Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
— William Shakespeare

Finally an author explores an impulse I’ve had: to explore an abandoned house.  Julie Fogliano’s new book, A House That Once Was, illustrated by the phenomenal Lane Smith, is that book with stellar imagination and vivid color-magic! It makes me remember such a house in rural, Kudzu-draped North Carolina and another stripped of color by the salty, Maine air.

I wanted to explore an abandoned barn, far in Northern Michigan when I was a kid, but my father told me the floorboards might be rotten. That makes it all the more magical to see this in a book — no risk of life or limb! Having always wanted to go inside…

Copyright 2018 Brenda Davis Harsham

Notes: What is more magical than possibility and wonder?