Stories about stories

So, what did you do today?  Really?  Hmmmm.  Whoa!  What happened then?

Please don't ever tell anyone that you can't tell stories.  Everyone tells stories.  It's how we touch each other.

I just finished two fine new children's books, Bo at Ballard Creek by Kirkpatrick Hill, and The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp by Kathi Appelt.  And stories - and the telling of stories - featured in both of them.

Bo loves hearing the story of how she ended up with her two huge papas in a gold mining town in Alaska.  And she loves hearing the stories of how the "boys" who work at the mine got to Ballard Creek.  Everyone has a story - however short.  Little Bo gathers adventures that will turn into stories, too.  This book has been compared to The Little House on the Prairie series.  The descriptions of life in a gold mining town in 1929 and 1930 are lovingly detailed.  Bo is a character I hope to read about again.

The Sugar Man is just a story to most of the people around Sugar Man Swamp, but not to Bingo and J'miah the new information scouts of Sugar Man Swamp.  They know he's real and they know they must only wake him up in an emergency.  What the two raccoons don't know is that an emergency is heading their way.
Bingo, J'Miah and a grieving 12-year-old boy named Chap must protect the Sugar Man Swamp from greedy developers.  Throw in 17 rapacious, destructive and awful wild boars and you have stories to the top of your ears!  Short, short chapters keep the pages turning.  And stories about the Sugar Man and his friends and enemies crop up over and over.

Long Live Stories!!!