaggeration truth stretching tale telling and gossip like weapons i do pity her older brother having to live with her the second reason for frequently banning this book is its other main preoccupation in which margaret undertakes her personal quest to discover her ideal religious faith or at least one that gels with her her community itself in that time and place seems divided between judaism and christianity throughout this story margaret attends a jewish temple with her paternal grandmother and three different christian denominations with friends yet the fact that she ends up even more confused if not downright disillusioned is assumed by some readers to be judy blume s indictment against organized religion some reviewers object to the idea of an 11 year old embarking on her own independent examination without the guidance of any clergy person such as a priest rabbi or minister yet to me it s clear that margaret knowing herself to be a clean slate instinctively intuits that seeking professional guidance would instantly enmesh her in the webs of institutions she might choose not to continue with she isn t ready for that yet it is a jungle out there for a young person in margaret s position and after what happened to her parents she fears getting burned too from the start margaret has always felt slightly bereft to be known as the girl with no religion her parents have been seriously hurt in their past in the name of their faith my own youthful background has parallels but i won t go there and blow out this review her mother s piously christian parents disowned their daughter for marrying a boy with jewish roots i don t blame margaret for finding this horrifically over reactive and dreadfully sad one of her most private habits is talking things over quietly with god who she assumes is not only interested in her but active in her world shaping her personal events behind the scenes hooray for margaret who has successfully managed to place the main thing in its rightful spot without any input from anyone the ending disappoints some readers when margaret apparently rejects all of the religious services she attends but surely the end is not really the end margaret is still only twelve years old although this novel finishes her search for faith presumably doesn t and for the record i believe encouraging people as young as eleven to research and think for themselves rather than blindly following any type of herd is a great move i can t help thinking that if judy blume had written this story in such a way that margaret did feel drawn to any of the denominations she attends she couldn t have possibly pulled it off without appearing agenda driven and then she would have been accused of outright propaganda it s simply an extremely hot topic she s chosen as a main theme overall it is amazing to think that having been first published in 1970 this book is over half a century old its content still seems so fresh and evergreen with a few exceptions class visits to the library to consult encyclopedias for school projects margaret s father s playboy subscription which his wife and daughter never turn a hair at i don t remember noticing this dodgy detail when i first read it as a twelve year old i also discovered more recent editions including mine have been subtly updated sanitary belts in the original have been changed to adhesive pads which are all i ve ever known and i sincerely hope i m not far from menopause bottom line for such a slim simple enjoyable and fun little story the content has certainly pushed lots of people s buttons over the years human nature is a funny can of worms prod and poke it with care posted by paula vince at 5 30 am no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest wednesday april 15 2026 home by marilynne robinson summary home parallels the story told in robinson s pulitzer prize winning gilead it is a moving and healing book about families family secrets and the passing of the generations about love and death and faith hundreds of thousands were enthralled by the luminous voice of john ames in gilead marilynne robinson s pulitzer prize winning novel home is an entirely independent deeply affecting novel that takes place concurrently in the same locale this time in the household of reverend robert boughton ames s closest friend my thoughts this isn t a sequel so much as a complementary story in gilead we have reverend john ames written account of what happens when his namesake jack boughton returns home after an absence of twenty years this book shines a light on what takes place in the boughton household simultaneously with frequent intersections this time round we see jack through the eyes of his sister glory the youngest boughton sibling who holds the home front and cares for their ailing father glory is a former english teacher with a master s degree and she s been jilted by her long term romantic partner now that she s back where she started her question is what have i done with my life full circle at the age of 38 isn t what she d ever planned it s a great story about the strong bond that forms between reverend boughton s two self proclaimed unexceptional children glory the frustrated try hard and jack the brilliant underachiever their other six siblings all managed to tick the boxes of respectability and conventionality there are all too few great books about sibling relationships especially those like jack and glory who are nudging middle age although gilead and home are companion novels i believe this one should be read second to give us the best all round picture of jack i appreciate his self inflicted torture and complexity even more having first seen him through old ames cynical and weary...