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The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr

Jul4

Kerr, Judith. The Tiger Who Came to Tea. W. Collins (London), 1968.

This picture book is quite well known and popular in Britain, practically a classic, but not so well known in the U.S. As one can tell from the title, it’s a very British sort of story. Nevertheless, American children as well as those from other countries should be able to appreciate this whimsical tale of an unexpected tiger who comes to visit and eats up all the food and drink in the house. Words such as “tap” and “tins” and “biscuits” and “packets” and even “tea” may need to be redefined for those same American children, but that’s part of the fun.

The illustrations are bold and simple, perfect for preschoolers. And the Tiger is big but not scary. Even though the Tiger does look rather ravenous throughout, there’s no hint that the little girl in the story is afraid or worried that the Tiger will finish off his meal with her. In fact, she snuggles up to him and plays with his tail in the pictures. The girl and her parents do have to come up with a solution for the lack of food and drink in the house after the Tiger leaves. And they also make a plan just in case the Tiger makes a return visit: a big box of Tiger Food to keep on hand.

Sometimes British humor is, well, somewhat foreign to my American understanding, but this book is spot on. It’s short and sweet, also memorable and imaginative, and I can see why it has been a children’s literature staple in Britain since its publication in 1968. It reminds me a little bit of Where The Wild Things Are, published in 1964, or The Cat in the Hat from 1957. But it’s more precious, in a good way, and more British. This book is another one that I will definitely be adding to Picture Book Preschool in the new edition.

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

Rooftoppers by Katherine Rundell

Jun28

Often I read twenty-first century middle grade fiction books in which the writing ranges from average to good, and I could recommend the book as a decent read—except for one minor dealbreaker or content advisory. Maybe the book has an evil character who swears once or twice, or the author has inserted a bit of modern propaganda or a minor character is added only to please the diversity crowd. I can overlook a certain amount of this kind of thing, but others may not be willing to do so. Then, I try to tell people the facts and let them decide.

Rooftoppers, a very popular British import, is in a different class. (Rooftoppers are abandoned and orphan children who live on the rooftops of Paris.) The writing–the metaphors and the sentence structures and the word choice–is excellent. I’ll give you a few examples, chosen almost at random:

“When they began to play, the music was different. It was sweeter, wilder. Sophie sat up properly and shifted forward until only half an inch of her bottom was on her seat. It was so beautiful that it was difficult for her to breathe. If music can shine, Sophie thought, this music shone. It was like all the voices in all the choirs in the city rolled into a single melody.”

“Money can make people inhuman. It is best to stay away from people who care too much about money, my darling. They are people with shoddy, flimsy brains.”

“Sophie looked and gasped. Below her feet, Paris stretched out toward the river. Paris was darker than London: It was a city lit in blinks and flickers. And it was Fabergé-egg beautiful, she thought. It was magic carpet stuff.”

“To most things in life, there is no trick, but to balance, Sophie thought, there was a trick of sorts. The trick was knowing where to find your center; balance lay somewhere between her stomach and her kidneys. It felt like a lump of gold in amongst brown organs. It was difficult to find, but once found, it was like a place marked in a book–easy to recover. “

The story itself is good, too. One year old Sophie survives the sinking of her ship at sea. She is taken in by her fellow survivor and rescuer, the eccentric scholar Charles Maxim. Charles is a wonderful guardian, but the powers-that-be, child care officers and social welfare committees, finally decide, just after Sophie’s twelfth birthday, that she must be removed to an orphanage so that she can be properly cared for–no more trousers and no writing on the walls and and no Charles Maxim to encourage her unorthodox ways. Sophie and Charles are both devastated. Coincidentally, just before Sophie is set to leave, guardian and child find an important clue about Sophie’s mother, who is said to have died when the ship sank. There is just the slightest possibility that she didn’t die, that she is somewhere in Paris. And so Sophie and Charles Maxim run away to Paris to look for Sophie’s cello-playing mother, and there they discover the Rooftoppers.

So far, so good. Excellent writing, a lively plot, endearing characters, building action–I can see why the book was an award-winning, best-selling success in Britain and why it is becoming more and more well known in the U.S. I had a very bright young lady recommend the book to me when I was in Ireland a few years ago, but I’m just now getting around to reading it.

But . . . our young protagonist, Sophie, with “hair the color of lightning”, “tall and generous and bookish and awkward”, also spits and curses. She curses and uses God’s name in vain several times in the course of the story. And it’s totally acceptable to her own conscience and to everyone else in the story. There’s nary an admonition, and no one blinks an eye. And then, there’s the fight scene. Sophie and her friends, the Rooftoppers, are attacked by another gang of young rooftoppers on a roof, of course. The children fight with teeth and nails, sharpened bone daggers, stones, and at least one knife. They bite and scratch and throw rocks and roof slates and draw blood, and Sophie kicks one of her (male) opponents in the crotch, rendering him incapacitated. The advice Sophie gets during the fight is serious and dangerous: “Punch like you mean it.” Kick him if you can’t punch him.” “Kicking is less personal.” “Do not mess with rooftoppers.”

So. Dealbreaker? I couldn’t hand this one to any of my young library patrons without a warning at least. And I won’t shelve it in my library, even though the author, “a fellow in English literature at All Souls College, Oxford’ has talent. I just wish she had left out the cursing and toned down the fighting.

Two Indian Picture Books by Rajani LaRocca

Jun20

Where Three Oceans Meet by Rajani LaRocca. Illustrated by Archana Sreenivasan. Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2021.

I’ll Go and Come Back by Rajani LaRocca. Illustrated by Sara Palacios. Candlewick, 2022.

Both of these books by the same author tell the story of an Indian American child and her grandmother (Pati) who lives in India. Both are inspired by the author’s childhood experience of visiting her grandmother in India. And both are a delightful introduction to the sights and sounds of South India, in particular, and to the joy of visiting family wherever they might live.

In Where Three Oceans Meet Sejal, Mommy, and Pati travel together to very tip of the Indian subcontinent. Pati is excited to go to the temples (and pray to “the goddess”, which they do). Mommy is anxious to visit old friends. And Sejal wants to see “what’s at the end of the earth” where three oceans–the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean— meet. The road trip that the three generations of women take includes a boat trip, a train, visits with friends, shopping, Indian foods and snacks, temple worship, and even a sick day in the hotel. The book culminates in the picture of the three women/girls standing on the shore where the three bodies of water meet near the city of Kanyakumari.

I’ll Go and Come Back tells of how Jyoti, another Indian American girl, goes to visit her family in India for the summer. At first Jyoti is homesick, but she and Pati bond over activities that they share despite the language barrier between them. In the second half of the book Pati comes to visit Jyoti in America, and grandmother and granddaughter again find joy in sharing games and books and food and shopping in Jyoti’s homeland of the United States. “Pati flew back home to India, but our love stretched across the world.”

I liked the illustrations, by different illustrators, one of South Indian origin and one not, in both books, but I preferred the stylized people with round faces and the colorful scenery in I’ll Go and Come Back. The pictures in Where Three Oceans Meet are more complex in the backgrounds and more evocative of feelings of family togetherness, but not as simple and straightforward. In the same way, although the stories are similar—a little girl visiting her grandmother in India–I’ll Go and Come Back is more simple and more accessible for preschoolers, even though it includes several Tamil words that are only explained in the context of the story.

As I said before either book would be a lovely introduction to India and Indian culture for preschool or primary children as well as being a reminder of family ties that can bind even across oceans and generations.

The Night War by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Jun11

I’ve read and reviewed a few other books by contemporary middle grade and young adult author Kimberly Brubaker Bradley:

I’ve also read, but not reviewed, The War That Saved My Life and The War I Finally Won. Ms. Bradley tends to write about several topics and settings: World War II Europe, France in particular, Catholicism and religion, abused children, children with disabilities. The Night War is a Jewish Holocaust story set in France, 1942. When Miri (Miriam), a twelve year old Jewish girl, and her parents are routed from their apartment in Paris by the French police and herded onto buses to be taken to the Velodrome d’Hiver, Miri becomes separated from her family but she given the responsibility of escaping with and caring for her two year old neighbor, Nora Rosenbaum. Mrs. Rosenbaum tells Miri to run, to take Nora, and to somehow try to get to Switzerland. And Miri is faced with a choice, the first of many impossible choices: will she try to find her parents in the Velodrome or escape with Nora?

Miri chooses to run, and with the help of a French nun, she manages to get away from the Nazi roundup of Jews in Paris. Eventually, Miri, who takes the name of Marie, and Nora end up in Chenonceaux, near the castle of Chenonceau, which was long ago the dwelling of Diane de Poitiers and subsequently, Catherine de Medici. These women and their history become a significant part of Miri/Marie’s story. (SPOILER WARNING: Here be ghosts and ghost-like characters.)

And so do the nuns of Chenonceaux. Marie is hidden in a convent school, and she again is faced with choices. Does she stay in relative safety in the school, or does she attempt to take Nora and flee to Vichy France and then on to Switzerland? Is Nora safer with her foster family, or is she in danger of forgetting her family and her Jewish heritage? Can Miri pretend to be Catholic and still pray to God in her own Jewish way? And there are other choices to be made as Marie stumbles upon a secret resistance network and is asked to help smuggle others out of Nazi-controlled France.

This story with its emphasis on personal responsibility and making good choices, and the consequences of bad choices, is an excellent one for middle grade readers who are just waking up to their own responsibilities and moral choices in life. Recommended for readers age 10 and up, or as soon as you think your reader is ready for hard things about the Holocaust and the evil that people do. Not graphic.

Linnets and Valerians by Elizabeth Goudge

Jun10

Linnets and Valerians is a beautiful, truth-filled, engaging fantasy story by one of my favorite authors that I’m afraid will be problematic for many Christian readers. It shouldn’t be problematic to acknowledge that there is a spiritual realm of both good and evil and that spiritual battles must sometimes be fought by unconventional means. But witchcraft and spells, even good ones that counter evil, are a snare and anathema to some people, even reading about such things, so follow your own conscience.

Four endearing but rather naughty siblings–Robert, Nan, Timothy, and Betsy– are left to stay with their grandmother while their father is in Egypt with his regiment. “Grandmother said they were insubordinate; Father only thought them high-spirited.” Since the children’s first acts in the book are to run away from grandmother’s house and to “borrow” a pony and cart full of someone’s else’s groceries, I tend to agree with Grandmother. But the children turn out to be charming, nevertheless.

And they don’t stay with Grandmother very long. It’s not much of a spoiler, since the change happens in the second chapter of the book, to tell that the four incorrigible children end up living with their Uncle Ambrose, a Church of England clergyman, former educator, and inveterate bachelor. Uncle Ambrose also claims to dislike children, but he takes his nephews and nieces into his home anyway. And so the adventure begins.

Since this is a fantasy story there is magic, both black magic and white. Since it’s an Elizabeth Goudge story there are families to be reunited. And since it’s essentially a story with Christian underpinnings and a fairy tale of sorts, there is a happy ending where all’s well that ends well. But before we get to the happy ending, there is also a witch and evil spells and good counter-spells. That’s the part that’s going to be a deal-breaker for some readers. In short, if Harry Potter is a an offense to your conscience, then Linnets and Valerians is not for you either. I wish Goudge had used prayer instead of “white magic” to fight off the evil in the book, but in a way the prayers and common sense of Uncle Ambrose are weapons in the battle, too.

Still, I thought it was a fantastic story. Robert is the quintessential plucky British boy with a big, but very practical, imagination. He tends to get himself and his siblings into trouble with his schemes and ideas, but Nan, the sensible older sister, is there to keep Robert somewhat in check. Timothy is imaginative, too, but he tends toward being delicate and sensitive and thoughtful rather than “a force to be reckoned with.” And little Betsy has both the sweetness and the toughness of a youngest child. Uncle Ambrose is curmudgeonly, with a heart of gold, and each of the other characters has his or her own eccentric personality and peculiarities, including Emma Cobley the witch, Ezra the beekeeper servant, Moses Glory Glory Alleluja, Lady Alicia, Abednego the monkey, Hector the owl, and even Daft Davie who lives in a cave up on the hill.

With wonderful characters such as these, Elizabeth Goudge weaves a plot that takes the children all over the surrounding countryside and into the ancient manor house of Lady Alicia, who lives a secluded life after having lost her husband and her only child. Lady Alicia’s only companions are Abednego the mischievous monkey and one servant, Moses Glory Glory Alleluja –until the children intrude on her life and indeed begin to bring her back to life. Full story to follow.

If you can get past the witchiness and “white magic”, this one of only two children’s books by Elizabeth Goudge (the other is The Little White Horse) is, dare I say, pure magic. It reminds me of a hymn of praise and a prayer for protection from evil, and there is in fact a hymn of praise and invocation inserted into the story. I wish I knew a tune for it.

Glory, children, glory alleluja,
Praise to the Lord.
Great glory for sun and moon and star shine,
And for His Word.

Glory that wells, streams, and flowing fountains
Sing to His praise,
That the snows laud him, frost fire, and rainbows
The nights and days.

Glory, children, glory alleluja
For birds and bees,
For shepherd and sheep upon the mountains,
Valleys and trees.

Is it glory for the gift o’ children
To guard an’ keep?
Varmints and scoundrels, I love ’em only
When they’re asleep.

Linnets and Valerians, p.97-98

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

Once a Queen by Sarah Arthur

Jun8

At first, I thought this 2024 middle grade/YA fantasy novel from Waterbrook Press was Narnia fan fiction, or perhaps a Narnia sequel, Susan’s Story: Once a Queen in Narnia or something like that. (“Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia.”) That expectation was a disservice to the novel as it is. Sarah Arthur’s story certainly has strong echoes of Narnia, as well as being indebted to E. Nesbit, George MacDonald, Elizabeth Goudge, and Madeleine L’Engle, influences the author acknowledges in an author’s Q & A in the back of the book. So in my defense, I didn’t know, and the Narnia-love was there from the beginning.

I would advise readers to take Once a Queen on its own terms and NOT try to compare or find connections to any other stories or worlds until you get to the end. In this particular story, fourteen year old American Eva Joyce comes with her British mother to visit her estranged grandmother in the family manor of Carrick Hall in the West Midlands region of England. The year is 1995. Eva has been nurtured by the classic fantasy tales and children’s books, especially the Ternival tales of Mesterra by A.H.W. Clifton. She’s never actually experienced a magical portal to another world, however, even though this trip to England feels a bit like a fairy tale.

And the story does turn into a fairy tale, complete with magical worlds, an evil queen, secret gardens, fantastical creatures, and a quest to be completed. And secrets. Lots of secrets. Eva’s mum has secrets. Eva’s grandmother has secrets. Eva herself discovers so many wondrous secret things that she finds herself unable to keep all of the secrets straight. Who can be told about what, and when, and how? And what secrets are being withheld from Eva and why? This whole secret motif is the weakest part of the book: too many people keeping too many secrets for too little reason. Nevertheless, I resigned myself to getting bits of information doled out to me in each chapter –reluctantly and incompletely.

The novel itself alternates between strange occurrences in our world as Eva gets to know her grandmother and her grandmother’s tragic history and equally strange events in the world of Mesterra, woven by Magister, and ruled by a long line of kings and queens who built a a great kingdom called Ternival. Of course, there are doors between the worlds, hard to find and harder to open, but real. And Eva and her friend Frankie, the gardener’s grandson, are determined to find the way into the fantasy world that they have read about in books and somehow to solve the problems of their own world by doing so.

Once a Queen is a a lovely story with Christian worldview underpinnings, despite all of the secrets and slow revelations, and I highly recommend it to lovers of high fantasy and adventure stories. The novel is set up for a sequel, perhaps many sequels, and indeed there is a “sneak preview” of the next book in the series that is printed in the back of of this first book. The next book is to be called Once a Castle, and I look forward to its publication. (Once a Queen is complete in itself, and does not end in a cliffhanger.) Recommended for ages 12 and up.

Basil and the Lost Colony by Eve Titus

May31

What a great little book, full of jokes and literary and historical allusions! Basil of Baker Street, the Sherlock Holmes of the mouse world, sets out to Switzerland to find the lost colony of the Tellmice of 1291, who fled to the mountains to escape their own tyrannical version of Gessler, William Tell’s famous oppressor. How refreshing to read a humorous mystery adventure for primary and middle grade readers that does not condescend to slapstick and potty humor but respects its readers while remaining accessible to them. In this story, readers will encounter Flora and Fauna, the Faversham sisters; the Tellmice of Switzerland; Inspector Antoine Cherbou of the Paris policemice; Dr. David Q. Dawson, Basil’s narrator and assistant; Elmo the St. Bernard; the Adorable Snowmouse; and of course, the evil Ratigan, Basil’s arch-enemy (“I smell a rat again–Ratigan!”) —as well as many more characters whose names and personalities and talents are allusions to various literary and cultural icons, people, and events. Some I recognized, and others were lost on me. (Tillary Quinn, who writes crime stories = Ellery Queen, but for some reason she’s a New Zealander?)

The jokes embedded in the story are old; at the ripe old age of 66, I’ve heard most of them before. But they will be funny and fresh to a new generation of readers. The illustrations by Paul Galdone are endearing. Such an intrepid mouse detective! And the book and the series are perfect for hooking beginning chapter book readers into the joy of reading. Basil and the Lost Colony is only 88 pages long, short but sweet.

The book is part of a series by the well known author of the Anatole picture books as well as other books for children. These Sherlockian stories include:

  • Basil of Baker Street
  • Basil and the Cave of Cats (aka Basil and the Pygmy Cats)
  • Basil in Mexico
  • Basil in the Wild West
  • Basil and the Lost Colony

Basil of Baker Street, the first book in the series, was also made into a Disney movie in 1986, The Great Mouse Detective.

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

The Piper by Eden Vale Stevens

May30

This Dickensian Christmas tale could have come straight out of Victorian England, but instead it’s a story from an American writer. Set in Oliver Cromwell’s England of the 1600’s, this 128-page quest story tells of a young orphan boy, Ned, and his search for food and a mother and a home. As he navigates his way through the threatening city of London, avoiding the officers who want to take him to the poorhouse, and the others who want to imprison him for thieving bread, Ned searches for the Mother and Babe that the bells of the cathedral are said to herald.

The illustrations for this story by Fermin Rocker are beautiful, and they help to bring the tale down to earth and make it more accessible. I have to admit, though, that the story itself struck me as a bit odd. Ned lives with a group of street children, but he leaves them to go and find his family. We never know what happens to his street urchin “family”. Eventually, the poet Robert Herrick (1591-1674) finds him and feeds him, but Ned leaves Herrick’s warm hospitality in a tavern to continue on his quest to find either his own mother or the Holy Mother proclaimed by the bells of the cathedral. Then, he finds a family, father, mother and three children, who decide to take him in, maybe because he reminds them of the Christ Child?

The best idea I have is to try this story out as a read aloud at Christmas time and see if your children are taken by the small piper, Ned, and his search for a mother and a family. The poem in the very back of the book is this one by Herrick, which I suppose is the inspiration for the story:

Go prettie child, and beare this Flower
Unto thy little Saviour;
And tell Him, by that Bud now blown,
He is the Rose of Sharon known:
When thou has said so, stick it there
Upon his Bibb or Stomacher:
And tell Him (for good handsell too)
That thou has brought a Whistle new,
Made of a clean strait oaten reed,
To charm his cries (at times of need):
Tell Him, for Corall, thou hast none;
But if thou hadst, He sho’d have one;
But poore thou art, and knowne to be
Even as monilesse as He.
Lastly, if thou canst win a kisse
From those mellifluous lips of his;
Then never take a second on,
To spoile the first impression.

The Orphelines in the Enchanted Castle by Natalie Savage Carlson

May27

The Orphelines in the Enchanted Castle is the fourth book in a five book series about a group of French orphans, “orphelines”, who live together with their guardian, Madame Flattot and her caretaker assistant, Genevieve. This volume begins:

“Once upon a time there were twenty beautiful French princesses who were going to live in an enchanted castle with their fairy godmother and their thirty knights. . . The noble knights were the boy orphans who would share the castle with them. And the castle was to be their new orphanage. It was in the forest of Fontainebleau, south of Paris, waiting for them to bring it to life again–as the prince had done in THE SLEEPING BEAUTY OF THE WOODS.”

Of course, the real orphan girls don’t always act like princesses, and the orphan boys who come to live in the castle with them are not the most noble of knights. The story tells how the girls learn to temper their imaginations with good sense and to behave themselves even when the boys can’t or won’t. And the boys, some of whom come from the streets of Paris and are quite uncivilized, are introduced to a French version of Lord Baden-Powell’s Boy Scouts and to Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, and thereby with some help from the girls and from Genevieve, become quite chivalrous wolf cubs and doers of good deeds.

These books about the orphelines are short, about a hundred pages each with large print and lovely illustrations in this particular volume by Adriana Saviozzi. Both the story and the reading level are appropriate for beginning chapter book readers, ages six to ten or so. The children in the book are quite mischievous and sometimes naughty, but they learn and grow. If children were about to join a scouting-type group such as Trail Life or American Heritage Girls, this book would be a good introduction to the concept of scouting.

Other books in the series about the Orphelines include:

  • The Happy Orpheline
  • A Brother for the Orphelines
  • A Pet for the Orphelines
  • A Grandmother for the Orphelines

The Orphelines in the Enchanted Castle is Book 4 in the Orphelines series of five books total. The other volumes in the series are similar to this in terms of reading level and interest level, but they have various other illustrators, such as Garth Williams, Fermin Rocker, and David White. I like the simple and vivid drawings in Enchanted Castle best, I think, although Garth Williams is always good. This book is another entry in the Books of 1964 Project.

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

Yugoslav Mystery by Arthur Catherall

Apr11

This novel is the second or third of Mr. Catherall’s young adult novels I’ve read, and I’m beginning to get a feel for his style and genre. He reminds me of the adult spy novelists Nevill Shute or Alistair MacLean, or even Helen MacInnes, but a bit more tame with teen protagonists. I would guess that boys ages 13 to 16 would find Catherall’s novels quite intriguing.

This mystery takes place on an impoverished island off the southern coast of the former Yugoslavia. It’s several years post-World War 2, but the people who live on this island are still trying to recover from the war and all of its many depredations and consequences. One of those consequences of war is that our protagonist, Josef Piri, fourteen years old, lives with his grandfather and his mother, all of them believing that Josef’s father died in the war before Josef was born.

One day while Josef and his grandfather are out fishing, a police boat comes alongside to ask if they have seen an escaped fugitive on or near the island. Josef, in fact has and does see the escapee clinging to a rope alongside the police launch, out of sight and desperate to remain so. What is the right thing to do? Remain silent and help the man escape or give him up to the authorities?

The choice Josef makes leads him and his entire island village into quite an adventure. There are guns and hidden treasure and narrow escapes and various people who are not what they seem to be. Josef must draw again and again on his courage and his innovative ideas to protect his family and the other villagers and to understand his heritage as his father’s son.

The story takes place in Communist Yugoslavia in about 1960, and it was published in 1964. The Communist government is far away in this story, and is neither praised nor criticized. The villagers, including Josef and his family, live far from the day to day reach of the government, and their lives continue with very little government interference or help. There are a couple of mentions of government aid to the villagers, but it’s not significant. And the adventure that Josef’s encounter with the police boat and the escaped fugitive brings has little or nothing to do with Communism or Marshal Tito.

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