@ Your Library
March has been eventful. Reading as escape, release or just a break is all the more important during chaotic times. Reading can help us process what is happening and sometimes just give us a break from what is happening. So grab a book or download a magazine and spend time relaxing as you read.
It is time to look at another of the 2025 reading challenges and given that the spring equinox was last week I thought we should tackle books that take place in spring. This was harder than I thought it would be. I could find lots of novels for adults that take place in all the other seasons, but finding books specifically set in spring was more of a challenge. So the list of books included all have at least something to do with rebirth and spring and I included several young adult titles and juvenile titles (which are perfectly valid books for adults to read).
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh is about a girl in foster care who uses flowers to communicate and heal. Linda Holmes’ Evvie Drake Starts Over is another title about healing and starting over. The impact of loss on two families after a young girl goes missing is the topic of The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters. Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift is an historical novel set in Britain and centers on the British holiday of Mothers’ Day which occurs in March.
Try something a little different and read a light mystery published almost thirty years ago. Jim Qwuilleran is looking forward to spring but finds that constant chorus of birds outside his window so early in the morning is not conducive to sleep in The Cat Who Sang for the Birds by Liliam Jackson Braun. Or explore poetry with Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman or Mary Oliver in Devotions.
The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee shows us the world of Atlanta in the 1920’s as a young woman works as a maid by day and writes a pseudonymous advice column for southern genteel ladies by night. The Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz is set about ten years earlier on a Pennsylvania farm as a young woman wants her life to be like the heroines in the novels she reads. And of course, we have to include Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery a beautiful tale of new life and the beautiful countryside of Prince Edward Island.
The Penderwicks in Spring by Jeanne Birdsall is the fourth adventure of the Penderwick family and change is in the air. But never forget that the Penderwicks are all about family, friends and fun. Finally, but definitely not least enjoy reading the delightful children’s series that Louise Erdrich wrote about an Ojibwe family as settlers arrive. The first book The Birchbark House occurs across four seasons as Omakayas, a seven-year-old girl grows and learns with her family as they hunt, build, gather and survive.