To Thine Own Self Be True

I had a lot of favorite books as a kid. I have always been one of those people who doesn't so much read as absorb, and I tend to fall in love with certain books, and want to spend as much time as possible in their company. Cynthia Voigt's "Dicey's Song", Nat Hentoff's "The Day They Came to Arrest the Book", C.S. Lewis's "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time": my childhood copies are battered almost beyond readability, and some of them (like "Dicey's Song") I've had to buy two or three times.

But if I'm going to talk about the books that changed my young life irrevocably, I have to talk about Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy books. It's the story of best friends, Betsy and Tacy (and occassionally Tib, though she keeps moving back and forth from Milwaukee), growing up in a small town in Minnesota at the turn of the 20th century. My Godmother introduced them to me when I was eight--I think on the same cross-country road trip where I read the entire Chronicles of Narnia from beginning to end--and I read all ten books in the series over the next three years.

I've been consulting them ever since. In high-school I re-read "Betsy in Spite of Herself", to remind me what happens when you try to be someone you're not. Last year I went to Europe for the first time, and not only read "Betsy and the Great World" on the way to Paris, but visited a London pub (the Cheshire Cheese) where Dickens used to eat, and where Betsy couldn't go inside because in 1914 it didn't serve women.

I got engaged on that trip, and I've probably re-read "Betsy's Wedding" three times since then. It's not so much about her wedding--that's taken care of in the first few chapters--but about the first year of her marriage, and her married life has a lot in common with what I hope for from mine: mutual support, professional success, and really great parties.

At all the most important junctures of my life, I have on some level asked myself, "What would Betsy do?"

Now, when I was growing up, Betsy and I had a lot in common. She lived in a small town in the Midwest; I lived in a small town in the Midwest. She got in trouble for reading too much; I got in trouble for reading too much. She wanted to be a writer; I wanted to be a writer. She played make-believe with her friends; I played make-believe with my friends. As opposed to all the heroines I read about wandering through the backs of wardrobes or wrinkling through the space-time continuum, Betsy was real. She was just like me, if I had been born eighty years earlier.

And she was awesome. She led me to reading Ivanhoe and keeping a journal, and she set me off on a lifelong quest for friends who think the fact that you're not just like them is a good thing. As Anna Quindlen put it in her forward to the latest edition of "Heaven to Betsy", the Betsy-Tacy books "are ultimately books about character, and especially about the character of one girl whose greatest sin, throughout the books, is to undervalue herself. For those are the mistakes Betsy finds she cannot forgive, when she sells herself short ... Betsy does best when she serves herself, when she is true to herself."

I can't think of a lesson it was better to learn, especially between ages eight and eleven, so that I could have it for the whole rest of my life.

Shhhh

Wow! I never really thought about this before today's post, but my three favorite book choices from when I was a kid have a single common denominator: secret places.

BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA

A secret play space tucked in the woods near a creek? Yes please! I modeled my hideout at Grandma Vivian’s house in Maine after this book. It was so much fun to play under the cover of the foliage, where you could do or say anything and not get in trouble by your parents. Especially for a kid as wild and crazy as I was.

I also keyed in on the outsider status of both Jess and Leslie. I was always hoping I’d find a fellow misfit to bond with, and together, we’d learn not to care about the nasty things said about us at school.


THE SECRET GARDEN

The idea of Mary Lennox roaming a moor and discovering a walled-in garden was wildly appealing. Plus, I love a book where using your imagination pretty much solves every problem!

I also learned a very powerful lesson from Secret Garden, one I regard to this very day--If a robin gives you a key, it’s safe to assume it will unlock someplace quite magical.

PS. I was totally in love with Dicken.

A WRINKLE IN TIME (holy cool cover!)

My mom read this book to me and we both completely feel in love . I completely bought into all of the author’s descriptions of the tesseract, the different planets, and getting sucked from one into another. In fact, I can distinctly remember hiding under my bedsheets and suddenly blasting out into my bedroom in a little cyclone, hoping to create my own tesseract.

I'm overcome with nostalgia! What's your favorite novel with a secret place?

And to Jenny Han--the castle was thing I loved most about I CAPTURE THE CASTLE. Their entire house was like a big secret place. The chapter where Cassandra and her family first find the castle and explore it was my absolutel favorite. And could you imagine having a writing room like Cassandra's father did? Soooo cool!

Books that make me go ... hmmm?

It’s really hard to pick a “few” favorite books from one’s childhood. I could easily list fifty. But that would be a pretty lengthy blog post, so I’ll just list three and if you want to know about the other forty-seven, feel free to leave me a comment.


First up is NO FLYING IN THE HOUSE by Betty Brock. This is a young middle grade, and what I loved about this book was, well, it’s about fairies. Fairies and a three-inch talking dog and a big old house and an orphan. And as an eight-year-old, that was my cup of tea.


Next on my shortlist is
THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN by George MacDonald. If you haven’t read this book, run your little legs over to the library right now and get it. I loved this book so much that I did an entire paper on George MacDonald for a Children’s Literature class I took in college. The book is about a young princess raised on a mountain who meets a miner boy and uncovers a hideous plot by goblins to take over the kingdom. And it has wonderful scary songs in it that the miners sing to defend themselves against the goblins, who can’t rhyme and are afraid of those who can.



And last, but certainly not least, we have my controversial girl-detective favorite, TRIXIE BELDEN. I loved Trixie Belden mysteries. Nancy Drew was pleasant, but Trixie was a fireball. She was a tomboy who did terribly at math, rode horses, and often made very big mistakes. And she frequently outsmarted the grisliest of criminals.

So why do these books make me go ... hmmm? Well, while writing this post I realized that my shortlist of childhood favorites includes mysteries and fantasy, and I write realistic, coming-of-age fiction. What’s up with that?

the kind of books that you can read over and over again

As I said in my last post, TUCK EVERLASTING is my favorite book of all time. I read it in the sixth grade, Ms. Mayer's class at The Willets Road School and I have loved it just as much ever since. I find something new to love about it every single time I read it, and I pretty much cry at the end every time, too. I'll save you all a summary, and if you haven't read it, please do! And, FYI, the movie pales in comparison.

A few years before I read TUCK, I was absolutely obsessed with the Friends 4-Ever series by Deirdre Corey. Yup, the title of the series literally had 4-Ever in it. I would get the books from the Scholastic book fairs (go Scholastic!) and run right home from school and read the entire book in an hour. Okay, okay, they were only about a hundred pages, but still. And then when I was done, I would feel so sad that the book was over, and I couldn't even wait for the next Scholastic book order! I haven't been able to find that many people who read these books in the early nineties, so if you have read Friends 4-Ever, please post a comment and let me know! We could start a fan club!

Today, I have a few more favorite books: ELSEWHERE by Gabrielle Zevin, WALK TWO MOONS by Sharon Creech and many, many others.


To keep this short and simple, I like books. I like books a lot, especially books for children and teens. I like books that make me see the world differently than I saw it before I started reading. I like books that, when I'm finished reading them, I want to hold in my hands for a long time and maybe even keep on my nightstand for a few days.

My Very Favorite

I loved a lot of books when I was younger, most of which I still love today, but one stands out as my number one: FIFTEEN by Beverly Cleary. This book rules. And the thing that amazes me so much about it now is that hardly anything really happens, yet it is this absolutely fantastic story.

The basic premise: Jane meets the new guy in school, they hook up, she’s insecure, she becomes more secure in herself and the relationship deepens. It’s a story we’ve all read before, often with a few more twists, but in the hands of my idol Beverly Cleary, it’s magic. Each moment you live through with Jane is so real, so alive, that you are totally sucked in and hooked, longing for Jane to feel confident and to go steady with Stan (yeah, did I mention that the book takes place in the fifties? People went steady then.)

It’s the little touches that make it sing. Like the cat in the book is named Sir Puss. I am a serious cat lover and that name is sooooo every cat I’ve known and loved- that’s the genius of Beverly Cleary: in a single name she tells you everything about the essence of cat-hood. I’d need lots of words like dignified, entitled, particular, superior, etc. but she sums it all up in a name.

And speaking of Sir Puss, when Stan comes to pick Jane up for her first date, he admires Sir Puss and when everyone is staring at him, Sir Puss lifts a leg and washes his kitty cat bottom. That is classic! So cat, so first date, so totally mortifying!

And here’s the very best thing- the greatest line in any book I’ve ever read. The scene: Jane is on her first date with Stan when they are joined at the local hang out (called ‘Nibley’s’- how great is that name?) by super cool Marcy and her president of the class boyfriend Greg. Those two sit down, start chatting with Stan and then here it is, the line:

‘Jane waited for an opening in the conversation that would give her opportunity to take part. None came.’

That is so totally the perfect description of my every fear in high school (okay, now too)- that moment where you just can’t find a way into the conversation when the conversation really matters, where you want to sparkle and shine, yet end up sitting there like a dimwitted moron, unable to find any kind of entry in.

I first read FIFTEEN when I was ten and in the years since I’ve read books that were more literary, more intellectually stimulating, and more socially conscious. But nothing brings me the same deep satisfaction and joy as joining Jane on her journey where she learns that the person she is is worth standing up for, that relationships involve two fallible human beings, and that liking yourself is the most important thing of all.

These are a few of my favorite books

LONGSTOCKINGS TOPIC OF THE WEEK: What are your favorite books?

Since I already listed my favorite books of the moment, I decided that this week I’d talk about the books that really made a difference to my growing-up years. Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, and all that goodness.



Little Fox Goes to the End of the World
by Ann Tompert; pictures by John Wallner

I’ve never met anyone outside of my family who’s heard of this, but it was the first book I fell in love with. Little Fox describes to her mother all the amazing adventures she’s going to go on, and Mama Fox tells her daughter how brave and wise she is, and how she’ll be ready with her favorite dinner when she comes back from the end of the earth. It has an exciting element of danger to it, but unlike, say, Where the Wild Things Are (which seriously freaked me out when I was little), you see Little Fox’s mama on every page, so you know it’s all going to be okay.



Charlotte’s Web
by E.B. White

This was the first novel I read all by myself, and I was very proud. I picked it out because it was the fattest book on the bookshelf in my first-grade classroom (I used to have an obsession with reading Really Big Books. In third grade I attempted to read Moby-Dick, but I gave up at about page 50 when I realized there was no stupid whale yet. Melville and I have had issues ever since.).



Around the World in Eighty Days
by Jules Verne

I randomly picked this book off the shelf one day during library time in fourth grade, and from page one I was absolutely smitten. I even tacked blankets to the wall in my bedroom and created a “reading fort” for the sole purpose of reading it. I give Mr. Verne a lot of credit for turning me into the avid reader I am today.



The Baby-Sitter’s Club series
by Ann M. Martin

My faithful BSC girls taught me important life lessons about family, friends, that cool chalk game called Snail, and how to collect water with a tarp if you’re ever shipwrecked on a desert island. Good stuff.

Ciao from Kathryne!

Hi, Y'all! As Coe mentioned, I got back last night from my honeymoon in Italy--so if this post is a little incoherent, blame jet lag and the fact that I'm resisting the urge to explain why everyone should go to Florence RIGHT NOW, and at which restaurants they should eat lots of pappa al pomodoro.

If Daphne's book is in the baby stages, mine is pre-natal. I've spent the last three years working on a teen novel called Uncle Jesus, about T.C. Mueller, a nice, normal Lutheran boy who starts questioning his faith when his father's Jesus Freak brother returns to town and starts stirring up trouble amongst the locals, particularly T.C's family.

I finished (mostly) the first draft a couple of weeks ago, and sent it to my Intrepid First Line of Readers/Critiquers three days before I got married. I am eagerly awaiting our first meeting, where these brilliant women will tell me how to make it good. I'm hoping to finish a draft I like and get query letters out to agents in the next few months, so I can join Lisa GW in the anxious-waiting phase. In the meantime, I earn my bread (and tomatoes) as a temp at A Company I Won't Embarrass By Naming Them Here, where my 25 bosses have been incredibly supportive by giving me lots of time off over the summer to write and teach (that's me in the buggy, on opening day at the camp where I taught Creative Writing this summer).

It took me a while to work out that I wanted to be a writer: first I had to rule out being an actor, director, singer, fundraiser, or executive recruiter. My undergraduate degree is in theatre, which was a fantastic preparation for learning writing as a craft (if not for learning writing as a lifestyle: I miss rehearsals. Thank goodness for critique group meetings). I'd always written, everything from diaries to poetry to stories, but it never occurred to me that writing was something one did for a living---it was always just something I did because I was alive.

Basically, I realized I had no choice but to become a real-life Writer when I quit first the theatre and then a series of perfectly good jobs with excellent career prospects in order to have more writing time. I left recruiting in 2003, got a job as a secretary, and applied to grad school. In the New School's MFA program I met the other Lovely Longstockings, and got started becoming what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Likes: cooking, eating, reading, singing in choir, writing in Starbucks.

Dislikes: willful ignorance, blind faith.

Viva Pippi!

a shout out from da bronx

WHO AM I:
My name is Coe Booth and I write books for teens (and hopefully middle-grade readers, too, one day!) I don't remember the actual moment I realized I wanted to write novels. I've been a fiction writer ever since I knew how to write whole sentences. It was just something I've always done. (Of course I did most of my writing in class instead of paying attention to my schoolwork -- and let me tell you, that didn't always sit well with my teachers!)

Even though I wrote all the time, I didn't necessary think it was something I could do as a career, so I went to college and grad school for psychology. After I graduated, I worked in the field, counseling inner-city teens and families who were living in very desperate situations. I worked with pregnant teens, teens who used drugs, and those who were in gangs. And I worked with parents who abused or neglected their children. That career opened my eyes in a lot of ways because, even though I'm from the Bronx and had seen it all, I'd never experienced those kinds of realities up close before.

While I enjoyed the challenge of that career, it was overwhelming and time consuming, and I found it hard to balance work and writing. So I began teaching psychology and English at a local college. It was then I decided to pursue an MFA in creative writing at The New School (where I met the other delightful ladies of The Longstockings!) And it was there that I wrote TYRELL, a teen novel inspired by my job working with families in crisis. TYRELL (from Scholastic Push) just hit the shelves about three weeks ago, so I'm still in the giddy stage of wanting to jump up and down whenever I see it in a bookstore. Of course I don't ACTUALLY jump up and down; I just really want to! (CONFESSION: Okay, I did jump up and down once or twice, but I don't think anybody was looking, so it doesn't count!)

MY LIKES:
dancing, singing (off-key -- is there any other way?!), meditation retreats, bookstores, Grey's Anatomy, Project Runway, Top Chef, taking long drives while listening to my satellite radio, hibiscus tea, jigsaw puzzles, yummy vegetarian food, and collecting giraffes (all kinds -- wood, crystal, ceramic, stuffed -- I love 'em all!)

MY DISLIKES:
moths, egomaniacs, hypocrites, people who are famous for doing nothing, and avocados (yuck!)

Well, that's it for me. Kathryne Alfred, the talented eighth Longstocking, is off on her honeymoon now!!! So she'll introduce herself when she gets back. But for now it's time to get down to some real Longstocking business!

Pippi Forever!!! :-)

What up, what up!

Hey there, I'm Jenny Han and I like board games, gray hoodies, and Halloween. I also enjoy potluck dinners, Leonardo DiCaprio circa 1995, and white cotton. I am 26, I live in Brooklyn, and my first and only book (so far) is called Shug! (Think Shug like sugar, not Shug like shrug.) I really like to watch TV with witty banter. (Think Sports Night, Veronica Mars, Gilmore Girls, Buffy.) My secret dream is to be a TV writer and write really, really witty banter. This segues right into what I'm really here to talk about, writing books!

So, let's talk about writing books. Books have always been my favorite thing, way back to when I was a wee reader reading my beloved Children's Encyclopedia, right on into Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley, moving along to Gone With the Wind and The Prince of Tides and To Kill a Mockingbird-- incidentally, still three of my most favorite books. My tastes haven't changed much since I was 13. But that's okay, because I think we read some of the best stuff when we're 13, I think that right around that age is when we really get started. Get started thinking about stuff, wondering, questioning, hoping, despairing, all of it. I think that's why I love to read and write for that age. It's like that letter in The Breakfast Club, adults see kids how they want to see them, but inside they're so much more-- a princess, a criminal, a basketcase. And the letter (and the movie, for that matter) takes itself so seriously, and I think it should.

I think we should. Take young people seriously, I mean. So that's what I want to do, I want to pay homage to that time in your life when you feel like everything is important and nobody gets it. Because adults totally don't get it. They can't. Because when you grow up, your soul dies. (That was a joke and a wink to everyone who who loves Breakfast Club like I do, I don't really think it's true. Maybe a little. I mean, can YOU still hear the bell jingle on Christmas day?) But seriously, I don't think adults get it, but I want my characters to. Get it. And now, last but not least, I pass the baton to you, Coe Booth!

Why, hello there!

WHO I AM: I’m Siobhan! Siobhan Vivian! A Jersey Girl who was once a California Girl, and is now a Brooklyn Betty. I’m also a former editor at Alloy Entertainment, a scriptwriter for Disney’s Little Einsteins, and a soon-to-be-published author.

WHAT I WRITE: My debut YA novel, A Little Friendly Advice, will be published by Scholastic Press in spring 2008. A second book, yet to be made up, will be published the following year.

LIKES: Looking at author photos, colored pencils, brand new notebooks, yarn, homemade valentines, baking pies, sleepovers with my sister.

DISLIKES: My handwriting, soda without ice.

WHEN I KNEW I WANTED TO BE A WRITER: It was process of elimination, really. My eyesight is bad, so fighter pilot was out. I’m pretty squeamish, negating any medical profession. I’m not particularly coordinated, nixing professional skier, juggler and waitress. I sunburn rather quickly, so I couldn’t be a lifeguard…

Seriously though, the desire bloomed during the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. I had always loved writing, but I was way too high-strung and wacky for essay assignments and research papers on The Louisiana Purchase. My creativity desperately needed an outlet! So I signed up for a Making Your Own Zine creative writing course at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. (this is the photo they took on the first day. yes, i am sticking my tongue out. and yes, i still make dumb faces in pictures.)

I spent two very hot summer months living in an air-conditionless dorm, writing odes to Pee Wee Herman, researching different Fast Food Horror Stories, scribbling paragraphs of flash fiction, hovering over the copy machine, stapling my zine together, and having the time of my life. After that, I knew I couldn’t ever be anything else. Well…perhaps a Foley Artist. That’s probably the second coolest profession in the whole world, after mine.

Heeeeeeere’s Caroline!

I was born and raised in Baltimore, MD, home of the Balti, a unique, lacrosse player version of a mullet, and delicious Maryland Blue Crabs. I now live in Brooklyn with my husband where I spend my time wrestling with manuscripts, ordering from Fresh Direct, and sometimes going to work at my job in magazine publishing.

My first middle grade novel, CASSIE WAS HERE, will be out in April 2007 with Roaring Brook Press. I know, I know, you wish Cassie was here now, but unfortunately, we still have about seven months to wait. To help pass the time, I’ve been working on a teen novel about a girl who suffers terribly from being fifteen.


I knew I wanted to be a writer when, on a whim, I took a few fiction writing and children’s writing classes at Gotham Writers’ Workshop and found them ever-so-much-more stimulating than my day job. So I started writing a book that I have since finished but will never see the light of day (although several of the Longstockings have read it and they still hang out with me). That book made me think I might be on to something, so I applied to a few MFA programs, and lo and behold, I ended up at The New School, where I met some great writers and learned how to listen, how to revise, and how to keep writing even when it’s really, really hard.

And that's about all I have to say about that. On to Siobhan!

Lisa Greenwald aka Lisa GW

Lisa and Daphne have set the bar quite high with their first blog entries...here I go!

First things first: my name is Lisa Ann Greenwald, but since there's another Lisa G. in our little crew, I sometimes go by the name Lisa GW.

Likes: sunny days, people-watching, Ben & Jerry's chocolate fudge brownie ice cream, sleepaway camp and re-reading old cards and letters.

Dislikes: mean people, peas, itchy sweaters, feeling tired and mice.

Right now I am working on a teen novel, HUGE, with Alloy Entertainment. It should be out next summer. I am also eagerly awaiting news on my other teen novel, CAMP SHALOM. It turns out that waiting, being anxious and worrying takes up a lot of my time! I've also just started a new job as a school librarian in Manhattan; it's great.

I've always loved reading (see photo below,) and I've pretty much always loved writing too, except for some grueling reports and papers that I had to do for school. But I guess I really knew that I wanted to write, as a career, (hopefully!) when I was in college and I took a memoir writing class. I absolutely loved writing it! I didn't dread that type of schoolwork at all. I knew then that writing was for me.

After college, I got a job as an editorial assistant at FSG (the publisher of my favorite book of all time, Tuck Everlasting.) After a few months of working there, I realized that I wanted to write books for children and teens. It was all coming together. I applied to The New School for their MFA program in writing for children, and luckily I got in, wrote a lot, and met these wonderful writing friends!

That's all from me! Onto the fabulously talented Caroline!

Hi, I'm Daphne

Thanks, Lisa!

My teen book, ALIVE AND WELL IN PRAGUE, NY is still in the baby stages. It was sold this summer to HarperCollins/Laura Geringer Books and my editor is the super fabulous Jill Santopolo. I’m currently waiting for my first editorial letter, where Jill breaks down all the places my book sucks and gives me great ideas for how to fix it. I don’t have an exciting book cover to share yet, but boy, will I go crazy posting that cover everywhere when it’s finally in existence!

I had writing aspirations for a long time but always felt like I needed “more life experience” before I could officially become a writer. Which is a way to say I had no good story ideas. But a few years ago, at the tail end of another grad school program, I had an epiphany: the problem was not lack of life experience, but rather that I was planning to write the wrong thing—adult fiction. When I realized that I truly wanted to only write for teens and tweens, story ideas came.

Rather than work a year or two to pay off the loans from my prior program, I plunged right into the MFA at the New School (quick thanks to my ever loving husband for supporting me throughout.) I graduated in May 2006 after working with great teachers, meeting these awesome women and actually getting a story down on paper— yay!

So that’s me—onto the wise and wonderful Lisa GW.

Hello, my name is . . . Lisa Graff

We Longstockings thought that as a way to dip our toes into the waters of the blogosphere, we should introduce ourselves, and maybe say a bit about Why We Became Writers. And I get to go first! So, here's me:

Who I Am: I hail from California, live amongst the trees that grow in Brooklyn, and along with writing children's novels I also work at a wonderful publishing house, in the children's editorial department. I should have a button that says "I heart kid's books." (Why don't I have this button??)

What I Write: My first-ever book,
a middle-grade novel for ages 8-12, is coming out with HarperCollins in January, and is already garnering rave reviews from my mom. Shameless plug of my book goes HERE-->

Favorite Books from the Past Year:
Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge
Sold by Patricia McCormick
Alabama Moon by Watt Key
Anthony and the Girls by Ole Konnecke
(And, of course, Shug and Tyrell.)

Favorite Vegetable: Artichokes.

If I Were an Article of Clothing I Would Be: A scarf. Scarves are fancy.

When I Knew I Wanted to Be a Writer: I've always sort of written. Plays, short stories, really really (REALLY) bad poetry. But I guess I knew I wanted to be a writer when, as a project in an Italian language class in college, I attempted to translate a children's novel I'd written into Italian. That was a very hard thing to do, and not only because my Italian wasn't, how you say, fantastico. It was also difficult because looking that closely at my writing--examining every single word in excruciating detail--made me realize that my novel was bad. Very, very bad. But it also made me realize that I liked this whole writing thing, and maybe I should try my hand at it professionally. And, oh yeah, go to school or something so I could (hopefully) stop writing bad novels and start writing good ones. And that's how I ended up in New York in the New School MFA program, which is where I met the lovely ladies of the Longstockings (did you see that alliteration right there? That's what an MFA'll get ya.).

The End

(. . . Until tomorrow, that is, when I believe the delightful Daphne Grab will be introducing herself. Go Daphne!)

Meet the Longstockings

"My name's Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Efraim's Daughter Longstocking, daughter of Captain Efraim Longstocking, formerly the Terror of the Sea, now a cannibal king. But everybody calls me Pippi."

The Longstockings are a group of New York City writers dedicated to writing and reading great books for children and teens. They met through the MFA in creative writing program at The New School, and have supported each other from first chapters to first rejection letters to first book signings.

This blog has eight contributing writers and discusses areas of interest to writers and readers of children's and teen literature. It is a prerequisite that anyone who reads or contributes to this blog possess an unbridled enthusiasm for Pippi.

Yours truly,

The Longstockings

Kathryne Alfred
Coe Booth
Daphne Grab
Lisa Graff
Lisa Greenwald
Jenny Han
Caroline Hickey
Siobhan Vivian