Belated happy summer, everyone! I’ve been so busy working on Rereading Our Childhood, the podcast that my friend Deborah Kalb and I launched back in May, that I’ve been woefully neglecting the world of a hundred years ago. But I’ve missed it. Summer is peak nostalgia season, so this feeling intensified after I left an especially cold and rainy Cape Town winter for summer in California, Colorado, and, now, Washington, D.C. I missed the trips to the beach of years past,

and the boating expeditions,

and even the summer storms.

My last post on magazine covers, back in the winter, turned up much to ponder,

but as far as artistry went I was underwhelmed. I worried, as I occasionally have, that magazine covers had peaked sometime in the 1910s. My fears were unfounded, though—the summer 1923 covers revealed summer, and magazine artistry, in all their colorful glory.

Summer kicked off in June with a “school’s out” celebration

and graduates taking wing.

There were dips in the sea

and fishing at the lake

and flowers galore.

Also, chickens.

July

July started off with a celebration of the Glorious Fourth,

and then we got in the car

and headed off to the beach

and then to the countryside.

In August, we’ve been savoring the last few weeks of the season—spending time with the kids,

enjoying the last peaches of the season,

and wishing that summer would stay with us for just a few more weeks.

Enjoy it while it lasts, everyone!

New on Rereading Our Childhood:

Rereading Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E.L. Konigsberg

Rereading Henry Reed, Inc. by Keith Robertson

Rereading Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

Rereading The Children of Green Knowe by L.M. Boston

Rereading Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild

Rereading “B” is for Betsy by Carolyn Haywood

Rereading Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol