Before my cousin gave me Sweet Valley Twins #4 (Choosing Sides) when I was nine years old, I was perfectly content with borrowing The Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew from the school library. That singular point in time involving a seemingly innocuous present, however, spurred one of my life passions: my personal library that I have kept going for 38 years and counting (indirect age reveal).
These days I have numerous collections of series, many of them children’s books. I never grew out of my penchant for the books of my childhood. It’s not just series though. I collect books based on authors, themes, awards, etc.
It’s not just books either. If I get something and it pleases me, my tendency is to collect others like it. For instance, I once came across a bird’s feather in one of my walks; since then, I’d been on the look out for clean-looking feathers to add to my collection. Off the top of my head, I have amassed sea glass, skipping stones, mugs, stickers, fairy lights, cats…
Anyway, I digress. I really mean to discuss the two new book series that I’ve started collecting. Neither is readily available in local bookstores, being older books, so it means that I’ll have to chance upon them in secondhand bookshops.
The first is The Penderwicks Series. I learned about it from a cottagecore vlogger I follow. I got the first book and loved it (review posted here). It’s just the kind of reading I favor – endearingly fascinating characters, a plot with a captivating GMC (goal, motivation, and conflict) and a balance between sentimentality and adventure, fluid storytelling, a style that favors a witty turn of phrase, and an idyllic setting.
I had already made my mind up to collect the rest of the series. Thankfully, it’s a short one – just five books, so there had only been four more books to go. I wasn’t really actively looking to add to my Penderwicks collection yet, but while I was looking for a cheap copy of The Hobbit (a whole other story), I came across the Spring book and another Richard Peck book, so I ended up getting those two.
As for the second series, The Cat Who… Mysteries entered my life just last year. I can’t believe I didn’t get into them much sooner. I actually hadn’t even known about them. If I’d come across them in a bookstore before, they simply didn’t register. When it came to mysteries, I didn’t really get into the cozy stuff until the last decade. I had been much more into Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky stuff, which was a lot grittier.
There are many things I love about The Cat Who… books. First and foremost, there’s the presence of cats. Cats always win points from me regardless of context. 😀 Second, I adore the small town vibe, although I think the first books (the ones that were published in the ‘60s) were set in the city. For some reason, it took the writer two decades to publish a new installment, but when she did, she continued until the early 2000s. Then again, there are speculations that she didn’t write the last few books herself.
No matter, the essence of the series is mainly about living in a quirky and charming small town full of fascinating characters. The author’s writing style is right up my alley. It has dry wit in spades. She had a clever way with figurative language, and if I were the type to annotate, the books would have my scribbles and doodles all over them. Sadly, I’m the kind that goes, “Ooh, I love that line! Why are my notebook and a pen nowhere near me?”
If I have one peeve about the stories I’ve read thus far, it’s that the plot, the victim, and the villain are pretty obvious from the get-go. That’s probably the hazard of having a psychic cat in the leading role. Still, the journey remains engaging, and the details are not as easily divined.
Now, I’m still at four books for this series. I did actively try to see if there are copies I can buy online. I found several, but their prices are not competitive against those of the secondhand bookshop where I sourced the first books I got. That store was a goldmine. The branch I got my haul from is several cities away and we only went there because my daughter had a cosplay event to attend in the same mall. Still, it turned out to be an incredibly rewarding book shopping (which was not in the original agenda at all) trip. So the plan now is to hit nearby branches of that secondhand bookshop and see if they’re just as awesome.
Have you heard of these books? What’s a series that you recently discovered and want to get into?
This Small Life 
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