Cherry & Co. Rising from the Ashes

My favorite bookseller, Cherry O'Meara, moved back to her childhood home in Malibu a few years ago as a caretaker for her 90 year old mother.  Carol had been in the house since 1961.  Cherry and her siblings grew up there, and it was a refuge and haven for animals and people alike: Cherry's sister Holly nicknamed the house Mud Nest, as so many swallows built mud nests in the eaves.  Cherry, her mother, and her parrot Philip had to evacuate their home due to the Woolsey fire. Their house was burned.  Carol, a librarian, and Cherry, a bookseller, had assembled a vast home library of much-loved and consulted volumes; the only one that made it out was Carol's  college anthology of modern poetry.  These donations will help them replace items that they lost (those that are replaceable, at least).

Carol's depiction of what it felt like to evacuate from Malibu:

Carol consoling Philip with some modern poetry: