Sometimes, It's the Simple Things

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived way out in the country. Her nearest neighbors were a mile away so she spent most of her time either outside with her dog or inside with her books. She loved her books. There were always books in the house. Sometimes all of them had already been read, but the little girl didn't mind. The books were her friends and she was very happy to read and re-read her favorites. One of her very favorite books was about a very silly family who always did the wrong thing and frequently had to be rescued by the lady from Philadelphia.

Eventually, the little girl grew up and lost track of her book friends. She went off to school and moved far, far away. Many years later, the now-all-grown-up-with-a-child-of-her-own woman wanted to share her favorite books with her son, but couldn't remember all of the titles. After some searching, she found many of them, but couldn't remember the title of the book about the very silly family. On a lark, she wandered through LibriVox with the delusional goal of finding time to record stories for others. On the forum of books looking for readers, there it was! The book she had been searching for was The Peterkin Papers by Lucretia P. Hale.

A bit of searching through the Amazon booksellers determined that the edition from her childhood was the 1914 version. A quick order and less than $15 later, she had scored a memory! The book is every bit as wonderful as she remembered and her son has already started giggling through the stories.