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Were you obsessed with antiquity, myths, and homemade costumes when you were a child? If so, have we got the book for you! This episode we revisit an oldie but a goodie: Zilpha Keatley Snyder's classic children's book, The Egypt Game. We love the nuanced characters, genuinely exciting and surprising plot twists, and relate to Melanie and April's love of imagination games. Hannah relates to being "the keeper of the lashes" even though we all bemoan the health and safety concerns of continuously recycled fake lashes. We enjoyed the hijinks of our core group of five "Egyptians" (plus Security the octopus) and are thrilled by the depiction of a good librarian. We talk about the blending of pretty dark topics (parental abandonment, an actual murder of a child) with the delight of childhood imagination, friendships, and accepting others for who they are and the importance of feeling understood.

These Books Made Me is a podcast about the literary heroines who shaped us and is a product of the Prince George's County Memorial Library System podcast network. Stay in touch with us via #TheseBooksMadeMe on socials, follow us on Instagram @TheseBooksMadeMe or reach out by email at TheseBooksMadeMe@pgcmls.info.

For recommended readalikes and deep dives into topics related to each episode, visit our blog at https://pgcmls.medium.com/.

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In this episode, we take a sip from the spring of eternal life—or at least from Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting—and things get delightfully complicated. We are capping off season 5 with a children's book that is not afraid to take on deep philosophical topics. This is our second episode in a row diving into books centering on immortality, but there are no sparkly vampires with disturbingly ambiguous ethics here, just an immortal toad, an unexpected murder, a disturbing music box (is that Mae Tuck's music?!?), and a little girl who engineers a jail break. Join us as we chat about the Tuck family’s accidental immortality, side-eye the Man in the Yellow Suit’s villainous mustache-twirling, and ponder whether living forever is truly a blessing or just being cursed to a job that you can never retire from. In this episode we learn that Hawa processes human speech that is too fast to be decipherable to anyone else, worry about Jesse's semi-romantic overtures to a ten year old, and discuss the heavy burden of keeping secrets. We’re diving into the magic, the mayhem, and the moral quandaries of a children’s classic that still hits surprisingly hard.

These Books Made Me is a podcast about the literary heroines who shaped us and is a product of the Prince George's County Memorial Library System podcast network. Stay in touch with us via Twitter @PGCMLS with #TheseBooksMadeMe, on Instagram @TheseBooksMadeMe or by email at TheseBooksMadeMe@pgcmls.info. For recommended readalikes and deep dives into topics related to each episode, visit our blog at https://pgcmls.medium.com/.

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We're back with a continuation of our discussion around Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. In this episode, we explore the toxicity of Bella and Edward's relationship, the problematic depictions of Indigenous peoples and the influence of the Twilight movies. We also take a Buzzfeed quiz to find out which Twilight character we are (spoiler: none of us were quite happy with our results).

These Books Made Me is a podcast about the literary heroines who shaped us and is a product of the Prince George's County Memorial Library System podcast network. Stay in touch with us via Twitter @PGCMLS with #TheseBooksMadeMe, on Instagram @TheseBooksMadeMe or by email at TheseBooksMadeMe@pgcmls.info. For recommended readalikes and deep dives into topics related to each episode, visit our blog at https://pgcmls.medium.com/.