Books with author Patricia Lauber

I read this story over and over as a young girl and I saved my well-worn copy to pass along to my kids. I just recently read Clarence The TV Dog to my 8 year-old son and he enjoyed it just as much as I had. Clarence was a real dog and the book is about the fun little adventures he had in his home and neighborhood with his owners, a young boy and girl and their mother. The author wrote on the back, "All the adventures in the book are ones that either have happened to Clarence or might very well happen to him tomorrow." A sequel called "Clarence Goes to Town" is also very enjoyable.

"This spectacular book; Lauber's narrative describing the eruption, aftermath, and gradual return of life to the Mount St. Helens slopes devastated by the 1980 eruption is anchored with stellar color photographs that show each phase of the destruction and healing . . . This is a substantive explanation backed by superb book design."--Booklist, starred review. Newbery Honor Book; ALA Notable Children's Book, Booklist Editors' Choice.

The symbol of the Lockheed Company is a winged star, and the company has named many of its planes after stars or constellations -- Vega, Sirius, Altair, and Orion. Researchers went to the library read books and found something they liked. This was a Greek myth that told of the Pleiades, the seven daughters of Atlas. As young women they were pursued through the forest by the hunter Orion. The great god Jupiter took pity on them and changed them first to doves then to a group of stars, the constellation we call Pleiades. In the beginning there were seven stars -- the seven sisters. But the one named Electra could not bear to see her beloved city of Troy perish in the flames of war. She tore herself away from her sisters and became a comet. At that is why only six stars are clearly visible in the Pleiades. One was lost, Electra. Amelia Earhart made her last flight in an Electra. Like the plane's namesake, she became a lost star. And in a career that lasted only nine years she lighted up the sky and then like a comet, disappeared from sight.