The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

The heat was a misery for all of us in Fentress, but it was the women who suffered the most in their corsets and petticoats. At three o'clock in the afternoon, when it was time to get up again, the temperature was still killing. Mother's usual summer remedy of sprinkling the sheets with refreshing cologne lasted only a minute. There was a full day's work to be done before noon, when the deadly heat drove everyone back into our big shuttered house and we lay down in the dim high-ceilinged rooms like sweating victims. We lit our kerosene lamps and carried them before us in the dark like our own tiny wavering suns. We arose in the dark, hours before sunrise, when there was barely a smudge of indigo along the eastern sky and the rest of the horizon was still pure pitch. for he knows nothing of the amount and kind of variation to which the group is subject.īy 1899, we had learned to tame the darkness but not the Texas heat. And she especially shines in her depiction of the natural world that so intrigues Callie.When a young naturalist commences the study of a group of organisms quite unknown to him, he is at first much perplexed to determine what differences to consider. “In her debut novel, Jacqueline Kelly brings to vivid life a boisterous small-town family at the dawn of a new century. “ The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate is the most delightful historical novel for tweens in many, many years.” - The New Yorker, 'Book Bench' section In this enchanting middle-grade novel, The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly, readers will fall deeper in love with our heroine Callie Vee, as she continues her journey to learn more about the world around her and to deal with her wild family. Whether it's wrangling a rogue armadillo or stray dog, a guileless younger brother or standoffish cousin, the trials and tribulations of Callie Vee will have readers laughing and crying and cheering for this most endearing heroine. And Callie has her hands full keeping the wild animals-her brother included-away from her mother's critical eye. Callie Vee, Travis, Granddaddy, and the whole Tate clan are back in this charming follow-up to Newbery Honor-winner The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate.