October 4, 2016
If you know me at all, you know that the love I have for The Little House on the Prairie (both the books and the 1970’s TV show) is indescribable. I have read the series multiple times, I have a lot of the TV episodes memorized, and I went as Mary Ingalls for Halloween more years than I care to admit.
I love these stories because they’re about real people, real struggles, real celebrations.
The theme song sometimes moves me to tears and every single time I open one of the books and am tossed into the prairie, loud with crickets and dotted with gophers, I am home.
And as Laura Ingalls Wilder herself said: “Home is the nicest word there is.”
Home is not always a place; home is a feeling.
My home feels like long horseback rides through the snow, holding my breath because the moonlight makes everything look like glass and I’m afraid to break the night.
It feels like waking up in my cozy sleeping bag in a mess of family, watching my breath appear in the air and hoping my cousins wake up soon.
It feels like listening to Journey and Tom Petty in my parents’ kitchen as an adult while my dad makes breakfast for dinner.
My home smells like honeysuckle warmed in the sunshine, sounds like deep belly-laughter, and tastes like butter gravy on a Sunday morning.
And that’s what opening The Rise of the Narcoleptic Turtles, the second book in Emily Humphreys’ series, felt like. I began reading and, as I entered the halls of Desert Academy and sat dreaming in Ruby Fink’s dusty attic and raced toward the Superstition Mountains in a car named The Purple Wonder, everything was familiar and safe, and it felt like home.
Grab your copy of both The Dark Ferret Society and The Rise of the Narcoleptic Turtles at the link below, and join us on the adventure.
Come see the magic of a perfect prank to balance the scales, find a new love for red balloons, and fall in love with the characters who will remind you of people you know.
Moments like this just hit you. This fuzzy feeling of warmth and the light coming from my house must be the closest feeling to home I’ve ever felt.
— Ruby Fink, in The Dark Ferret Society
Buy Emily Humphreys’ books here and find more of Emily Humphrey’s writing on her blog.
Bailey Welch-Pomerantz 