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Maine Maple Sunday

Sunday, March 24th 2019, is Maine Maple Sunday.

For those of us who might be interested in touring a sugarhouse, a list of participants can be found here – Maine Maple Sunday Participants.  This is a great map of the many and varied sugarhouses open for tours.

For those of us who might be more interested in reading about Maple, here are a few titles to choose from.

Anytime Mapleson by Mordicai Gerstein.  Have you ever invited bears for breakfast?  Check out this picture book, and enjoy the story.

Maple by Lori Nichols.  A young girl and her maple tree . . .

Maple moon by Connie Brummel Crook.  Have you ever wondered how maple syrup was discovered?  This children’s book gives us a possible answer.

The maple sugar book : together with remarks on pioneering as a way of living in the twentieth century by Helen and Scott Nearing.  The Nearings discuss their experiences with making a living from maple sugaring, and also give a definitive account of an important American industry.

Maple syrup season by Ann Purmell.  Enjoy this picture book of a family working together to create yummy maple syrup.

Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorensen.  1957 Newbery Medal winner.  The father has returned from the war, moody and tired, so the family leaves the city and moves to the Pennsylvania countryside.

Nature’s sweetness : pure maple syrup by Paul Rossignol.  A good introduction to the maple sugaring process.

Sugaring season : making maple syrup by Diane Burns.  This is another picture filled book describing the process of making maple syrup – from the tree to the table.

Toronto Maple Leafs by Eric Zweig.  Tells the story of the Maple Leafs 100 years of hockey, as well as the importance of professional sports teams to the history and economy of a big city and a big sports league.

Spring!

How could we not post a blog this time of year without thinking about and looking forward to spring?  So in that frame of mind, here are some books that have the word SPRING in their titles.

Heart Spring Mountain by Robin MacArthur.  A young woman returns to her rural Vermont hometown in the wake of a heavy storm to search for her missing mother and unravel a powerful family secret.

Paris Spring by James Naughtie.  Paris, in April of 1968. The cafes are alive with talk of revolution, but for Scottish-American Will Flemyng–a spy working in the British Embassy–the crisis is personal. A few words from a stranger on the Metro change his life. His family is threatened with ruin and he now faces the spy’s oldest fear: exposure. Freddy Craven is the hero and mentor Flemyng would trust with his life, but when he is tempted into a dark, Cold War labyrinth, he chooses the dangerous path and plays his game alone. And when glamorous, globe-trotting journalist Grace Quincy, in pursuit of a big story, is found dead in the Pe-Lachaise cemetery, the question is raised–what side was she on? Certainly she knew too much, and had become dangerous. But to whom?

Spring fever by Mary Kay Andrews.  Annajane Hudgens truly believes she is over her ex-husband, Mason Bayless. So she has no problem attending his wedding. But when fate intervenes and the wedding is called off, Annajane begins to wonder if she’s been given a second chance.

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.  This was first published in three serialized excerpts in the New Yorker in June of 1962. The book appeared in September of that year and the outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson’s passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world, and her eloquent book was instrumental in launching the environmental movement. It is without question one of the landmark books of the twentieth century.

Spring wildflowers of New England by Marilyn J. Dwelley.  Published by Down East Books, can’t you just picture those spring wildflowers poking their heads up?

Come Spring by Ben Ames Williams.  A fictional history of Union, Maine, here is a detailed novel of life in a Maine frontier village at the time of the revolution. Although they are not far from the scene of the war, the Indians and their own daily lives are of more importance to these sturdy pioneers than were wars or rumors of wars.

In the fire of spring by Thomas Tryon.  Not really about spring (but it does have spring in the title), this novel tells the story of women abolitionists in Connecticut.

Beyond the spring : Cordelia Stanwood of Birdsacre by Chandler S. Richmond.  Again, not really spring, but Stanwood was an ornithologist from Maine and known for her photographs.

There now, don’t you feel better already having just thought about Spring?