I'm behind in blogging books, so I'll try to catch up.
The Same Sea by Amos Oz (Harvest Books; 2002)
I don't usually read anything resembling poetry, but a friend lent me this book and I was immediately drawn in. Its part poetry, part prose, about a series of characters with intertwining lives. Publisher's Weekly calls it, "a meditation, a lamentation, a quest for meaning, a story of family love and of erotic longing, and a vibrantly poetic prose poem." Translated from Hebrew by Nicolas de Lange.
Seven-Day Magic
by Edward Eager (1962)
Couldn't resist rereading this one by the author of Half Magic (one of my all-time favorites.) In this one, five children end up with a magical library book which takes them on all sorts of exciting adventures. The author information mentions that "In each of his books he carefully acknowledges his indebtedness to E. Nesbit, whom he considered the best children's writer of all time --" so I decided to try one of those as well.
The Phoenix and the Carpet
Edith Nesbit
I checked out the tapes of this story to listen to in the car, and its been a wonderful week of driving around lost in the adventures of the four children, the magical golden phoenix and the wishing carpet (plus it had the benefit of not having to listen to any bad news about the war or the election on the car radio for a whole week). It was wonderful, and definitely very much like the Eager books.