For those that know me well, you probably know that one of the reasons I wanted so badly to return to Southwest Virginia…Mendota, actually, was because I loved my childhood here.     When we first started looking for land, I still thought we would have children or we would adopt.  I was 35 and still young enough by most standards.   However, it did not happen.   I am okay with that now.

I wanted to have children here because I remember what it was like to play among giant mountain laurel (the wild version of rhododendrum) by a creek and string the leaves together to make a skirt, which never stayed quite right.   On the small hill called “the Knob” that seemed so big, there were ravines and shadows and smells all contributing to an active imagination.    My cats would hunt on “the Knob” but I was certain they were  heading out each day to an alternative life where they worked, attended school and had a whole social structure similar to the world I knew.

I believe that is one of the reasons I enjoyed the Juvenile Fiction book Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty.  Serafina is the cat that I wanted to be as a child.

I’m not going to spoil the book for you, but I will encourage you to read it.  It’s very good.

There’s other things I like about the making of this book.   It is set at Biltmore.   There is a book trailer out and it has the author’s daughter dressed as Serafina.

Look at Serafina’s pretty dress.  The author’s wife made it.   I read about the Beatty’s.  They’re wealthy.  They could have asked a seamstress to make the dress, but that is not what occurred.   Jennifer Beatty, Robert’s wife, made the dress at their kitchen table.  I can imagine her listening to his description of how the dress looked “in his head” and the two of them and perhaps their daughters planning the dress.  He talks a little about the dress on his blog which is here

Disney is promoting the book, and I would not be surprised or one bit unhappy if Serafina becomes a movie and little girls everywhere will want a Serafina doll, with her cat-like eyes, wearing a red taffeta dress–just like the one Jennifer Beatty made.

If you haven’t read this book, please do.  Middle-school aged children on up to….well…their 60’s….will find it very good.