Kindle Edition Download from Smashwords (eBook) CKBooks Publishing Amazon Smashwords Category:  Family Type: Fiction Pages: 21 Copyright: May, 2012 Price: $1.99 (eBook) It is 1954 and Katherine Gale has just turned thirteen, though she likes it when people say she looks older. But no matter what year it is, when you’re thirteen, you still don’t like cleaning your room, having to sit next to your younger brothers, or go visit your elderly Grandmother. Katherine and her mother, Ruth, are about to do just that.  Grandma Blanch is eighty-four and getting forgetful, so it was decided she has to move soon and Ruth needs help sorting through Grandma’s things. Katherine only has younger brothers, so she gets volunteered for the task. What Katherine and her mother don’t know is that Grandma Blanch needs more help then they realize, and Katherine, unwittingly, discovers how to do just that. What Katherine doesn’t expect is that she gains a new friend in the process. Excerpt “Katherine Rosemary Gale, if you don’t get down here this instant…” My mother’s voice was serious now. If the tone hadn’t convinced me that I couldn’t stall any longer, then the use of my proper name did. “At least she didn’t call me Katie,” I said to myself. “Katie is so childish.” I rolled my eyes, closed my newest issue of Seventeen Magazine, and stuffed it in my pink vinyl overnight bag, the one with the picture of the white poodle on one side being led by the bottom half of a very fashionable girl in a dark-pink poodle skirt. I wished with all my might that this was just an overnight trip, but it wasn’t; it was four whole days. Father had already taken my suitcase down to the car. It was an ugly, old, brown cardboard thing that didn’t match anything I owned. Mother didn’t seem to realize the importance of matching accessories; they really made the woman. It is one of the first things I had promised myself I would get once I was on my own. This trip was a Thanksgiving vacation ritual. When Dad made his annual fishing trip to the great north woods, mother and us kids went south to visit my mother’s mother, Grandma Blanche, in Galena, Illinois. It wasn’t until two years ago, when Ronnie turned six and John was eight, that my brothers got out of going with us to Grandma’s and started going fishing with Dad. Lucky ducks! I had even tried to convince my parents that I needed to go with Dad this year to keep the boys from fighting. They were always fighting, and since I was the oldest and had just turned thirteen, I was the official babysitter. Unfortunately, neither of them had gone for it. Every year I dreaded this trip out of my already short Thanksgiving vacation, but it was going to be even worse than usual this year. Grandma Blanche had turned eighty-four this last spring, and she was starting to forget things. Mom had decided that Grandma needed to move out of her small home of fifty years, so the main goal of our trip was to help Grandma go through her things. And she had a LOT of things. It wasn’t going to be fun. Sitting on my bed, I thought back to my attempt at getting out of this trip and tried to figure out where I had gone wrong. I started with what I thought was a very legitimate argument. “I’ve never gotten to go fishing with Dad,” I said, putting on my best daddy’s-little-girl look. But my mother came back with, “You don’t want to touch those slimy fish!” she said, knowing she was right. “I don’t mind,” I lied. I knew Dad would bait the hook for me and take any fish I might catch off the line, being a novice and a girl and all. My father ventured, “It’ll be cold.” “I’ll wear a coat and slacks,” I countered, cringing at the thought of losing vital tanning time, but I knew what was at stake here. Then Mother gave it her last best effort. “You don’t know how many more times you’ll get to see Grandma Blanche,” mother reminded me for the hundredth time, at least! “Your mother needs you,” my father said, finally playing the guilt card. I knew then, my goose was cooked. In fact, it was boiled and falling off the bone, so I gave up. I dragged myself out of bed, grabbed my case, and headed downstairs. I clomped down each step as if going to the gallows, my overnight bag thudding noisily on each step as I dragged it along. “ʼBout time, young lady. We’re gonna miss our train if you don’t pick up the pace a bit here!” mother said, herding me out the door with a white-gloved hand. At least she’s got on a stylish traveling suit, I thought. Mother wore mostly fashionable things when she went out: to church every Sunday or when my parents went to card club once a month. But when she was at home, she wore the frumpiest things. I hated when my friends came over. I’d usher them as quickly as I could up to my room and barricade the door―locking the door wasn’t allowed―and not come out until they had to leave. When we came outside, father was standing with his arms crossed, propped up against the station wagon waiting for mother and me. Luckily he didn’t have the same perturbed look that mother wore. He stood and took my overnight bag with an almost apologetic smile on his face. He didn’t like going to Grandma Blanche’s any more than I did, so I think he felt guilty for making me go. “I’ll take that, sweetheart,” he said, then added, “My, do you look nice!” I looked down at my freshly pressed, white cotton blouse covered by a pink cashmere sweater and white and pink gingham skirt that filled out just right by the crinoline slip underneath and reflexively smoothed out my skirt with a smile. When I looked at myself in the car window, I could see the chiffon, pink polka-dot scarf I had expertly tied around my neck, just like they taught in Mademoiselle Magazine, and my mousy, brown hair pulled back in a pony tail without a strand out of place. I had to hand it to my Dad, he didn’t dress the best himself, but he had an eye for a well-manicured lady. “You look nice, too,” he said to my mother, giving her a peck on the cheek. Then he took her black patent-leather overnight bag and placed it next to my pink one in the back of the car. Black and pink; those two colors go nicely together. I’ll have to make a note of that in my journal―diaries were so fifth grade―so I can use it later. Just then I remembered, I was supposed to be mad. I slumped up against the side of the car and stuck out my lower lip, waiting for mother to corral my brothers into the back seat. I was also waiting for my best friend and next door neighbor, Tracy. She had promised to come over and say goodbye. Plus she was bringing me her latest Nancy Drew, and I desperately needed something interesting to read while I was at Grandma’s. Tracy’s mother worked part-time at Pearl Street Book Store down town, so she got a discount on all the books. Tracy and I were Carolyn Keene’s biggest fans, so we got the new editions the minute they came into the store. It was the best. “Ronnie, John, in the car, please,” mother ordered politely. “You too, Katherine.” The boys came closer to the car with their game of tag but didn’t manage to get in. “I can’t!” I lamented. “Tracy’s not here yet.” And as if on cue, a freckled-faced, strawberry-blond haired girl pushed her way through the opening in the shrubs with book in hand. I let out a large sigh and ran up to her to meet her halfway. “Geez, I thought you’d never come! We’re about to leave!” I said in a whisper. “Sorry, I had to clean up my room before my mom would let me out of the house, and you know what a big job that is!” I did! Tracy was a real slob. I tried to set a good example for her, using the handy organizational tips in my mother’s Ladies Home Journal for my own room, but after repeated hints and what I thought were very good suggestions for her own room, I gave up. “Send me a post-card or something, okay?” “I can write you a whole book, as boring as it’s gonna to be down there,” I said with my best pout. “Well, I remembered the book!” Tracy said beaming, handing the colorful book out to me. It was titled The Clue of the Black Keys. “It’s really good, at least the first half. That’s as far as I got last night.” “Thanks, Trace. It’s sure swell of you to loan it to me before you even finished it.” “You need it more than me!” she said, putting her arm around my shoulders. I nodded in agreement and hugged the book to my chest. My father closed the garage door and, with a sharp commanding “Let’s go!,” he sat behind the wheel. Both my brothers bolted for the car. “I better get going,” I whispered and gave Tracy a super-strong hug to try and hold me over for the long weekend. Tracy stood in our driveway and waved me off to my doom.

From Linda Ulleseit
Although its intended readers will see it as historical fiction from a faraway time, The Red Velvet Box, by Christine Keleny, seems as if it came right out of my own childhood. The time and place details were perfect for the early 1950's, and the fashion details were great. My own childhood was a decade later, but I, too, remember feeling grown up reading Seventeen magazine. In this story, Katherine embarks reluctantly on a holiday trip to visit her grandmother. It's an annual trip with her mother, so Katherine knows exactly how bad it is going to be.

Katherine is intrigued by the red velvet box, which is very special to her grandmother. It holds old ornaments, each with their own story. I particularly loved that the ornaments weren't valuable imported blown glass. Most are handmade from paper. This is very true to the time and very good comment on value. The box is very magical, but not in a wizard sense. The magic lies in the precious family memories that the ornaments hold.

Of course Katherine learns a lesson about the value of family that tugs at the reader. Overall, the story is short enough to share over and over again and is heartwarming enough that you want to do so.

At the end of the story, Keleny includes directions to make one of the paper ornaments in the red velvet box. I actually made these ornaments myself in Girl Scouts, and I often make them in my classroom with my students. I can hardly wait to read the story to my class before creating ornaments this year!

From Kate Prudchenko
This delightful little book is a contemporary work of fiction set in 1954. The narrator is 13-year old, Katherine Gale, who is quirky, smart and a voracious reader. Like all teenagers, she is a little bit of an outsider, even in her family - a person standing a bit apart from everyone else, a person who is still trying to figure out where she fits in.

The story revolves around Katherine's trip to her grandmother's house, a trip which she is reluctant to take. Katherine's grandmother's memory is failing, yet it is not all gone. Her grandmother's glimpses of memory allow Katherine to see her as an entirely different light - as a woman, a lover, and adult rather than as just an elderly grandmother. What makes this novella particularly poignant is Keleny's rich descriptions of Chicago, the Girl Scouts and the ornaments. They make the story come alive and make you nostalgic for another time and place.

From Karla Nodorft Heller
A lovely novella from my favorite indie author. (Please give this or any of her other books a try, You won't be disappointed!) Thirteen-year-old Katherine is dreading this four-day trip with her mother, Ruth. They were going to visit Katherine's grandmother, whose memory had been failing and soon would not be able to live on her own. The mission of this trip was to help Ruth's mother start to go through her attic, so she could decide what she wanted to keep. At first, Katherine tries to distance herself from (in her thirteen-year-old view) the scary, shrunken, thin-skinned, wispy-haired, forgetful, old-person-smelling woman her grandmother had become. Then Katherine unearths a red velvet box in the attic that brings change and new understandings to each of them. I particularly liked how the Nancy Drew series of books and Nancy's method of sleuthing were incorporated. A great read for pre-teens and up. Enjoy!