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Girl With a Pen: Charlotte Bronte by Elisabeth Kyle

Mar29

“This being Charlotte Bronte’s story and not her biography, I have taken a few liberties. Some minor happenings have been transposed in time, other omitted or invented. . . . But this is Charlotte’s story. I have written it in the hope of awakening interest in a remarkable girl who wrote remarkable books.”

~Afterword by Elisabeth Kyle

I can’t decide whether it would be best to have read Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre before reading this fictionalized biography or whether Jane Eyre might flow even better if the reader were to know something about the life and times of its author. Either way, Girl With a Pen is a book not to be missed by Bronte fans. Making the story of Charlotte’s life into a fictional narrative while keeping the broad outlines and many of the details was a good choice on the part of a good author herself, Elisabeth Kyle. Ms. Kyle writes vividly and fluidly of Charlotte’s young adulthood and her rise to fame, telling the story of Charlotte Bronte’s growth as a person and as an author with understanding and an affinity for Charlotte and her sisters.

I’ve read several books about the Brontes, fiction and nonfiction. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. This one emphasizes Charlotte’s life in the parsonage at Haworth as a young adult, covers her time as a student in Brussels, and shows us her rocky, yet triumphant road to becoming a celebrated novelist, all without speculating about modern obsessions with Charlotte’s love life or her relationship with her father. Mr. Bronte is this book, is a typical Victorian father, rather over-protective of his daughters by modern standards, but loving and beloved by those same daughters. And Charlotte goes to Brussels to learn French and to teach English and does not indulge in any love affairs whilst there.

This biographical fiction novel is especially appropriate for junior high and younger high school readers who are interested in learning more about Charlotte Bronte’s life since the author omits the more sordid details of Branwell Bronte’s life and death with Branwell appearing only as a minor character in the story. The book also ends before the deaths of Emily and Anne, thereby avoiding those twin tragedies as well.

And Charlotte herself is indeed the focus of the narrative. Ms. Kyle tells Charlotte’s story vividly and memorably. In this book, Charlotte Bronte, who thought of herself as a rather nondescript and even ugly young lady, is is bright and personable and full of life. I would recommend this fictionalized biography to any teens who are readers, introverts, or aspiring writers. And adults like me, librarian-types, should find it fascinating as well.

Other Bronte books I can recommend:

  • The Little Books of the Little Brontes by Sara O’Leary. A picture book about the Bronte children and their homemade miniature booklets.
  • The Bronte Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily and Anne by Catherine Reef. An excellent young adult biography of the three Bronte sisters.
  • Always Emily by Michaela McColl. Fiction portraying Emily Bronte and her sister Charlotte as a mismatched but effective detective duo.
  • The Return of the Twelves by Pauline Clarke. A fantasy children’s novel about the Bronte children and their toy soldiers.
  • The Brontes: Wild Genius on the Moors by Juliet Barker. I haven’t read this “definitive biography”, but it sounds good.
  • Charlotte Bronte and Jane Eyre by Stewart Ross. A picture book biography of Charlotte Bronte, emphasizing the genesis of her most famous novel.
  • The Young Brontes: Charlotte and Emily, Branwell and Anne by Mary Louise Jarden. A children’s novel, quite long, ab out the four Bronte children and their imaginative existence as the four Genii.
  • The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Mrs. Gaskell. The first biography written about Charlotte Bronte, published shortly after her death.

Proud Prisoner by Walter Havighurst

Feb25

This narrative history/biography book is for older middle school to high school students and adults who are interested in a different perspective on the American Revolution, particularly the war in the Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan territories west of the Appalachian Mountains. The “proud prisoner” of the title is Lieutenant Governor Henry Hamilton, British Governor of Detroit, aka “Hair Buyer”. As the war between the independence-declaring Americans and the mighty ruling British was raging in the east, the illegal settlers in Kentucky and Ohio were experiencing their own war. The British paid Native American allies, led by British officers, to raid the settlements and isolated homesteads of these settlers, who were mostly from Virginia and considered themselves Americans and Virginians, not subject to the British law that said they couldn’t settle in the land beyond the Cumberland Gap.

Henry Hamilton gained the epithet “Hair Buyer” among the Virginians because he was accused of paying the Native Americans for scalps but not for for live prisoners and of encouraging them to massacre men, women, and children. This book makes the case that Hamilton was falsely accused by a couple of unreliable witnesses with an ax to grind. However, the author also states very plainly that Hamilton gave the natives many “presents” (mostly rum), including knives specifically called scalping knives. And when the raiders brought in scalps, including those obviously taken from children, Hamilton gave them praise and more gifts. If that’s not paying for scalps, I’m not sure what it is.

So I wasn’t convinced that Governor Hamilton was an “honest and honorable man whom history has cast in a villain’s role.” Maybe the best you can say is that he was no worse than many of his compatriots as well as many of the Virginians who were also enlisting the natives to fight for them. Anyway, it was fascinating to read about this side of the War for Independence. I don’t remember learning in American history class much about George Rogers Clark, the Virginian sent by Governor Patrick Henry to capture the British outposts in the west and stop the marauding British and natives from their raids on American settlements. Nor do I remember anything at all about the governor of Detroit and the battle between his forces and the Virginia militiamen at Vincennes that ended in the capture and imprisonment of Governor Hamilton.

I thought this story, by a scholar and university professor, was well written, engaging, and well researched. Governor Hamilton left behind many papers, letters, and a diary which means the author had many sources from which to draw in telling the history of this possibly unfairly stigmatized, possibly justly hated, man. Either way, Hamilton’s life was one I knew nothing about, and I’m glad I read about him in Proud Prisoner.

The Ride of Her Life by Elizabeth Letts

Sep4

The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America by Elizabeth Letts

One of my fascinations is journey stories: Peter Jenkins’ A Walk Across America and The Walk West, Robin Graham’s The Boy Who Sailed ‘Round the World (aka Dove), Walking to Listen by Andrew Forsthoefel, Bold Spirit by Linda Lawrence Hunt, just to name a few that I’ve read and enjoyed. The Ride of Her Life is another entry in the “journey across America” genre, this time by horse.

Annie was 62 years old in 1954 when she decided to leave her Maine hometown of Minot and travel by horseback to California. She didn’t know where she was going in California; nor did she have a route picked out for getting there. She didn’t have a roadmap. She didn’t have a plan for what she would do when she got to California either. She had very little money, and her horse, a Maine trotter gelding named Tarzan, was at least as old (as horses age) as Annie herself. Annie Wilkins also had no family, no children, and no real ties to the town of Minot where she spent most of her life up until the age of 62. Her farm had just been taken from her in lieu of back taxes.

So she decided to ride Tarzan across the country to California and figured that by the time she reached the Pacific she would be almost old enough to draw from that new government program, Social Security, if she didn’t die on the way. Her Maine doctor had found a spot on her lungs that might have been cancer or tuberculosis, and he figured she had only a couple years to live. What better way to spend those years than as a tramp, which is what Annie decided to call herself, “The Last of the Saddle Tramps” or “The Tramp of Fate.”

I liked this book partly because Annie was about my age when she set out on her journey. I could never ride or walk across the country. I can barely walk around the block without stumbling or breathing hard, and I’ve never ridden a horse. But I do admire Annie’s tenacious spirit, and I would like to emulate her in some ways.

I also enjoyed all the extra information added by the author, Elizabeth Letts. Ms. Letts did a phenomenal amount of research writing this book. A lot of the book is based on Annie’s memoir, written with co-author Mina Titus Sawyer, called Last of the Saddle Tramps. However, Ms. Letts also traveled to all of the places where Annie stopped, found the newspaper articles that were written about her ride in local and national newspapers, and interviewed the few people who are still living and remember Annie coming through or staying in their neighborhoods and homes.

The book is just fascinating. Annie travelled through snow and ice and heat and desert and mountains and over rivers. And she found plenty of friendly strangers who cared for her along the way. She met Andrew Wyeth, Governor Robert Smylie of Idaho, Art Linkletter, and countless less famous folks who were all treated with the same friendly, unassuming, appreciative air by Annie, The Last of the Saddle Tramps.

Napoleon and the Battle of Waterloo by Frances Winwar

Jul21

I read the Landmark book about Adolf Hitler earlier this year, and I couldn’t help comparing as I read this Landmark book about another would-be conqueror, Napoleon. The author of Napoleon and the Battle of Waterloo has the advantage, and the disadvantage, of distance from her subject. Maybe the havoc and death that resulted from Napoleon’s ambition over two hundred years ago just doesn’t feel as bad as Hitler’s evil deeds that are only seventy-five or so years in the past. Or maybe Napoleon, unlike Hitler, did have his good side.

Anyway, Winwar tells the story of Napoleon well, and with the semblance of objectivity. She goes through the events of his life from his birth in 1769 to a Corsican rebel lieutenant and his wife to his defeat at Waterloo and his exile and death on another island, St. Helena. Napoleon’s father was a rebel against the French occupation of the island of Corsica, and Napoleon himself became the personification of French identity and patriotism. I learned some facts about Napoleon and his empire, built and lost. And Winwar’s summary at the end of her book seems fair:

“Napoleon, however, left behind him a legend and a moral lesson. He showed what a man can accomplish through strength of purpose, courage, and imagination. He destroyed the last remnants of feudalism in Europe and abolished the Inquisition in Spain. He helped to build the modern code of laws. He encouraged art and science and education.

But once he gained power he paired it with his colossal ambition. The two, like fiery steeds driven recklessly for his own glory, plunged him and his empire to destruction. So great was his fall at Waterloo that since then all defeat has been known by its name.”

I can’t quite imagine a similar recitation of Hitler’s legendary feats and his fall. And yet Napoleon’s ambition and egomania was responsible for a great deal of suffering and death for the French people and for the other peoples of Europe. His colossal ambition was just as disproportionate and damaging as Hitler’s was, but without the tanks, sophisticated and deadly weaponry, and death camps. I wonder if the people of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries who were closer to the results of Napoleon’s reign would have given him credit for “strength of purpose, courage and imagination.” Distance in time can give us perspective, but is it an accurate and truthful perspective?

Growing Up Dakota by Charles Alexander Eastman

Jul19

Growing Up Dakota by Charles Alexander Eastman, edited and illustrated by Charlene Notgrass. From Indian Child Life and Indian Boyhood, both by Charles Alexander Eastman.

Charles Eastman was an amazing Native American voice and man. After reading about him in the linked article, I am surprised that I had never heard of him before now. With all of the emphasis on “own voices” and the authentic Native American experience these days, Mr. Eastman’s writing and perspective would seem to be particularly valuable to children who are learning about American history and about Native American life. And yet, only one of his many books is available in print from my large city library system, and none of his work is available in an edition meant for children, even though much of Mr. Eastman’s original writing was intended for children and young adults.

Growing Up Dakota its an edited version of two of Eastman’s books, Indian Child Life and Indian Boyhood, a sort of “youth edition” of Eastman’s stories. Charlene Notgrass, the editor, summarizes some parts of Eastman’s text with her own words in italics. But she writes in her foreword, “All of the words in Growing Up Dakota are the original words of Charles Eastman, except when you see lines typed like this: the italicized words between the lines are mine. . . . I have not changed the words that Eastman chose because I want you to be able to read this story in the words of the real Dakota man who wrote them.”

Mr. Eastman tells his story in roughly chronological order, but it’s also a rambling sort of story that reminds one of an old man reciting his memories of his boyhood, stories that others told to him, and other anecdotal accounts as they occur to him. The author begins with the story that was told to him of his birth and his name, “Hakadah” meaning Pitiful Last. He was given this name because he was the last of five children, and his mother died soon after he was born. Hakadah, who later received the more pleasant name Ohiyesa, which means Winner, was raised by his grandmother and his uncle. Ohiyesa’s father was presumed dead when the family was separated during the Dakota Wars of 1862.

The book ends with Ohiyesa’s father reappearance when Ohiyesa was fifteen years old. His father had been imprisoned, then released, and had to search to find Ohiyesa and the rest of his tribe and family. Ohiyesa’s father, Jacob Eastman, had in the interim become a Christian, and he took Ohiyesa to live “like the white men” on a homestead in South Dakota. That’s when Ohiyesa took a “Christian name,” Charles Alexander Eastman. He went to school, graduated from Dartmouth College, and Boston University’s medical school, and became a doctor and an author.

In between are the memories of Ohiyesa/Eastman’s Indian boyhood: the customs and celebrations, hunts and courting rituals, feasts and training for manhood. All that the author remembers is described vividly and with respect for the Dakota (Sioux) way of life. This book would be fascinating for children to listen to if read aloud in brief pieces, Charlotte Mason-style, and would provide much food for discussion. Boys and girls who are interested in learning more about Native American culture should definitely be introduced to Ohiyesa’s story.

Growing Up Dakota is available for purchase from Notgrass History, a homeschool curriculum publisher and distributor.

The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler by William L. Shirer

Feb14

What would lead a person to read an entire book, even a children’s middle grade nonfiction book, that takes the reader inside the life and mind of Adolf Hitler, the arch-villain of the twentieth century? Well, there’s something rather fascinating about trying to understand how Hitler became Hitler, synonymous with the most evil, murderous, racist, anti-Semitic dictator and warmonger ever. William L. Shirer, author of the 1000+ page tome, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (for adults), was in a position to study this question and come to some kind of conclusions, if anyone from the Allied side of the war was. As an American correspondent in Berlin, Shirer actually met Hitler, listened to many of his spell-binding speeches, and observed him over the course of several years before and during World War II. The result of Shirer’s observations and his journalist’s eye for character and for a story is this book, written for children in the Landmark history series, but suited to readers of all ages.

Shirer begins his book with eleven year old Adolf, showing an independent streak even at that young age in aspiring to become an artist instead of the civil servant his father wanted him to be. I learned a lot about Hitler that I never knew before from this book, and I was reminded of a few “home truths” along the way. After his art career bombed because the art school wouldn’t let him in, said he had no talent, Herr Hitler became a tramp without a real job for several years, but a very well read tramp. He read and studied all the time while working very little. First lesson: readers may become leaders, but they may also become very bad leaders.

Chapter 7 of the book is called “Hitler Falls in Love,” and it tells a story I never knew or else had forgotten. In this chapter of the book and of Hitler’s life, he falls hard for his half-niece, the daughter of his half-sister. Her name was Gell Raubal, and Hitler declared after her death that she was the only woman he ever truly loved. You can read the story in Shirer’s book and decide for yourself whether or not “loved” is the right word to describe Hitler’s controlling obsession with a girl half his age. (The story of their brief “romance” is tastefully told, appropriate for middle grade and older children who will read the book, but icky nonetheless.)

After this personal interlude, the book moves on to Hitler’s political actions and aspirations and quickly into the war years. As he becomes more and more successful, in politics and in war, and gains more and more power, Hitler becomes more and more deranged. Shirer calls him “beyond any question a dangerous, irresponsible megalomaniac.” And yet (next paragraph) Hitler is able to maintain power, and be “so cool and cunning in his calculations and so bold in carrying them out that few could doubt that he well might be the military genius that he claimed to be.” This lead me to another unpleasant truth: a mentally ill egomaniacal murderer can act in a very lucid and intelligent manner for a long time. It is possible to be cunning, bold, and crazy.

Of course, this book chronicles the rise and fall of Hitler, so the craziness does come to an end. Shirer is to be commended for his ability to tell the story in a way that is appropriate for older children, but also truthful and candid in its presentation of Hitler’s horribly destructive life and actions. The book doesn’t completely explain the quandary of why the German people were so enamored of Herr Hitler or how he was able to fool so many people for so long into believing in his “genius”, but it does document in a very readable and engaging style, the rise and fall of a man who was “a power-drunk tyrant whom absolute power had corrupted absolutely.”

I recommend Shirer’s book for its insight and as a cautionary tale for those who would place their faith in any political leader. Hitler is dead, but it is still quite possible to be fooled by a seemingly lucid and benign leader who is actually a wolf in disguise.

Download a list of the entire Landmark history series in chronological order.

Ten (or Eleven) Best Nonfiction Books I Read in 2022

Jan4

The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler by William L. Shirer and The Mysterious Voyages of Captain Kidd by A.B.C. Whipple. These two Landmark books, written for children, tied for tenth place in my “best of nonfiction” list. Both were well-written, contained many interesting facts and stories that I didn’t know about before I read the books, and generated much conversation among the “Library Ladies” of whom I am privileged to be a part.

Mere Motherhood: Morning Times, Nursery Rhymes, and My Journey Towards Sanctification by Cindy Rollins (re-read) What I wrote a few years ago when I read this book for the first time still applies: “I laughed. I cried. I identified. Cindy Rollins, mother of nine homeschooled children, mostly boys, has written an honest, but also encouraging book about what it was really like to homeschool a large family in the 1980’s and 1990’s homeschooling culture. Cindy is honest about the things she’s learned along the way, but never jaded or dismissive of her younger self or of homeschooling families who work every day, although imperfectly, to get it right and teach their children to know the Lord.”

Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep by Tish Harrison Warren. Compline prayer from Prayer in the Night: “Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ, give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous, and all for your love’s sake. Amen.”

The God of the Garden: Thoughts on Creation, Culture, and the Kingdom by Andrew Peterson. “Solitude is a choice. . . Isolation is finding yourself alone when you don’t want to be.”

The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis. (Re-read)

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang.

Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng. Another memoir of the Cultural Revolution and the reign of terror under Mao in China. Both this book and Wild Swans were difficult to read, difficult to believe that man could be so inhumane, so cruel, and that a society could devolve into such chaos and horror.

Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith by Russ Ramsey.

The Truth and Beauty: How the Lives and Works of England’s Greatest Poets Point the Way to a Deeper Understanding of the Words of Jesus by Andrew Klavan.

Where the Light Fell by Philip Yancey. These last three books on the list are the best books I read in 2022. I will be thinking about and returning to all three many times, I am sure. Yancey’s spiritual autobiography is heart-rending at times, but ultimately hopeful.

The Mysterious Voyage of Captain Kidd by A.B.C. Whipple

Jan4

Who was Captain Kidd? Most people would answer simply, “A pirate!” or maybe, “A pirate who buried a great treasure!” But was he a pirate? Or was he a falsely accused and misjudged victim? Was he a legal privateer acting under the King’s orders? Did he even have a treasure? And if so, what happened to it?

Mr. A.B.C. Whipple’s book doesn’t answer all of those questions. (HINT: The treasure is still either nonexistent or up for grabs.) But it does present a compelling case for the honor and victimization of one William Kidd, New York merchant turned—either pirate or privateer. Take your pick.

This Landmark history, one of the books in the famous Landmark series, is anything but a dry recitation of facts and figures. Of course, the subject is piracy and one of the most famous of all the pirates, Captain Kidd. But Kidd’s story is full of detail about the life and times of the pirates and about the late seventeenth century and its business practices and British politics; yet, nevertheless, the story is told in such a way as to draw in the reader and make him care about the East India Company and the coast of Madagascar and the intricacies of trade between New York and the West Indies—and much more. I love how these living Landmark books educate without pontificating, simply by telling a story.

The story begins with the British judge sentencing William Kidd to death by hanging, so there are no surprises about how Kidd’s story ends. But the author then goes back into to tell readers how in only six short years Kidd went from being a prosperous New York merchant to a criminal convicted of piracy and murder. It’s a sad, cautionary tale. Although I’m not sure what Captain Kidd could have done differently to avoid his fate, I certainly think some lessons can be drawn from his story. Maybe, stay away from ventures with politics and secret investors involved. Or, never trust a politician. Kids who read the book can draw their own lessons and conclusions.

As for the buried treasure, maybe it’s somewhere, buried still. I’d like to think so. In an author note at the end of my copy of the book, Mr. Whipple writes:

“Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island, once heard that another author, Henry James, had never gone looking for buried treasure. ‘If he has never been on a quest for buried treasure,’ said Stevenson, ‘it can be demonstrated that he has never been a child.'”

I certainly remember searching for buried treasure once upon a time. Maybe this book will inspire treasure hunters, children or adults, to try once more to find the buried treasure of Captain Kidd. And maybe someone, somewhere, will find it!

This Landmark book, once a rare find, out of print, and very expensive to purchase, has been reprinted by Purple House Press, and it’s now available at a very reasonable price with updated maps and other information. If you or your child (or both of you) are interested in pirates, and who isn’t, it’s worth purchasing or borrowing from my library (Meriadoc Homeschool Library) or from your local public library, if they have a copy. If not, you should request that they buy one immediately. Maybe it has clues to the whereabouts of the treasure, or maybe the story itself is the treasure.

More about this Landmark book, The Mysterious Voyage of Captain Kidd by A.B.C. Whipple (don’t you just love that author’s name!) on the Plumfield Moms podcast, where they are featuring one of the Landmark books each month on the first Friday of the month.

O. Henry by Jeanette Covert Nolan

Mar18

O. Henry: The Story of William Sydney Porter by Jeanette Covert Nolan.

O. Henry, aka William Sydney Porter, led a colorful life, but he was a retiring and secretive man. As his biographer says, “his autobiography, if set down, would probably have been scorned as a travesty on truth by the instructors of proper college writing classes.” Born and raised in North Carolina, he moved to Texas as a young man, married an Austin girl from a wealthy family, fathered a daughter, became a journalist, owned a newspaper for a short while, worked in a bank, was accused of embezzlement, fled the country, returned to be with his dying wife, and was convicted of a felony and imprisoned in Ohio. All this happened while he was still a young man, in his thirties, and before he began to make his reputation as a writer of exquisitely crafted short stories that became both popular with common readers and respected in literary circles.

Ms. Nolan’s biography of O. Henry/Porter, written for young adults, is obviously sympathetic to Porter, portraying him as wrongly convicted of embezzlement and mostly confused and mistaken in his decision to flee justice, deserting his wife and child for a brief time. His wife, Athol, seems unnaturally supportive, saying in her letters only that she believed in his innocence but that they would have to remain apart as long as he was a fugitive since she was too ill to join him in Honduras where he fled. And Nolan glosses over Porter’s alcoholism–he died of cirrhosis of the liver and other ailments—and says only that he drank heavily but was always a perfect gentleman. Porter comes across as a lonely and tragic figure, shrouded in mystery, but likable, jovial, and humorous with all who knew him in his after-prison days.

This approach to telling the story of Porter’s life makes the biography a gentle story, somewhat melancholy, but ultimately hopeful. Nolan describes Porter as a “rather stout and mild-mannered man, timidly smiling, respectably dressed–dark suit, blue tie, yellow gloves in his right hand, and maybe a malacca cane, too; and the buttonhole of his coat the little Cecil Brunner rosebud which he had bought that very morning at the flower-stand one the corner of Madison Square.” The entire book inclines one to think of Porter fondly, much as his short stories portray most of their characters, mistaken at times but “more sinned against.”

However, Ms. Nolan makes a strategic error when she includes in her story references to the Ku Klux Klan, apparently active in Porter’s boyhood hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina. I’m not sure why Ms. Nolan even felt it necessary to mention the Klan, but she does. And when she does, while she has Porter’s father argue that the “Klan is as hateful in theory as in practice,” she also has him say that “the average Negro is still an inarticulate creature, not far removed from the primitive; he doesn’t know what he’s doing or why.” In these first few chapters of the book about William Porter’s boyhood there’s a whole thread of apology for the Klan and for the hatred of Southerners for Reconstruction and the Northern interlopers it bought to the South. And the fear, pity, and contempt of Southerners for their formerly enslaved Black neighbors is quite evident and articulated plainly. It made me wonder: if Nolan could sympathize with the underlying fears and prejudices that gave rise to the Klan, what other dark episodes and secrets would she spin in a positive way? (And Nolan was Indiana born and bred, so it’s not as if she was a Southerner herself.)

At any rate, I still enjoyed reading this biography of William Sydney Porter, and it made me want to pull out some of his short stories and re-read them. Book does lead on to book in a never-ending chain.

Interesting side-note: William Porter made friends in New York City during the latter half of his life, mostly in the publishing world. One of those friends was Gelett Burgess, author of Goops and How To Be Them and its sequels, and also the famous ditty, “I Never Saw a Purple Cow.”

I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one.

Admiral Byrd of Antarctica by Michael Gladych

May23

Another Messner biography, published in 1960, Admiral Byrd of Antarctica is a solid, decent read, but not as enthralling or inspiring as other Messner biographies I’ve read. Gladych characterizes Byrd, who explored both the Arctic and the Antarctic, as resourceful, persistent, brave and somewhat driven by a desire to do something important and noteworthy.

The most celebrated event of Byrd’s life came in 1934 on his second Antarctic expedition when he spent five months alone gathering meteorological data in a base station during the antarctic winter. He almost died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a poorly ventilated stove. He later wrote an account of his experiences when isolated and on his own in his book, Alone. Gladych quotes Byrd saying about his motivation for manning the station by himself:

“There comes a time in every man’s life when he should take stock of himself—sort of check on his navigation, so to speak. . . . You see, it has taken me a long time to get where I am today. And we are all like aircraft on nonstop flights, with time like precious fuel which we cannot replenish. God alone knows how much time-fuel I have left, and I’d like to check my course—make sure that where I am headed is where I should be going. I can do it best alone—out there.”

p.156

I don’t know if that’s an actual quote from Admiral Byrd, or a paraphrase of something he said, or entirely made up by author Gladych. However, while the idea of checking your course by way of an extended retreat is a good one, I think it could have been accomplished with less drama and danger, to Byrd and to his compatriots who eventually had to come to his rescue. But, then, what do I know about polar exploration or the compulsion to adventure and challenge the unknown?

Admiral Byrd was one of the most highly decorated Navy officers in U.S. military history. He also got all kinds of awards and commendations from various non-governmental organizations. But the fact that his wife, Marie, stayed married to him and raised their four children by herself for a good bit of their marriage seems like the best commendation of all. She must have seen something in him. He did name a region in Antartica after his long-suffering wife, Marie Byrd Land.

Some other books about Admiral Byrd and his adventures:

  • Black Whiteness: Admiral Byrd Alone in the Antarctic by Robert Burleigh. Picture book about Byrd’s famous near-death experiment in solitude.
  • Something to Tell the Grandcows by Ellen Spinelli. Picture book. Hoping to have an adventure to impress her grandcows, Emmadine Cow joins Admiral Richard E. Byrd on his 1933 expedition to the South Pole. I have this book in my library.
  • Alone: The Classic Polar Adventure by Richard Evelyn Byrd.
  • Explorer: The Life of Richard E. Byrd by Lisle E. Rose. An adult biography of the explorer published in 2008.
  • Richard E. Byrd: Adventurer to the Poles by Adele de Leeuw. A children’s biography from the series by Garrard Publishers, Discovery biographies.
  • Byrd & Igloo: A Polar Adventure by Samantha Seiple. A narrative account for children of the daring adventures of the legendary polar explorer and aviator and his loveable dog companion draws on letters, diaries, interviews, newspaper clippings, and expedition records.
  • Admiral Richard Byrd: Alone in the Antarctic by Paul Rink. Original title: Conquering Antartica: Admiral Richard E. Byrd.
  • We Were There With Byrd at the South Pole by Charles S. Strong. Juvenile fiction set during Byrd’s first Antarctic expedition.