Books in Charlotte Zolotow Book series

It's a place where life and love begin, and loss is borne.Mothers give birth in the borning room. The dying take their departure there.Ouside the Lott family's Ohio farmhouse, the Civil War rages, slavery falls, and the world marvels at the wonder of electricity. Inside, within the walls of the borning room, Georgina Lott will experience her life's greatest turnings. Across the years, she discovers womanhood and first love, experiences the mourning that comes with loss, and, as did her mother and grandmother, at last takes her place in the room as another precious life is about to begin.The borning room is a room that figures large in the life of an Ohio farm girl born in 1851. Through its doorway pass the members of a free thinking family, bearing news of the world beyond the window: talk of runaway slaves, the siege of Vicksburg, seances, chloroform, electricity. In this heartfelt and haunting work, an account of one life, one family, and one room widens into a panoramic view of the human seasons and the procession of generations. "From an innovative, highly talented novelist and poet . . . memorable characters and valuable glimpses of social history in a beautifully crafted novel. Deeply rewarding." —K. Notable Children's Books of 1992 (ALA)1992 Best Books for Young Adults (ALA)1992 Fanfare Honor List (The Horn Book)Best Books of 1991 (SLJ)1991 Books for Youth Editors' Choices (BL)1992 Teacher's Choices (IRA)Notable 1991 Children's Trade Books in Social Studies (NCSS/CBC)1991 Notable Trade Books in the Language Arts (NCTE)1991 Golden Kite Award Honor Book for Fiction (SCBW)1991 Choices: The Year's Best Books (Publishers Weekly)100 Books for Reading and Sharing 1991 (NY Public Library)Bulletin Blue Ribbon Books 1991 (C)Children's Books of 1991 (Library of Congress)1992 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library)

It's not fair, Emma thinks, for her parents to go away (for five whole days) and leave her with an aunt and uncle she hardly knows. What if they don't like children? But Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Eliot like Emma and her brother, Zachary, just fine. They also like rules. Rules about: Eating. Sleeping. Cleaning up. Messing up. Emma doesn't believe in rules. Not unless they're hers: Eating no broccoli, dead or alive. Sleeping: No sleeping in a room where night rumbles hide. Cleaning up: Don't. Messing up: Do. Emma can see that Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Elliot have a lot to learn about being parents. But that's okay---because Emma has five whole days in which to teach them.

Cassie thought longingly of the order and pattern in her mother's old garden inland. And her old tree house, built on the low limbs of a huge maple tree. It had been her space. Here there was no space for her. Even her own room was not hers.Cassie Binegar (whose name rhymes with vinegar) hates the weathered house by the sea, where there is no space to call her own. She yearns to go back to her old home, back to the time before she had yelled at her grandfather, before he had died. She tongs for an orderliness to life -- a pattern-that doesn't exist among her raucous, loving family. Cassie hides and watches and listens; but then her Gran comes-Gran, who is so good at seeing the truth about Cassie. The rest of Cassie's relatives arrive also: Uncle Hat, who sometimes speaks in rhymes, Cousin Coralinda, who wears too many feathers, and Baby Binnie, who speaks a language all her own. When a stranger comes for the summer, Cassie begins to learn that there are some things that do not stay the same forever.Patricia MacLachlan, with the gentle insight and understatement that characterizes all her stories, writes of a wistful young girl trying to look at the world through the eyes of those she loves.