On the other hand, reading the dog story, Ginger Pye, by Eleanor Estes, the 1952 Newbery Award winner, was not as satisfying as I would have wished. While the story of this energetic and intelligent puppy was enjoyable, the repetitive style was not. That the Pye family lived very modestly in a small town was handled lightly, and the upset over the puppy’s disappearance was well told. The plight of a brother and sister missing their dog wore thin. It was hard to understand how this story set in a small town around 1919, was so appealing in the early 1950s.

Congratulations to my writing friend, poet Paula Weld-Cary for her memoir, My Origami Mother: Reclaiming My Life After an Abusive Childhood (2022). The paperback edition by Helping Hands Press has an attractive cover. I am looking forward to reading it, after having critiqued it over the years.

Thank you to reporter Justin Murphy at the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle for his excellent obit of black civil rights activist Rev. Florence Franklin, 88, this week. Well done! Sometimes I wish I knew who the writers were for the obits in The Economist. The obit for soccer great Pelé, 82, (Jan. 7 )was clearly written by a sports enthusiast who also downplayed the star’s relationships with women. The obit for the amazing forger and photographer Adolfo Kaminsky, 97, (Jan. 21) gave a poignant look into the making of a teenage rebel in Vichy, France in 1944. I was not familiar with Ronald Blythe, 100, (Jan. 28), the solitary writer who became famous for Akenfield, researched in the late 1960s that brought him fame in Britain and America. Blythe ably conveyed the love of place by a variety of villagers in Suffolk. Rest in peace, one and all.

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