Sara Ware Bassett: 28 books

Christopher and the Clockmakers was written in the early 20th century by a Massachusetts school teacher and textile designer, who also wrote a large number of novels. It is part of a series of living books which teach young people about the history and production of such things as sugar, glass, porcelain...

Excerpt: "Plum-cake!" he cried. "A dandy great loaf! And here's olives, and preserved ginger, and sweet chocolate. She's put in salted almonds, too; and look—here's a tin box of Hannah's molasses cookies, the kind I used to like when I was a kid. Isn't my mother a peach?"

Christopher Mark Antony Burton was a tremendously imposing name to give a baby. When he lay in his crib, wee and helpless, he looked as if he might never survive the weight of it. Even later, when he began to toddle about on his small, unsteady feet, the sonorous pseudonym trailed in his wake, threatening to drag him down to an early grave.

Excerpt: "Well, during your grandfather's life an old Scotchman managed the ranch and attended to shipping the wool. As we had nothing to do but to sell it, we did not bother much about the place, for we had perfect confidence in Old Angus, the manager. After your grandfather died, Uncle Harold and...

Excerpt: "He took down the jeans from a peg behind the door. The clothes were dirty, sticky with salt, and in them lingered a loathsome aroma of wet hides. Instinctively he shrank from touching them. Then, gritting his teeth, he put them on. This he did more out of appreciation for the rough kindliness...

Excerpt: "Father once told me he had known of a lot of silkworms that stopped eating and died because a sudden noise frightened them," observed Pierre. "Such a calamity is not at all unusual, Pierre," returned his mother. "And more than that, if anything alarms them after they have begun to spin they...

Excerpt: "I have seen some of the old Mexican or Aztec pottery," declared Dr. Swift, "and it was very interesting. It was of reddish clay, and I was told it was much like the variety made in Peru. Not only were there roughly modeled dishes and jars in the collection, but also all sorts of strange...

It was the vision of a monthly paper for the Burmingham High School that first turned Paul Cameron's attention toward a printing press. Dad, how much does a printing press cost? he inquired one evening as he sat down to dinner. A what? A printing press.