The Cabin Key by Gloria Rand & Illus by Ted Rand

Gloria and Ted Rand are an amazing husband/wife team. However, I think they sometimes write books for adults more than children. As a somewhat nerdy/serious kid, I loved them then and I love them now, but they are not books that are going to get kids worked up. They are quiet and generally somewhat nostalgic. And they tend to be wordy. 

This story is no different. Using memories of the Rand family cabin, the story follows a little girl and her experiences at the cabin through her childhood. 

Great story, but you need to know your audience. Are they thoughtful? Can they sit quietly for several paragraphs before another page turn/picture? 

It was a very snowy day when I was taking picture, which seemed  fitting. 

I even had a snowy pinecone. 

Ted Rand does such brilliant landscape/nature scenes. 

The little girl is entrusted with unlocking the door, which is a huge honor. 

Aren't these pictures great? 

Carrying in the wood

Love, love, love this picture! 

The joys of enamelware.

Listening to stories and watching the flames.

Coziness. Doesn't that blanket look realistic?! 

Also, the next picture (that I didn't get a picture of) shows the little mice scurrying around, so not cozy and no sleep for me. 

The family cabin is all very well and good, but mice ruin all the warm fuzzys. My husband's family has a family cabin in the Rocky Mountains. One time we took my cousin and his wife for a weekend and didn't bring quite enough bedding, so we gave them the sleeping bags and ended up using the sheets/blankets that were already on the bed. It was dark when we went to sleep and I just thought there was sand in the sheets, but.... in the morning, I saw it wasn't sand. It was mouse dirt. 

I still love the cabin, but I don't plan on forgetting sleeping bags ever again. 

All the Places to Love by Patricia Maclachlan & Illus by Mike Wimmer

This book is a love song to a family, to a farm. My aunt sent it to us just after my little sister was born. And oh boy! How we loved this book. It is the story of a boy growing up on a family farm, in a loving and completely secure environment. At the end of the book, his little sister is being born and he thinks about all the places he will show her--all the places to love. 

It is terribly sweet. One complaint on Amazon is that the little boy is talking like an adult looking back on his life, not as a little kid. Which is a legitimate point. But it is a quiet, lovely book and it does make my heart squeal with love. 

And the pictures. Oh, the pictures! Gorgeous.  

Blueberry basket and leaf shadows,

On the day I was born

My grandmother wrapped me in a blanket 

made from the wool of her sheep.

She held me up in the open window

So that what I heard first was the wind.

What I saw first were all the places to love:

The valley,

The river falling down over rocks,

The hilltop where the blueberries grew. 

From the moment this boy was born, he had a place. He was immersed in that place, in the wool grown on that place, the wind blowing over that place. 

My grandfather was painting the barn, 

And when he saw me he cried.

He carved my name--Eli--

On a rafter beside his name

And grandmother's name

And the names of my papa and mama. 

Oh, the love. And continuity. 

Fields of wildflowers.

Where else is soil so sweet?

The river--Grandmother's place

That sound, like a whisper, she said.

Blueberry hill, Mama's place.

Where else, said my mama, can I see the sun rise on one side 

And the sun set on the other?

Grandpa's barn

Where else, he says, can the soft sound of cows chewing 

Make all the difference in the world?

Today, Eli and his grandfather are waiting for a new arrival.

Wrapped in a blanket made from the wool of her sheep, 

And my grandfather cries. 

Before this baby is even a day old, Eli feels his responsibility to show his little Sylvie all the places to love. 

Ohhhh! Love, love, love.

There is so much love in this book. Love for family, for their place, for the world around them.