Facial Expressions

It's always been my dream to be a writer since I was 12 so it's been my honor and privilege to be designated as caretaker of this book of poetry by my grandmother, Verna Howe Reynold. Like me, she was writer and illustrator and, though she never perused it as a career, she obviously enjoyed creating things for her loved ones all her life. Currently, I'm working towards publishing two books of my own and I thought of Grandma Reynolds throughout the process. Why shouldn't her work have its day in the sun, too? So, I am hosting her book on my Amazon author page. The notebook she wrote in clearly started as a school book. The first page notes her perfect attendance in Ms. Mildred James' class for the 1929-1930 school year and then lists general instructions for writing a book report. She apparently tore out those reports but kept the poetry she wrote for the 1935-1936 school year, clearly and deliberately "phoning it in" as they say, especially with her tongue-in-cheek "Writing Poems" for which I suspect got the "C" she herself predicted in the poem. Somewhere around "Facial Expressions," though, she started really enjoying herself. She returned to the book in 1939 after her name changed. I've kept her signatures on each one to help track her status in life as she writes. I've also kept her 'Tho's, 'Thro's, and punctuation, unsure whether they are stylistic choices or just shorthand.