FRONT PORCH STORIES AT THE ONE-ROOM SCHOOL

Some of the lively characters in Just an Overnight Guest (1980) return in this celebration of storytelling and small-town life. Matthew J. Cornelius Carson falls into the mood one night, and his daughter Margie and niece Ethel sit entranced for hours, listening to his tales—about the giant shadow that chased Aunt Daisy the time she dared to do wash on Sunday; about laughing and working together at the old one-room Douglass School; about the time Great-Grandpa Wally came back from the grave, or the unforgettable day Eleanor Roosevelt came through town. Linking these incidents into a single, seamless narrative, Tate notes that all of them are based, at least loosely, on her own memories of growing up in Canton, Missouri. Like Margie and Ethel, readers may be moved to find comparable stories in their own lives. Illustrations not seen. (Fiction. 10-13)