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The Pearl Lagoon by Charles Nordhoff

Nov2

What are boys (and girls) reading in the way of adventure stories these days? Most of the the realistic fiction I read these days for middle grade readers is “problem fiction”: mom is sinking into depression and the child must cope with the fallout, or the main character is autistic or has a learning disability, or the bad developers are going to turn the local park into a parking lot. Nothing wrong with that, but where’s the adventure? Many young readers are into fantasy fiction, which does have the adventure element, but it’s not usually an adventure that the reader can imagine participating in himself.

Well, the novels of yesteryear for young people were full of adventure. Sure some of the adventures required a suspension of disbelief, as does this 1924 novel, The Pearl Lagoon. Nevertheless, excitement and danger used to be abundant in fiction written for young people. In The Pearl Lagoon, Charlie Selden, the protagonist and narrator, is an all-American boy of sixteen, living on a California ranch, isolated and starved for adventure, when his Uncle Harry, “a buyer of copra and pearl-shell in the South Seas,” comes along with an offer that can’t be refused. Uncle Harry wants to take Charlie back to the island of Iriatai in the South Pacific, to help him hunt for pearls in Iriatai Lagoon.

Needless to say, Charlie jumps at the chance to go with Uncle Harry, and the adventure begins. The book includes fishing trips with Charlie’s new Tahitian friend, Marama, a boar hunt, a near-deadly shark attack, some rather perilous pearl diving, exploration of a hidden cave, and a climactic encounter with pirates who intend to steal all of the pearls the divers have found. Charlie grows older and wiser over the course of a life changing and thrilling experience.

The South Sea islander characters in the story are portrayed as “noble savages.” If the musical South Pacific and other stories of that nature are offensively “colonizing” to you, then Nordhoff’s 1924 vintage portrayal of the islands and their culture and people will be, too. Charlie says of his friend Marama,

“My friend could read and write, but otherwise he had no education in our sense of the word. He knew nothing of history, algebra, or geometry, but his mind was a storehouse of complex fishing-lore, picked up unconsciously since babyhood and enabling him to provide himself and his family with food. And when you come to think of it, that is one of the purposes of all education.”

The people of Tahiti and Iriatai are described variously as natives, savages, brown, formerly heathen, and superstitious. But they are also admired for their skill, courage, honesty, and loyalty. Charlie’s uncle, like the author Nordhoff, has come to think of Tahiti as his home, “the most beautiful thing in all the world.” You can read the book and decide for yourself whether Nordhoff shows love and respect for the Tahitian and other South Sea island peoples or not. I believe he does, and I recommend the book as a stirring romantic adventure, in the best sense of the word romance. (Romance, according to Sir Walter Scott, the great romantic novelist: “a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents.”)

The Pearl Lagoon is marvelous, and uncommon, indeed.

Billy Mink by Thornton Burgess

Oct26

Do you think children are traumatized by reading about animals who hunt and kill and eat other animals?If the book is straight nonfiction or even narrative story about a particular animal, I think most children will take the encounters between predator and prey rather matter of factly, as long as the descriptions aren’t too gruesome and bloody. Everybody has to eat, and it’s just true that larger animals often eat smaller ones.

However, in this first book of animal stories that I’ve ever read by Thornton Burgess, the animals behave like animals, but they are also anthropomorphized to some extent. Billy Mink hunts and is hunted by other predators, but he also wears clothing in the illustrations. He lives and acts like a mink, but he also thinks like a person. And he is given a human-like personality with feelings of delight and anger and frustration and satisfaction. Billy is an engaging little fellow, and the reader can’t help rooting for him to escape from the traps that are set for him by a hunter or from Hooty Owl who swoops down and surprises hime, almost catching him.

But the problem with this story, and perhaps Burgess’s books in general if they’re all similar to this one, is that both predator and prey are given names and personalities like Jumper Rabbit and Reddy Fox and Billy Mink. So as I read I wanted Billy Mink to escape his predators, and I wanted him to be able to eat and not starve to death, but I didn’t want him to actually eat Jumper Rabbit. (Spoiler: Jumper escapes, but several of the Robber Rats do not.) I suppose it’s okay for Billy Mink to eat a couple of rats. Nobody really loves rats, do they? But the whole hunter and hunted part of the story could be disturbing for some children.

All that said, Billy Mink is a well told little story. I can picture reading it aloud to a class of kindergartners or first graders. Burgess uses fairly simple sentence structure but somewhat challenging vocabulary to tell an engaging story. I wasn’t bored even though it’s a story for younger children, and I can see this series becoming one that a certain kind of child would fall in love with.

Billy Mink was published 100 years ago in 1924. It’s a good book, but not the kind of book I can imagine being published or popularized in the twenty first century. If you want to read something by Burgess with your children, I’d suggest starting with Mother West Wind’s Children or The Burgess Bird Book for Children, unless you’re particularly interested in minks.

William the Conqueror by Thomas Costain

Oct25

This is the story of a boy who was made the ruler of a warlike country when he was eight years old and who managed to compel obedience from the rebellious barons who surrounded him; who grew up to be a wise leader and an able general and who, moreover, had such physical strength that no other man could bend his hunting bow; who envied a green and bountiful island and made war on the people who lived there with the result that a famous battle was fought. This boy who became one of the most turbulent figures of the Middle Ages was to be known ever after as William the Conqueror.

I absolutely love Thomas Costain’s four volume history of the Plantagenet dynasty and their rule over England for adults, so I was poised to enjoy this Landmark book about William the Conqueror as well. And I did. Costain has a lively, gossipy style of writing, and he keeps the narrative going full speed even when the battles turn into long sieges or William himself becomes old and fat and sedentary. Of course, William had a pretty eventful and colorful life, so there’s lots of material to work with in telling his story.

Unfortunately, I have to be the critic and say that one particular event in William’s life that was included in the book would have been better left out of a book for young people. Beginning on page 60, Costain tells the story of William’s courtship of his future wife, Matilda. William continued this courtship of a reluctant daughter of the Count of Flanders for seven years, but finally, as the story goes, he had enough. He confronted Matilda when she was coming out of church, ripped off her cloak, and shook her, saying “I shall wait on your caprices no longer!” Matilda fell to the ground, and William rode off.

The author’s commentary on this disturbing scene is even more disturbing:

“Perhaps it is from this instance, and many similar ones which can be found in the pages of history, that a belief has come down even to modern times about the best method to be used in courtship. Certainly it has been widely believed that women like to won by force. Matilda proceeded to add substance to the belief. She made up her mind at once that she wanted to marry William of Normandy after all.”

Since the entire story is a legend rather than a documented fact and since the Landmark series is written for middle grade and young adult readers, this story could have rephrased or left out altogether. Other than that, though, I found nothing to complain about in the book and much to praise. William has traits to be admired and even emulated and others that are not so admirable. Readers will get an introduction to British history and a good story to boot.

All Around the Town by Phyllis McGinley

Oct23

All Around the Town by Phyllis McGinley. Illustrated by Helen Stone.

All Round Town is an alphabet book with a short city-themed poem for each letter of the alphabet. Some of the poems’ subjects are a bit outdated: “D’s the Dairy Driver” and “H is for the horses/That haul their city loads.” Nevertheless, the poems are delightful little vignettes of city life in the 1940’s. I especially liked “Q is for the Quietness/Of Sunday avenues” and “S is the snorting subway/That slithers below the ground.” As you can see, Ms. McGinley uses simple poetic devices such as alliteration and personification to draw the reader or listener into the poetry and make it memorable. This book would be a lovely introduction to poetry for preschool or kindergarten story time.

The illustrations remind me of Louis Slobodkin or Ludwig Bemelmans. It’s a style of illustration that was popular in the 40’s but isn’t so much today. Some of the drawings, like the one of the subway dragon, I liked. Others were too smudgy and indistinct for me. Some are black and and white and some color. Maybe it’s a matter of taste. The two in this post are a couple of my favorites.

Phyllis McGinley was the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize in 1961 for her book Times Three. She was the first to be awarded the poetry prize for a collection of light verse. This book, published in 1948, came before the recognition and honors were bestowed. In fact, Ms. McGInley was criticized for writing “light verse” and poetry for children. Sylvia Plath said McGInley had “sold herself” and couldn’t be taken seriously as a poet. Other writers and feminist of the time also heckled. But McGinley remained a committed Catholic Christian and homemaker and poet all her life.

The Black Pearl by Scott O’Dell

Oct21

I just finished reading The Black Pearl, a Newbery Honor book published in 1967. I’m trying to decide what I think. It takes place in Mexico, Baja California, and it’s very Catholic as would be appropriate for the setting. In the story, which is something of a fairy tale about a boy and the Monster Manta Diablo, the Madonna of the Sea is a direct representative of or substitute for God Himself, which bothers my Protestant brain. But it’s a good and well written fairy tale or folk tale about the dangers of pride and hubris and the mystery of God’s (or the Madonna’s?) will and working in the world.

The protagonist, Ramon Salazar, is sixteen years old and concerned about becoming a man. The coming of age theme is huge in this story. The Black Pearl, or the Pearl of Heavens as it is also named, is something of a MacGuffin, sought, found, given away, stolen, lost again, and replaced, all over the course of 140 pages of the book. The real story is about what’s going on inside Ramon, and his father, and Ramon’s enemy, Gaspar Ruiz the Sevillano. Ramon wants to go pearl diving, something his father has never allowed him to do, and he dreams of finding the largest and most valuable pearl of all, the Pearl of Heaven. (In fact, I think the book should have been called The Pearl of Heaven instead of The Black Pearl, but they didn’t ask me.) Diving for pearls is dangerous, however, and one of the most dangerous creatures in the sea is the manta, also known as a manta ray or devilfish.

We are told that the manta, especially The Manta Diablo, is a huge monster creature that has the power to swallow up an entire ship and that it is a “creature of beauty and of evil whom only two have seen with their eyes.” Ramon tells the reader in the beginning of the story that he is one of the two who have seen The Manta Diablo.

This book reminded me of Steinbeck’s The Pearl and of The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. But the similarities in setting and tone are superficial, I think. It’s been a long time since I read The Pearl. I don’t know exactly what I thin of this one. I sort of liked it. It’s about how the intent of the gift matters. A sacrifice or offering given out of spite and and in an attempt to buy God’s favor is wrong. But a gift given in adoration and gratitude is accepted. That part rings true. I wouldn’t suggest it for middle grade children, but older teens might enjoy puzzling out the meaning of this tale and engaging in the adventure.

Ben’s Trumpet by Rachel Isadora

Oct20

This Caldecott Honor book has the most beautiful black and white illustrations of musicians from the jazz era and a little boy who imagines himself playing the trumpet with them. The illustrations capture the feeling of jazz music and African American jazz musicians and the city, probably New York City, where its origins lie. Rachel Isadora was a professional ballet dancer in her youth before a foot injury redirected her interests into art and illustration. I think because of that experience as a dancer she has a feel for music and for the souls of musicians. That feeling comes through in the artwork in Ben’s Trumpet.

The story is rather simple. Ben, a young Black boy in the city loves to listen to the music coming from the Zig Zag Jazz Club near his home. He especially loves the trumpet, and he imagines that he is playing his own trumpet. When the other boys make fun of him and tell him that he doesn’t have a real trumpet, Ben is embarrassed and quits playing his imaginary trumpet. But the trumpeter from the Zig Zag Jazz Club comes to the rescue and becomes Ben’s mentor.

A few of the pictures in the book didn’t bother me, but might offend some. The men in the jazz club and in Ben’s family are shown with cigarettes and alcohol and playing cards, presumably gambling. And Ben’s naked baby brother sits on the couch in one picture, full frontal nudity. But he’s a baby, and babies do sometimes run around naked.

I am told that there is an audio version of this picture book that includes musical interludes and accompaniment appropriate to the story. The audiobook would probably enhance the reading of the book, but the illustrations are not to be missed. So ideally you should purchase and read both together.

Two of my favorite pictures from the book:

All Thirteen by Christina Soontornvat

Oct10

All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team by Christian Soontornvat. A Robert F. Sibert Honor Book. An Orbis Pictus Honor Book. A Newbery Honor Book 2021.

“On the soccer fields of Mae San, Thailand, it sounds like a typical Saturday morning.”

In this 229 page somewhat over-sized book, Christina Soontornvat, an American writer with family in Thailand, tells the story of the 13 members of the Wild Boars soccer team who were trapped in the cave Tham Luang Nang Non, the Cave of the Sleeping Lady, for eighteen days while thousands of people came together from all over the world to effect their rescue. Soontornvat uses narrative, photographs, diagrams, and informational sidebar inserts to tell the story of the boys and how they survived and of the rescuers who worked to save them.

I already knew the outlines of the story of the cave rescue from watching the movie, Thirteen Lives. But reading about the cave rescue made me appreciate even more the miraculous nature of what was accomplished in rescuing these boys. Vern Unsworth, one of the many key players in the rescue, said, after the boys were safely out of the cave, “I still can’t believe it. It shouldn’t have worked. It just should not have worked.”

There is much information in the book about caves and cave exploration, about Thai culture and soccer and about Buddhism and Buddhist practice. Soontornvat is respectful and unbiased in her presentation, recognizing that there were cultural differences that hindered communication between the Thai rescuers and authorities and the outsiders, mostly, British and American, who came to help. These differences in communication style and in expertise were sometimes difficult to navigate, but also the differing approaches became strengths as the rescuers learned to work together.

All of this story is presented in narrative form and in language that is accessible to children ages eleven or twelve and up. As an adult reader, I was nevertheless fascinated and enlightened by this “children’s book.” The information boxes are thankfully kept to a minimum and contain interesting supplemental information about such subjects as hypothermia, Buddhism in Thailand, and specialized breathing equipment used by the rescuers. There are a few references to climate change (as a reason for heavy rainfall that trapped the boys in the cave) and evolution as an agent in the formation of limestone, but these are not obtrusive.

The story focuses mainly on the thirteen boys and their will to survive and it is compelling and well told. The book would be a fine supplement to studies of Southeast Asia, caves, diving and underwater rescues, Buddhism and world religions, or more specifically Thailand. Give it to kids who are interested in soccer, survival stories, or exploration stories. And I highly recommend both this book and the movie Thirteen Lives.

The Puppets of Spelhorst by Kate di Camillo

Oct9

I said in a recent review that fairy tales tend to be odd. Kate di Camillo’s newest book, The Puppets of Spelhorst is a fairy tale, and it is indeed odd. It’s the story of five puppets: a girl, a boy, a king, a wolf and an owl. The puppets become the possessions of a lonely old man who dies. Then, they go on a journey, become separated and have separate adventures, then are reunited to put on a play. The puppets seem to live in their own world or dimension where they can talk to one another, but the humans who own and play with them cannot hear them. The puppets, however, can hear and learn from the people. And it’s all very mysterious.

The king tries to be kingly and give commands, but no one responds to his commands. The boy knows that he has a destiny to do some great deed. The girl is the only who one who truly sees the sun and the moon and the stars and the whole big world. The wolf is obsessed with his own sharp teeth. And the owl speaks in wise platitudes and wishes to fly. As I said before, it’s odd.

Is it a metaphor? Are we all puppets trapped in the darkness and longing for freedom and flight and love and purpose and sight? Nah, as C.S. Lewis would say, it’s not an allegory. Is it a story about the power of stories? The puppets themselves feel and are told that they are destined to be part of a shared story. But that’s very meta for a children’s fairy tale. I don’t know. It’s just and odd and intriguing little story that will either draw you in or not.

The Puppets of Spelhorst is the first book in a projected trilogy of Norendy Tales, “each illustrated in black and white by a different virtuoso illustrator.” The illustrations in this one by Julie Morstad are rather eerie and give the impression that the book is scary or dark, but while it’s a somewhat mysterious tale, it’s not really frightening or spooky.

I was reminded of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry or of the bittersweet fairy tales of Oscar Wilde and Hans Christian Andersen. If you like those, The Puppets of Spelhorst may be a good read for you. If not, you should probably skip it.

Mei Li by Thomas Handforth

Oct6

We keep a dog to watch the house,

A pig is useful, too,

We keep a cat to catch a mouse,

But what can we do

With a girl like you?

Translated from the Chinese by Isaac Victor Headland

This Caldecott Medal winning book begins with this Chinese nursery rhyme and a picture of Mei Li (pronounced MAY LEE) playing with her mother. Thomas Handforth, the author and illustrator, was inspired by a neighbor girl named Mei Li while he was living and working as an artist in Beijing, China. The plot is simple: Mei Li runs away with her brother San Yu to go to the New Year Fair in the city. While she is there Mei Li experiences many adventures and tries to puzzle out her role as a girl in Chinese culture. The story ends with Mei Li happy to be home, and the Kitchen God appears to tell her that she can be a princess in her own home.

I do think the vivid black and white illustrations of Chinese life and people are the best part of this book. Hence the Caldecott Award. The message of “girls are meant to keep house and rule the home” will be offensive to some. Mei Li, however, is content with her brief adventure and return home. “Mei Li sighed happily, ‘It will do for a while, anyway.'” I would at least show the book to children who are learning about China as an example of how the Chinese people lived 75 to 100 years ago. And Mei Li’s excursion to the city might actually fascinate children who are interested in China and Chinese culture.

Seven Simeons by Boris Artzybasheff

Oct5

Fairy tales and folk tales are often quite odd. Unexpected things happen. It’s not always obvious who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. The reader is left with questions. Seven Simeons, a Russian tale retold and illustrated by Boris Artzybasheff, is no exception to the weirdness rule. It’s an odd story, and if you’re looking for a moralistic fable, look elsewhere.

King Douda is rich, wise, powerful, and very good-looking. He’s also unhappy because he can’t find a “worthy maiden for a bride, a princess who would be as good-looking as himself.” So far we have Adam looking for his Eve. But when King Douda does hear of a princess who might match his exceptional beauty, it is a disappointment because she lives on an island so far away that it would take twenty years to go and fetch her and bring her back to marry King Douda.

It’s clear that only a miracle can help King Douda claim his bride. And that’s where the seven Simeons come into the story, seven peasant brothers all named Simeon who have been instructed by their father to work hard and each learn a different trade. Their “trades” are more like magical skills, similar to those of The Five Chinese Brothers (or seven in some versions), and the rest of the story is about how the seven Simeons serve King Douda and help him to gain his bride, the beautiful Helena.

The language in this tale is fairy tale/folk tale language, and the illustrations are quite Russian with peasants in blousy Russian costume and Russian boots and beautiful red and green ink prints of ships and castles and birds and fish and all sorts of wonders. The story ends, of course, with a wedding feast, but not before the seven Simeons show off their miraculous trades and abduct the princess, who promptly falls in love with the handsome King Douda. The couple ask for forgiveness from Princess Helena’s father, which is granted. “Let the fools go. I forgive them. It must have been God’s own will that my dear daughter should marry King Douda.”

If you’re still looking for a moral in all of that, it might rather lie with the seven Simeons, not with the handsome King and his bride. The seven Simeons, one of whom is a talented thief, remain hard-working peasants even when they are offered rich rewards. They only want to go back to their wheat fields, and probably they are the ones who truly live happily ever after. But this tale isn’t really meant to teach a lesson. It’s not teaching that you should name all of your sons the same name and instruct them to work hard and learn a trade. Nor is it saying that it’s acceptable for kings to kidnap their prospective brides. Or that thieves should be rewarded. It’s just an odd little Russian story with Caldecott honor winning illustrations.