Here is my latest newsletter! If you want to get the next one, sign up here on my website!

 

Have you thought, “What is Miriam Jones Bradley up to these days?” Today I want to answer that question with four “whats”. So, let’s get started!.

What’s Up With Miriam?

The past eighteen months have been filled with physical challenges from cancer (clean bill of health there) to three injuries, the last being some broken ribs. I’ve only been able to work 26 weeks of the past year at the hospital so I have been branching out into the freelance writing field.

I’ve written a few articles for a local weekly newspaper, had one of the pieces of my All I Have Needed – A Legacy For Life book published in a woman’s magazine, and written several articles for HealthDay, an online health site. It has been challenging, but exciting to see God provide these opportunities.

What else is Miriam working on?

Besides the freelance writing, I am currently working on three other projects.
1. I have written short devotions (think “Keys for Kids”) that relate to each chapter of the first Double Cousins Mystery. I am working now on editing them. Then we will publish it as a companion book to The Double Cousins and the Mystery of the Missing Watch. I plan to write a devotional for each of my mysteries.
2. I am writing a picture book about my Grandpa Jones’ journey from Kansas to Nebraska in a covered wagon when he was eight. This was the first project I dreamed of twenty-five years ago.
3. Initial research for the next Nearly Twins book is complete, and I hope to work on the plot in the next month.

What events does Miriam have coming up in the near future?

On July 27th we plan to leave for points west.
Monday, July 31st we will have a booth at the Custer County Fair in Broken Bow, NE.
Thursday, August 3rd we will be at the Market in the Square in downtown Broken Bow, NE.
Saturday morning, August 12th I will be signing books at Everybody’s Bookstore in Rapid City, SD
Thursday, August 17th, we will be at the Market in the Square in Broken Bow, NE again.
September 28th-29th I will present five sessions at the KCEA (Keystone Christian Educators Association) conference in Pennsylvania.

I have dates available and am seeking opportunities for school visits this fall. If you know of a school that would like me to come, please have them contact me at this email.

  • What Has Miriam Been Reading?

I’ve enjoyed going to the library more often this year and I’ve checked out books in different age groups. Here are some of my favorite reads.

Picture books:
Still Dreaming by Claudia Guadalupe Martínez and Magdalena Mora
Elsie’s Bird by Jane Yolen
Dear Mr. G by Christine Evans
Marie’s Ocean: Marie Tharp Maps the Mountains Under the Sea
by Josie James
Moon TreeThe Story of One Extraordinary Tree
by Carolyn Frasier  and Simona Mulazzani
Middle Grade Fiction:
Sisterhood of Sleuths by Jennifer Chambliss Bertram
A Kind of Paradise by Amy Rebecca Tan
A Sky Full of Song by Susan Meyer
Fiction:
How the Penguins Saved Veronica by Hazel Prior
Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Agatha Christie mysteries (several)
 
I hope this email answers the majority of questions you might have, as well as give you some ideas for books to check out! I would love to hear from you. If you have any other questions please comment below!

 

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

Dr. Seuss

 

“I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.” 

Robert Louis Stevenson

 

The person who deserves most pity is a lonesome one on a rainy day who doesn’t know how to read.”

Benjamin Franklin

 

“Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren’t very new after all.” 

Abraham Lincoln

 

“The man who does not read good books is no better than the man who can’t.”

Mark Twain

 

“Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.”

Napoléon Bonaparte

 

“Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else.” 

Albert Einstein

 

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”

  Cicero

 

“A book is a gift you can open again and again.”

  Garrison Keillor

 

“Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or duty. It should be offered to them as a precious gift.”

Kate DiCamillo

 

“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.”

 Emilie Buchwald

 

“No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.”  Confucius

 

“There are many little ways to enlarge your child’s world.  Love of books is the best of all.”

Jacqueline Kennedy

 

“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install a lovely bookshelf on the wall.”

Roald Dahl

 

These quotes are all by famous people. Do you have a book quote for me? Share it below in the comments.

 

  • Several years ago, I read the biography, Truman, by David McCullough. I knew very little about President Truman before that, so the book was an eye-opening experience. After all, that time period is the back story to my life, the era of my parents’ childhoods. To be honest, there was a lot going on in the world during that time, and Truman ended up involved in most of it in one way or another.

 

The fact that a farmer from Missouri could end up in the White House, almost by accident, was incredible. Yet, he did. And he took responsibility and made tough decisions. Then, when he was done, he went home and walked to “work” at his Presidential library every day. The first presidential library.

 

So after reading the book, I realized that nearly every time we drove to South Dakota from North Carolina, we went right past Independence, Missouri, and the signs that point the way to his home and his presidential library. It became my goal, my dream, to visit his library. I’d never been to a presidential library, and this seemed like a perfect place to start.

 

But, it wasn’t that simple. Our trips back and forth were often made with as much speed as we could manage. After all, when it takes 27 hours to make the trip, you don’t really have time for sight-seeing. But every time we passed the signs I would say, “One day!”

 

About the time we got serious about visiting, they closed for renovations. Then the pandemic happened. But this past Thanksgiving week, “someday” became “this day” and we stopped in Independence and spent several wonderful hours exploring the museum/library. There was so much history there, a lot of it sobering, as it dealt with several wars.

 

I came away, thankful once again for the man that was Harry Truman and the gifts God gave him. Someday, I would love to go back. But, there are other presidential libraries!

 

A couple of weeks ago I finished reading Mornings on Horseback, also by David McCullough. It’s not a biography, but rather the chronicling of a family, the Roosevelt family. It starts with President Theodore Roosevelt’s grandparents and parents, and then settles into a close-up-and-personal look at the family in which Teddy Roosevelt grew up. It follows them through to the point where Teddy is about to marry his second wife, then quickly ties up the loose ends, letting you know how each of his siblings’ lives went after that.

 

It was an incredibly detailed look at the life of a privileged family in the last half of the 19th century and into the 20th.

 

The thing that most caught my attention, though, was a note from the author explaining how he decided to write the book. When he was researching for his books on the Brooklyn Bridge and the Panama Canal, (both on my must-read list) he discovered this massive collection of letters from the Roosevelt family, housed at Harvard. Every Roosevelt was a prolific letter writer. The author recognized in them a treasure trove of first person accounts of this time period in history. How could he not write the story? And wow, I’m super glad he did!

 

Only now I want to go to Harvard to see those letters.

 

Please comment below if you have visited any of the presidential libraries or have ever been inspired to visit a historic site because you read about it in a book.

 

If you are interested in visiting a Presidential Library, you can find a list of them at this site: https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries

 

Here is a link to information about the Theodore Roosevelt Collection: https://library.harvard.edu/collections/theodore-roosevelt-collection