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# Connie Wooldridge - Author

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## Posts

- [<em>Hannah Coulter</em> by Wendell Berry Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge…](https://conniewooldridge.com/hannah-coulter-by-wendell-berry-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry; Counterpoint, 2004. 186 pages; $16.95 (paperback); reading level: adult. The year is 2001. Hannah Coulter is looking back on the seventy-nine years of her life, spent mostly in the fictional Kentucky town of Port William. In words that are both plain-spoken and elegant, she chronicles her childhood, the loss of
- [<em>This Is the Chance!; The Great Alaska Earthquake, Genie Chance, and the Shattered City She Held Together</em> by Jon Mooallem Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge…](https://conniewooldridge.com/this-is-the-chance-by-jon-mooallem-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - This Is Chance!; The Great Alaska Earthquake, Genie Chance, and the Shattered City She Held Together by Jon Mooallem; Random House, 2021. 315 pages; $18.00 (paperback); reading level: adult/young adult. Beginning with the epigram (a quote from Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town) and a “Cast of Characters” followed by Acts One, Two, and Three (instead
- [<em>Beethoven; A Life in Nine Pieces</em> by Laura Tunbridge Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge…](https://conniewooldridge.com/beethoven-a-life-in-nine-pieces-by-laura-tunbridge-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Beethoven; A Life in Nine Pieces by Laura Tunbridge; Yale University Press, 2020. 276 pages; $39.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. Timed to appear for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in 2020, this book’s fascinating structure drew me in. Each of the nine chapters centers on a work by Beethoven and focuses on “a theme
- [<em>Everybody’s Book; The Story of the Sarajevo Haggadah</em> by Linda Leopold Strauss Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge…](https://conniewooldridge.com/everybodys-book-the-story-of-the-sarajevo-haggadah-by-linda-leopold-strauss-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Everybody’s Book; The Story of the Sarajevo Haggadah by Linda Leopold Strauss; illustrated by Tim Smart; Kar-Ben Publishing/Lerner, 2024. 32 pages; $18.99 (hardcover); reading level: Grades 2-5. This true story begins in 1350, when a stunningly beautiful haggadah (a book that narrates the Jewish passover along with other Bible stories) is presented to a Spanish
- [<em>Foster</em> by Claire Keegan Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge...](https://conniewooldridge.com/foster-by-claire-keegan-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Foster by Claire Keegan; Grove Press, 2022. 92 pages; $20.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult/young adult. Originally published in Great Britain in 2010 (with a shortened version appearing in The New Yorker that same year), both a movie (under the title The Quiet Girl) and the book Foster finally appeared in the U.S. in 2022. The
- [Characters Julian Fellowes’ <em>Gilded Age</em> Gets Right: Caroline Astor](https://conniewooldridge.com/characters-julian-fellowes-gilded-age-gets-right-caroline-astor/) - Julian Fellowes’ portrayal of Caroline Astor is, in my opinion, spot on. Mrs. Astor’s self-appointed mission is to prevent the gates of Old New York Society from being breeched by crass new-money millionaires. Two key attributes give her the power she needs to pursue her mission: She possesses the three distinguishing characteristics of the Old
- [Characters Julian Fellowes’ <em>Gilded Age</em> Gets Right: Mamie Fish](https://conniewooldridge.com/characters-julian-fellowes-gilded-age-gets-right-mamie-fish/) - Like Caroline Astor, Mamie Fish was part of Old New York Society and looked down on the new-money climbers. When Mamie built a new home at 78th and Madison Avenue, she instructed the architect to create a ballroom that would make a person who was not well bred feel uncomfortable. Fellowes captures this aspect of
- [Characters Julian Fellowes’ <em>Gilded Age</em> Gets Right: William Backhouse Astor, Jr.](https://conniewooldridge.com/characters-julian-fellowes-gilded-age-gets-right-william-backhouse-astor-jr/) - Caroline Astor’s husband, William Backhouse Astor, Jr., does not appear in Season 1 of The Gilded Age and that’s exactly why Julian Fellowes gets him right. Her husband preferred to be anywhere Caroline Astor wasn’t, which was a relief to Caroline because he tended to upset her perfectly orchestrated social events by treating guests rudely.
- [Characters Julian Fellowes’ <em>Gilded Age</em> Gets Wrong: Ward McAllister](https://conniewooldridge.com/characters-julian-fellowes-gilded-age-gets-wrong-ward-mcallister/) - In Season 1 of The Gilded Age, Ward McAllister appears to be a beneficent grandfather-figure who helps Bertha Russell after she’s been socially snubbed. A social climber himself who had gained entrance to High Society by ingratiating himself to Caroline Astor, McAllister did help the Vanderbilts, among others, into the same elite company he’d cajoled
- [<em>Brideshead Revisited; The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder</em> by Evelyn Waugh Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge…](https://conniewooldridge.com/brideshead-revisited-the-sacred-and-profane-memories-of-captain-charles-ryder-by-evelyn-waugh-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Brideshead Revisited; The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder by Evelyn Waugh; (originally published in Britain, 1944); Back Bay Books, 2020. 402 pages; $17.99 (paperback); reading level: adult. In 1944, as Waugh’s magnum opus was going to press, he observed that Brideshead Revisited “is steeped in theology, but I begin to agree that
- [<em>Steam Jobs in Cyber-Security</em> by Cynthia Argentine Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/steam-jobs-in-cyber-security-by-cynthia-argentine-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Steam Jobs in Cyber-Security by Cynthia Argentine; Rourke Educational Media, 2019. 48 pages; $10.95 (paperback); reading level: grades 4-8. This book’s lively page layout will be the first thing to engage young readers. A traditional text is surrounded by three running sidebars suggesting a computer screen with multiple open windows. But Argentine’s words more than
- [<em>The Year I Was Peter The Great</em> by Marvin Kalb Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-year-i-was-peter-the-great-by-marvin-kalb-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Year I was Peter the Great; 1956, Khrushchev, Stalin’s Ghost, and a Young American in Russia by Marvin Kalb; Brookings Institution Press, 2017. 290 pages; $24.99 (hardcover); reading level adult. This “professional memoir” by famed NBC/CBS news correspondent Marvin Kalb (who is now in his 80s) looks back on the year 1956 when Kalb (fluent
- [On My Reading List – September 2019 through June 2020…](https://conniewooldridge.com/on-my-reading-list-september-2019-through-june-2020/) - Early each year I pick out the books I’ll be reading with my Book Discussion Group for the coming year. We read books from September through June. After reading reviews, getting opinions from readers I trust, and scanning classics I might have missed, here are the titles I’ve come up with and the reasons they
- [<em>Little Women</em> by Louisa May Alcott Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/little-women-by-louisa-may-alcott-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Little Women by Louisa May Alcott; Signet Classic, 2012 (originally published in 1828 and 1829). 507 pages; $5.95 (paperback); reading level: high school/adult. I hadn’t read this book as a child and, with the 150th anniversary of its publication upon us and a new movie adaptation due out, I thought it might be time. It
- [<em>Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy; The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters</em> by Anne Boyd Rioux Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/meg-jo-beth-amy-the-story-of-little-women-and-why-it-still-matters-by-anne-boyd-rioux-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy; The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters by Anne Boyd Rioux; W.W. Norton, 2018. 273 pages; $16.95 (paperback); reading level: adult. Rioux spends two thirds of her book on background material (a biographical sketch of Alcott and her family, the reception and popularity of Little Women through the
- [<em>The Flapper, the Impostor, and the Stalker</em> by Charlene Bell Dietz Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-flapper-the-impostor-and-the-stalker-by-charlene-bell-dietz-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Flapper, the Impostor, and the Stalker by Charlene Bell Dietz; Quill Mark Press, 2017. 297 pages; $16.99 (paperback); reading level: adult. This prequel to The Flapper, the Scientist, and the Saboteur (2016) is set in 1923 and provides the backstory on Kathleen McPherson, the aging flapper/sleuth in the earlier-published book. Kathleen is seventeen in
- [<em>Dancing Bears; True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny</em> by Witold Szabłowsk Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/dancing-bears-true-stories-of-people-nostalgic-for-life-under-tyranny-by-witold-szablowsk-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Dancing Bears; True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny by Witold Szabłowski. Penguin Books, 2014. 233 pages; $16.00 (paperback); reading level: adult. This intriguing book (translated from Polish) is divided neatly into two parts. The first centers on the 30-acre Dancing Bears Park in Belitsa, Bulgaria, where domesticated bears, trained to perform from
- [<em>Asymmetry</em> by Lisa Halliday Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/asymmetry-by-lisa-halliday-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday; Simon & Schuster, 2018. 271 pages; $16.00 (paperback); reading level: adult. Halliday’s first novel opens as twenty-five-year old Mary Alice, an aspiring writer, meets a successful, aging novelist on a park bench and begins a relationship with him. Halliday doesn’t try to conceal the fact that the situation is loosely based
- [On My Reading List – September 2021 Through June 2022…](https://conniewooldridge.com/on-my-reading-list-september-2021-through-june-2022/) - Early each year I pick out the books I’ll be reading with my Book Discussion Group for the coming year. We read books from September through June. After reading reviews, getting opinions from readers I trust, and scanning classics I might have missed, here are the titles I’ve come up with and the reasons they
- [<em>The Ravenmaster; My Life with the Ravens at the Tower of London</em> by Christopher Skaife Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-ravenmaster-my-life-with-the-ravens-at-the-tower-of-london-by-christopher-skaife-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Ravenmaster; My Life with the Ravens at the Tower of London by Christopher Skaife; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018. 241 pages; $26.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. When he retired from the British army after twenty-four years of service, Christopher Skaife realized that “there are not a lot of options for history-loving storytelling infantry soldiers…who
- [<em>Night Becomes Day; Changes in Nature</em> by Cynthia Argentine Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/night-becomes-day-changes-in-nature-by-cynthia-argentine-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Night Becomes Day; Changes in Nature by Cynthia Argentine; illustrated with photographs; Millbrook Press/Lerner, 2022. 32 pages; $27.99 (hardcover, reinforced library binding); reading level: Ages 7-12. Academic credentials can distance a nonfiction writer from young readers. Here, the author’s degrees in English, environmental science, and environmental law have accomplished the opposite. Argentine’s meticulously-researched narrative is
- [<em>Once Upon a River</em> by Diane Setterfield Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/once-upon-a-river-by-diane-setterfield-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield. Washington Square Press/Simon & Schuster, 2018. 464 pages; $17.00 (paperback); reading level: Adult Centering her 1887 tale around the Swan, an inn on the River Thames, Setterfield goes to great lengths to insist that this is an old-fashioned story: The first chapter is entitled “The Story Begins…” and
- [<em>Shelf Life; Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller<em> by Nadia Wassef; Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/shelf-life-chronicles-of-a-cairo-bookseller-by-nadia-wassef-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Shelf Life; Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller by Nadia Wassef; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021. 224 pages; $27.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. In 2002, at age 27, Nadia Wassef, her older sister, and a friend decide to open abookstore strikingly different from the ones available in Egypt under President Hosni Mubarak: “those mismanaged by the
- [<em>The Post Mistress of Paris</em> by Meg Waite Clayton Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-post-mistress-of-paris-by-meg-waite-clayton-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Postmistress of Paris by Meg Waite Clayton; HarperCollins, 2021. 402 pages; $27.99 (hardcover); reading level: adult. We meet twenty-eight-year-old heiress Nanée Gold (a beautiful American expat living in Paris, loosely based on a real figure) in the year 1938 as she pilots her private airplane and socializes with an artistic community that includes both
- [<em>Harlem Shuffle</em> by Colson Whitehead Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/harlem-shuffle-by-colson-whitehead-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead; Doubleday, 2021. 318 pages; $28.95 (hardcover); reading level: adult. Through fast-moving scenes that careen from humorous to tenderhearted Whitehead deftly juggles a host of themes here: racism (both inside and outside the black community), family ties, getting ahead in a hostile environment, and change—both particular (the forced uprooting of black
- [<em>The Barbizon; The Hotel That Set Women Free</em> by Paulina Bren Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-barbizon-the-hotel-that-set-women-free-by-paulina-bren-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Barbizon; The Hotel That Set Women Free by Paulina Bren; Simon & Schuster, 2021. 321 pages; $27.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. This book is equal parts fascinating and flawed. Bren tells the story of New York City’s Barbizon, a women-only hotel that opened in 1928 and didn’t admit its first male guest until 1981.
- [<em>Oceans of Grain; How American Wheat Remade the World</em> by Scott Reynolds Nelson Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge...](https://conniewooldridge.com/oceans-of-grain-how-american-wheat-remade-the-world-by-scott-reynolds-nelson-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Oceans of Grain; How American Wheat Remade the World by Scott Reynolds Nelson. Basic Books, 2022. 356 pages; $32.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. This is more a textbook than an informational read for a lay audience and requires those willing to soldier through it to bring a lot of knowledge to the table: a background
- [Translating Edith Wharton](https://conniewooldridge.com/translating/) - The biography that first introduced me to Edith Wharton was Shari Benstock’s No Gifts From Chance (1994). From there, I worked my way back to R.W.B. Lewis’ Edith Wharton; A Biography (1975) and then forward to Hermione Lee’s Edith Wharton (2007). By the time I’d devoured these three books I was grabbing anyone I met
- [Edith Wharton...Pleased](https://conniewooldridge.com/edith-wharton-pleased/) - She would have been pleased with the guests: aspiring high school writers who participated in the Edith Wharton Writing Contest, families and friends, published authors, and people from near and far who simply love books and reading. She would have been pleased at the world class staff that was on hand to show her house
- [Arguing With Friends](https://conniewooldridge.com/arguing-with-friends/) - I met one of my oldest friends in Athens where we both attended a year-long college program. Together we studied the architecture of the Parthenon, flew to Cairo and rode camels, and spent endless hours deciding which Greek island we would sail to next. When the year came to an end, she departed for her
- [Up and Coming Writers](https://conniewooldridge.com/up-and-coming-writers/) - Those of us involved with books - writers, editors, librarians, teachers - worry a lot about the whole reading and writing process. Will there be people in the next generation willing to read challenging literature? Will there be people in the next generation who can write articulately? I can name one for sure. She is
- ["Loud Voices"](https://conniewooldridge.com/loud-voices/) - Lucretia Jones could not have had an easy time raising her daughter Edith. She was a woman of average intelligence and superficial interests suddenly confronted by a child whose brilliance was apparent from the get-go. She probably tried valiantly to maintain her maternal authority and, if her daughter’s claim that pleasing her mother and pleasing
- [A LOOK BACK... Happy 150th Birthday, Edith Wharton!](https://conniewooldridge.com/happy-birthday-edith-wharton/) - A 150th birthday is cause for celebration - and not just for one day! The Mount will be commemorating Edith Wharton’s 150th birthday throughout 2012 and you’ll want to keep an eye on events as they’re posted. While most people are impressed with Edith Wharton’s intelligence, it’s her boundless energy that continues to stun me.
- [Tales of the London Book Festival and John Ericsson Events](https://conniewooldridge.com/tales-of-the-london-book-festival-and-john-ericsson-events/) - If you want to find characters for a novel, there’s no better place to look than a writer’s event. Since the January 26 awards dinner for the London Book Festival was an international gathering the “characters” were even more colorful: A former Yugoslavian who spoke very little English, a tall-tale teller from Montana, a charming
- [A Late Arrival at Downton Abbey](https://conniewooldridge.com/a-late-arrival-at-downton-abbey/) - I confess. I arrived late to the Downton Abbey party. When season one began I was intrigued, but Sunday nights didn’t work for me. Then everyone was watching it and my contrarian instincts kicked in: Who wants to watch what everybody’s watching? When season two began I told myself I didn’t want to jump in
- [More Letters From Edith!](https://conniewooldridge.com/more-letters-from-edith/) - Just as my Edith Wharton biography was going to press, a stash of letters from Edith to her governess (and later secretary) was discovered. How can I get my hands on those? I wondered. The answer wasn’t long in coming. In April of 2011, when I spoke at The Mount, I met Irene Goldman-Price who
- [My Dear Governess; The Letters of Edith Wharton to Anna Bahlmann - Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/my-dear-governess-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - My Dear Governess; The Letters of Edith Wharton to Anna Bahlmann edited by Irene Goldman-Price; Yale University Press, 2012. 296 pages; $30.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. On May 31st, 1874, twelve-year-old Edith Wharton (then Edith Jones) wrote to her beloved twenty-five-year-old governess, Anna Bahlmann, inviting her to come to the Jones’ summer home in Newport,
- [Diana Morón Meets Edith Wharton](https://conniewooldridge.com/diana-moron-meets-edith-wharton/) - When I wrote The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton, I was hoping the book would be discovered by high school teachers and used to introduce a new generation of readers to Edith Wharton. You can imagine my delight when Diana Morón, a sophomore at Porterville High School in Porterville, California, introduced herself to me by
- [The Doorway to High Society](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-doorway-to-high-society/) - In Edith Wharton’s Gilded Age New York, the new-money people were storming the gates of High Society and the Old Guard (people of birth, background, and breeding) were making a vain attempt to keep those gates firmly closed. Today, Society is open to all comers! The only requirement to entry is the desire to become
- [Julian Fellowes on Edith Wharton](https://conniewooldridge.com/julian-fellowes-on-edith-wharton/) - I know both Downton Abbey and Edith Wharton fans will appreciate this article from the Berkshire Eagle in which Julian Fellowes, the writer of Downton Abbey talks about how his late-in-life reading of two Wharton novels inspired first his failed writing venture, then Gosford Park and then, of course, Downton Abbey. “She observes but she
- [Edith Wharton in the Magazine Popular Science](https://conniewooldridge.com/edith-wharton-in-the-magazine-popular-science/) - I’ve gotten used to seeing Edith Wharton’s name all over the place but when I found out she’d popped up in the magazine Popular Science, I really had to check it out. Before I hit the link, I took some guesses on what her scientific connection might be. One possibility: She was intrigued by Charles
- [Ladies and Not-So Gentle Women by Alfred Allan Lewis Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/ladies-and-not-so-gentle-women-by-alfred-allan-lewis-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Ladies and Not-So-Gentle Women;Elisabeth Marbury,Anne Morgan, Elsie de Wolfe, Anne Vanderbilt, and Their Times by Alfred Allan Lewis. Penguin, 2000. 540 pages; $18.00 (paperback). Reading level: adult. Four big-spending Gilded Age women would seem to have nothing to contribute to the rough and tumble politics of women’s rights near the turn of the 20th century.
- [A Quiet Rebel](https://conniewooldridge.com/a-quiet-rebel/) - Edith Wharton was my kind of rebel: A quiet, well-behaved one. She tended to take practices that were rigidly defined by the Victorian society in which she grew up (entertaining, decorating, traveling, learning, gardening) and “rewrite”them according to her own specifications. In a recent issue of Slate Magazine, Kate Bolick takes a close look at
- [A Thoroughly Dislikable Character](https://conniewooldridge.com/a-thoroughly-dislikable-character/) - Undine Spragg was one of the most dislikable heroines Edith Wharton ever created. This social “swell,” star of the novel, The Custom of the Country, ruthlessly trampled over family, friends, and enemies alike in her quest to rise as far as possible above her humble Apex, Kansas roots. There was hardly a redeeming word to
- [The Writing Mind of Edith Wharton](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-writing-mind-of-edith-wharton/) - The Atlantic magazine neatly bookended Edith Wharton’s writing life. It was in the pages of that prestigious journal that, in 1880, her first poems appeared in print. In 1933, four years before her death, that same journal published an article entitled “Confession of a Novelist” in which Wharton looked back over her prolific writing career
- [Edith Wharton: Traditional or Modern?](https://conniewooldridge.com/edith-wharton-traditional-or-modern/) - A recent Wall Street Journal article takes on a key question raised in Edith Wharton’s 1920 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Age of Innocence. She writes it with one foot planted in the sureties of the Edwardian garden party that preceded World War I and the other perched precariously on the shifting ground of the
- [Edith Wharton Teaches English](https://conniewooldridge.com/edith-wharton-teaches-english/) - As I mention in my biography (pp. 66-67), an early short story Edith Wharton wrote called “The Line of Least Resistance” caught the eye of Henry James, a writer she was dying to meet. It was the beginning of a long friendship between “The Master” (as James was known) and the up-and-coming Edith. That same
- [<em>Improvement</em> by Joan Silber Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/improvement-by-joan-silber-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Improvement by Joan Silber; Counterpoint, 2017. 227 pages; $26.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. Part I of this three-part novel dangles the prospect that this will be an intriguing but straightforward story. It’s 2012 and Reyna, living in Brooklyn and the single mother of a four-year-old, narrates. We meet Aunt Kiki, Reyna’s boyfriend Boyd and, after
- [<em>Lincoln in the Bardo</em> by George Saunders Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/lincoln-in-the-bardo-by-george-saunders-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders; Random House, 2017. 343 pages; $17.00 (paperback); reading level: adult. Set in February of 1862, in a very real cemetery where the very real body of Willie Lincoln has just been placed in a borrowed crypt by his bereaved father, the first character we meet is a very
- [<em>The Mayor of Mogadishu</em> by Andrew Harding Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-mayor-of-mogadishu-by-andrew-harding-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Mayor of Mogadishu; A Story of Chaos and Redemption in the Ruins of Somalia by Andrew Harding; St. Martin’s Press, 2016. 278 pages; $26.99 (hardcover); reading level: adult. As Harding admits in his introduction, this is both a biography of Mohamud “Tarzan” Nur (mayor of Mogadishu, Somalia from 2010 to 2014) and a recounting
- [<em>The Ninth Hour</em> by Alice McDermott Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-ninth-hour-by-alice-mcdermott-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017. 247 pages; $26.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. In the opening chapter of this brilliant novel, set in Brooklyn in the first half of the 20th century, 32-year-old Jim commits suicide and three nuns sweep in to comfort his pregnant wife, who, in the final paragraph
- [Halloween Kids Book <em>Wicked Jack</em> is Available as an iBook](https://conniewooldridge.com/2038-2/) - Thanks to the talented illustrator Will Hillenbrand, Wicked Jack is back in time for Halloween!! I am excited to announce that Wicked Jack (no longer available in a print edition) is now available for download with iBooks on your Mac or iPad, and with iTunes on your computer. The price is $2.99, and you can
- [<em>Happiness TM</em> by Will Ferguson Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/happiness-tm-by-will-ferguson-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Happiness TM by Will Ferguson; Canongate, 2003. 309 pages; reading level: adult. First written in 2001, then re-titled and re-issued in 2003, this is a satirical look at pre-9/11 America through the eyes of a Canadian writer. It was recently recommended by one of my favorite authors (also Canadian) so I was surprised to find
- [<em>The Professor and the Mad Man</em> by Simon Winchester Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-professor-and-the-mad-man-by-simon-winchester-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Professor and the Madman; A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester; HarperCollins, 1999. 242 pages; $15.99 (paperback); reading level: adult. In 1634, the French established the Académie Française to catalogue, and keep a watchful eye on, their language. It wasn’t until 1857 that Richard Chenevix
- [<em>A Gentleman in Moscow</em> by Amor Towles Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/a-gentleman-in-moscow-by-amor-towles-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles; Viking, 2016. 462 pages; $27.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. On June 21, 1922, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov is declared to be a “former person” and sentenced to house arrest in the Hotel Metropol in Moscow. Despite this setback, we sense that it is the Count, rather than the
- [<em>Cyrus Field’s Big Dream; The Daring Effort to Lay the First Transatlantic Telegraph Cable</em> by Mary Morton Cowan Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/cyrus-fields-big-dream-the-daring-effort-to-lay-the-first-transatlantic-telegraph-cable-by-mary-morton-cowan-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Cyrus Field’s Big Dream; The Daring Effort to Lay the First Transatlantic Telegraph Cable by Mary Morton Cowan; Calkins Creek, 2018. 224 pages; $19.95 (hardcover); reading level: grades 4-12. Cyrus Field didn’t know the first thing about telegraphs when he retired from running a successful paper mill in 1853. But when his “big dream” took hold,
- [<em>Sister Carrie</em> by Theodore Dreiser Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/sister-carrie-by-theodore-dreiser-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser; Dover Thrift Editions, 2004 (first edition Doubleday, 1900). 352 pages (paperback); $7.00; reading level: high school/adult. In 1889, when nineteen-year-old Carrie Meeber, arrives in Chicago from a small town to look for a job, she is, by turns, dazzled and defeated by big-city life. We look through her eyes with
- [<em>Winter</em> by Christopher Nicholson Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/winter-by-christopher-nicholson-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Winter by Christopher Nicholson; Europa Editions, 2015. 269 pages; $17.00 (paperback); reading level: adult. Novels about famous writers are in vogue just now. This one, narrowly focused on the last four years of the life of British novelist/poet Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), rises to the top of the stack. When a stage version of Hardy’s novel,
- [<em>The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu</em> by Joshua Hammer Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-bad-ass-librarians-of-timbuktu-by-joshua-hammer-review-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu; and Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer; Simon & Schuster, 2016. 279 pages (hardcover); reading level: adult. Hammer has to lay a lot of groundwork before he gets to the “bad-ass” rescue promised in the title. He puts events a relatively well-informed reader might
- [<em>Christine Falls</em> by Benjamin Black Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/christine-falls-by-benjamin-black-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Christine Falls by Benjamin Black; Picador/Henry Holt and Company, 2006. 340 pages; 16.00 (paperback); reading level: adult. Can a Man Booker Prize-winning novelist write a good mystery without letting his literary skills overwhelm the basic demands of a who-done-it? In his first installment of the “Quirke” series (which, as of 2015, includes seven volumes), John
- [<em>Bellevue</em> by David Oshinsky Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/bellevue-by-david-oshinsky-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Bellevue; Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America’s Most Storied Hospital by David Oshinsky; Doubleday, 2016. 387 pages; $30.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. As the subtitle promises, this history of New York City’s oldest public hospital is far from dry. Following Bellevue from its beginnings as an almshouse established in the early 1700s to
- [<em>The Mothers</em> by Brit Bennett Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-mothers-by-brit-bennett-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Mothers by Brit Bennett; Riverhead Books, 2016. 275 pages; $26.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. Oceanside, California is a comfortable, middle class black community, but Nadia Turner wants out anyway. She plans to graduate from high school, pursue a degree at the University of Michigan, and achieve all the things her mother (who has just
- [<em>They May Not Mean To, But They Do</em> by Cathleen Schine Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/they-may-not-mean-to-but-they-do-by-cathleen-schine-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - They May Not Mean To, But They Do by Cathleen Schine. Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016. 290 pages; $26.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. Only a seasoned writer could have pulled this one off: As I read Schine’s clear-eyed novel, I laughed and cried at the same time. I cried with the protagonist, eighty-six-year-old
- [On My Reading List - September 2018 through June 2019...](https://conniewooldridge.com/on-my-reading-list-september-2018-through-june-2019/) - Early each year I pick out the books I’ll be reading with my Book Discussion Group for the coming year. We read nine books from September through June, three nonfiction and six fiction. After reading reviews, getting opinions from readers I trust, and scanning classics I might have missed, here are the titles I’ve come
- [<em>Idaho</em> by Emily Ruskovich Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/idaho-by-emily-ruskovich-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Idaho by Emily Ruskovich; Random House, 2017. 308 pages; $27.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. The central act of Ruskovich’s graceful first novel - the murder, on an Idaho mountain, of 6-year-old May by her mother, Jenny - has already taken place when we begin reading. We are haunted by two questions: Why did Jenny (who
- [<em>On Christmas Eve</em> by Ann M. Martin Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/on-christmas-eve-by-ann-m-martin-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - On Christmas Eve by Ann M. Martin. Scholastic, 2006. 149 pages. Reading level: grades 2-5. It’s 1958 and Tess McAllister is in third-grade. This is the year, she decides, that she really will stay awake and meet Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. She has a special wish this year: Her best friend’s father is very
- [<em>Commonwealth</em> by Ann Patchett Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/commonwealth-by-ann-patchett-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Commonwealth by Ann Patchett.; HarperCollins, 2016. 322 pages; $27.99 (hardcover); reading level: adult. Nothing happens according to expectation here. In chapter one, we meet all the major characters at a 1964 christening during which an illicit kiss begins an affair. Then we fast-forward to 2014 to listen in on the husband/victim of the affair and
- [<em>Hillybilly Elegy</em> by J.D. Vance Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/hillybilly-elegy-by-j-d-vance-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Hillybilly Elegy by J. D. Vance; HarperCollins, 2016. 264 pages; $27.99 (hardcover); reading level: adult. This is a “travelogue” in the spirit of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Our tour guide is James Donald/David Bowman/Hamel/Vance (the names reflecting the revolving door of fathers in the author’s life). Writing his memoir at the tender age
- [<em>Our Souls at Night</em> by Kent Haruf Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/our-souls-at-night-by-kent-haruf-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf; Knopf, 2015. 179 pages; $24.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. This tale begins the day Addie Moore (a 70-year-old widow) approaches Louis Waters (a 70-year-old widower) with a proposition: would he like to come to her house and sleep beside her each night, just to talk and ease the
- [<em>My Brilliant Friend</em> by Elena Ferrante Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/my-brilliant-friend-by-elena-ferrante-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. Europa Editions, 2012. 331 pages; $17.00 (paperback); reading level: adult. In granular detail, the narrator, Elena, chronicles her friendship with the magnetic Lila, from their meeting in first grade through their late teen years. The girls, born near the end of World War II, grow up in a dangerous,
- [<em>Between the World and Me</em> by Ta-Nehisi Coates Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/between-the-world-and-me-by-ta-nehisi-coates-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Spiegel & Grau/Penguin Random House, 2015. 152 pages; $24.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. Within the first few pages of his book Coates uses a term borrowed from James Baldwin to define the enemy: those who “believe that they are white.” In his eyes, “the power of domination
- [<em>The Wright Brothers</em> by David McCullough Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-wright-brothers-by-david-mccullough-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Wright Brothers by David McCullough; Simon & Schuster, 2015. 320 pages; $30.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. This is McCullough’s tenth work of nonfiction and he has acquired a well-deserved reputation for turning impeccably researched facts into enjoyable narratives. This latest book is not a birth-to-death biography of the Wright brothers (it ends in 1910,
- [<em>The Turner House</em> by Angela Flournoy Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Woodridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-turner-house-by-angela-flournoy-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-woodridge/) - The Turner House by Angela Flournoy. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015. 340 pages; $14.95 (paperback); reading level: adult. Two narratives from two time periods unfold concurrently in this impressive first novel: The first is the story of Francis and Viola Turner, who marry in 1944 and migrate north to Detroit; the second story reaches forward to
- [<em>The Two Tims</em> by David Elliott Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-two-timsby-david-elliott-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Two Tims by David Elliott; illustrated by Gabriel Alborozo. Candlewick, 2016. 32 pages; $15.99 (hardcover); reading level: 4-8. Tim and Tim (one with blond hair, one with brown) are best friends. Until Tom comes along. Blond Tim plays knights with Tom while brown-haired Tim sulks. Brown-haired Tim crazy-dances with Tom while blond Tim sulks.
- [<em>The Water Princess</em> by Susan Verde Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-water-princess-by-susan-verde-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Water Princess by Susan Verde; illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2016. 42 pages; $17.99 (hardcover); reading level: ages 4-8. Gie Gie, a princess in her parents’ eyes, surveys her kingdom: the African sky, the wild dogs, the tall grass, and the dusty earth. Not part of her kingdom is water,
- [<em>Ben-Gurion; Father of Modern Israel</em> by Anita Shapira Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/ben-gurion-father-of-modern-israel-by-anita-shapira-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Ben-Gurion; Father of Modern Israel by Anita Shapira; translated from the Hebrew by Anthony Berris. Yale University Press, 2014. 276 pages; $25.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. In the first four chapters of this biography, David Ben-Gurion is born David Green in Plonsk, Poland, travels to Warsaw to attend high school (only to be rejected for
- [<em>Nanette’s Baguette</em> by Mo Willems Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/nanettes-baguette-by-mo-willems-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Nanette’s Baguette by Mo Willems; illustrated by the author. Hyperion Books, 2916. 32 pages; $17.99 (hardcover); reading level: ages 4-8. If you’re on the lookout for every word that rhymes with “Nanette” and “baguette,” this is the book for you. Tucked away in the playful pile-up of rhymes (and it is quite the pile-up!) is
- [<em>The Illuminations</em> by Andrew O’Hagan Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-illuminations-by-andrew-ohagan-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Illuminations by Andrew O’Hagan. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015. 293 pages; $26.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. O’Hagan writes in the third person, shifting perspective among multiple characters (sometimes within a single paragraph) and frustrating, until the very end, readerly attempts to uncover the “real story.” At the center of the tale is photographer Anne
- [<em>Girl Waits With Gun</em> by Amy Stewart Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/girl-waits-with-gun-by-amy-stewart-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015. 408 pages; $27.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. As Miss Constance Kopp tells it: “Our troubles began in the summer of 1914, the year I turned thirty-five.” Constance and her two younger sisters Norma and Fluerette are riding into town from the New Jersey farm where
- [<em>At Night We Walk in Circles</em> by Daniel Alarcón Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/at-night-we-walk-in-circles-by-daniel-alarcon-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - At Night We Walk in Circles by Daniel Alarcón. Penguin/Riverhead Books, 2013. 372 pages; $27.95 (hardcover); reading level: adult. Alarcón’s novel digs deeply into gritty issues like post-colonialism and the pervasive shadow cast by a brutal civil war, deftly juggling a tangle of themes and plot threads that would derail a less intrepid writer. And
- [A Preview of The Books On My Fall 2017 Reading List (Updated). See Why I Chose Them and Reviews Will Follow!](https://conniewooldridge.com/a-preview-of-the-books-on-my-fall-2017-reading-list-see-why-i-chose-them-and-my-reviews-will-follow/) - I’m still working through the reading list I put together last year but I can’t resist starting a new pile of must-reads to be tackled in the fall of 2017. Check out the first three titles on my list, see what you think, and watch for my reviews which will be posted on my website
- [Bookends - Some Suggested Christmas Reading](https://conniewooldridge.com/bookends-some-suggested-christmas-reading/) - I like “bookend” plots that start in one place and then circle back to the beginning of things. I like January and December because they bookend the year. And I like bookends - the real thing - because they’re useful when you have as many books as I do. Here are some books you might
- [Scenes From a Writer's Life](https://conniewooldridge.com/scenes-from-a-writers-life-2/) - Since this is my very first entry, I thought I’d start by describing what I imagine this blog will look like. The title “Scenes From a Writer’s Life” will give you something of an idea. I’d like to give you some snapshots - “wordshots” really - from my life: things I’ve been and done and
- [Carsick](https://conniewooldridge.com/carsick/) - When I was in elementary school, my family lived in Ohio and we took frequent car trips to Galesburg, Illinois where my four grandparents and various aunts, uncles, and cousins lived. My parents would wake my younger sister and me up at 5:00 in the morning (my much younger sister and brother didn’t appear in
- [Broken](https://conniewooldridge.com/broken/) - When our third child Sean was growing up, he liked to know how things work, which my husband and I tried to encourage even when things got dangerous or destructive. Stellar parents have their bad days, however, and when Sean was in middle school and I found his brand new bike in pieces all over
- [The Library](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-library/) - When I was in elementary school, going to the library once a week ranked even above gym class as my favorite thing to do. My librarian’s name was Mrs. Southward. She had us list the names of each book we checked out on a small, white sheet of paper. The first thing she did when
- [A Real Writer](https://conniewooldridge.com/a-real-writer/) - It’s 1990, I’ve just had my first few stories published in Highlights for Children and Cricket, and I’m wondering if I’m a Real Writer now. The editor of a Cricket story about the legendary King Canute, who ordered the tide not to come in, is intrigued about a plaque in Southampton, England commemorating the event.
- [Thinking Hard](https://conniewooldridge.com/thinking-hard/) - At an early age, I came to the notion that there was something to be understood in the world out there and that it would take some hard thinking to get to it. I did my first thinking on a wooden rocking horse with metal springs. Things to think about would pile up, I’d climb
- [Program at Miss Halls School](https://conniewooldridge.com/program-at-miss-halls-school/) - April 29, 2011 12:35 PM - 1:45 PM Miss Halls School School Near The Mount (Edith's Home in Lenox, Massachusetts), Miss Halls School students participate in the annual “Edith Wharton Writing Competition.”
- [Program at Helen Berube Teen Parent Program](https://conniewooldridge.com/program-at-helen-berube-teen-parent-program/) - April 29, 2011 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM Helen Berube Teen Parent Program School Near The Mount (Edith's Home in Lenox, Massachusetts), Helen Berube Teen Parent Program students participate in the annual “Edith Wharton Writing Competition.”
- [Connie Wooldridge To Be Keynote Speaker at "2011 Edith Wharton Writing Competition” Awards](https://conniewooldridge.com/connie-wooldridge-to-be-keynote-speaker-at-2011-edith-wharton-writing-competition-awards/) - Edith Wharton Writing Competition April 30th 2011 - 3:00 PM -5:00 PM The Mount, 2 Plunkett Street, Lenox, MA 01240 Event is Free & Open to the Public More Information Writing Competition Winners (413) 551-5111 info@EdithWharton.org
- [A Place to Write](https://conniewooldridge.com/a-place-to-write/) - Here’s some advice I received years ago that I’ll pass along to you: Never let yourself get tied to one specific place where you write. It’s much better to be able to write anywhere. Here’s the truth about how carefully I followed have that particular advice: My absolute favorite place to write is the Bagel
- [Fairy Tale](https://conniewooldridge.com/fairy-tale/) - I taught first grade at an English-speaking school for foreigners in Seoul from 1975-1977. Korea was a poor country at that time and the walk each morning from my small, Korean-style house to Seoul Foreign School was dusty and colorless. Animal carts and bicycles pulling heavy loads shared the road with cars and it was
- [Mean Girls](https://conniewooldridge.com/mean-girls/) - There were some mean girls in my fifth grade class but I wasn’t one of them. I was a nice girl and I had nice girl friends. Four of us nice girls had formed a group to work on a school project and we had divided up all the tasks and figured out how we
- [I Don’t Talk - I Just Write](https://conniewooldridge.com/i-dont-talk-i-just-write/) - Here’s something I didn’t consider before I got into this writing business: As soon as you’ve published something, various groups start wanting you to talk to them. My first invitation came from one of my sons’ classroom teachers. What I (terrified!) wanted to say was: “I don’t talk - I just write.” What fell out
- [A Green Truck](https://conniewooldridge.com/a-green-truck/) - When I traveled out to Wyoming back in 1998 to do research for When Esther Morris Headed West, I was stunned when I got off the plane in Cheyenne. It was so unlike anyplace I had ever been I thought I might have landed on the moon. I walked across a brief stretch of tarmac
- [Say Thank You](https://conniewooldridge.com/say-thank-you/) - Anyone out there who thinks saying “thank you” is a lost art should visit an elementary school - any elementary school - and give a presentation. In response to my talk to the 3rd and 4th graders at Crestdale Elementary School last week, I received the most colorful, creative, effusive thank you notes ever: I
- [Connie Wooldridge Will Speak to the National Stanley Family Association](https://conniewooldridge.com/connie-wooldridge-will-speak-to-the-national-stanley-family-association/) - When: Saturday June 25, 2011 Location: Earlham College - 801 National Road West, Richmond, Indiana 47374 Event Description: National Stanley Family Reunion - You are welcome to a weekend of Stanley family fellowship, entertainment, history and interesting family stories and historical sites. Topic: Saturday Evening: "The Story Behind the Stories" by Connie Wooldridge About the
- [Tree Calculations](https://conniewooldridge.com/tree-calculations/) - When I was ten years old, I climbed a tree with my best friend every day of the summer. Its lower branches (all seven of them) began spreading within a foot or two of the the ground and each of them was thicker than the circumference of the two of us when we hugged each
- [Backyard Stories](https://conniewooldridge.com/backyard-stories/) - In 2004, I signed up for a Highlights Foundation Workshop on writing nonfiction and I grumbled silently for weeks before I set out for Honesdale, PA. The workshop leader, editor Carolyn Yoder, had asked each of us to bring a nonfiction piece about something “in our own backyard.” Up until then I had written about
- [Twenty Years](https://conniewooldridge.com/twenty-years/) - Twenty years ago, my husband and I, our four children, and our basset hound, Wobegon closed the door to our house in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania for the very last time and drove to our new home in Richmond, Indiana. I was sporting a full leg cast (a skating accident...don’t ask!) so I had to sit in
- [Fighting for Democracy in the Bagel Shop](https://conniewooldridge.com/fighting-for-democracy-in-the-bagel-shop/) - My assignment: An article on the Development of Democracy covering ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and the years surrounding the Revolutionary War in the U.S. Length: 1400 words First draft delivery date: Four weeks I commandeer my usual table at the Fifth Street Bagel Shop and set to work. I start with the ancient Greeks to
- [Book Signing - Books By The Banks in Cincinnati, OH on 10/22/11](https://conniewooldridge.com/book-signing-books-by-the-banks-in-cincinnati-oh-on-102211/) - What: Book Signing - Books By The Banks in Cincinnati, OH Location: Books by the Banks at Duke Energy Center Description: Connie will be participating in Books by the Banks at the Duke Energy Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. When: 10/22/11 - 10am-4pm
- [Book Signing - National Road / Zane Grey Museum in Norwich, OH](https://conniewooldridge.com/book-signing-norwich-oh/) - What: Book Signing - Norwich, OH Location: National Road / Zane Grey Museum Description: Connie will be selling and signing books at the Antique Transportation Event. When: 10/1/11 - 1pm - 4pm
- [Serious Research](https://conniewooldridge.com/serious-research/) - Writing for children often means doing serious research. I brought my husband along on a research trip just last weekend. I carefully observed two little boys, one aged two, the other aged four. I observed as they woke from their naps, the older boy dapper and ready to meet the world, the younger temporarily speechless
- [If Kids Can’t Read](https://conniewooldridge.com/if-kids-cant-read/) - If kids can’t read, this writer is out of a job. Which is why this writer was up bright and early last Friday morning to greet 100 students who, at the end of their third grade year, were not reading at grade level. If kids can’t read by the end of their third grade year,
- [Connie Wooldridge To Appear On 'The Sounds of the Symphony'](https://conniewooldridge.com/connie-wooldridge-to-appear-on-the-sounds-of-the-symphony/) - Show: 'The Sounds of the Symphony' with Host Marci Asher-Whalen on Whitewater Community Television - Trailer Description: A new 'The Sounds of the Symphony' with Host Marci Asher-Whalen will air Monday, August 1 at 8:30PM on WETV, channel 20. This month's guest will be Amy Noe & Connie Wooldridge. Start Time: 8:30pm Date: 2011-08-01 We
- [Celebrate!](https://conniewooldridge.com/celebrate/) - I started thinking about The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton in 2001. It was published in 2010. It seemed to me that, when it officially hit the bookstores, a celebration was called for. First, I alerted my “staff” (a.k.a., the special events committee of the Richmond Symphony Orchestra from whom Carl and I had purchased
- [Come For a Ride?](https://conniewooldridge.com/come-for-a-ride/) - As the third set of lesson plans for Just Fine the Way They Are (“Writer’s Craft”) is posted and ready for you teachers out there to download, I realize how much I like the illustration my graphic designer chose for the “button” that clicks you to those lesson plans: A car in motion...a car obviously
- [Ship Ahoy!](https://conniewooldridge.com/ship-ahoy/) - A good illustrator will go to great lengths to make sure what s/he draws is accurate and matches the words in the text. Andrew Glass, who illustrated Thank You Very Much, Captain Ericsson! (my picture book about the inventor of the Civil War ironclad ship the Monitor) had a particular problem: the Monitor was at
- [Connie To Be Interviewed by Barbara Gray on "Around Cincinnati"](https://conniewooldridge.com/connie-to-be-interviewed-by-barbara-gray-on-around-cincinnati/) - Connie's interview with Barbara Gray will air on Sunday, September 4. The program is "Around Cincinnati," and will air between 7-8 p.m. on WVXU 91.7 FM and WMUB 88.5 FM. It can also be heard online at wvxu.org and wmub.org. When: Sunday September 4, 2011 - 7-8pm Listen on the Radio: WVXU 91.7 FM and
- [New Release: Just Fine The Way They Are](https://conniewooldridge.com/just-fine-the-way-they-are/) - In this new historical non-fiction picture book children's author Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge and artist Richard Walz worked closely with experts and firsthand accounts to tell a "just fine and accurate" illustrated story about how dirt roads of the 1800s turned into the U.S. highway system of today. >> Official Press Release Just Fine The Way
- [Shakespeare](https://conniewooldridge.com/shakespeare/) - I’m just home from the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, reading through the “Twelfth Night,” and trying to pick up anything I might have missed when I saw it on stage. Shakespeare is a challenge and there’s no getting to the bottom of any of his plays. There’s no last word on what the bard
- [The Good Company of Story](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-good-company-of-story/) - There’s a lovely sculpture by Victor Issa in the Frederic Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It’s called “Grandpa, the Storyteller” and it captures for me the essence of story: Story connects, it communicates across time and generations. As the novelist Graham Smith put it, “As long as there’s a story, it’s all right.” For
- [On the Road](https://conniewooldridge.com/on-the-road/) - One of the joys of writing nonfiction is that your books take you places in the research phase and take you places again when people start finding out what you’ve written and want you to come and talk to them. So I was on the road or, more precisely, on The Road last weekend. Just
- [Connie Interviewed by Simon Barrett of BloggerNews on BlogTalkRadio.com](https://conniewooldridge.com/connie-interviewed-by-simon-barrett-of-bloggernews-on-blogtalkradio-com/) - Connie will be interviewed Live by Simon Barrett of BloggerNews on BlogTalkRadio.com at 1pm eastern on Wednesday, Oct 5th. Connie will talk about her latest book, Just Fine the Way They Are. Listen To The Show below... Listen to internet radio with Simon Barrett on Blog Talk Radio
- [Esther Morris Gets Some Company](https://conniewooldridge.com/esther-morris-gets-some-company/) - “If you visit Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol,” I observe, in the Author’s Note to When Esther Morris Headed West, (Holiday House, 2001) “you’ll see fifty statues, one from each state, standing in a circle. Forty-nine of them are men. The fiftieth is Esther Morris...” That changed in 2009: Helen Keller, representing Alabama,
- [Esther Morris Gets Some Company](https://conniewooldridge.com/esther-morris-gets-some-company/) - “If you visit Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol,” I observe, in the Author’s Note to When Esther Morris Headed West, (Holiday House, 2001) “you’ll see fifty statues, one from each state, standing in a circle. Forty-nine of them are men. The fiftieth is Esther Morris...” That changed in 2009: Helen Keller, representing Alabama,
- [Jack is Back!](https://conniewooldridge.com/jack-is-back/) - You just can’t keep a bad man down. Connected, as he is to Halloween (ever wonder where the term “jack-o-lantern” came from?), October is Wicked Jack’s favorite month and he was invited back to Indiana by the Richmond Symphony Orchestra. What were they thinking??? Aren’t symphonies stuffy organizations?? Evidently not! Five woodwind players from the
- [Connie Interviewed by Children's Author and Radio Host Renee Hand](https://conniewooldridge.com/connie-interviewed-by-childrens-author-and-radio-host-renee-hand/) - Connie was interviewed Live by Renee Hand who is a children's author and radio host on BlogTalkRadio.com. The interview was recorded at 2pm eastern on Wednesday, November 7th. Connie talks about her latest book, Just Fine the Way They Are. > Renee's Review of Just Fine the Way They Are Listen to internet radio with
- [Connie Speaking At "Appalachia from an Assets Perspective Conference" at Shawnee State University - November 21st](https://conniewooldridge.com/connie-speaking-at-appalachia-from-an-assets-perspective-conference-at-shawnee-state-university-november-21st/) - Connie will address the Morning General Session at the Appalachia from an Assets Perspective Conference at Shawnee State University on November 20 - 21, 2011. The theme for the 2011 conference is Enhancing Teacher Performance to Maximize Student Achievement. Attended by administrators, teachers and students from throughout Ohio, Connie’s talk, entitled “The Simple Elegant Act of Telling a
- [Maggie’s Monkeys - Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/maggies-monkeys-reviewed-by-connie-norhielm-wooldridge/) - Maggie’s Monkeys by Linda Sanders-Wells; illustrated by Abby Carter; Candlewick Press, 2009. 32 pages; $16.99; reading level: ages 4-7. Being the older brother of an imaginative little sister can be a trial - especially when her pink monkeys take up residence in the refrigerator and only Older Brother seems to know they’re not real. Dad
- [Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes - Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/ten-little-fingers-and-ten-little-toes-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox; illustrated by Helen Oxenbury; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008. 32 pages; $16.99 hardcover; $11.99 oversized boardbook format; reading level: ages 2-5. Fox’s spare, rhyming text spotlights pairs of babies from around the world, connected by the refrain, “And both of these babies, as everyone knows, had
- [The Brave New World of Book Reviews](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-brave-new-world-of-book-reviews/) - Many times I’ve compared this new world of websites, social media, blogging and internet radio to the Wild West! One new force in the book world is online book reviews, many of which are written by “MommyBloggers,” literature bloggers and online publications. I want to thank the many folks who are reading and reviewing Just
- [Book Signing - Indiana History Society's 9th Annual Holiday Author Fair](https://conniewooldridge.com/book-signing-indiana-history-center-indianapolis-in/) - What: Book Signing - Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center, Indianapolis, IN Location: Indiana Historical Society's Holiday Author Fair 9th Annual Holiday Author Fair December 3, 2011 - 12:00pm – 4:00 p.m. Connie will be one of the more than 60 authors featured at the Holiday Author Fair. She will also be a guest
- [Book Signing - Wayne County Historical Museum in Richmond, IN - Dec 10th](https://conniewooldridge.com/book-signing-wayne-county-historical-museum-in-richmond-in-dec-10th/) - Please join Connie for a book signing at the Wayne County Historical Museum in Richmond, Indiana from 2pm-4pm on December 10th, 2011. Pictures from the event...
- [Just For You Teachers](https://conniewooldridge.com/just-for-you-teachers/) - When I asked two educators to create lesson plans for Just Fine the Way They Are, I had no idea how far the term “lesson plan” had evolved since my days as a first grade teacher back in the 1970s. The “Social Studies/Transportation” resources they have written for home-school and classroom teachers are formatted just
- [Postscript to Just Fine the Way They Are](https://conniewooldridge.com/postscript-to-just-fine-the-way-they-are/) - You might think that, when a book is published, the story it tells is finished. Not true! In the final illustration for the picture book Just Fine the Way They Are, Richard Walz reaches into a mythical future to imagine what a post-automobile era might look like. He envisions a jet-pack like invention - a
- [Mr. Mosquito Put on His Tuxedo - Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/mr-mosquito/) - Mr. Mosquito Put on His Tuxedo by Barbara Olenyik Morrow; illustrated by Ponder Goembel; Holiday House, 2009. $16.95; reading level: ages 6-9. When Mr. Mosquito puts on his tuxedo, arrives at a ball hosted by Queen Bee, and greets the other guests (gnats, lice, and fleas to name a few) he never suspects his particular
- [Where’s My T-R-U-C-K? - Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/wheres-my-t-r-u-c-k-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Where’s My T-R-U-C-K? by Karen Beaumont; illustrated by David Catrow; Dial Books for Young Readers, 2011. 32 pages; $16.99; reading level: ages 4-7. When Tommy loses his (don’t say the word or you’ll set him off!) t-r-u-c-k, the whole family’s day goes haywire. Tommy refuses help from Mom, Dad, sister, brother, and Grandma: “I
- [The John Ericsson Society Celebrating The 150th Anniversary Of The Monitor Being Launched!](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-john-ericsson-society-celebrating-the-150th-anniversary-of-the-monitor-being-launched-connie-not-attending/) - If you’re a Civil War buff, you’ll remember that, 150 years ago, under the direction of Thomas Fitch Rowland (owner of Continental Works located on the East River in Brooklyn) and John Ericsson (designer of the Union Civil War Ironclad USS Monitor), skilled craftsmen laid the ship’s keel on October 25, 1861 and worked feverishly
- [Preschool Day Hooray! - Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/preschool-day-hooray/) - Preschool Day Hooray! Written by Linda Leopold Strauss; illustrated by Hiroe Nakata; Cartwheel Books/Scholastic, 2010. 22 pages; $8.99 (hardback); ages 2-5. A simple, rhyming text follows a little boy through a day at preschool from the rush to get there (“Tick-tock clock/Makes Mommy scoot”), to various activities (“Painty hands and/Gooey glue”), to a tumble on
- [Where’s Walrus? – Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/wheres-walrus-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Where’s Walrus? Written and illustrated by Stephen Savage; Scholastic Press, 2011.32 pages; $16.99 (hardback); ages 2-5. The gates to the zoo are open but, alas, there are no visitors. While the zookeepersnoozes, walrus sneaks away. In wordless two-page spreads, walrus eludes thezookeeper (belatedly awake) by donning various hats and blending in with a statue ona
- [Win a Signed Copy of When Esther Morris Headed West!](https://conniewooldridge.com/win-a-signed-copy-of-when-esther-morris-headed-west/) - You can win a signed copy of When Esther Morris Headed West! just by liking Connie's Facebook page. 2012 is a big year for politics and in honor of Esther Morris, the first female judge in the United States, I’m giving away a signed copy of my book When Esther Morris Headed West: Women, Wyoming and the Right to
- [Connie Wins Award at The London Book Festival!](https://conniewooldridge.com/connie-wins-award-at-the-london-book-festival/) - On January 26, 2012, Connie accepted an award at The London Book Festival for Best Biography for The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton, two days after Edith's 150th birthday. The 2011 London Book Festival Awards dinner was held at Grosvenor House, London - formerly the estate of the Earl of Grosvenor (1732), renovated into a
- [A Pocketful of Posies; A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes - Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/a-pocketful-of-posies-a-treasury-of-nursery-rhymes-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - A Pocketful of Posies; A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes Illustrated by Salley Mavor; Houghton Mifflin, 2010. 64 pages; $21.99 (hardback); reading level: ages 2-6. The artwork for this nursery rhyme collection is stunning. Mavor has lovingly stitched a variety of materials (acorn caps, stones, driftwood, buttons) onto wool felt to create scenes which were
- [Connie to Speak at St. Paul School In Guilford, Indiana on February 28th](https://conniewooldridge.com/connie-to-speak-at-st-paul-school-in-guilford-indiana-on-february-28th/) - Connie will be speaking to the students of St. Paul School in Guilford, Indiana on February 28, 2012. Contact Connie if you would like her to to speak at your school.
- [The Elijah Door - Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-elijah-door-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Elijah Door; A Passover Tale Written by Linda Leopold Strauss; illustrated by Alexi Natchev; Holiday House, 2012. 32 pages; $16.95 (hardcover); reading level: ages 6-10. Long ago, in a small village that was “sometimes Poland and sometimes Russia,” the Lippas and the Galinskys lived in “side-by-side houses.” They were fast friends whose children, Rachel
- [A Visit to St. Paul’s School](https://conniewooldridge.com/a-visit-to-st-pauls-school/) - Late on a February Tuesday morning, I packed a pile of books and papers into the back of my car and drove south and then east along some winding Indiana roads that led me further and further into the country. An hour and fifteen minutes later, I arrived at one of the most charming little
- [Leif Brisfjord Won a Signed Copy of "When Esther Morris Headed West"!](https://conniewooldridge.com/leif-brisfjord-won-a-signed-copy-of-when-esther-morris-headed-west/) - Congratulations to Leif Brisfjord, the winner of our February give-away, a signed copy of Connie's book about the first female US judge, When Esther Morris Headed West (Holiday House) by "liking" Connie's Facebook page. Leif is President of the John Ericsson Society in New York City. Ericsson was the inventor of the ironclad ship the
- [Win a Signed Copy of "The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton"!](https://conniewooldridge.com/win-a-signed-copy-of-the-brave-escape-of-edith-wharton/) - You can win a signed copy of "The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton" just by liking Connie's Facebook page. It’s March and in the spirit of Women’s History Month and this year’s theme – Women’s Education, Women’s Empowerment – I am giving away a signed copy of The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton (Clarion 2010). 2012 is also
- [A Response to Jonathan Franzen: Edith Wharton Was Hard (But Not Impossible) to Like](https://conniewooldridge.com/edith-wharton-was-hard-to-like/) - Responses to Jonathan Franzen’s New Yorker article "A Rooting Interest: Edith Wharton and the problem of sympathy" are flying fast and furious. He claims Edith Wharton is just plain hard to like as a person - hard to sympathize with as he puts it - and after spending years in her company while writing her
- [Just Check the Monitor’s Manifest!](https://conniewooldridge.com/just-check-the-monitors-manifest/) - This month marks the 150th anniversary of the sinking of the USS Monitor back in 1862, less than a year after its launch. As the most recent newsletter of the John Ericsson Society New York (JESNY) points out, the Monitor had a short life but left a long legacy, with Monitor class vessels actively deployed
- [Connie Was the Featured Author at the Muncie Area Reading Council’s “2012 Young Author’s Conference”](https://conniewooldridge.com/connie-was-the-featured-author-at-the-muncie-area-reading-councils-2012-young-authors-conference/) - Connie was the featured author at the Muncie Area Reading Council’s “2012 Young Author’s Conference” on April 23. This annual event is open to students in grades 1-8 to encourage young people to write creatively, provide opportunity for recognition, enhance student’s self-concept, stimulate interest in reading, and offer the experience of sharing manuscripts and/or writing
- [Connie To Speak at Northwest Elementary School in McDermott, Ohio on May 11, 2012](https://conniewooldridge.com/connie-to-speak-at-northwest-elementary-school-in-mcdermott-ohio-on-may-11-2012/) - Connie will be visiting the students at Northwest Elementary School in McDermott, Ohio, on Friday, May 11. She will meet with students in grades K through 5th at the school’s library. Librarian Alyssa Bach-Enz heard Connie speak at the Appalachian Conference at Shawnee State University and invited the author to visit her school. “We want
- [Writer’s Retreat](https://conniewooldridge.com/writers-retreat/) - In February, I drove east for eleven hours, through Ohio and the very mountains of Pennsylvania I used to call home, to the town of Honesdale, Pennsylvania. I turned left onto the property of the family that created the magazine Highlights for Children and pulled up to a small cabin with two twin beds, a
- [Jane Thurmer Wins a Signed Copy of "The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton"](https://conniewooldridge.com/jane-thurmer-wins-a-signed-copy-of-the-brave-escape-of-edith-wharton/) - Congratulations to Jane Thurmer, the winner of our March Women's History Month give-away! Jane will receive a signed copy of The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton (Clarion 2010), Connie's YA biography about the iconic writer who would be 150 years-old this year! Thank you, Jane, and everyone who entered.
- [Visit to Northwest Elementary School](https://conniewooldridge.com/visit-to-northwest-elementary-school/) - The drive to McDermott, Ohio winds through the greenest, most idyllic countryside you’ll find anywhere. Northwest Elementary School sits 5 miles off of US-23 and is home to around 800 K-5 students. A step inside the front door brought me into a high-energy zone: several parents in the office, classes of students filing through the
- [National Road Yard Sale](https://conniewooldridge.com/national-road-yard-sale/) - Beginning on May 30 and running through the early part of June, folks will be setting up shop along the National Road (US 40) and creating one of the longest yard sales going: from Baltimore to St. Louis! For 9 years now, beginning on the Wednesday following Memorial Day, churches, museums, stores, and plain old
- [Get a Chance to Win a Signed Copy of Just Fine The Way They Are](https://conniewooldridge.com/get-a-chance-to-win-a-signed-copy-of-just-fine-the-way-they-are/) - To be eligible you must be subscribed to my mailing list. The winner will be randomly selected on July 31, 2012. Details In Celebration of Audiobook Month in June we’re giving away a signed copy of Just Fine The Way They Are, which is now available in school and local libraries on CD and cassette thanks to Recorded
- [The National Road Brings the Historic Road Conference to Indianapolis](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-national-road-brings-the-historic-road-conference-to-indianapolis/) - The national non-profit group Historic Roads is holding their annual conference on September 20-22, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Dedicated to identifying, preserving and managing our nation’s historic roads and scenic byways, Indy was specifically chosen because of the region’s unique transportation history, which includes the Historic National Road. Read more about the work of this important
- [Teacher Resources & Lesson Plans Available For "Just Fine the Way They Are"](https://conniewooldridge.com/teacher-resources-lesson-plans/) - Since school will be starting soon, educators and parents who would like to engage their children in some fun learning activities can download lesson plans that accompany Just Fine The Way They Are; From Dirt Roads to Rail Roads to Interstates. Developed by two elementary educators who are also adjunct professors in the Department of
- [Author Tip: Importance of Structure in Nonfiction](https://conniewooldridge.com/author-tip-importance-of-structure-in-nonfiction/) - I've just finished reading Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a terrific example of creative nonfiction. Check out this link for some great behind-the-scenes information on the importance of structure in a nonfiction piece and on how Skloot decided to include herself in the very story she was researching. >> See My "Just
- [Thank You Very Much, Captain Ericsson – Coming in Paperback & Video!](https://conniewooldridge.com/thank-you-very-much-captain-ericsson-coming-in-paperback-video/) - About the Video Soon to be available on the website: A reading of Thank You Very Much, Captain Ericsson! (by yours truly!) in its entirety, complete with the original illustrations by Andrew Glass. This should be a great resource for you teachers doing a Civil War unit OR for parents/grandparents of 7-10-year-olds. About the Paperback As stated,
- [Congratulations To Donna & Ralph Weidenhammer For Winning The Signed Copy of "Just Fine The Way They Are"](https://conniewooldridge.com/congratulations-to-donna-ralph-weidenhammer-for-winning-the-signed-copy-of-just-fine-the-way-they-are/) - There's nothing like social networks to keep in touch with old friends and former neighbors, especially when you skip a year or two of sending out Christmas cards! Donna Weidenhammer and I lived next door to each other when our families were just beginning - lots of diapering, nap times and playground swings back then.
- [Connie to Read at Morrisson-Reeves Library on November 3rd](https://conniewooldridge.com/connie-to-read-at-morrisson-reeves-library-on-november-3rd/) - Morrisson-Reeves Library and K-Ready present a Preschool Reading Open House Saturday, Nov. 3rd from 10:00 am - Noon Morrisson-Reeves Library 80 North 6th Street Richmond, Indiana You'll enjoy storytimes with... Local Children’s Author, Connie Wooldridge Pam Hancock, Amigos (reading in Spanish) Kathy Campbell and Holly The Therapy Dog >> View the Flyer
- [An Encore for Captain Ericsson - Now in Paperback!](https://conniewooldridge.com/an-encore-for-captain-ericsson/) - When both the Mariner’s Museum in Newport News, Virgina and the John Ericsson Society let me know they were having trouble finding copies of my out-of-print picture book, Thank You Very Much, Captain Ericsson!, I decided to spring into action. With permission from Holiday House, the original publisher, and Andrew Glass, the illustrator, I started
- [Mom, It’s My First Day of Kindergarten! - Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/mom-its-my-first-day-of-kindergarten-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Mom, It’s My First Day of Kindergarten! Written and illustrated by Hyewon Yum; Frances Foster Books/Farrar Straus Giroux, 2012. 32 pages; $16.99 (hardback); ages 4-6. The five-year-old hero of this tale is well-adjusted, brimming with energy, and ready for his first day of kindergarten. His mom? Well...not so much. As the illustrations (literally!) make clear,
- [Morrisson-Reeves Library Pre-K Reading Open House. See Pictures Inside...](https://conniewooldridge.com/connie-read-to-preschool-children-for-the-read-1000-books-before-kindergarten-program-see-some-pictures/) - I want to thank everyone who attended the Pre-School Reading Open House at Morrisson-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana earlier this month. The Library has partnered with the K-Ready program whose goal is for pre-school children to read 1,000 books before they enter kindergarten.
- [Build a Book Christmas Tree](https://conniewooldridge.com/build-a-book-christmas-tree/) - Of course I’m behind on my shopping, my Christmas cards, etc. and of course I have no time to spare so of course, when a friend sent me a link to a site where people were building Book Christmas Trees I just had to stop everything I was behind on and build one of my
- [Connie To Be the Guest of Honor at Author Day - Elizabeth Starr Academy in Richmond, Indiana](https://conniewooldridge.com/connie-to-be-the-guest-of-honor-at-author-day-elizabeth-starr-academy-in-richmond-indiana/) - Date: January 23, 2013 Location: Elizabeth Starr Academy Connie will talk to students about her writing process, being an entrepreneur, and how she markets her books.
- [The Year of the Book – Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-year-of-the-book-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Year of the Book by Andrea Cheng; illustrated by Abigail Halpin; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. 148 pages; $15.99 (hardcover); reading level: ages 7-11. Anna Wang is just beginning fourth grade and the word of the week is “perseverance.” “It’s when you don’t give up,” her best friend, Laura, tells the class. Both girls will
- [Ericsson and da Vinci - A Conversation Across Time](https://conniewooldridge.com/ericsson-and-da-vinci-a-conversation-across-time/) - A group of Italian artisans (Niccolai Teknoart SNC) has undertaken a marvelous project: using the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci to create models of the very machines da Vinci imagined. When I attended one of their exhibits at the Denver Pavilions (which runs through January 31, 2013) I was struck by how much da Vinci
- [What Writers Do Right](https://conniewooldridge.com/what-writers-do-right/) - My eighth-grade English teacher was named Mrs. Crisick. She seemed like any old teacher way back then but I know, in remembering bits and pieces from her class, that she was extraordinary. Once, when we were assigned to write a story, she stood in front of the class with mine in her hand and said she wanted
- [Elizabeth Starr Academy School Visit](https://conniewooldridge.com/elizabeth-starr-academy-school-visit/) - If you think that national school standards are creating cookie-cutter schools, I wish you could have tagged along with me on my last school visit! The Elizabeth Starr Academy, which I visited for Author Day along with Josh Brown, Diana Medler, Randy Wisehart, and Natalie Goeke Proudfoot, has created a “Discovery Zone”: a micro-society with
- [Revolutionary Friends - Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/revolutionary-friends-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Revolutionary Friends; General George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette by Selene Castrovilla; illustrated by Drazen Kozjan; Calkins Creek, 2013. 40 pages; $16.95 (hardcover); reading level: ages 7-12. The story of the reserved George Washington’s initially reluctant friendship with the young French officer whose heart “enlisted” in the American struggle for independence from Britain, is
- [Highlights for Children and Me](https://conniewooldridge.com/highlights-for-children-and-me/) - Late on a Saturday night a few weeks ago, a writer friend and I arrived at the Boyds Mills, Pennsylvania, homestead belonging to the family that started, and still publishes, the venerable magazine Highlights for Children. The editor, Kent Brown, and his family have been intertwined with the magazine for three generations and my writing
- [Anatomy of Nonfiction](https://conniewooldridge.com/anatomy-of-nonfiction/) - If you click on the “Resources” tab on the home page of my website, you’ll find all kinds of helpful information I've gathered (and continue to gather!) for writers, readers, and educators. The most recent addition is a blog by Peggy Thomas called Anatomy of Nonfiction: Writing True Stories for Children. A wonderful nonfiction writer herself, Peggy is
- [Win a Complimentary Manuscript Critique by Connie!](https://conniewooldridge.com/win-a-complimentary-manuscript-critique-by-connie/) - I'm offering a free manuscript critique of a picture book or up to 3,000 words of a book for older readers. To be eligible to win this opportunity, simply sign up to receive my enewsletter and very occasional communications for writers and readers. Please share this opportunity with writers that you know! A winner to
- [USS Monitor Crewmembers Buried](https://conniewooldridge.com/uss-monitor-crewmembers-buried/) - The year 2012 marked the 150th anniversary of both the launch and the sinking of USS Monitor. The news continues in 2013. On Friday, March 8, 151 years after they went down with the Monitor, two unknown sailors were buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. In case you missed it, you can
- [Reid Hospital Goes to the Library!](https://conniewooldridge.com/reid-hospital-goes-to-the-library/) - According to the preschool set, MONSTERS ROCK!!! When a group of Reid Hospital physicians’ spouses were invited to bring their children to Morrisson-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana, for the morning, they created a monster craft, ate monster cupcakes, and listened to yours truly reading monster books. Those who participated (and you, If you've found your way to
- [Writing Nonfiction (Two Views!)](https://conniewooldridge.com/writing-nonfiction-two-views/) - It would seem that, when you do something as solitary as writing, you probably never meet other writers. But that’s not true. We writers meet each other all the time at book events, presentations, online…somehow we find one another. I've known children’s writer Andrea Cheng for quite a few years and when she asked me to
- [Etched in Clay Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/etched-in-clay-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Etched in Clay; The Life of Dave, Enslaved Potter and Poet by Andrea Cheng; illustrated with woodcuts by the author; Lee & Low, 2013. 143 pages; $17.95 (hardcover); reading level: ages 10 and up. Born into slavery in 1801, Dave should have lived an invisible life and died unknown. That he didn't is due to an almost
- [Marmee & Louisa; The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/marmee-louisa-the-untold-story-of-louisa-may-alcott-and-her-mother-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Marmee & Louisa; The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother by Eve LaPlante; Free Press, 2012. 368 pages; $26.00 (hardcover). This book is a game-changer. As LaPlante points out, “the packaging of Louisa…along with the idea that her mother was irrelevant” began immediately after her death. The world was told that Louisa
- [The Republic of Childhood](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-republic-of-childhood/) - Just inside the cover of an 1895 book by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin entitled The Republic of Childhood is a librarian’s note: “Attention Patron: This volume is too fragile for any future repair.” In the aftermath of recent shootings and bombings, it’s tempting to ask if the Republic of Childhood itself (that brief season of
- [Suite Française Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/suite-francaise-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky; translated from the French by Sandra Smith. Vintage Books, 2007. 403 pages; $15.00 (paperback); reading level: adult. Némirovsky’s novel is accompanied by some fifty pages of notes. If you read only the novel itself, you will take up a panoramic, camera’s-eye view of Paris in June of 1940. You will
- [The National Road Yard Sale Happens May 29th - June 2nd, 2013](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-national-road-yard-sale-may-29th-june-2nd-2013/) - The National Road Yard sale (in the Richmond, IN area) begins on Wednesday, June 29th. Click here for information on other Yard Sales along The Road. About the National Road President Thomas Jefferson signed legislation for the first federally funded highway in 1803 - and the rest is history! The Road is commonly known as US
- [Work in Progress #1: Drowning!](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-drowning/) - I’m hard at work on a new young adult biography and drowning in research! Before I attempted my first longer biography (The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton) research for shorter pieces was a simple task consisting of three steps: create a list of the books and articles I needed to read, find the books and
- [Work in Progress #2: To Write or Not to Write](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-to-write-or-not-to-write/) - I mentioned in my last blog that I would talk about when to stop researching and start writing. The truth is, I've already started writing...but only sort of. I've found it really helps to get the first three chapters of a piece down as quickly as possible. So, as soon as I've read four or five key books on my
- [The 2013 OKI Children's Literature Conference](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-2013-oki-childrens-literature-conference/) - Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge and Andrea Cheng (author of ETCHED IN CLAY) will be presenting at the OKI Children's Literature Conference on Saturday, November 2 at Thomas More College. This year's conference is entitled "The New Face of Nonfiction: So Much More to Explore"
- [Work in Progress #3: Writing and Then Really Writing](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-3-writing-and-then-really-writing/) - Confession: I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. Translation to my nonfiction writing life: I have trouble keeping piles of research straight while trying to write a decent story. Writing is often about solving problems of this sort and here’s an idea I’m trying that seems to be helping with this particular
- [Work in Progress #4: Elizabeth Gilbert to the Rescue](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-4-elizabeth-gilbert-to-the-rescue/) - Writers, like all who create, suffer mightily. We wonder if we will ever write anything “worthy” and, if we do come up with something that gets noticed, we wonder if we will ever be a second act. I’m told that the great Dr. Suess (a.k.a. Theodore Geisel) felt the Cat in the Hat constantly taunting
- [Read to Your Dog!](https://conniewooldridge.com/read-to-your-dog/) - When I think of therapy dogs, I think of dogs assisting blind or disabled people. It turns out dogs can be “Tail Waggin’ Tutors” as well. Yep! Dogs can help teach kids to read! Actually, the dogs are trained to just sit still and listen, which is something we helpful adults are not very good
- [Work in Progress #5: A Masterpiece! (Or...Not)](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-5-a-masterpiece-or-not/) - Last Friday I came to the halfway point of my young adult biography. I finished chapter 5. I decided to go back and read the whole thing from the beginning. After focusing on words, sentences, and paragraphs for so long, it seemed like a good time to take a look at the Work as a
- [Work in Progress #6: Snails Take Heart!](https://conniewooldridge.com/snails-take-heart/) - I am a hopelessly slow writer. I set aside three to four hours each morning for writing and on a good day, I have one and a half typed pages to show for it. On a bad day, I can have two paragraphs. I never sit and stare into space. My fingers are always on
- [Work in Progress #7: Writing Thin](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-7-writing-thin/) - As I was plugging ahead with the narrative outline for Chapter 6, I discovered I was “writing thin.” As thorough as I try to be with my research before sitting down to write, there are numerous spots along the way when my writing gets “thin” - it becomes hesitant, tentative, and starts to sound like
- [Work in Progress #8: Through the Nitty Gritty to the Good Stuff](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-8-through-the-nitty-gritty-to-the-good-stuff/) - I've hit yet another “thin” place that I’ll have to thicken up with more research before I continue with my narrative outline of chapter 6. My subject took a “motor” trip from New York to San Francisco in 1915. It seemed like a bit of a lark that had nothing significant to do with the
- [Work in Progress #9: Here to There](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-9-here-to-there/) - I finally finished my narrative outline for chapter 6 last week and sprinted through the actual writing of it. A confession: I cheated a bit! There were supposed to be two major “points of focus,” two major events, that were to form the basis for the chapter. When I actually did the writing, the first
- [Work in Progress #10: Writing and Living](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-10-writing-and-living/) - I finished chapter 6 at a week-long writer’s retreat where I was happily holed up in a cabin in Pennsylvania and had no distractions. There were no “real life” things to do like dishes and laundry and I was surrounded by thirteen other people, busily writing in their own cabins, which spurred me on. The
- [Letters vs. E-mails](https://conniewooldridge.com/letters-vs-e-mails/) - I plan to stop writing biographies as soon as the necessary background research takes me from old letters stored in archives to e-mails stored goodness knows where. I get nightmares thinking about researching e-mails and, frankly, I just don’t think I’m cut out for it. So I’ll continue to write about people long-gone who tended
- [Work in Progress #11:  Umbrella Research](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-11-umbrella-research/) - There’s another aspect to research that I never realize the importance of until I stop doing it. I call it “Umbrella Research” because it covers everything I write from Esther Morris taking a stagecoach out to Wyoming in 1869 to Edith Wharton living in her two elegant homes in France just after World War I.
- [The Poison Lady](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-poison-lady/) - Writers keep strange company sometimes. This particular weekend, I was invited to join a yearly gathering of mystery writers called “Magna Cum Murder.” What could I, a writer of nonfiction for children, have to contribute to a conversation on mystery-writing? Did I do research? I was asked. Then I could participate on the “Research, Reality,
- [Work in Progress #12: Pesky Permissions Issues](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-12-pesky-permissions-issues/) - When I wrote the first draft of The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton, I quoted with wild abandon from her autobiography, her letters, and her fiction. I wanted readers to hear as much of the story as possible in Edith’s own words. I also quoted (with equally wild abandon!) from letters written to Edith by
- [Work in Progress #13: Holidays and Writer’s Guilt](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-13-holidays-and-writers-guilt/) - It never fails. Every year about mid-November, my writing grinds to a halt for about six weeks. Every year, I try not to let it happen and every year it does anyway. In my defense, Thanksgiving is when our children and their families try to make it home. And Christmas is the time when I
- [Work in Progress #14: Mini-Timelines](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-14-mini-timelines/) - As I emerge from the holidays and sit down at my computer again, I find it takes a long time to even remember where I was when I left off. I had written the first few paragraphs of Chapter 7 but stalled out for some reason. As I reread those paragraphs I find I don’t
- [The Allure of the Archives](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-allure-of-the-archives/) - There’s a misconception out there that everything worth knowing is available online. Not true! There are whole worlds of information only accessible to those willing to take a journey, brave the sometimes intimidating protocol of an archival collection, open boxes or folders full of random papers, and dig into material that very few people may
- [Behind the Beautiful Forevers; Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity Reviewed by Connie Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/behind-the-beautiful-forevers-life-death-and-hope-in-a-mumbai-undercity-reviewed-by-connie-wooldridge/) - Behind the Beautiful Forevers; Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo. Random House, 2012. 256 pages; $27.00 (hardback). Reading level: adult. In 1991, when a band of laborers was trucked in from Tamil Nadu to repair a runway at the Mumbai Airport, they decided to stay. They draped empty cement sacks
- [Connie is Committed to Providing Great Resources for Educators, Librarians, and Writers. See Connie's List...](https://conniewooldridge.com/connie-is-committed-to-providing-great-resources-for-educators-librarians-and-writers-see-connie-list/) - Lesson plans for Just Fine the Way They Are Two education instructors from Earlham College created these 3 lesson plans in Comprehension, Social Studies-Transportation, and Writing to accompany my book about the National Road. >> View/Download lesson plans & resources Just Fine the Way They Are is available as a Book, CD, or Cassette Two education instructors from Earlham College created these
- [Creative Writing Now is Offering a 5-part Audio Course on Writing and Publishing Children’s Books](https://conniewooldridge.com/creative-writing-is-now-offering-a-5-part-audio-course-on-writing-and-publishing-childrens-books/) - Interested in starting a career as a children’s book author? Then check out this 5 part audio course. Connie lead the course on writing non-fiction, and the other courses are taught by accomplished writers Linda Leopold Strauss, Sally Derby, Emma Carlson-Berne and Mary Kay Carson. >> Learn More / Purchase the Course Course Contents Write and
- [The Children’s Literature Network is Now Offering “Mentors for Rent!"](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-childrens-literature-network-is-now-offering-mentors-for-rent/) - The Children’s Literature Network has a unique offering called “Mentors for Rent,” a consulting/coaching/critiquing service for writers of children’s or Young Adult books. Mentors for Rent is ... A consulting/coaching/critiquing service for those who write for children or young adults. Two award-winning children’s book writers who have long-term experience as writing teachers and coaches. Happy
- [Connie's Winter Reading List.  What Are You Reading?](https://conniewooldridge.com/connies-winter-reading-list-what-are-you-reading/) - Our snowy winter here in Indiana is slowing me down and providing an opportunity to make a dent in the pile of titles stacked on my nightstand. Canada by Richard Ford. Besides the author’s credentials (he won a Pulitzer for his novel Independence Day), the first sentence has me hooked: “First, I’ll tell about the
- [Did You Know Connie Speaks and Presents For School and Community Programs?](https://conniewooldridge.com/did-you-know-connie-speaks-and-presents-for-school-and-community-programs/) - Connie is an experienced speaker and presenter who enjoys sharing her passion for writing and her experiences as a writer with audiences of all ages. She has been invited to speak to K-12 and college students, educators, writers’ groups, community, civic and professional organizations, library audiences and seniors - wherever book lovers gather! Connie presented
- [Canada Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/canada-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Canada by Richard Ford. Ecco/HarperCollins, 2012. 420 pages; $15.99 (paperback). Reading level: adult. When sixty-six-year-old Dell Parsons looks back on the six weeks that changed his life back when he was fifteen, he begins his story this way: “First I’ll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later.” It
- [Duck, Duck, Moose! Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/duck-duck-moose/) - Duck, Duck, Moose! by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen; illustrated by Noah Z. Jones; Disney/Hyperion, 2014. 32 pages; $16.99 (hardcover); reading level: ages 2-5. The text on each page of this story about three friends - two ducks and a moose - couldn't be more spare: You guessed it - “Duck, Duck, Moose.” The illustrations tell the tale
- [Monitor by James Tertius deKay Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/monitor-by-james-tertius-dekay-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Monitor; The Story of the Legendary Civil War Ironclad and the Man Whose Invention Changed the Course of History by James Tertius deKay. Ballantine Books, 1997. 247 pages; $11.95 (paperback). Reading level: high school/adult. Building on the premise that it was not the more famous land battles that determined the outcome of the Civil War
- [Common Core State Standards and My Writing](https://conniewooldridge.com/common-core-state-standards-and-my-writing/) - When Publishers Weekly asked public librarians to name the “big issues” they are currently talking about, Common Core was at the top of the list. These librarians see Common Core as an opportunity to spotlight the great nonfiction young library-users have been overlooking for years. You might want to take a look at their comments
- [Best Friends Pretend! by Linda Leopold Strauss Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/best-friends-pretend-by-linda-leopold-strauss-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Best Friends Pretend! by Linda Leopold Strauss; illustrated by Lynn Munsinger; Scholastic/Cartwheel Books, 2014. 14 pages; $6.99 (board book); reading level: ages 3-6. The two “princesses” dressed up in sparkly pinks and purples on the cover are a sure-fire draw for very young girls. But don’t be fooled into thinking they can’t pretend outside the
- [Edith Wharton Scorned](https://conniewooldridge.com/edith-wharton-scorned/) - The 2002 book Hell Hath No Fury, edited by Anna Holmes, is a collection of letters written by women at that excruciating, pathetic, heartbreaking, spent, disgusted, disillusioned moment when an affair is ending. Included in the contents, under the heading “The Silent Treatment,”is a 1910 letter from Edith Wharton to her lover, Morton Fullerton, who
- [Work in Progress #15: The Joy of a Legal Pad](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-15-the-joy-of-a-legal-pad/) - There’s a time in my writing process when I have been sweating and agonizing and re-thinking how to proceed with a chapter and am terrified to actually start writing it. The amount of material I have to include seems overwhelming, I need to be sure to include enough warm, human parts in the midst of
- [It's Children's Book Week!  Running May 12-18, 2014.  Learn More...](https://conniewooldridge.com/its-childrens-book-week-running-may-12-18-2014-learn-more/) - For 95 years, the importance of children reading and having access to books has been the focus of National Children's Book Week (NCBW). Special events, contests, freebies and literacy education are presented across the country by the non-profit Every Child A Reader. Teachers, writers, parents, booksellers, librarians, publishers, teens and kids: Find all kinds of
- [Work in Progress #16: Leaving the Interstate](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-16-leaving-the-interstate/) - A few weeks ago, I left my desk research, loaded a bunch of books and accordion files into my trunk and drove east. I was on the Interstate for two days before I veered off onto some winding mountain roads that would lead to my destination. “Leaving the Interstate”is the perfect metaphor for the particular
- [Questions From Kids #1: How Long Did It Take You to Finish Your First Book, Wicked Jack?](https://conniewooldridge.com/questions-from-kids-1-how-long-did-it-take-you-to-finish-your-first-book-wicked-jack/) - It took me three weeks plus 10 years. I first heard the story when I was in Graduate Library School at the University of Chicago in 1975 and it made me laugh. Ten years later (and by that time I was married with four children!) it popped into my mind and I started wondering if
- [Questions From Kids #2: What Do You Like Best and Least...?](https://conniewooldridge.com/questions-from-kids-2-what-do-you-like-best-and-least/) - Who do you work for? Actually, I work for myself. As a “freelance”writer I sell my work to any magazine or book publishing company that would like to publish my stories. What do you like best about your job? The fact that I can set my own hours, work very early in the morning or late
- [Writing and Talking](https://conniewooldridge.com/writing-and-talking/) - Awhile back, I wrote a blog (“I Don’t Talk - I Just Write”) about how terrified I was when people discovered I was a published writer and started asking me to do talks. Today I can tell you that not only did I overcome that initial fear, but the talks I do for various audiences
- [Wicked Jack, a Classic Halloween Tale - Presented Live Friday, October 31st at 1:00p.m.](https://conniewooldridge.com/wicked-jack-a-classic-halloween-tale-presented-live-friday-october-31st-at-100p-m/) - Being a native of North Carolina, I love the colorful folktales of Appalachia that have been passed on from generation to generation. “Meaner than a rattlesnake” Wicked Jack was one of my favorites. Some say this folktale explains the origin of Halloween jack-o-lanterns! I “dug around’ to find as many retellings of this folktale as
- [Fall Crafts for Children](https://conniewooldridge.com/fall-crafts-for-children/) - I am not a "crafty" person but I found this site with its autumn-inspired craft projects for children of all ages - so much fun, creative and simple, I had to share it with you. The Crafty Crow, A Children’s Craft Collective I love the crafts featured on the home page – all inspired by
- [When a Writer Isn't Writing](https://conniewooldridge.com/when-a-writer-isnt-writing/) - Seeing young people experience live symphonic music - some for the very first time ever - is an event worth leaving my desk for. One morning a few weeks ago, I watched a line of school buses pull up at the entrance to Richmond Civic Hall and drop off hundreds of seventh graders. After they
- [Connie is Speaking at the Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana Children's Literature Conference, Saturday, Nov. 8th](https://conniewooldridge.com/connie-is-speaking-at-the-ohio-kentucky-indiana-childrens-literature-conference-saturday-nov-8th/) - Connie will be speaking at the Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana Children's Literature Conference, Saturday, November 8, 2014. Traditional registration is now available for the 2014 Ohio Kentucky Indiana Children’s Literature Conference! Adventure Across the Ages: Exploring Literature from Pre-K to YA, featuring Stephanie Bodeen, Sneed Collard III, and Jon and Pamela Voelkel will be held November
- [The Big and the Small of it](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-big-and-the-small-of-it/) - Speaking is a part of the writing life. Initially I thought I would speak to larger and larger audiences as I became better and better known. Two events this past weekend show how wrong I was! On Friday, October 31, I joined forces with illustrator Will Hillenbrand and Richmond Symphony Orchestra flutist Evelien Woolard to
- [On Your Mark, Get Set, READ! -  First Annual National Readathon Day on January 24th!](https://conniewooldridge.com/on-your-mark-get-set-read-first-annual-national-readathon-day-on-january-24th/) - On Saturday, January 24, from noon to 4 p.m. is the first annual National Readathon Day, a marathon to encourage reading across the nation and promote literacy. The National Book Foundation, Penguin Random House, Goodreads, and Mashable are partnering on the event, which will benefit the Foundation’s education programs. Just think, to participate you have
- [Edith Wharton still going strong at 153! Her Birthday Being Celebrated at The Mount on January 24th](https://conniewooldridge.com/edith-wharton-still-going-strong-at-153-her-birthday-being-celebrated-at-the-mount-on-january-24th/) - At Edith Wharton’s former home and museum, The Mount near Lennox, Massachusetts, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s birthday is celebrated in style and with an emphasis on all things literary. This Saturday, January 24, her birthday begins with bookshares over bagels and continues with dramatic readings, silent reading time, raffles, and a poetry open mic –
- [Politics and Picture Books: A Proposed Lesson for High School Students](https://conniewooldridge.com/politics-and-picture-books-a-proposed-lesson-for-high-school-students/) - If I told you the U. S. Defense Department’s procurement process would be a great subject for a picture book, you might not take me too seriously. The topic sounds complicated and boring and nonfiction writers tend to look for the exotic, the unheard of, the crazy, the bizarre. A good story idea can also
- [Inspiring Children’s Book Quotes From Cat in the Hat, Harry Potter, Peter Pan, and More!](https://conniewooldridge.com/inspiring-childrens-book-quotes-cat-in-the-hat-harry-potter-peter-pan/) - The website Quotery.com has created an infographic called “20 Inspiring Children’s Book Quotes.” An embed code is provided at this link, so you can add the graphic to your website.See it below... I think they’ve made excellent choices – beautiful and wise words from a variety of texts – from Aesop’s Fables to a Brothers
- [Moaning and Groaning](https://conniewooldridge.com/moaning-and-groaning/) - I’ve done more moaning and groaning than writing since last November. Just after Thanksgiving of 2014, my husband and I moved out of our Richmond, Indiana house (where we'd lived for twenty-three years) to a new much smaller home in Indianapolis. The boxes and the upheaval and the not-knowing-where-anything-is pushed my writing time off the
- [Like a River; A Civil War Novel by Kathy Cannon Wiechman Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/like-a-river-a-civil-war-novel-by-kathy-cannon-wiechman-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Like a River; A Civil War Novel by Kathy Cannon Wiechman; Calkins Creek, 2015. 336 pages; $17.95 (hardcover); reading level: ages 10 and up. The stage is deftly set in the first two pages of this remarkable novel: we are in Ohio, the Civil War is raging, and fifteen-year-old, Leander Jordan (“Jordan like the river”)
- [Leave the Door Open! - 40 Percent of 6-11 Year Olds Wish Their Parents Hadn't Stopped Reading to Them](https://conniewooldridge.com/leave-the-door-open-40-percent-of-6-11-year-olds-wish-their-parents-hadnt-stopped-reading-to-them/) - My husband and I have four children - all now adults. Reading to them was always a treat for me and watching each of them in turn grow “too old to be read to” was an agony. When my younger two boys, who shared a room and slept in twin beds side by side, were
- [Best Children’s Book Ever!](https://conniewooldridge.com/best-childrens-book-ever/) - According to dozens of critics from around the world, Charlotte’s Web is the best book ever published for children aged 10 and under. If I had been asked to come up with the best children’s book ever, dozens of titles would have come to mind: Sylvester and the Magic Pebble for one (a darling of anti-establishment
- [How It All Began by Penelope Lively Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/how-it-all-began-by-penelope-lively-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - How It All Began by Penelope Lively; Penguin Books, 2012. 229 pages; $16.00 (paperback); reading level: adult. It all began when 77-year-old Charlotte Rainsford was mugged; which meant she had to move into her daughter Rose’s house, where she tutored Anton, her adult literacy student, while her broken hip mended; which meant Rose noticed Anton’s
- [Book Launch! - Journey From An Idea To Publication](https://conniewooldridge.com/book-launch-journey-from-an-idea-to-publication/) - A while back, I traveled to the Blue Marble Bookstore in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, for the book launch of Like a River by Kathy Cannon Wiechman. Book launches are exciting affairs. Of course, they’re really exciting if it’s your own book that’s being launched. But the journey from idea to publication is such a long
- [Work in Progress #17: A Quote File](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-a-quote-file/) - I keep a quote file on my desktop where I can record interesting tidbits from the things I read. I've developed a list of categories to file them under so that I can access them when a particular subject comes up in a piece I might be working on: “aging,” “being/becoming,” “freedom,” “history-writing,” “self,” “superficiality,”
- [If You Plant a Seed by Kadir Nelson Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/if-you-plant-a-seed-by-kadir-nelson-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - If You Plant a Seed; words and paintings by Kadir Nelson; Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins, 2015. 32 pages; $18.99 (hardcover); reading level: ages 3-8. Seeds - both real and metaphoric - are the subject of this stunning, oversized picture book. The biblical adage of reaping what you sow (carrots…selfishness…kindness) is conveyed in a restrained text that
- [Things to Do With Children This Summer - Slow Down and Read To Your Kids.  See Reasons Why...](https://conniewooldridge.com/things-to-do-with-children-this-summer-slow-down-and-read-to-your-kids-see-reasons-why/) - The message that parents should read to their kids is getting out, I know. But how many of us who take that message seriously could list 10 compelling reasons why it’s so important? Below are a number of common sense reasons why the parent-child reading experience affects so many areas in a child’s life so positively.
- [Work in Progress #18: The Moving Light at the End of the Tunnel](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-18-the-moving-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel/) - I am three quarters of the way through my Emily Post biography…maybe (dare I hope it???) even further. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Except for the fact that writing a longer piece always goes slower and slower the further I proceed because I realize with every sentence I write
- [Vegetables in Underwear by Jared Chapman Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/vegetables-in-underwear-by-jared-chapman-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Vegetables in Underwear Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge. There are all kinds and colors and sizes parading across the pages of this wacky picture book.
- [Work in Progress #19: Warming Things Up For My Emily Post Biography](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-19-warming-things-up-for-my-emily-post-biography/) - As I begin chapter 11 of my Emily Post biography and survey the material I have to work with, it all looks a little cold to me. It’s the 1930s, and the pinnacle moment of Emily’s life (the publication of her etiquette book) took place in the last chapter. Now I have to figure out
- [Work in Progress #20: Are You Finished Yet With Your Emily Post Biography?](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-20-are-you-finished-yet-with-your-emily-post-biography/) - “Are you finished with that book you’re working on yet?” It’s a question I get asked over and over again. I suspect that, lurking behind that question are other unspoken ones, like “Do you perhaps have procrastination issues?” or “Are you really writing a book or just putting us all on?” It’s hard to explain
- [Great Literary Quotes! See How Many You Remember...](https://conniewooldridge.com/great-literary-quotes-see-how-many-you-remember/) - I learned to write as most writers have: by reading great books - children’s books, adult books, fiction, nonfiction…great writing is everywhere. Hearing moving, poignant, humorous, striking language in your mind as you read is like having a personal writing tutor. When I was young, I used to copy my favorite fairy tales, word by
- [The Haunting Quality of Edith Wharton](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-haunting-quality-of-edith-wharton/) - In her insightful article “Why Edith Wharton Haunts Us Still,” Anne Kingston speculates about why so many novelists these days are being compared to Edith Wharton. As Kingston observes, we've never stopped being obsessed by the very wealthy or by people trying to claw their way up the social ladder and Wharton is the master
- [Jump Back Paul; The Life and Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar by Sally Derby Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/jump-back-paul-the-life-and-poems-of-paul-laurence-dunbar-by-sally-derby-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Jump Back, Paul; The Life and Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar by Sally Derby; illustrated by Sean Qualls; Candlewick Press, 2015. 128 pages; $16.99 (hardcover); reading level: grades 5-9. From the first sentence of this concise, lyrical biography a grandmotherly narrator takes the reader firmly by the hand: “You never heard of the poet Paul
- [Work in Progress #21: How My Emily Post Biography Is a Bit Like... Edith Wharton: The Sequel!](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-21-how-my-emily-post-biography-is-a-bit-like-edith-wharton-the-sequel/) - Sequels are very popular these days, which is not good news for historical biographers. Our subjects tend to die at the end of the story. When I set out to do a biography of Emily Post three years ago, I certainly wasn’t thinking of the book as a sequel to Edith Wharton. No one was
- [The Zhivago Affair by Peter Finn and Petra Couvée Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-zhivago-affair-by-peter-finn-and-petra-couvee-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Zhivago Affair; The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle Over a Forbidden Book by Peter Finn and Petra Couvée; Pantheon Books/Random House, 2014. 352 pages; $26.95 (hardcover); reading level: adult. When the celebrated poet Boris Pasternak began the novel Doctor Zhivago in 1945, he and his fellow Russian writers were living under the terrifying,
- [Check Out the Books On My Reading List Through 2016 and See Why I Choose Them. My Reviews Will Follow!](https://conniewooldridge.com/check-out-the-books-on-my-reading-list-through-2016-and-see-why-i-choose-them-my-reviews-will-follow/) - Each year I have the agony and the ecstasy of choosing nine books to read with my Indianapolis book discussion group. I don’t read the books before I select them. I choose them on the basis of reviews (New York Review of Books, the magazine Bookmarks, NPR) and recommendations from friends, librarians, writers, and bookstore staff.
- [Edith Wharton Safe at Home - The Mount in Lenox, Massachusetts is a Place Worth Visiting!](https://conniewooldridge.com/edith-wharton-safe-at-home-the-mount-in-lenox-massachusetts-is-a-place-worth-visiting/) - When I visit the home of a historical figure, the thing I’m looking for is sense of that long ago human being. I want to feel the very presence of the person, imagine him moving through the rooms, see her puttering in the garden or taking a book off the shelf to read. Edith Wharton
- [Gilded Age Baby Rattle of Edith Wharton Being Sold for $16,500](https://conniewooldridge.com/gilded-age-baby-rattle-of-edith-wharton-being-sold-for-16500/) - An Edith Wharton item has created a huge stir. Unfortunately, it’s not a newly discovered manuscript or a stash of hidden letters that has captured the world’s attention but the sale of Wharton’s very own baby rattle….for $16,500! Before you get too excited, you should know that the rattle, made of coral and sterling silver,
- [A Message for My Books - Inspired By a Passage in Alberto Manguel's Book Curiosity](https://conniewooldridge.com/a-message-for-my-books-inspired-by-a-passage-in-alberto-manguels-book-curiosity/) - There are certain books I gaze at from afar, knowing I would love to read them but knowing, too, that I probably won’t because my list is overly long and I’m becoming more and more aware of how little time there seems to be in a day. One book I know I won’t get to
- [Connie Will Be Signing Books at Morrisson-Reeves Library on Dec. 5th at Local Author's Fair](https://conniewooldridge.com/connie-will-be-signing-books-at-morrisson-reeves-library-on-dec-5th-at-local-authors-fair/) - Connie will be signing books from noon to 2:00 on Saturday, December 5 at Morrisson-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana. There will be a host of events going on for the whole family. Stop in and say hello! >> Details and Directions Other Events Meet Other Local Authors 12-3pm Meet local authors and have an opportunity
- [Lila by Marilynne Robinson Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/lila-by-marilynne-robinson-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Lila by Marilynne Robinson; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014. 261 pages; $26.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. This third installment in a series of “companion” novels covering the same events from different viewpoints (see Gilead, 2004 and Home, 2009) fills us in on the mysterious Lila. Rescued as a small, motherless child by Doll, Lila was
- [Train Dreams by Denis Johnson Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/train-dreams-by-denis-johnson-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Train Dreams by Denis Johnson. Picador/Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 116 pages; $13.00 (paperback). Reading level: adult. In a scant 116 pages, Johnson chronicles the life and death of both Robert Grainier and the American northwest from the 1880s through the 1960s. Grainier builds bridges, fells trees, transports goods, loses his wife of four years to a fire, and by
- [Work in Progress #22 for My Emily Post Biography: Making Space for a Large Thought](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-22-for-my-emily-post-biography-making-space-for-a-large-thought/) - When you’re writing a longer book, it moves forward in layers. On the surface, one word follows another and a sentence happens; one sentence follows another and a paragraph happens; one paragraph follows another and a chapter happens. Underneath the words and sentences and paragraphs, themes also have to be moving forward and these can
- [Who Done It? by Olivier Tallec Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/who-done-it-by-olivier-tallec-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Who Done It? by Olivier Tallec; illustrated by the author; Chronicle Books, 2015. 32 pages; $15.99 (hardcover); reading level: ages 3-6. With a board-book style cover and thicker-than-usual pages that turn from bottom to top like a calendar, this picture book is sturdy, unique, and inspired. Each two-page spread sports two rows of animals and/or
- [Being Mortal; Medicine and What Matters in the End  by Atul Gawande Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/being-mortal-medicine-and-what-matters-in-the-end-by-atul-gawande-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Being Mortal; Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande. Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, 2014. 282 pages; $26.00 (hardback). Reading level: adult. Being Mortal is based on some unwelcome truths: That we are mortal, that many of us will transition from independence to dependence as we age, and that we will all eventually die.
- [Thwarted! Do You Know Any Great Places to Write Near Zionsville, Indiana? UPDATE: Darrin's Coffee Company is Now Closed!](https://conniewooldridge.com/a-new-place-to-write-darrins-coffee-company-in-zionsville-indiana/) - After just posting on how overjoyed I was to find a great new writing place - Darrin’s Coffee Company in Zionsville, Indiana - I arrived there last week with my computer and a stack of books to be met with a sign: CLOSED. Closed? How could my writing place be closed? Another Darrin’s customer arrived
- [Check Out the Books On My Reading List Through 2017 and See Why I Choose Them. My Reviews Will Follow!](https://conniewooldridge.com/check-out-the-books-on-my-reading-list-through-2017-and-see-why-i-choose-them-my-reviews-will-follow/) - Because I write nonfiction, I have to read a lot of books as part of my research. That means I have to be terribly picky about the books I read for pleasure. I’m not completely through my 2015-2016 stack (three more to go!) but I’ve already selected the nine titles that will be stacked on
- [ABC Dream by Kim Krans Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/abc-dream-by-kim-krans-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - ABC Dream; by Kim Krans; Random House, 2016. 32 pages; $16.99 (hardcover); reading level: ages 2-5. The letters on the pages of this alphabet book are the main event: large and bold, some solid black and white, others plaid or quilted (you guessed it - P and Q!). It’s the surrounding illustrations, however, that are
- [Work in Progress #23: Terrified! It's Time to Make a Large Point in My Emily Post Biography](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-23-terrified-its-time-to-make-a-large-point-in-my-emily-post-biography/) - I have been writing for two hours, not one word of it on my actual manuscript. I have reached the place where I have to make a large point. Everything in the book has been leading to this moment. I probably have a paragraph…two at the very most…to say some very conclusive things and I
- [Work In Progress #24: The First Draft of My New Emily Post Biography is Completed!](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-24-the-first-draft-of-my-new-emily-post-biography-is-completed/) - This is a euphoric moment: I have finished my first draft! I know from past experience that it’s useless to try and keep myself contained and realistic. My imagination is running like wild, far into the future…past the submission process (there’s no guarantee my book will find a publisher at this point)…past all the work
- [Work in Progress #25:  How I Got Myself to Send My Emily Post Biography to My Agent After 4 Years of Work!](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-25-how-i-got-myself-to-send-my-emily-post-biography-to-my-agent-after-4-years-of-work/) - The first step in my revision process was to print out the manuscript and read it through from beginning to end making big-picture comments in the margins like “painfully slow here” or “Where exactly are you going???” or the old standby “awk” (for awkward). I wouldn’t let myself stop for typos or to make small
- [Work in Progress #26: Waiting To Find A Publisher For My Emily Post Biography](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-26-waiting-to-find-a-publisher-for-my-emily-post-biography/) - Any seasoned writer will tell you that after you submit a piece to an editor or an agent, you should immediately start in on your next writing project. I’m following that advice to a point. I’ve started doing some reading on various topics I might be interested in pursuing. To be honest, though, ninety percent
- [All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/all-the-light-we-cannot-see-by-anthony-doerr-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr; Scribner, 2014. 530 pages; $27.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. The story begins not with part one but with part “Zero” on the French Island of Saint-Malo, August 7, 1944. Through the course of the novel, we travel in a negative direction in time and space -
- [Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/nora-webster-by-colm-toibin-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín; Scribner, 2014. 373 pages; $27.00 (hardcover); reading level: adult. This is the quietest of books. So quiet that, after you take your place behind Nora Webster eyes and realize she’s just lost her husband, you might wonder if anything is going to happen…or if this will be a psychological study
- [Gator Dad by Brain Lies Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/gator-dad-by-brain-lies-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Gator Dad by Brain Lies; illustrated by the author. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016. 32 pages; $17.99 (hardcover); reading level: ages 3-7. This stay-at-home alligator dad takes care of his three offspring his way! Breakfast fish fly through the air, errands are run with the emphasis on “run,” and a neat house is definitely a low
- [Ninety Percent of Everything by Rose George Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/ninety-percent-of-everything-by-rose-george-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Ninety Percent of Everything by Rose George; Picador/Henry Holt & Company, 2013. 287 pages; $16.00 (paperback); reading level: adult. The title of Rose’s book clues us in to her first main point: ninety percent of the food we eat and the things that fill our homes, cupboards, offices, and yards comes to us by sea.
- [The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-art-of-hearing-hearbeats-by-jan-philipp-sendker-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Art of Hearing Hearbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker; translated from the German by Kevin Wiliarty; Other Books/Random House, 2006. 325 pages; $15.95 (paperback); reading level: adult. Responding to a just-discovered letter, Julia Win, a hard-nosed young New York City attorney, travels to Kalaw, Burma, her missing father’s birth place, to track him down. The story
- [Resources for Preschool Parents - Helping Children To Begin Reading Books](https://conniewooldridge.com/resources-for-preschool-parents-helping-children-to-begin-reading-books/) - Valerie Garfield, an editor at Simon & Schuster, has started a great new blog on sharing books with preschoolers called “Bookmom.” Recent posts are “How to Read a Wordless Book,” “How to Read a Book to a Baby and Toddler," and “Sometimes I Read Books I Hate.” I’m adding her blog to the Resources tab
- [Douglas, You Need Glasses! by Ged Adamson Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/douglas-you-need-glasses-by-ged-adamson-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Douglas, You Need Glasses! by Ged Adamson; illustrated by the author; Schwartz & Wade Books/Random House, 2016. 32 pages; $16.99 (hardcover); reading level: ages 3-7. When Douglas the nearsighted dog mistakes leaves for squirrels, sits so close to the television that no one else can see, and fetches a beehive instead of a ball, his
- [The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/the-orchardist-by-amanda-coplin-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin; HarperCollins, 2012. 426 pages; $15.99 (paperback); reading level: adult. Pairs of relationships drive the plot of this beautifully-written, tightly structured novel (Coplin’s first). In 1865, when William Talmadge is an orphaned 17-year-old living in what will later be the state of Washington, his younger sister goes into the forest to
- [Checkout This Infographic About 18 Famous Writers’ Work Habits...](https://conniewooldridge.com/checkout-this-infographic-about-18-famous-writers-work-habits/) - Mostly, we writers figure out how to write on our own. Sometimes we read books about writing or go to conferences to hear about writing but, in the end, it’s really a matter of trial-and-error. We stumble on something that seems promising, we give it a go and if it works, it becomes part of
- [Work in Progress #27: Waiting To Find A Publisher For My Emily Post Biography (The Sequel!)](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-27-waiting-to-find-a-publisher-for-my-emily-post-biography-the-sequel/) - A writer’s life is full of surprises. As it turned out, my agent didn’t come back with either of the responses I described in my last Work in Progress blog. Instead, she suggested some revisions. They were pretty major revisions: Re-writing the last chapter, putting in more material that would appeal to the junior high/high
- [Big Tractor by Nathan Clement Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/big-tractor-by-nathan-clement-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Big Tractor by Nathan Clement; illustrated by the author; Boyds Mills Press/Highlights, 2015. 32 pages; $16.95 (hardcover); reading level: ages 3-7. Reminiscent of the human-machine relationship in the 1943 classic Katy and the Big Snow, the farmer in this picture book talks his tractor-friend through the seasons: he wakes “Ol’ Partner” for spring planting, urges
- [Jane Friedman's Blog is An Outstanding Resource for Writers](https://conniewooldridge.com/jane-friedmans-blog-is-an-outstanding-resource-for-writers/) - Jane Friedman (former publisher of Writer’s Digest) caught my eye with this quote from her online bio: “I have a special interest in how the digital age is affecting and transforming writing careers, publishing, and storytelling.” I had heard glowing things about her before attending the July 2016 Midwest Writer’s Workshop at Ball State University
- [Tiger and Badger by Emily Jenkins Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/tiger-and-badger-by-emily-jenkins-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Tiger and Badger by Emily Jenkins; illustrated by Marie-Louise Gay; Candlewick Press, 2016. 32 pages; $15.99 (hardcover); reading level: ages 3-6. Using soft watercolors and acrylics, Gay has created an outdoor world with everything a child could dream of: phantasmagoric flowers, striped and polka-dotted birds, a stack of empty boxes, chairs out on the grass
- [Connie's Advice On How to Find a Literary Agent](https://conniewooldridge.com/connies-advice-on-how-to-find-a-literary-agent/) - It’s a question I’m asked repeatedly and one I’ve had a hard time answering: How do I find a reputable agent? I found my agent by first getting six books published and then approaching a top notch agency with my latest manuscript and my publishing history. But I got my first contract in the early
- [Fairy Tales for Mr. Barker by Jessica Ahlberg Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/fairy-tales-for-mr-barker-by-jessica-ahlberg-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Fairy Tales for Mr. Barker by Jessica Ahlberg; illustrated by the author. Candlewick Press, 2016. 28 pages; $15.99 (hardcover); reading level: ages 2-5. When Lucy’s dog, Mr. Barker, loses interest in the story she’s reading to him he leaps out of her bedroom window through a cut-out in the page. Lucy follows him through successive
- [Duck, Duck, Porcupine! by Salina Yoon Reviewed by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge](https://conniewooldridge.com/duck-duck-porcupineby-salina-yoon-reviewed-by-connie-nordhielm-wooldridge/) - Duck, Duck, Porcupine! by Salina Yoon; illustrated by the author; Bloomsbury, 2016. 64 pages; $9.99 (hardcover); reading level: Grades K-2. The characters in this collection of three (very!) short stories for beginning readers are Big Duck, the self-appointed boss; Porcupine, the passive worrier; and Little Duck, who says not a word but who knows, in
- [Work in Progress #28: A Reconstruction of My Emily Post Biography](https://conniewooldridge.com/work-in-progress-28-a-reconstruction-of-my-emily-post-biography/) - After my agent read my latest draft of Emily we had a long phone conversation. I still had more work to do. I needed to begin in medias res (in the middle of things), I needed to get to the significant part of Emily’s life more quickly, and I needed to shorten even more. What
- [A Bittersweet Interview - Listen to an Interview with Connie Wooldridge and the Late Andrea Cheng](https://conniewooldridge.com/a-bittersweet-interview-connie-wooldridge-and-the-late-andrea-cheng/) - It’s been over a year now since my writer-friend Andrea Cheng died - too quickly and too young - of cancer. She wrote some marvelous books, some of which are reviewed on my website, and she gave me invaluable advice about my writing over the years I knew her. Quite a few years ago, Andrea’s
- [Reading Like a Writer - All Writing Can Benefit From Clarity and Organization](https://conniewooldridge.com/reading-like-a-writer-all-writing-can-benefit-from-clarity-and-organization/) - I’m not fond of broccoli but I eat it anyway because it’s good for me. As a writer of nonfiction, I also do the writerly equivalent of eating broccoli. Midway through the January 19, 2017 issue of The New York Review of Books, I came to an article entitled “The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics” by

## Pages

- [Home](https://conniewooldridge.com/) - Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge’s vivid imagination and spirited storytelling are fueled by her love of travel, adventure, and the unconventional way she embraces all life has to offer.
- [When Esther Morris Headed West](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/when-ester-morris-headed-west/) - “It is truly a duty to tell children what life was like before they were born…[This] fine picture book biography accomplishes the task in the best possible way: not by preaching or reciting facts but through [an] engaging story of extraordinary example.” – New York Times Book Review, Betsy Groban
- [Thank You Very Much Captain Ericsson!](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/thankyou-very-much-captain-ericsson/) - the title refers to the gratitude of a nation, for Ericsson was the inventor of the U.S.S. Monitor, the famous ironclad that helped the North win the Civil War. Wooldridge effortlessly carries readers along in her jaunt through what will likely be unfamiliar history, her prose striking the perfect balance between fact and attitude.
- [Media](https://conniewooldridge.com/media/) - Media Kit Bio Pictures Fact Sheet Speaker Profile Just Fine the Way They Are Jacket Covers EVERYTHING - Combined Media Kit Connie's Books Wicked Jack The Legend of Strap Buckner When Esther Morris Headed West Thank You Very Much Captain Ericsson The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton Just Fine the Way They Are Radio Interviews
- [The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/the-brave-escape-of-edith-wharton/) - Beginning in childhood, Edith found ways to escape from society’s and her family’s expectations and follow an unconventional, creative path. Edith surrounded herself with the cultural creatives of her day, mostly male friends. Her literary and personal life, her witty and incisive correspondence, her fondness for automobiles and small dogs–all are detailed in this vibrant account of a woman well ahead of her time. Includes photographs, a bibliography, source notes, and an index.
- [Thank You!](https://conniewooldridge.com/thank-you/) - Thanks for subscribing to my mailing list!
- [Your Account](https://conniewooldridge.com/products-page/your-account/) - [userlog]
- [Transaction Results](https://conniewooldridge.com/products-page/transaction-results/) - [transactionresults]
- [Checkout](https://conniewooldridge.com/products-page/checkout/) - [shoppingcart]
- [Image Gallery](https://conniewooldridge.com/image-gallery/) - > Home - Image Gallery
- [Products Page](https://conniewooldridge.com/products-page/) - [productspage]
- [Resources](https://conniewooldridge.com/resources/) - For Writers The Midwest Writers Workshop at Ball State University - Terrific for writers of all levels; opportunity to "pitch" a story to an agent. Blog by Jane Friedman - Practical help on all aspects of writing from craft to marketing. Connie's comments on writing biographies - Part of a 5 part online course for writers. Elizabeth Gilbert:
- [Book Reviews](https://conniewooldridge.com/book-reviews/) - The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton Review - “Any dreamy or bookish girl who once loved ‘Harriet the Spy’ should immediately take up this lively new biography…the author brings to life Wharton’s joy, consuming energy and ability to turn adversity into fuel and hunger… I like to picture girls lying on the beach reading this
- [Reviews](https://conniewooldridge.com/reviews/) - The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton Review - “Any dreamy or bookish girl who once loved ‘Harriet the Spy’ should immediately take up this lively new biography…the author brings to life Wharton’s joy, consuming energy and ability to turn adversity into fuel and hunger… I like to picture girls lying on the beach reading this
- [Contact Connie](https://conniewooldridge.com/contact/)
- [What's New](https://conniewooldridge.com/whats-new/) - Upcoming Events, Articles, and Interviews Coming Soon!
- [Connie's Blogs](https://conniewooldridge.com/connies-blogs/)
- [Other Books](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/other-books/)
- [Reading](https://conniewooldridge.com/reading/) - Connie's Favorite Books The following books, read when I was in elementary school, are indelibly etched in my mind. I remember wanting to be in the world of these books and imagining that, if I just read them hard enough, I would be transported from my own mid-western suburban world to places where dragons lived
- [The Legend of Strap Buckner](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/the-legend-of-strap-buckner/) - “It’s the bluster and brawl kids will like most–and the comic, action-packed illustrations that make lively caricatures of everyone: settlers, Indians, Strap, and even the Devil himself. …a spirited regional offering.” – American Library Association’s Booklist
- [Books](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/) - Just Fine the Way They Are; From Dirt Roads to Rail Roads to Interstates Illustrated by Richard Walz Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills Press, 2011 Ages 8 and up $17.95 (hardcover) ISBN 13: 978-1-59078-710-6 The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton Clarion/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010 Young adult/Adult $20.00 (hardcover) ISBN 13: 978-0-547-23630-8 Thank You Very Much,
- [Wicked Jack](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/wicked-jack/) - Wicked Jack is meaner than a rattlesnake. One day, Saint Peter visits him in the Great Dismal Swamp, and Jack is nicer than usual. To reward him, Saint Peter grants him three wishes.
- [Refrains/Repeated Ideas](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/just-fine-the-way-they-are/teachers-resources/writers-craft-lesson-plan-for-just-fine-the-way-they-are/refrainsrepeated-ideas/) - Creating Interest And Reinforcing A Message… Suggested Activities Read and discuss the text, Just the Way They Are. Before you begin, prompt students to listen for ideas that are repeated throughout the story. Explain to students that an author might use a repeated phrase or idea to create interest or reinforce a message. Present the
- [Word Choice](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/just-fine-the-way-they-are/teachers-resources/writers-craft-lesson-plan-for-just-fine-the-way-they-are/word-choice/) - Moving and Enlightening A Reader… Suggested Activities Read and discuss the text, Just Fine the Way They Are. Before you begin; prompt students to listen for language that the author uses that is rich, colorful, and precise. As a class, generate a list of words or phrases that moved or enlightened the reader. As a
- [Writer's Craft Lesson Plan for Just Fine the Way They Are](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/just-fine-the-way-they-are/teachers-resources/writers-craft-lesson-plan-for-just-fine-the-way-they-are/) - Essential Question What is writer’s craft? How do writers use their craft to develop a story? Big Ideas The author’s voice projects a personal tone and flavor to a piece of writing. Figurative language creates visual images Purposeful, precise words move and enlighten a reader A refrain creates interest and reinforces a message Materials and
- [Voice](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/just-fine-the-way-they-are/teachers-resources/writers-craft-lesson-plan-for-just-fine-the-way-they-are/voice/) - Projecting a personal tone and flavor… Suggested activities Read and discuss the text, Just Fine the Way They Are. As a class discuss how the book made you feel… Did your feelings change as the book progressed? How do you think the author feels about the topic? When writing fiction, authors are able to create
- [Figurative Language](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/just-fine-the-way-they-are/teachers-resources/writers-craft-lesson-plan-for-just-fine-the-way-they-are/figurative-language/) - Creating Visual Images… Read and discuss the text, Just Fine the Way They Are, as a class. Discuss how an author uses figurative language to help create a picture in the reader’s mind. Figurative language is not intended to be interpreted in a literal sense. The author describes something through the use of unusual comparisons
- [Timeline](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/just-fine-the-way-they-are/teachers-resources/social-studies-lesson-plan-for-just-fine-the-way-they-are/timeline/) - Transportation transformed America… Suggested activities... Whole class activity Read and discuss the text Just Fine the Way They Are as a class. Using the text, determine the five most important events related to the growth of the National Road and transportation in the United States. Record the events on the Timeline Small group activity Read
- [Transportation Museum](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/just-fine-the-way-they-are/teachers-resources/social-studies-lesson-plan-for-just-fine-the-way-they-are/transportation-museum/) - Forms of transportation change and evolve… Create a transportation Museum... Whole class activity Read and discuss the text Just Fine the Way They Are as a class. As a class brainstorm different types of transportation that have been used throughout history. Make sure to include transportation over land, air, and water. After individual research has
- [Persuasian](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/just-fine-the-way-they-are/teachers-resources/social-studies-lesson-plan-for-just-fine-the-way-they-are/persuasian/) - Transportation is essential for expansion… Suggested activities... Whole class activity Read and discuss the text Just Fine the Way They Are as a class. Using the text, generate a list of persuasive arguments relating to change and transportation. Suggested arguments may include the following: Dirt roads vs. the National Road National Road vs. railroad National
- [Fact/Opinion](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/just-fine-the-way-they-are/teachers-resources/social-studies-lesson-plan-for-just-fine-the-way-they-are/factopinion/) - Communities are changed by transportation… Suggested activities... Whole Class Activity Read and discuss the text Just Fine the Way They Are as a class. Record facts, opinions and evidence from the text on the Fact and Opinion Charts.(Variation: teacher completes facts and opinions on the organizer and class only identifies the evidence from the text.)
- [Social Studies Lesson Plan for Just Fine the Way They Are](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/just-fine-the-way-they-are/teachers-resources/social-studies-lesson-plan-for-just-fine-the-way-they-are/) - Essential Question How does transportation transform communities? Big Ideas Transportation transformed America. Transportation is essential for expansion. Forms of transportation change and evolve. Communities are changed by transportation. Materials and Resources Text: Just Fine the Way They Are United States map with the National Road (US 40) marked. www.waynecountyhistoricalmuseum.com Vocabulary Conestoga wagons contraptions
- [Cause and Effect](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/just-fine-the-way-they-are/teachers-resources/comprehension-lesson-plan-for-just-fine-the-way-they-are/cause-and-effect/) - One change often leads to another… Suggested Activities... Whole Class Activity Read and discuss the text Just Fine the Way They Are as a class. List each problem, followed by its solution, on the One Change Leads to Another - Graphic Organizer. Read and discuss the text Just Fine the Way They Are as a
- [Comprehension Lesson Plan for Just Fine the Way They Are](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/just-fine-the-way-they-are/teachers-resources/comprehension-lesson-plan-for-just-fine-the-way-they-are/) - Essential Question Are things fine just the way they are? Big Ideas Some people embrace change while others resist it. One change often leads to another. Sometimes change leads to unforeseen problems. Change is inevitable. Materials and Resources Text: Just Fine the Way They Are United States map with the National Road (US 40) marked
- [Teachers' Resources](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/just-fine-the-way-they-are/teachers-resources/) - Lesson plans for Just Fine the Way They Are have been created by Lois Brown and Kimberly Vincent, both elementary school teachers and adjunct professors at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. If you use them with your class, please feel free to contact us with any feedback you might have.
- [Speaking / Presenting](https://conniewooldridge.com/about-connie/speaker-presenter/) - Connie is an experienced speaker and presenter who enjoys sharing her passion for writing and her experiences as a writer with audiences of all ages. She has been invited to speak to K-12 and college students, educators, writers’ groups, community, civic and professional organizations, library audiences and seniors - wherever book lovers gather! Connie presented
- [Just Fine The Way They Are](https://conniewooldridge.com/books/just-fine-the-way-they-are/) - “Wooldridge’s story of America’s land-transportation networks—its roadways and railways—is folksy but panoramic. The informal, affable tone, something like a movie voice-over, works well here, conveying a sweeping amount of material—over a lot of ground and 200 years—as it chugs merrily along, hitting the high points, while Walz provides heroic imagery with a Thomas Hart Benton tang.
- [About Connie](https://conniewooldridge.com/about-connie/) - Connie is the author of five picture books and a young adult biography including Just Fine They Way They Are (Calkins Creek, March 1, 2011), The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton (Clarion Books, 2010), Thank You Very Much, Captain Ericsson! (Holiday House, 2005), When Esther Morris Headed West (Holiday House, 2001), The Legend of Strap Buckner (Holiday House, 2001), and Wicked Jack (Holiday House, 1995)
- [BIO](https://conniewooldridge.com/about-connie/bio/) - Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge’s vivid imagination and spirited storytelling are fueled by her love of travel, adventure, and the unconventional way she embraces all life has to offer. She’s lived in seven states, Washington, D.C., Athens, Greece and Seoul, South Korea; was a Latin major, a flight attendant for a major airline, raised four children who

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- [My Brilliant Friend](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/my-brilliant-friend/)
- [My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. I somehow missed this first installment in a series of four “Neapolitan” novels (the three that follow it are The Story of a New Name](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/my-brilliant-friend-by-elena-ferrante-i-somehow-missed-this-first-installment-in-a-series-of-four-neapolitan-novels-the-three-that-follow-it-are-the-story-of-a-new-name/)
- [My Dear Governess; The Letters of Edith Wharton to Anna Bahlmann](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/my-dear-governess-the-letters-of-edith-wharton-to-anna-bahlmann/)
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- [Old Rattles](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/old-rattles/)
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- [Other Books By Connie](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/other-books-by-connie/)
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- [Winter Novel](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/winter-novel/)
- [Cyrus Fields Big Dream](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/cyrus-fields-big-dream/)
- [Mary Morton Cowan](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/mary-morton-cowan/)
- [Cyrus Field](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/cyrus-field/)
- [First Transatlantic Telegraph Cable](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/first-transatlantic-telegraph-cable/)
- [Sister Carrie](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/sister-carrie/)
- [Theodore Dreiser](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/theodore-dreiser/)
- [A Gentleman in Moscow](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/a-gentleman-in-moscow/)
- [Amor Towles](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/amor-towles/)
- [Hotel Metropol](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/hotel-metropol/)
- [Boyarsky Restaurant](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/boyarsky-restaurant/)
- [Das Kapital](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/das-kapital/)
- [Red Army](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/red-army/)
- [Bolsheviks](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/bolsheviks/)
- [Books about Russia](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/books-about-russia/)
- [Books About Moscow](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/books-about-moscow/)
- [Books About Soviets](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/books-about-soviets/)
- [Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/count-alexander-ilyich-rostov/)
- [The Professor and the Mad Man](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/the-professor-and-the-mad-man/)
- [A tale of murder insanity and the make of the oxford English dictionary](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/a-tale-of-murder-insanity-and-the-make-of-the-oxford-english-dictionary/)
- [Simon Winchester](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/simon-winchester/)
- [Happiness TM](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/happiness-tm/)
- [Will Ferguson](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/will-ferguson/)
- [The Ninth Hour](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/the-ninth-hour/)
- [Alice McDermott](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/alice-mcdermott/)
- [Andrew Harding](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/andrew-harding/)
- [The Mayor of Mogadishu](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/the-mayor-of-mogadishu/)
- [Lincoln in the Bardo](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/lincoln-in-the-bardo/)
- [George Saunders](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/george-saunders/)
- [Improvement](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/improvement/)
- [Joan Silber](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/joan-silber/)
- [Steam Jobs in Cyber-Security](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/steam-jobs-in-cyber-security/)
- [Cynthia Argentine](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/cynthia-argentine/)
- [The Year I was Peter the Great](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/the-year-i-was-peter-the-great/)
- [1956](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/1956/)
- [Khrushchev](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/khrushchev/)
- [Stalin](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/stalin/)
- [Marvin Kalb](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/marvin-kalb/)
- [Soviets](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/soviets/)
- [Harvard](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/harvard/)
- [State Department](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/state-department/)
- [Russians](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/russians/)
- [Book Club](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/book-club/)
- [Louisa May Alcott](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/louisa-may-alcott/)
- [Womens Literature](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/womens-literature/)
- [Young Adult Book Reviews](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/young-adult-book-reviews/)
- [Meg Jo Beth Amy The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/meg-jo-beth-amy-the-story-of-little-women-and-why-it-still-matters/)
- [Anne Boyd Rioux](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/anne-boyd-rioux/)
- [The Flapper](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/the-flapper/)
- [the Impostor](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/the-impostor/)
- [and the Stalker](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/and-the-stalker/)
- [Charlene Bell Dietz](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/charlene-bell-dietz/)
- [Dancing Bears](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/dancing-bears/)
- [Witold Szablowski](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/witold-szablowski/)
- [True Stories of People](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/true-stories-of-people/)
- [Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/nostalgic-for-life-under-tyranny/)
- [Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/asymmetry-by-lisa-halliday/)
- [Christopher Skaife](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/christopher-skaife/)
- [Ravens](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/ravens/)
- [Tower of London](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/tower-of-london/)
- [English History](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/english-history/)
- [England](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/england/)
- [The Ravenmaster; My Life with the Ravens at the Tower of London](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/the-ravenmaster-my-life-with-the-ravens-at-the-tower-of-london/)
- [The Ravenmaster](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/the-ravenmaster/)
- [Night Becomes Day](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/night-becomes-day/)
- [Nature](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/nature/)
- [Changes in Nature](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/changes-in-nature/)
- [Diane Setterfield](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/diane-setterfield/)
- [Once Upon a River](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/once-upon-a-river/)
- [The Post Mistress of Paris](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/the-post-mistress-of-paris/)
- [Meg Waite Clayton](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/meg-waite-clayton/)
- [Everybodys Book](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/everybodys-book/)
- [Sarajevo Haggadah](https://conniewooldridge.com/tag/sarajevo-haggadah/)

## Picture tag

- [110430 E Wharton Writing Competition](https://conniewooldridge.com/ngg_tag/110430-e-wharton-writing-competition/)
- [2014](https://conniewooldridge.com/ngg_tag/2014/)
- [7th Grade Concert](https://conniewooldridge.com/ngg_tag/7th-grade-concert/)
- [camera](https://conniewooldridge.com/ngg_tag/camera/)
- [Diana Pappin Photography](https://conniewooldridge.com/ngg_tag/diana-pappin-photography/)
- [education](https://conniewooldridge.com/ngg_tag/education/)
- [Nikon d700](https://conniewooldridge.com/ngg_tag/nikon-d700/)
- [October](https://conniewooldridge.com/ngg_tag/october/)
- [RSO](https://conniewooldridge.com/ngg_tag/rso/)
- [September](https://conniewooldridge.com/ngg_tag/september/)
- [Wicked Jack](https://conniewooldridge.com/ngg_tag/wicked-jack/)

## Series

- [The Gilded Age Series of Posts](https://conniewooldridge.com/series/the-gilded-age/)