Miss Pickett’s Secret

“Whoopee,” Carol screamed. “Miss Pickett’s back!” To Carol and Bobby and every youngster lucky enough to have met the whimsical, white-haired lady in The Peculiar Miss Pickett, this is really cause for whoops of delight. For Miss Pickett is a baby-sitter beyond the dreams of even the most imaginative child! Who else but the little old lady in quaint high-button shoes and big, black-rimmed spectacles could make a toy airplane whizz out of the living room and fly upstairs or make a stove cook supper all by itself? And who else but Miss Pickett could introduce Carol and Bobby to four strangers like Sunny, Cloudy, Milder and Snowy and so find out all about next month's weather? Youngsters will have a hard time deciding which part they liked best - the wonderful trip to the zoo when the shaggy lion gets loose and Miss Pickett has to give him one of her hard, straight looks to coax him back, or the jaunt to Mister Haswell’s birthday party, which is very dull until Bobby's baseball goes through a store window and Mister Haswell, who is easily confused, thinks everybody has come to his party. Delightful fantasy from the very first page, Miss Pickett’s Secret will bewitch young listeners over and over again. And even grown-ups will be a little goggle-eyed at some of the adventures so convincingly and charmingly told.

“Whoopee,” Carol screamed. “Miss Pickett’s back!” To Carol and Bobby and every youngster lucky enough to have met the whimsical, white-haired lady in The Peculiar Miss Pickett, this is really cause for whoops of delight. For Miss Pickett is a baby-sitter beyond the dreams of even the most imaginative child! Who else but the little old lady in quaint high-button shoes and big, black-rimmed spectacles could make a toy airplane whizz out of the living room and fly upstairs or make a stove cook supper all by itself? And who else but Miss Pickett could introduce Carol and Bobby to four strangers like Sunny, Cloudy, Milder and Snowy and so find out all about next month's weather? Youngsters will have a hard time deciding which part they liked best - the wonderful trip to the zoo when the shaggy lion gets loose and Miss Pickett has to give him one of her hard, straight looks to coax him back, or the jaunt to Mister Haswell’s birthday party, which is very dull until Bobby's baseball goes through a store window and Mister Haswell, who is easily confused, thinks everybody has come to his party. Delightful fantasy from the very first page, Miss Pickett’s Secret will bewitch young listeners over and over again. And even grown-ups will be a little goggle-eyed at some of the adventures so convincingly and charmingly told.

Nancy R. Julian, gifted author of The Peculiar Miss Pickett, writes with ease, speed and a wonderful talent for understanding a child's imagination. Miss Julian is a native Tennessean who was educated in San Diego, California. She toured the United States and Europe before settling down for a year at the Rhein Main Air Base near Frankfurt, Germany, to teach school to the children of the Army of Occupation. Her teaching experience gave her an unquenchable interest in children and their worlds. The wonderful imaginations of all those children encouraged her to write stories where the facts were just a little “beyond reach.” So out of her imagination grew the magic of Miss Pickett, who children have enjoyed for more than 60 years.