adopted from the book bin

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Yesterday while grocery shopping at Superstore, I visited one of the cheap book bins. I think of these untidy piles of shopworn books as orphanages. They are the last chance for an authors’ brain child to attract a home before being bundled up and sent.... who knows where!

I don’t usually browse long. The odd jumble of steamy romance, outdated technical and cliche kid board books don’t hold much appeal. But yesterday, sitting right near the top, an attractive hard-cover volume caught my attention.

I picked it up, leafed through and was captured by the quality paper, attractive layout, and the abundance of full-color Victorian illustrations - from photos of greeting cards to reproductions of paintings. This was a veritable feast for the eyes. On top of that, its subtitle, Reviving Victorian Family Celebrations of Comfort and Joy suggested to me I might be able justify buying it as research for the children’s writing I do. Finally, I flipped it over to look at the price. Would you believe, this 255-page hardback book with a suggested retail of $44.50 (Can) could be mine for $5.95?

So I am now the proud owner of Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Mrs. Sharp’s Traditions. I’m not crazy about the somewhat affected and Victorian voice of the writing with its patronizing tone and liberal use of "dear Reader" (though I concede, she'd have to do this in order to sustain the little conceit she has set up). But it’s a beautiful book otherwise, dispensing year-round activity suggestions for kids and families with common sense, a few recipes ("Mrs. Sharp’s Irish Soda Bread" and "Mrs. Sharp’s Hot Cross Buns" among others), and poems by Katharine Pyle.

Gather around kiddos, here’s one for today:

JANUARY.

The shrill wind blew about the house
And through the pines all night:
The snowflakes whirled across the fields
And hid the fence from sight.

By dawn the drifts had blown so deep
No horse nor sleigh could go:
The dog-house and the chicken-coops
Were buried in the snow.

There was no thought of school that day;
We worked with shovels all,
And cleared a path from house to barn;
The snow was like a wall.

I wished our house was covered up,
Like that one in the book
My Grandma showed to me one day
Beside the chimney-nook.

The story said the chimney-pot
Just showed above the snow,
And all day long the lamps were lit
Down in the house below.

Katharine Pyle 1863-1938