Wow.  The title of this book is too long for blog header title... 

Letters from a cat: published by her mistress for the benefit of all cats and the amusement of little children (Helen Hunt Jackson: 1880, c1879).

Letters from a Cat

but the printing was pretty bad, and they were signed by 
Pussy's name ; and my mamma always 
looked very mysterious when I asked about 
them, as if there were some very great 
secret about it all ; so that until I grew 
to be a big girl, I never doubted but that 
Pussy printed them all alone by herself, 
after dark. 

I haven't read it yet, I did leaf through it yesterday and was so enchanted, but I didn't have the time to actually read it, but now it's first on my list

Billy Whiskers - Frances Trego: A story of a goat's adventures.

Little Black Mingo - Helen Bannerman: A companion book to Little Black Sambo.

Maida's Little Shop - Inez Haynes Gillmore:  A once lame girl now needs to do something with herself, so she opens a little shop and has nice times with her neighbors.  Very adorable.

Railway Children - Edith Nesbit: A family torn apart, a move to the country, secrets and activities at the Railway Station.  A very engaging read.

How Ethel Hollister became a CampFire Girl - Irene Benson:  Ethel's uptight gold-digger mother wants Ethel to have nothing to do with the CFG, but Ethel manages to get involved anyway and has the best experiences.

Marjorie Dean, HS Freshman - Pauline Lester:  Marjorie has to move schools.  Many trials and tribulations are rewarded with life-long friends.

Jack of both Sides - Florence Coombe:  A Boy's school story.  One boy, Jack, shows both sides of the school they can get along.

The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp - Katherine Stokes:  This was a GREAT read.  A group of girls motors out to the mountains for a holiday and meet all kinds of characters and have exciting, and mildly unnerving happenings happen around them.

The Motor Maids' School Days:  Katherine Stokes:  Not as good as Sunrise Camp, but enjoyable just the same.  A typical school story.

The Outdoor Chums, The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club - Quincy Allen:  I was so certain I'd read this, but upon going back to it and reading the first bit, I don't recall this story at all.

The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army -  Margaret Vandercook:  A group of young women become Red Cross Nurses in WWI and end up in war ravaged Russia.  A predictable, but yet engrossing read.

And how can I not list favorites that I read more than a month ago?

The Bobbsey Twins - Laura Lee Hope:  A group of 2 sets of twins, brothers and sisters all, have mysterious adventures and exciting vacations.

The Scotch Twins - Lucy Fitch Perkins:  One of a series of TWINS books set in different geographical regions.  This one, of course, was Scotland.  I ADORED this book.  LOVED IT!

Grace Harlowe - Jessie Graham Flower: A school story of Grace and her chums.  (I've read the whole HS and college series, but not the Overland Riders theme)

The Outdoor Girls - Laura Lee Hope:  A group of young women form a camping, and tramping club and go neat places and solve mysteries and have assorted adventures.  The Outdoor Girls is MY FAVORITE SERIES so far...

Ruth Fielding - Alice B. Emerson:  Orphan Ruth goes to live with her Uncle and goes off to school and other places.  My second favorite series... so far...

Other books I've read in the past 6 months:

A Little Miss Nobody; or, With the Girls of Pinewood School - Amy Bell Marlowe:  Loved it!

Boxcar Children - Gertrude Chandler Warner:

Trixie Belden - Julie Campbell:

Adventure at Brackendale - Linda Peters:

Strawberry Girl - :  I found some of her other Regional stories in the library (I was amazed to find them!) but they were awful.  Not nearly any of them as great as Strawberry Girl.  Disappointed.

I know I've missed a few books that I can't place now, but at least I have this mostly complete list and it seems every time I go back to the Series Bookshelf at Gutenberg there are several new serieses (is that right, serieses?) listed, I'll be happily reading till I'm wearing Coke-Bottle lenses.

Do you like stories about twins?  About Scotland?  Then you might like THE SCOTCH TWINS (1919) by Lucy Fitch Perkins.  It made me clap my hands with excited anticipation many times.  I can't explain why very well... I knew what twists were coming but it was told so well I felt like I was a fly on the wall the whole time.  You know what's coming, but you aren't quite sure that's exactly what IS going to happen.... 

There are other books in the TWINS series, but this great little easy read was an immense delight. 

Here's a sample from the Gutenberg E-text:

"At the very moment when Jock and Tam came flying over the fence and down the hill like a cyclone after the rabbit, Angus was kneeling beside the brook to get a drink. His lips were pursed up and he was bending over almost to the surface of the water, when something dashed past him, and an instant later something else struck him like a thunderbolt from behind, and drove him headforemost into the brook! It wasn't Tam that did it. It was Jock! Of course, it was an accident, but Angus thought he had done it on purpose, and he was probably the most surprised as well as the angriest man in Scotland at that moment. He lifted his head out of the brook and glared at Jock as fiercely as he could with little rills of water pouring from his hair and nose, and trickling in streams down his neck.

"I'll make you smart for this, you young blatherskite," he roared at Jock, who stood before him frozen with horror. "I'll teach you where you belong! You were running after that rabbit, and your dog is yelping down a hole after her this minute!" He was such a funny sight as he knelt there, dripping and scolding, that, scared as he was, Jock could not help laughing. More than ever enraged, Angus made a sudden lunge forward and seized Jock by the ear."

What are the best historical (social, artistic and cultural, not political or textbook) websites to visit if I want to immerse myself in the world as it would have been for me if I had been born one hundred years ago?

Old photographs are the easiest thing to find.  I visit Shorpy, Old-Picture.com, and the Old Picture of the Day blog regularly.  I also have a bunch of the .gov type websites bookmarked, but please feel free to tell me where to find MORE snapshots of the past!

I have found old girl's series books from the turn of the century on some book lists and whole books on the blessing of a site - Gutenberg.org and, of course, at the Internet Archive (I don't care for Google books as I prefer a plain text file).  But if I am missing an online library of old books to read online please tell me!

If you know where to find compiled research lists - like this one or this one - please mention it in the comments!

I am having a surprising amount of difficulty finding moving images/cinema.  I do like the Edison films, and I visit the loc.gov sites (like this and this), but I WANT MORE!  I thought the Internet Archive used to have tons of old films from the early 1900s but I can't find them now....

I haven't yet gotten into really specific areas like music or fashions yet, but if you have a favorite historical site relevant to the artistic pursuits of craft and ingenuity of the early 20th century, by all means SHARE THEM!

Since my childhood, I have always loved series books, like the Bobbsey Twins books by "Laura Lee Hope".  I found them again online a few years ago and have since devoured all I could find and read.  I then read "her" Outdoor Girl series, which was a love like no other.  However, I just couldn't get into the Moving Picture Girls, or the 6 Little Bunkers serieses (is that right, serieses?).

I found another series called Ruth Fielding of Red Mill by "Alice B. Emerson".  A total joy, but I read all of the online books available already.

I read one of "Amy Bell Marlowe"'s Books for Girls series called A Little Miss Nobody; or, With the Girls of Pinewood School.  It was a good long story I didn't want to end.

I read some of Lucy Maude Montgomery's Anne of Avonlea series years and years ago, and I never got into Nancy Drew or the Hardy boys.

I enjoy these old tales so much because of their positive moral undertones, and they make me get the dictionary out every once in a while.  I wish I could tell you some of the funny antiquated terms I had to look up but it's 6 am and I just can't.  But one thing really gets me and gives me a papercut is an inconsistency &/or poor editing.  I know they didn't know 100 years ago I'd consider these books classics, so I forgive them, but damn it - I want to know what happened with Amy Gregg and her Father in one of the Ruth fielding episodes and "she" forgot to tell us!

Are you wondering why I keep "italicizing" words like her and she?  Well, because the hers and shes in question aren't actual "people" (you know what I mean...), they are wonderful nom de plumes from the Stratemeyer Syndicate.  Anyway, I found a site of invaluable use - series books for girls - if you like these kind of books too...

I was a VORACIOUS reader as a child.  VORACIOUS, I can still devour almost any book in one sitting.  Reading online is ok, but I miss the tactile experience of turning a page.  So yesterday I went to the library and marched right into the children's section and took out some junior fiction and recaptured a piece of my youth for the weekend.  They didn't have any turn of the century stories around save for the Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner which is pushing it at 1942 but of which I checked out two volumes, one volume of "recent" (heh.) at 1948 - Trixie Belden by Julie Campbell, and A Jenny's Cat Club Book, Captain's of the City Streets by Esther Averill (1972) - and how can you not love a book about cats?