Archive | August 2006

Mission to Cathay by Madeleine Polland

Aug6

Mission to Cathay tells the fictionalized story of Father Matteo Ricci, the first Western Christian missionary to enter mainland China. In 1583, Father Ricci gained permission to build a mission in Suiching in southern China near Canton. He stayed in Suiching until 1589 when he was expelled by a hostile government official. After that, he travelled to other cities in China and eventually had an audience withe Emperor in Peking. Father Ricci stayed in China until his death, and he was honored with a state funeral by order of the Emperor.

The book covers only the first few years of Father Ricci’s stay in Suiching from the point of view of a servant boy with a mysterious past. With only the name Boy and no family that he knows about, the servant becomes a part of the family of the Lord of Heaven, although his Chinese mind is far from understanding what it means to be in the family of God through Christ. Father Ricci tries to comunicate the gospel to the Chinese by becoming a part of their culture, but he fears losing himself in vast and ancient land. Anothe subplot involves Boy meeting a mysterious boy named Chang with a secret so perilous that it could endanger the entire Christian mission to China.

The ending to this book and the solution to all the mysterious occurences was too easily deciphered from all the clues that were rather obviously embedded in the story. However, it might not be as obvious to elementary age children. I did enjoy the pieces of Chinese history and culture that were a part of the story. This book would make a good read aloud for a unit study on China or Chinese or world history.

Friday’s Center of the Blogosphere

Aug4

A Reading Garden. I’ve never heard of such a thing, but what a wonderful idea!

On a different note, consider yourself warned by this rather frightening article: Global Homeschooling: A Spunky Exclusive.

Steve Riddle of Flos Carmeli on Aesthetic Tyrants. I agree wholeheartedly. What he said.

The Headmistress of the The Common Room on being a chain-reader and a binge-booker. Are you either or both?

De at Thinklings has an excerpt from a Beliefnet interview with Ann Coulter. I hereby declare my independence from aesthetic tyrants by saying that I like Ann Coulter. I think she’s funny. I also think after reading the entire interview that she’s a Christian, however imperfectly she lives her faith. (However imperfectly I live, and I do, my Lord still loves and saves me. “Except for grace by which I stand . . .”)

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Aug4

Some people told me I should add Waugh to my list of books and authors with a touch of Catholicism. However, since I had never read anything by Mr. Waugh and I was only listing books with which I was at least familiar, I couldn’t very well add his books to the post.

Well, I can now, but Brideshead Revisited doesn’t have a touch of Catholicism; it’s all about being Catholic, particularly being Catholic in the early twentieth century in England. And I can’t decide whether Waugh thinks it’s an overall good thing to be Catholic or a very bad, mess-up-your-life thing. The Catholics in the book all come back to their faith in one way or another, but they are all really confused and thwarted by their Catholic upbringing and heritage in the meantime. So can someone else tell me, is this book pro-Catholic or anti-Catholic? Or neither?

I kept comparing the attitude toward Catholicism and growing up Catholic in the book to my childhood culture of contemporary evangelicalism. But I just didn’t and don’t still have the issues that these characters have in Brideshead Revisited. The basic problem seems to be that they can’t enjoy sin and its pleasures because their Catholic-trained conscience gets in the way. Or, alternately, they can’t live life to its fullest because they listen to Catholic doctrine and attempt to follow it. However, there aren’t many sins in evangelical churches that would get you excommunicated. Even divorce and adultery have been known to fail to get so much as a reprimand. In the Catholic church it’s necessary to at least express some kind of repentance and remorse in order to obtain assurance of forgiveness. So it’s harder for the family in the book to reconcile their actions with their beliefs. Since my temptations lie more in the areas of bitterness, anger, and gossip and since nobody talks much about those sins, I can get off without so much as a trip to confession in my church, and my level of discomfort depends on the activity level of my conscience, not on the disapprobation of the church authorities or of fellow Christians.

What I am familiar with and know that Waugh nails is the attitude of many unbelievers toward all things Christian. The narrator of the novel is an agnostic and just doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. Why do innocent conversations within this devout Catholic family turn into discussions about God and about the Church? Why do his friends have such a hard time shedding their Catholic heritage and rejecting Catholic doctrine? What’s the big deal? I have seen this attitude and the gap between believers and unbelievers so often. The first group, Christian believers, see that all life is related to and ends up in God/Christ. He’s the center. The other group, the agnostics and unbelievers, don’t understand why the Christians can’t just keep their “religion” in a box and pull it out in private. And never the twain shall meet.

Then, there’s another character in the novel who is essentially an unbeliever, too. However, because he wants to marry one of the Catholic characters, he decides to convert to Catholicism. The problem is that he doesn’t have a clue what being Catholic is all about, and he’s willing to say whatever he needs to say to get into the church because he doesn’t really believe or disbelieve any of it. I’ve seen this sort of person, too. Rex, the character in the book, is a little exaggerated, but only a little. I’ve seen husbands come to church, get baptized, attend faithfully, never knowing or caring what any of it is all about, just in order to make their wives happy or to be a member of the community or to make business contacts.

If you’re Catholic, I would highly recommend Brideshead Revisited for an examination of what it means to be Catholic, especially in a place and time where faithful Catholics are in the minority. If you’re not Catholic, I would also recommend the book as an examination of what it means to be faithful, the limits and psychological effects of legalism, and the possibilities of grace within a religious system. I thnk maybe (feel free to correct me) Brideshead Revisited is about how we can muddle through to grace and repentance and forgiveness and God even in our very human confusion and self-inflicted degradation.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born August 3rd

Aug3

Two of my favorite novelists have birthdays today: Baroness Phyllis Dorothy James (b. 1920) and Leon Marcus Uris (b. 1924, d. 2003).

Although I like her detective novels very much, my favorite P. D. James novel as of now is Children of Men, a dystopian novel about a world where no children are born. I suggest that those who are struggling with the “quiver-full question” read James’ rather chilling picture of a future with no children at all. Read my review here. A movie version of Children of Men is due out in September. Computer Guru Son just read the book and liked it, I think.

Leon Uris is sometimes described as a “Zionist” and one obituary in the British newspaper The Guardian referred to him as a racist for his portrayal of Arabs in his admittedly pro-Jewish novels. I think this is an unfair accusation, but if you are Palestinian, or sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, you might not enjoy Uris’ novels as much as I do. Exodus, Mila 18, and QB VIII are all great stories with lots of historical information about Israel and the experience of modern Jews in Europe during and after World War II.
My thoughts about Uris and James and their books on this date in 2004.

Also born on this date:
Mary Calhoun, picture book author of Hot-Air Henry and other books about Henry the Adventurous Cat. I like the story of Henry getting trapped in a hot air balloon and going for a wild ride. It also seems appropriate for this time of year since this balloon lift-off event takes place a few miles from my home at the end of this month.
Anyone want to come visit? I’ll make you some enchildadas, beans and rice.

Fianlly, actress Evangeline Lilly is 27 years old today. Is anyone else going through LOST withdrawal this summer?

Edited and updated from June, 2005.

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale

Aug3

I just finished this Newbery Honor book, and I loved it. Shannon Hale has a way with characters, plot and words. I wrote about another of her books, Goose Girl, here.

Princess Academy is the story of a group of uneducated mountain girls who are chosen to attend the Princess Academy. One of the girls will be chosen to marry the Prince and become the new Princess of Danland. Miri, the central character of the novel, is not sure she even wants to become the princess, but she does want to learn and excel at the academy. And she does want to do something extraordinary to prove to her village and to her Pa that she is not useless even though she is not allowed to work in quarry with the rest of the villagers.

There are some fairy tale elements to this story, but mostly it’s a story about teenage girls thrown into a challenging situation, about they cope with adversity, about how they relate to one another, about their growth from children into adults. I looked immediately after I finished the book to see if Miri was on JKR’s list of Cool Girls of Children’s Literature. She was, of course. Miri is definitely “smart, brave, funny, and independent.’ However, she does have some growing up to do in this book, some decisions to make, and an important realization to attain.

Have all the girls in your life read this book. Some of the boys might enjoy it, too. Read it yourself for a dose of growing up realism in the midst of fairyland. I think this book should have won the Newbery Award instead of being a runner-up, but it wins my award for 2005 anyway.

This book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Austin Isn’t in West Texas

Aug2

I hate to be disrespectful of a man who’s probably doing his Yankee best, but either I know nothing about West Texas, despite having been born on the edge of the Edwards Plateau and having lived half my life smack dab in the middle of Texas ranching country, or Mr. Hynes likes weirdly unrepresentative books about West Texas.

in this Salon article, Destination: West Texas, Hynes admits his lack of qualifications for writing about West Texas literature:

” . . . as your tour guide to West Texas literature, I’m a foreigner, a native Michigander, an NPR listener, a daily reader of the New York Times, a Midwestern college-town liberal, a wearer of Birkenstocks, an atheist. A Yankee, in short. So the selection of books that follows is by no means an official one. They’re just the books about West Texas that I love.”

So, my first question is: why didn’t they find a Texan? Preferably, the editors at Salon could have hired somebody from West Texas since that was the area in question.

Of the four authors that James Hynes recommends in his article, I know one: Larry McMurtry. Yeah, Lonesome Dove and others by McMurtry are worth reading to get a sense of Texas and the West. As far as the others are concerned, they sound mostly like violent, gritty guy-books. Sorry, I don’t read romances, and I don’t read “combative, horny, smart-mouthed” nor “ferociously cynical and deeply unsettling noir” nor “gritty and emotionally blunt and often violent.” If you like those descriptions, you might like Mr. Hynes’s list better than mine.

Giant by Edna Ferber is really a fantasy. I just don’t know very many people in Texas who live like the Benedicts or who ever did. And Ms. Ferber was from Michigan just like Mr. Hynes; I’m not sure she ever got as far as Austin. But Giant is a fun Texas fantasy, and it does manage to give the sense of how everyone in Texas wants to at least pretend that Texas and all its cultural appendices are bigger than life.

James Michener’s Texas is even better. The book itself is big, over 1000 pages long, and it covers all of Texas, not just West Texas. James Michener did make it to Austin, and he did his research, and he can tell a story, several stories in the course of this epic. In fact, Michener made Texas his home in his later years, and he died in Austin in 1997. If you want to read fiction and learn about Texas history and culture in the process, Michener is the guy to read.

Elmer Kelton is underrated because he writes westerns, I think, but he’s a very good writer. I recommend his Lone Star Rising three fiction stories in one book about the formation and history of the Texas Rangers. Two other good books by Kelton are The Time It Never Rained and The Day the Cowboys Quit. Kelton was born in Crane, Texas, and he used to live in San Angelo, my hometown, maybe still does. His day job was editor of The Sheep and Goat Raisers’ magazine and associate editor of Livestock Weekly. How’s that for authenticity?

These books have the flavor of West Texas.

Austin, where Mr. Hynes lives, isn’t even in West Texas, and neither is Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Chapter Books for Preschoolers

Aug1

I found this question at Barbara Curtis’s blog Mommy Life, and she passed it off to me. So, I thought I’d take a stab at it.

Hi!

I have been reading your blog off and on for a few months now. I was wondering if you could recommend some chapter books to read aloud to my children. They are three and five.

Like Barbara, I would suggest picture books first of all for this age group. I list over 365 of these in my curriculum book, Picture Book Preschool. I also list some easy reader chapter books that would be good to read with a three and a five year old. These have short chapters with a somewhat limited vocabulary:

Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik. The are three or four sequels to this family story of Little Bear, Mother Bear, Father Bear, Grandfather and Grandmother Bear and all of Little Bear’s friends. My favorite story is when Little Bear goes to the moon.



Frog and Toad Together by Arnold Lobel. There are also other Frog and Toad books. These stories are deceptively simple. The one about Frog and Toad trying and failing to eat just one more cookie is a staple at our house. We trot it out whenever we need willpower or need to laugh at our lack of it.



The Long Way to a New Land and The Long Way Westward by Joan Sandin. These books tell about a Swedish family who immigrate to the midwestern United States in the 1800’s.



Tales of Oliver Pig by Jean Van Leeuwen. This book begins different series of family stories about Oliver Pig and his little sister Amanda.

If these stories are too tame or too simplified for the five year old, here are a few chapter books with more text and fewer pictures:

Mixed-Up Twins by Carolyn Haywood. My urchins love these stories about identical twins, Ronald and Donald, who confuse everyone because they look so much alike. If you can’t find this one (it’s out of print), then try B Is for Betsy or Little Eddie, both by the same author.



Dolphin Adventure by Wayne Grover. The author meets up with a dolphin family in need of assistance.This book is good for animal lovers and for those who enjoy nonfiction more than fiction.



The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner. Four orphaned children, two sisters and two brothers, find an old abandoned boxcar and make their home there. The ingenuity of the children and their care for one another is so inspiring and fun to read about.



The Sword in the Tree by Clyde Robert Bulla. Shan, son of Lord Weldon, hides a sword in the hollow of a tree. The events of this book take place during the time of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table, and Shan eventually ends up in Camelot. If you like this one, you might also like Viking Adventure by the same author.



The Stories Julian Tells by Ann Cameron. Julian tells stories to his younger brother, Huey. I especially remember the story of Julian and the lemon pudding his father makes. Father takes a nap, and NO ONE is supposed to touch the pudding. There are two sequels, More Stories Julian Tells and Julian’s Glorious Summer.


Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne. I’ve read this classic with my little ones, and they enjoyed it and understood it well as far as I could tell. Pooh is a bear for all ages.

I keep thinking of more possibilities, but I’ll have to save them for another day and another post.

Margaret Peterson Haddix

Aug1

On the recommendation of my friend, Donna, also the mother of a teen young adult daughter, I discovered a new-to-me YA author, Margaret Peterson Haddix. I’ve read four of her books in the past week and a half, and although she doesn’t join my exclusive list of Best 100 Fiction Books Ever Written, she does manage to produce good, readable light fiction for teens and moms who enjoy YA fiction.

I read The House on the Gulf first, and I thought Ms. Haddix wrote mostly suspenseful mystery-type fiction. In this book, a single parent family, mother, son and thirteen year old daughter, is invited to house-sit over the summer for a retired couple who spend their summers up North and their winters in Florida. The house-sitting job is a godsend for this rather poverty-stricken family because the mom wants to go to college, and if she just gets in one good session of summer school, she might be able to get a scholarship. However, there’s something mysterious about the whole set-up. The brother, Bran, is acting really strange, hiding things, making odd rules for his younger sister, Britt, even lying about seemingly insignificant stuff. So Britt decides to find out what’s really going on. Although I could see parts of what was coming, I didn’t put the whole plot together until it was revealed at the end. So, I thought, a good suspense novel for thirteen year olds.

Then, I read Leaving Fishers, and I realized that Ms. Haddix writes movie of the week, current youth crisis novels. Leaving Fishers tells the story of Dorry, a lonely high school student who has just moved to the big city of Indianapolis with her family. She can’t find any friends at school until she becomes involved with the Fishers, a seemingly Christian youth group. The Fishers inundate Dorry with all the friendship and affection and attention she’s been missing, and she’s happy to reciprocate by agreeing with whatever they ask of her. However, it becomes more and more difficult to live within the guidelines set up for Fishers, and Dorry is torn between her commitment to God and the Fishers and her need to have an identity of her own. So, I thought, a good teen issue novel for fourteen and fifteen year olds.

With the next novel, Double Identity, the current issue (cloning) and the suspense (a mysterious stranger following the almost-thirteen year old protagonist) are both there, but a new element is added. This book is ever-so-slightly sci-fi. It takes place in the future, a few years in the future, and it’s about cloning human beings and what might happen if a scientist secretly and successfully cloned a baby. Lots of action, sympathetic characters, this one was my favorite of the four I read.

Finally, I read Escape from Memory, the story of Kira who finds out when she is hypnotized at a slumber party that she has repressed memories of escaping from a war zone. Kira begins to investigate her past, and she gets into more trouble than she and her best friend, Lynne, together, can handle. I had to suspend my disbelief a little too willingly for this one, but I enjoyed it. It featured computer recovery of memories, the Cold War, and ethical dilemmas for scientists.

All of Ms. Haddix’s books are quick reads, absorbing and well-written. I also noticed that she has sympathetic portrayals of Christians and Christianity which is a welcome change from some movies and books. Dancer Daughter read them, too, and enjoyed them, although she said that the chapters with invariable cliff-hanger endings were a little annoying. I imagine the technique does keep one reading. I’m looking forward to reading more of Ms. Haddix’s fiction, and that’s high praise from a rather critical old mom with a low tolerance for twaddle.