Family ties

The children in these stories are all thinking about members of their families - nearby or far away. Can you identify the books in which these passages appear?

1. If there was one man in all of Adenville who would order the first water closet ever seen in town, that man had to be Papa.... Papa just couldn't resist ordering any new invention that he saw advertised.... Our big attic was filled with crazy inventions that didn't work.... You would think a man smart enough to be an editor and publisher would be smart enough not to let himself be swindled. But Papa kept right on ordering new inventions.

2. Sometimes I lie awake at night listening to the gas station ping-pinging and thinking about Dad and Bandit hauling tomatoes or cotton bales on Interstate 5, and I am glad Bandit is there to keep Dad awake. Have you ever seen Interstate 5? It is straight and boring.... It is so boring that the cattle on the feedlot don't even bother to moo.

3. I was a hunter from the time I could walk. I caught lizards on the rail fences, rats in the corncrib, and frogs in the little creek that ran through the fields. I was a young Daniel Boone. As the days passed, the dog-wanting disease grew worse. I began to see dogs in my sleep. I went back to my father and mother.... I began to lose weight and my food didn't taste good any more. Mama noticed this and she had a talk with Papa.

4. At first, Natty couldn't believe it. He was really gone. Then she knew what she had to do. She couldn't just stay in Chicago and wait. She had to go to Washington and find her father. They belonged together. And nothing - not thousands of miles of country with no easy way to cross it - would keep Natty from being with her father again.

5. Then the owl pumped its great wings and lifted off the branch like a shadow without sound. It flew back into the forest. "Time to go home," Pa said to me. I knew then I could talk, I could laugh out loud. But I was a shadow as we walked home. When you go owling you don't need words or warm or anything but hope. That's what Pa says.

ANSWERS: (1) 'The Great Brain,' by John Fitzgerald (1967); (2) 'Dear Mr. Henshaw,' by Beverly Cleary (1983)

(3) 'Where the Red Fern Grows,' by Wilson Rawls (1961); (4) 'The Journey of Natty Gann,' by Ann Matthews (1985); (5) 'Owl Moon,' by Jane Yolen (1987).

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