among the tear-soaked

I've been reading some of Margaret Peterson Haddix's books lately. Despite the name of this blog post, I didn't read the Shadow Children series. Instead, I read Leaving Fishers, Double Identity, and Takeoffs and Landings. I liked Leaving Fishers, of course - it's about a girl who joins a cult, and cults are on that quirky list of topics (which also includes school stories, books about nuns, and books about mills) that I will nearly always enjoy. Double Identity was pretty good. I suspect that objectively speaking, Takeoffs and Landings wasn't great, but oh my goodness, it made me cry. It was told my a brother and sister in alternating chapters, and after the first 50 pages, I cried through all the brother's chapters. Thank heavens it was late at night, and no one was there to see me sob my way through this book.
After the Haddix-fest, I went for a re-read of Peter's Room. I've gotten a bit bogged down with it, though, so I picked up The Honour of the House (talking of school stories!) to read over lunch yesterday. Last night a friend was telling me that he wants to read the Little House books (if you're reading this, Mark: seriously, don't do it unless you read The Long Winter, and probably not even then), and that made me want to pull out Farmer Boy for a re-read. So that might be next.