Andwalk Adventures

Miss Cayley's Adventures

Choose the Right and Walk with Noah

"Choose the right" adventures are dozens of stories blended into one where you, the reader, will choose the ending again and again. Simply begin on page one and read until you are asked a question. Then turn to the page of your appropriate response to see where your decision leads you. By making different choices each time you read the story will become knew and give you adventure after adventure in the same book. Choose the right and walk with Noah the first book in the series is a delightful tale about Isaac, a shepherd boy who lives during the time of Noah. Help him make decisions in his life and see if he will go the way of man or be fortunate to walk with Noah when the ark sets sail. His life is in your hands and his happiness will depend on you and whether or not you choose the right.

Take Up Thy Bed and Walk

Heidi, The Secret Garden, and Pollyanna are all classic "girls' books," featuring a miracle cure of an invalid character who literally gets up and walks away from illness or paralysis. Such stories were common in Victorian novels and they implicitly conveyed the idea that disability and physical suffering were punishment for wrongdoing: unruly girls could not enter womanhood unless they were tamed, and an accident was the perfect plot device for this transformation. Other characters, like Helen Burns in Jane Eyre or Beth in Little Women, were just too good to live, and died so that another character could be redeemed by their example. Lois Keith points out in this study that the temptation to either cure or kill off disabled characters has surprising tenacity. The widespread belief that a disabled life isn't a full life and that patients can cure themselves through force of will endures to the present day. In Take Up Thy Bed & Walk, Lois Keith brings her lively and observant eye to the classic books of childhood from Jane Eyre, Heidi, and Pollyanna, to modern American classics such as Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie and Judy Blume's Deenie. Keith explores the recurring images of impairment and ill health in literature and asks the reader to reconsider the messages they send to a devoted young audience. This book is also a testament to the singular passion with which these books are read by younger readers and reminds us of the intensity of our own reading experience as children.