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Flame Over Tara by Madeleine Polland

Jul7

“The year was A.D. 432, and Patrick, for Bishop from Rome to Ireland, arrived in a pagan land whose spiritual life was completely in the power of the Druid Priests and their ‘magic.’ A mild, warm-hearted, humorous man, Patrick, with his handful of followers, began what seemed an impossible task.

For all her training by the Druids, Macha found herself strangely drawn by Patrick’s words. Torn between the new ideas and the bright, safe life planned for her, Macha struggled to find a way to resolve her future.”

Macha is the daughter of the Chief Judge of the High King Leary, fourteen years old, and soon to be wed. So in our culture, Macha would be a child, and in the book she acts like a child, but in her era and culture she is expected to be ready to take on the responsibilities of an adult wife and homemaker. It’s a coming of age novel as Macha grows from an impetuous fourteen year old with divided loyalties into a woman who has learned to follow the God that Patrick preaches and to depend on Him to work out her other debts and responsibilities.

Flame Over Tara is also a novel about a time of change and about how to work through the taking off of the old and putting on of the new. There are several exciting and dramatic scenes in the novel: Patrick does not try to challenge the Druids immediately, but the clash between the Christian God and the magic of the Druids is inevitable. Patrick lives under threat of assassination from the High King and from his Druid priests. Many of the IrIsh people expect Patrick to use his God’s “magic” to counter that of the Druid priests, but Patrick relies on simple prayers and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to preserve his life and to ensure the spread of the gospel of Christ. (One of Patrick’s disciples does die as a martyr, and his death is mourned in a Christian fashion–with the hope of the resurrection to come.)

This 1964 novel was assigned in the Sonlight homeschool curriculum that we used a long time ago. I don’t know if it still is a part of that curriculum, but it would indeed be a good introduction to a discussion of the spread of Christianity during the early Middle Ages. It might be best enjoyed as a read aloud book so that some of the issues and scenes could be discussed and digested together. Middle school and high school students could certainly read and appreciate the book for themselves, however. Either way, it’s a good fictional treatment for older children of the life and times of St. Patrick.

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

The Nickel-Plated Beauty by Patricia Beatty

May9

I am quite fond of Patricia Beatty’s historical fiction books, set mostly in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, sometimes in Nevada or California. The Nickel-Plated Beauty takes place in 1886 in Ocean Park, Washington Territory, “right on the beach.” And when you’re that near the ocean, rust is a problem. The Kimball family, with seven children, is a family whose income and living conditions are somewhat precarious. Pa Kimball works hard cutting wood for the railroad, but he gets paid inconsistently whenever the railroad folks manage to show up for their next load of wood. So, when their old stove begins to rust out, there’s really no money available to replace it.

The first person narrator of the story is “Hester, the one with the good head on her shoulders.” And Hester gets the idea that she and her brothers and sisters will somehow between April and December earn enough money to replace the stove with a “nickel-plated beauty” of a stove as a Christmas surprise for their mother. Unfortunately, earning the money and keeping it a secret involves some lies told and a not-so-healthy competition with the “half-breed” Native American children who are the Kimball’s neighbors. There’s some prejudice against Native American children that is resolved by the end of the story, but may create questions that you would want to talk about with young readers.

However, despite their faults, the Kimball children’s work ethic and desire to give something to their hard working mother is admirable. And the story itself is fun with the suspense of reading to find out whether the children will be able to reach their goal and buy the stove. (Of course, they do, but how they get there is a rewarding ride.)

If you’ve not read any of Patricia Beatty’s historical fiction books, I recommend that you check them out. The following are a few of my favorites:

  • At the Seven Stars by John and Patricia Beatty. Mid-eighteenth century London, with lexicographer Samuel Johnson, actor David Garrick, painter William Hogarth, Jacobites and Hanoverians, orphans, beggars, spies and even a murder are all elements in this exciting story.
  • Pirate Royal by John and Patricia Beatty. Set in the seventeenth century, 1668-1672, the book chronicles the adventures of Anthony Grey as he goes from younger son of a British draper in Bristol, to apprentice to a dishonest and cruel master, to bondservant to a Boston tavern-keeper, to clerk to the infamous Henry Morgan, buccaneer and adventurer in Jamaica and the West Indies.
  • Wait for Me, Watch for Me, Eula Bee by Patricia Beatty. During the Civil War, the Collier family in north Texas is massacred by the Comanches in a raid, except for thirteen year old Lewallen and his little sister Eula Bee. Lewallen escapes but makes it his mission to rescue his sister no matter what it takes.
  • That’s One Ornery Orphan by Patricia Beatty. In Texas in the 1870’s orphan Hallie Lee Baker tries to get herself adopted, but her plan go awry.
  • Eight Mules from Monterey by Patricia Beatty. In 1916, Fayette and her librarian mother try to bring library services by mule to the people living in and around Monterrey, California.
  • Hail Columbia! by Patricia Beatty. In 1893, Louisa’s Aunt Columbia brings her suffragette and other political ideas to the frontier in Astoria, Oregon.
  • More historical fiction for teens by Patricia Beatty and others.

These are just a few of the historical fiction novels by Ms. Beatty that feature strong, lively, and mischievous young heroes heroines who get into sometimes comical, some times serious adventure.

Many of Ms. Beatty’s books, including this one, can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Carolina’s Courage by Elizabeth Yates

Apr12

Carolina and her family, the Putnams, are leaving their New Hampshire farm to go west to Nebraska Territory. It’s a long way, and there are many things they must take with them in their wagon to enable their new start in the wilderness. Therefore, many, many things, everything unnecessary or replaceable, must be left behind. Carolina can only take one very precious item, her beautiful china doll, Lydia-Lou.

This book is a short and easy to read novel about going west. It clocks in at 131 pages, and every page is delightful. I’m not sure how old Carolina is as the story begins, old enough to go to school but young enough to love and talk to her doll, maybe six or seven years old. She has an older brother, Mark, and a father who’s determined to start anew in Nebraska Territory, and a mother who’s willing to follow her husband’s lead despite the sacrifices that they all must make to get there.

I loved the fact that the Putnam family have a deep faith in God that becomes a natural part of the story. “In the village there was a white church with a slender spire, and the Putnam family went every Sunday morning.”

“[In] the safest place of all the space in the wagon, the driest, and the most accessible. There the Bible was laid, wrapped in a soft woolen shawl.”

“We’ll have need to keep an edge to our minds,” he said, ” and we’ll do it best with the Bible.”

“God blessed our coming into this house fifteen years ago,” John Putnam said, and it was hard to tell whether he was praying or making a last entry in some invisible book. “He blessed us with Mark, and later on with Carolina. Now may He bless our going out as we seek another land and work for our hands.”

Those are just a few of the times that the book mentions the prayers and faith of Carolina’s family as they travel across the country. And I thought that the story was well crafted to show that the Putnam family, although they had many wonderful adventures on their way to a new land, also had to make many sacrifices to get there safely. And perhaps Carolina is called on to make the biggest sacrifice of all.

Elizabeth Yates was such a talented and faith-filled author of beautiful books for children. I haven’t read them all yet, but I have the following books by this author in my library. And I do plan to read them all. Highly recommended author.

  • Iceland Adventure. Fifteen-year-old Michael and his fourteen-year-old sister Merry accompany their adventurous Uncle Tony to Iceland, where they explore the remote mountainous countryside in search of a long-lost relative of one of their uncle’s friends.
  • Swiss Holiday. A visit to Switzerland with their adventurous Uncle Tony brings Michael and Meredith new friends and an introduction to the art of mountain climbing.
  • Hue and Cry. Jared Austin, staunch member of the mutual protection society that defends his 1830s New Hampshire community against thieves, tries to temper justice with mercy when his deaf daughter Melody befriends a young Irish immigrant who has stolen a horse.
  • A Place for Peter. Thirteen-year-old Peter gets a chance to earn his doubting father’s trust when he successfully handles the important task of tapping the sugar maples to make syrup for their mountain farm.
  • Sarah Whitcher’s Story. The community searches for a young girl lost in a New Hampshire forest in the pioneer days. Based on a true story.
  • The Journeyman. One day a journeyman painter visits a quiet New Hampshire farm, and his unexpected offer sets Jared aglow with excitement. He starts off on an adventure that takes him miles from home and into experiences that bring him to manhood and deepen his faith.
  • Mountain Born. A boy in a family of sheep farmers raises a black lamb to be the leader of the flock. 1944 Newbery Honor book.
  • Amos Fortune, Free Man. The life of an eighteenth-century African prince who, after being captured by slave traders, was brought to Massachusetts where he was enslaved until he was able to buy his freedom at the age of sixty. 1951 Newbery Medal winner.

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

Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt

Apr10

Across Five Aprils is a U.S. Civil War novel and another coming of age story.. When the story begins, Jethro Creighton is a nine year old farm boy, the youngest of a large family, in southern Illinois. It’s 1861, the war is about to begin, and any reader who knows anything about that war knows that Jethro is going to have to grow up fast. As Jethro’s three older brothers and his cousin leave to go to war, the burden of the farm falls on Jethro’s shoulders. His father becomes disabled, and even more pressure is put upon Jethro to act like a man.

I really like this photo realistic cover picture on the paperback reprint edition of this book, by the way. Jethro looks like a nine, ten, eleven year boy who is looking out into the future and becoming a man, with the war in the background pushing him forward.

Through letters to home from Jethro’s older brothers and newspaper accounts that Jethro follows assiduously, readers see the battles and the politics of the Civil War from the public perspective as well as from the point of view of a boy trying to understand the war and all of its ramifications. For Jethro it’s mostly a story of battles won and lost and generals who are one day heroes and the next, failures. And president himself, “Old Abe” or Mr. Lincoln in more polite terms, is first thought to be too slow and too careful and later not careful enough, until the book finally ends with the greatest tragedy of the war, Lincoln’s assassination.

The “five Aprils” of the title are the five Aprils of the war, 1861-1865, and Jethro does become a man over those five years, even though he’s only fourteen years old as the book comes to a close. The language might be somewhat challenging for some young readers. The characters speak in a southern dialect that feels authentic to me and adds to the atmosphere of rural farm people looking on and trying to fathom a war that was and still is in some ways beyond understanding. This book would be high on my list of recommendations for children studying the Civil War to get an overview of the war in a fictional format. Not graphically violent, but somewhat tragic, with hope underlying.

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

Edge of Manhood by Thomas Fall

Apr9

“Thomas Fall was born in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas in a community with many Cherokee Indians. and grew up in western Oklahoma among many families of Plains Indians.”  The author may have had some Native American ancestry himself. Edge of Manhood tells the story of See-a-way, a Shawnee boy growing up in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) at the end of the nineteenth century.

“This story of a Shawnee Indian boy’s view of the end of the age of the American Indian does not depict the life of any person living or dead. All the episodes and characters are imaginary.

Such a story might actually have happened in the 1870’s. It was during this period that wester expansion overran the Indian Territory (now the state of Oklahoma) where dozens of Indian tribes from the South, East and North of the United States had already been pushed by the white man. It was here that railroads, and consequently commerce, finally caught up with the American frontier.”

~Author’s Note, Thomas Fall
Version 1.0.0

Cultural assimilation, the violent clash of cultures, colonization, war, peace, revenge, forgiveness—we are still discussing and debating these very issues in our own day and time. Edge of Manhood places these ideas and controversies within a specific place, the Indian Territory, and with an individual, See-a-way, in a specific culture, the Shawnee tribe of Native Americans. But the themes are universal.

See-a-way must decide, first of all, whether to cling to his own culture and traditions, to the exclusion of the new ways of the white man. At first, it seems to be an easy decision. See-a-way is determined to never go to the white man’s (Quaker) school or learn their ways. In fact, See-a-way’s burning desire is to shoot a white man, even though he has never met any white people. Even his frenemy from the Pottawatomie tribe, Blue Eagle, tells him: “See-a-way, you are still more stupid even than the sheep and the cow. You should have been born a naked Indian of the plains, so you could run around in a breechclout and do war dances and raid the white people all your life. The poor Plains Indians will be wiped out completely if they do not realize that they must learn the white man’s way.” But See-a-way is “furious” at this reprimand and becomes even more so when his family experiences even more tragedy and injustice at the hands of the white men.

Now See-a-way has another choice to make: revenge or surrender and forgiveness. Again, See-a-way chooses to act as most of us would act, at the behest of his anger and desire for retribution. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but suffice it to say, See-a-way does creep toward the edge of manhood with some help from his own people and from his people’s enemies, the Pottawatomie and even the white men.

This coming of age story is short, only eighty-eight pages long, but it is full of wisdom and excellent storytelling. Students who are studying the U.S. western expansion and the defeat and the near destruction of the Native American tribes who lived in the Great Plains would do well to be introduced to See-a-way and his growth into manhood. The book would be especially good for boys, and as I said before, it could apply to current day clashes and issues, although no situation in history is exactly analogous to another or reenacted in exactly the same way again. Bethlehem Books’ In Review, Winter 1996, The Move West–Exploration and Frontier Life in North America lists this book and recommends it as “of interest for grades 5-8.”

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

Tituba of Salem Village by Ann Petry

Apr1

This fictional account of the Salem witch hunts and trials focuses on Tituba, enslaved servant to minister of Salem, Samuel Parris. Parris, his daughter, Betsey and his niece Abigail Williams were at the heart of the witch scare in Salem, Massachusetts in the late 1600’s. The story is told from Tituba’s point of view, but in third person. Tituba, the Parris’ household servant who may have come to Massachusetts from Barbados, was accused and convicted of witchcraft during the trials, with Abigail and Betsey being among her chief accusers. Tituba was imprisoned, but she did escape with her life, although not her freedom. “In May of 1693 all persons charged with witchcraft were pardoned.” However, Tituba was sold for payment of her jail fees to Samuel Conklin, weaver, and worked for him in Boston for the remainder of her life.

Perhaps it’s good to know that background information going into the story since it is a rather harrowing tale of lies and deceit and flirtation with the occult. According to the story in this book, Tituba does tell fortunes and outlandish tales about talking monkeys and the jungles of Barbados. But from the perspective of this author, Tituba is much more sinned against than sinning. The girls who cry witchcraft are bored and overworked, with imaginations starved by Puritan legalism and the harsh conditions of colonial life. They follow Abigail and become caught up in the social contagion of the time: a belief in and fear of witchcraft. Abigail herself sounds like a piece of work, while Tituba, the character in the book anyway, is both insightful about the girls and their delusions as well as vulnerable to their insistent accusations.

It’s a somewhat scary book, perhaps disturbing to younger readers. I would wait until age thirteen or fourteen to hand this book over. Nevertheless, the outlines of the story are true, and it does illustrate the dangers of “following the crowd” or following a strong and charismatic leader. People can convince themselves of some very strange things when caught up in groupthink or hysteria. Tituba of Salem Village gives one perspective on the outbreak of such hysteria in Salem Village in the late seventeenth century.

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

If you want to read more about the events in Salem surrounding the witch accusations and trials, there are a number of good books, both well-researched historical fiction and nonfiction:

  • A Break With Charity by Ann Rinaldi (reviewed at Plumfield and Paideia) is historical fiction in the same vein as Tituba of Salem Village. A real girl whose parents were accused during the witch trials tells the story from her perspective as an outsider and a victim of the hysteria.
  • I Walk in Dread: The Diary of Deliverance Trembley, Witness to the Salem Witch Trials, Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1691 by Lisa Rowe Fraustino is part of the Dear America series of historical fiction written in journal or diary form.
  • The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Miller’s play uses the Salem Witch trials as a metaphor for and illumination of the McCarthy and the Committee on Un-American Activites (U.S. House of Representatives) blacklisting of suspected communists in government, entertainment and business. Its initial production on Broadway in 1953 won a Tony Award.
  • The Devil’s Door: A Salem Witchcraft Story by Paul B. Thompson.
  • The Witchcraft of Salem Village by Shirley Jackson is a nonfiction Landmark book about the witch trials in Salem.
  • Devil’s Shadow: The Story of Witchcraft in Massachusetts by Clifford Lindsay Alderman is another nonfiction account of the events.

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.

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

Other Bronte books I can recommend:

Focus on Alfred the Great

Mar7

I’ve now read three books, two fiction and one nonfiction, about the the life and times of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex (southern England) in the ninth century. I may not know all there is to know about Alfred, aka Aelfred, but I certainly know enough to admire and appreciate the man and his accomplishments.

I read The Namesake by C. Walter Hodges last year and skimmed it last week to compare it with the other two books. As you can tell from my review, Alfred in this book is portrayed as a Philosopher King, and I think that a fair portrayal, although he certainly knew battle tactics and politics, too.

In Eva March Tappan’s In the Days of Alfred the Great, the reader gains a lot more background about Alfred and his life and the political situation in Britain and the stories that were told about Alfred. I think I enjoyed this narrative nonfiction book even more than the two fictional treatments of Alfred’s life. I understand why the author who wished to write about Alfred the Great might choose a novel form: a lot of what is known about the man and his times is legend and story, not really verified. However, Ms. Tappan inserts dialog and story into her nonfiction narrative, making it readable, but also believable. I thought the story made Alfred come alive , and I learned a lot about “the days of Alfred the Great.” I purchased In the Days of Alfred the Great in a reprint edition from Living Book Press, and I recommend the LBP edition of this classic history book.

The third book I read, from another small publisher, Smidgen Press, is called The Lost Dragon of Wessex. It tells the story of an orphan boy who becomes involved in the struggle between the Saxons under Alfred the Great and the invading Danes. Wulf, in the beginning of the story, is a simple forest-dwelling peasant boy who has never been away from home. When Wulf meets a stranger and follows him to the court of Alfred, the boy encounters adventure and testing that will bring him into manhood and into his calling as either a soldier or a bard, or maybe both. The journeys in this story are from forest to city, from ignorance to education, from England to Sweden and back, and from boy to man, and the focus of the story is on Wulf and what Wulf learns in the court of King Alfred, not so much on the king himself or his character and battles.

So, the three books complement one another. The Namesake shows us a fictional, but noble King Alfred as he is remembered by the old man that King Alfred mentored and taught when the man, named Alfred also, was a boy. In the Days of Alfred the Great shows where Alfred came from, the stories that were told of him as a boy and as a man, and the challenges he had to face in defeating the Danes and bringing learning and books to his own people, the Saxons of Wessex. The Lost Dragon of Wessex presents us with Alfred at the height of his power and influence and shows what that influence might have been on one boy as well as on the country as a whole.

Have you read any books about Alfred the Great? What would you recommend?

These books can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Stateless by Elizabeth Wein

Feb2

Having just re-read the Flambards novels by K.M. Peyton, set in the early days of flying and airplanes before, during , and after World War I, I was prepared and pleased to read another golden age of flying novel, this one set in 1937 Europe, just before World War 2 changed everything. Elizabeth Wein, author of the compelling and well written Code Name Verity, Rose Under Fire, and Black Dove White Raven (as well as a disastrously bad prequel to Code Name Verity), likes to write about female aviators, and airplanes, and flying as well as the politics and adventures surrounding the 1930’s and World War 2. In Stateless she has given us a spy and aviation thriller reminiscent of Helen MacInnes’ spy novels which is a high compliment because I am quite fond of MacInnes.

Stella North, Northie to her friends, has been chosen to represent Britain in the Circuit of Nations Olympics of the Air, Europe’s First Youth Air Race. She’s the only female flyer in the race with eleven other pilots from eleven different European countries. The race is supposed to be promoting peace and friendly relations between the peoples and nations of Europe, but with the Spanish Civil War still raging and the Nazis becoming more powerful and belligerent in Germany, peace seems somewhat elusive. And the press is no help at all, with reporters mobbing the contestants in every city they fly to and asking questions that suggest that the pilots themselves might resort to sabotaging each other’s planes to win the race. When one of the racers goes missing, and Northie has dangerous information about what happened to him, she and others begin to wonder if a murderer might be lurking among the contestants.

The themes of international and world peace and the difficulties of achieving it and of individual identity and nationality and transcending European borders are articulated, but left to simmer as the plot itself and figuring out whodunnit took up most of the space in my reading mind. I did notice that the characters were mostly multilingual and multinational with divided loyalties that were soon to tested by the outbreak of World War 2. The author in her Author’s Note at the end of the book speculates on what would happen to these young flyers in just a couple of years after 1937, but we’ll never know unless Ms. Wein decides to write a sequel.

Well plotted and exciting, this novel falls just short of brilliant. There’s the problem of why don’t Stella and the charming but volatile Tony inform the authorities of their suspicions and of what they have actually witnessed. Of course, for the sake of the story, the authorities can’t just wrap everything up, call off the race, and send everyone home. So Northie and her friends must find reasons not to tell what they know: they don’t trust anyone else. No one would believe them. They don’t have enough proof. Nonsense. If I saw what Stella saw and knew what she knew, I’d be screaming bloody murder (literally, murder!) until someone somewhere listened and believed me and did something. At least, I think I would. Anyway, if you just go with it, it’s a good story.

And it’s clean. There are one or two brief kisses, and some faked necking (standing close and pretending to kiss) while the protagonists are hiding from the Gestapo. No bad language that I recall, except for one exclamation using the word “bloody” by a British character, a word which I understand carries more weight with the Brits. There is violence, but it’s not terribly graphic. All in all, it’s a book I would be happy to recommend to older teenage and adult readers.

Red Caps and Lilies by Katharine Adams

Dec29

Another book first published in 1924, Red Caps and Lilies is historical fiction set during the first days of the French Revolution. An aristocrat family attempts to come to terms with the rapid descent into chaos and revolution that begins in Paris, 1789. Soon it is obvious that thirteen year old Marie Josephine, her older brother Lisle, and their beloved maman, along with servants and relatives and friends and other various and sundry folk, must flee Paris and even France to ensure their own safety. But who will help them? Whom can they trust? And will they be betrayed by their own pride and disbelief that their lives could possibly be in danger in the first place?

I could quibble with this historical novel from another generation. The plot is a little creaky at times, with lots of unexpected meetings and paths crossing at just the right time. The events of the family’s escape are told and then retold and retold again as the family gathers and each one recounts his adventures to the others. Some character growth is evident in Lisle, the proud aristocratic teen, who is humbled by his experiences, and in Grigge, the peasant who has good reason to hate the aristocratic family but finds reason to help them anyway, All in all, though it’s a harmless little story with a fairly happy ending.

I guess I’ve become accustomed, for better or for worse, to something a little more ambiguous and and a little more unpredictable. I knew from the beginning, or at least near the beginning, that the family would escape and that all would turn out well. There was just no real suspense in the story, even though I think the author tried to create some. Still, if you want a historical novel that give a young adult reader some introduction to the time of the French Revolution with good and noble characters and a few daring escapes, you could do worse than reading about these French “lilies” cast out to fend for themselves among the “red caps” of the mobs of Paris.

You can read this “oldie but goodie” on Internet Archive if your library doesn’t give you access to a copy.