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The Eldest Son by Barbara Willard

Apr24

The Eldest Son is the third book in Barbara Willard’s Mantlemass Chronicles series. In the two first books of the series, The Lark and the Laurel and A Sprig of Broom, the two families, whose lives become intertwined by marriage and by incident in the books, are founded and begin their multi-generational saga. These families, the Mallorys and the Medleys have a family secret that is passed down from generation to generation. And there are family traits, talents, and curses that are also inherited, sometimes twisted, combined and re-combined to display themselves in new and interesting ways.

The Eldest Son focuses on the family of Master Medley, the owner and patriarch of Ghylls Hatch, a horse breeding farm near Mantlemass Manor in Sussex. The book takes place in and around Ashdown Forest, which coincidentally is also the setting of A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the Pooh. Also near Ashdown Forest is the castle where Henry VIII courted Anne Boleyn, but although The Eldest Son is set in 1534, about the time that Henry VIII was disrupting his household, the church, and the whole of England for the sake of a son, Anne Boleyn doesn’t come into the story. The ripple-effects of Henry VIII’s feud with the Catholic Church do work their way into the story, though.

Master Medley’s eldest son is Harry, who receives the nickname “young falcon” from his mother, daughter to the Mallory family of Mantlemass Manor. “For . . . you do ever hover above what you most desire. And though you might see it to be wrong, and know it to be so, and know you must wait to take it, yet you will have it–and like the falcon, swoop at last, and carry it away.” In short, Harry is a stubborn man with strong ideas and desires. And unlike his younger brother Piers, Harry does not wish to be a breeder of horses like his father. Instead, Harry is drawn to the new and exciting work of the iron foundries that are becoming the mainstay of the area’s economy in Tudor England.

The Lark and the Laurel was a book about marriage, what it means and what it can become, both for good and for evil. The Eldest Son is a book about the relationship between father and son and about the bond between brothers. It also features a conflict between a man’s vocation and his devotion to family and place. Harry does not love horses as his brother Piers does, nor is Harry content to follow the family business in spite of his own inclinations, as the youngest of the three brothers Richard seems destined to do. Harry’s falcon-like stubbornness and focus are both his strength and his weakness as he works throughout the story to become his own man and yet be responsible to his family.

These books remind me of the Poldark saga series of novels by Winston Graham. Both series chronicle the lives and fortunes of families in rural England, far from the centers of power in London and in the coastal port cities. Sussex and Ashdown Forest are only about thirty miles south of London, but in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when travel was by foot or by horse, it might as well have been a hundred miles away or more. Similarly, Cornwall, where the Poldark novels of the eighteenth century are set, is in the far south of England, isolated from the seat of governmental and economic power in England, but affected by the decisions made in those places nonetheless. As history swirls about these families, they both influence and are influenced by the times that they live in and the changes that are taking place in their respective centuries.

I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the books in the Mantlemass Chronicles:

The Sprig of Broom (1485)
The Lark and the Laurel (1485)
The Eldest Son (1534)
A Cold Wind Blowing (1536)
The Iron Lily (1557)
A Flight of Swans (1588)
Harrow and Harvest (1642)

These books take us through English history from the Battle of Bosworth, to the reign of the Tudor kings, to Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, to the Spanish Armada, to another English civil war between Cromwell’s Roundheads and the King’s Royalists or Cavaliers. During all these great events the families in and around the manor house Mantlemass—-Mallorys, Medleys, Plashets, and Hollands–-pursue their own ends and keep their own secrets. From reading the synopses of these other novels in the series, I can see that marriage and romance and family secrets and loyalty and independence continue to be themes that Ms. Willard explores in her books. I’m going to enjoy exploring with her and her characters.

This book is an example of the kind of young adult literature I wish were being written and published nowadays. It’s exciting, with full and subtle characterization, and respectful to young adult readers who really can appreciate something more than vampires and dystopias and love triangles. By the way, I think these novels would make a really good historical mini-series, like Poldark, if anyone has the ear of a good producer who is interested in making the next big PBS or BBC hit series.

Forward Me Back to You by Mitali Perkins

Apr10

Mitali Perkins’ new book, Forward Me Back to You, is excellent YA fiction that deals with adoption, searching for birth parents, sexual assault, human trafficking, faith, and the meaning of family, all in the context of an exciting and romantic story that shows both Christian and non-Christian characters as real people with complex motives, thoughts, and desires. This book is going to be hard to classify, which is a great move in the right direction as far as I’m concerned. It’s not traditional “Christian fiction”. Nobody gets saved or converted at the climax of the novel, and it’s not preachy or trolling for Christian converts. But it’s also not the regular old “sanitized” secular novel either. Prayer and church-going and the application of Scriptural principles to life are a normal part of many of the characters’ lives, just as they are a normal part of my life and the lives of many of the people I know.

In the story eighteen year old Robin, whose birth name was Ravi, goes on a mission trip to Kolkata, India to help an organization that is dedicated to the fight against human trafficking. But Robin/Ravi has a secondary (or maybe primary) motive for traveling to India: he has decided, after many years of seeming indifference to his birth culture and parentage, to search for his birth mother who abandoned him to an orphanage in Kolkata eighteen years ago. Also on the mission trip are Katina, a tough girl with secrets of her own, and Gracie, the girl who has had a crush on Ravi for as long as she can remember. As they each work out their own ways to serve in Kolkata, they also learn to be served and to experience healing from the wounds that they have carried with them to this place.

Both the romantic aspects and the sexual assault themes of the novel are explored frankly but appropriately. Teens should certainly be able to handle the subjects as they are incorporated into the story. Although adoptees and victims of assault should be aware of possible triggers in the story, they should also know that the novel might be helpful and even cathartic. For those of us who have not experienced either adoption or assault, Forward Me Back to You should be helpful in developing understanding and empathy.

However, the novel is primarily a story, not a therapeutic exercise. As such, it’s the best kind of story—a tale in which I could ride along with the characters, grow to care about them, experience their joys and tragedies, and learn something about how to handle my own. And I got to do it all in the safety of my own living room. It’s a good book, one I plan to share with my own teenage and young adult children and with some others that I know who would particularly enjoy it because of their own background with similar issues and themes.

The Namesake by Cyril Walter Hodges

Mar18

Alfred the Great (in this book) at Stonehenge: “I like to come here, because among these stones I know that I am standing where other men like me have stood and thought the same thoughts as I, a thousand years before I was born, and where others like me will stand likewise after I am dead. This place is like Memory itself, turned to stone, and Memory was given to us by God to make us different from the animals. . . . Every man is a part of the bridge between the past and the future. Whatever helps him feel this more strongly is good. By feeling this, God gives us to know for sure that we are not beasts and do not die as the beasts die.”

I watched the BBC/Netflix television series, The Last Kingdom, based on Bernard Cornwell’s The Saxon Stories series of novels. I haven’t read Cornwell’s novels, and I don’t really recommend The Last Kingdom, although it was enthralling. It was much too violent and had too much sexual content for my tastes. Nevertheless, aside from the sex, the story was probably true to the times. It was a violent and bloody time in ye olde Wessex.

Anyway, the TV series inspired me to read more about Alfred, and a bit of fiction to fill in the gaps in the heroic saga between battles and kingly decrees, is in order. In The Namesake, Alfred is just beginning his reign in Wessex and just beginning his long fight to unite England and drive out the invading Danes.

The title refers to the narrator of most of the story, a young boy who has lost one of his legs in a Danish incursion and whose name happens to be Alfred, just like the king. This happy coincidence, along with a rather mystical vision that that the boy has, both serve to form a connection between peasant and king that lasts through battles and sickness and captivity among the Danes and eventually ends in the boy’s becoming a scribe to King Alfred.

The story is not as fast-paced as modern readers might be accustomed to, but it does have a lot of battles and exciting adventures. Fans of the books of G.A. Henty, when they have exhausted that author’s copious number of novels, would probably enjoy this story about a boy in the time of Alfred the Great of Wessex. (Did Henty write about Alfred the Great in any of his novels?) There is a sequel to The Namesake, called The Marsh King, which I would like to read. I assume the title refers to Alfred’s time in exile, a time spent hiding from the Danes in the marshes of Somerset.

Author and illustrator C. Walter Hodges was born on this date, March 18th, in 1909. In addition to this book about King Alfred the Great, Mr. Hodges illustrated three of the Landmark history series books: The Flight and Adventures of Charles II, Queen Elizabeth and the Spanish Armada, and Will Shakespeare and the Globe Theater. According to the author bio in my copy of The Namesake, Mr. Hodges once said that he wished to “continue to the end of his life in the peaceful occupation of an illustrator.” Instead, he became an author as well as an illustrator, and readers are well-served by his decision to do so.

Baker’s Dozen: Best Fiction I Read in 2018

Jan8

This list is a mixture of adult and children’s fiction that I read in 2018 (minus the 2018 middle grade fiction that I wrote about in two other posts). But a good children’s book is usually also a good book for adults, too.

Brendon Chase by B.B. Three brothers run away from home and hide for more than six months in a nearby woods, living off the land, and having adventures. Amazing, in the same vein as Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons.

This Dear-Bought Land by Jean Lee Latham. Historical fiction about Captain John Smith and the settlement of Jamestown.

The Axe (The Master of Hestviken, #1) by Sigrid Undset. Also by the same author, Kristin Lavransdatter. Undset is quite insightful about human nature and family and marriage dynamics, and because she inserts her insights into fiction set in medieval Scandinavia, the “lessons” are subtle and more easily internalized.

The Distant Land of My Father by Bo Caldwell. Also by the same author and highly recommended, City of Tranquil Light.

The Stranger from the Sea (Poldark, #8) by Winston Graham. The series goes downhill from this one, but I still enjoyed finishing all of the books in Graham’s Poldark saga.

Little Britches (Father and I Were Ranchers) by Ralph Moody. The entire series by Ralph Moody about his boyhood and young adulthood adventures is so good. Read them all.

Pigeon Post (Swallows and Amazons, #6) by Arthur Ransome. More Swallows and Amazons.

Coot Club (Swallows and Amazons, #5) by Arthur Ransome. No Swallows. No Amazons. But good fun, nevertheless.

Winter Holiday (Swallows and Amazons, #4) by Arthur Ransome.

Lincoln’s Dreams by Connie Willis. A very odd fantastical look at the interaction between past and present.

The Edge of Time by Louella Grace Erdman. I would definitely like to read more of Ms.Erdman’s writing this year, western-ish, mostly set in north Texas, but slowly unfolding and with the emphasis on characters rather than plot.

The Day the Cowboys Quit by Elmer Kelton. This one would pair well with The Edge of Time. It’s based on a real cowboy strike that took place in north Texas in 1883. So the time period and the setting are quite similar to Ms. Erdman’s book. The issues of farmers versus cowmen and settlement of a wild and lonely country are similar, too.

At Point Blank: A Suspense Novel by Virginia Stem Owen. Congregation, the sequel to this mystery series set in Texas near Houston, is good, too. I’m looking forward to reading the third book in the series in 2019.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Sep7

Originally published at Breakpoint.org, September 24, 2012

My Aunt Helen was my favorite person in the whole world. She was my mom’s sister. She got straight A’s when she was a teenager and she used to give me books to read. My father said that the books were a little too old for me, but I liked them so he just shrugged and let me read.
~Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

When it comes to teenagers, I’m usually a “shrug and let them read what they want” kind of parent. I like to talk about the books that my adolescents are reading, but I don’t generally refuse them permission to read books. My 17-year-old daughter has read The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, and she thought it was okay. However, if my 13 year old asked to read the book, I’d explain my concerns and ask her not to read it until she was older, or maybe not at all.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower which has just been adapted into a movie, is an epistolary novel narrated by 15-year-old Charlie. He is just entering high school in 1991 as he begins writing this series of self-revelatory letters to an unnamed friend. Charlie is the wallflower of the title. He lives on the fringes of high school’s social scene, and his best friend Michael committed suicide the year before the book’s opening, while the two were in middle school. So Charlie, “friendless, innocent, naive, and wounded,” enters high school as an observer rather than a participant.

Unfortunately for the conservative reader, a lot of what Charlie observes and then writes about in bald, unadorned prose is shameful behavior: date rape and abuse, drug abuse, drunkenness, homosexual and heterosexual experimentation and promiscuity, and bullying. Yes, it’s realistic, and none of the behaviors is celebrated, except maybe the homosexual explorations of Charlie’s friend, Patrick. But Charlie describes all of these things that happen to his friends, family, and acquaintances in such an artless, unsophisticated, and generally non-judgmental manner that I found it difficult to believe that Charlie was for real. On one page, Charlie seems to have some sense of right and wrong as he becomes angry with a guy named Dave who abused a girl in Charlie’s presence. But then a few pages later Charlie reverts to his old detached manner, reporting the drug abuse and other illicit and harmful behaviors of his friends and family with calm near-indifference.

I wanted to label him in my mind as autistic or savant or mentally challenged or disturbed, but Charlie is none of these. He cries a lot. Various people in the novel call him a freak. He sees a psychiatrist, and the doctor prescribes some kind of medicine, probably an anti-depressant. And eventually he does have a sort of mental breakdown because of an episode from his childhood, the memory of which he has repressed.

But for most of the novel he is intelligent; stable, if odd; and, of course, quite observant. I just felt as if Charlie was too strange, too quirky, too out-of-the-mainstream for me to identify with him or understand how he could be so very innocent and disingenuous, and also so insightful, at the same time.

I’ve read several comparisons between The Perks of Being a Wallflower and the classic teen angst book, Catcher in the Rye. In fact, in Perks, Charlie reads Catcher in the Rye and identifies himself with Holden Caulfield.

I kept thinking, though, of another book from my teenage years: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. The protagonist of Flowers for Algernon is also named Charlie (Gordon), and he also is a sweet, innocent young man who lives on the fringes of society. Charlie Gordon, however, is actually severely mentally disabled, and he only understands much of what is going on around him after he takes a drug that increases his IQ to genius level. Even though reading about a “smart drug” that turns a mentally disabled man into a genius requires some suspension of disbelief, it made more sense to me than Charlie in Perks, whose voice alternates between Profound Philosopher and Forrest Gump.

The book just didn’t work for me, as a coming of age novel, as a quirky depiction of introversion and mental illness, or as a sketch of high school angst and friendship. Most conservative Christian readers will find the sexual content offensive and somewhat propagandistic, and there are just better books out there that deal with the same themes and topics. I read countless reviews of The Perks of Being a Wallflower that extolled it as one of the best books the reviewer had ever read and a modern classic, but I just didn’t see it.

If you’re a parent and your teen wants to read the book, I’d recommend that you read it first and decide whether your child would be more confused (as I was) or charmed (as were many others) by this tale of a spectator who tries to enter into life and joy but fails. As far as I can tell from the epilogue of the book, Charlie never really makes it into the dance.

The Splintered Light by Ginger Johnson

Sep4

Giving thought to how the world, the universe, we live in was created with so many varied elements of sound, light, taste, smell, invention, and shape is not a bad exercise in gratitude and appreciation for the vibrancy and diversity of our world. Ginger Johnson’s The Splintered Light leads the reader on a journey of pondering the immense creativity and inventiveness of a God who could create this world ex nihilo, out of nothing. And yet it’s a story, not a sermon, as Ishmael, the protagonist of this story, learns more about the Commons, a place where the different halls (schools) of Color, Sound, Gustation, Manufactory, Scent, Shape and Motion work together to create posticums, worlds for the colonization of their creators.

“Posticum means ‘back door.’ It’s a room for creation that opens up in the stone wall of the Commons. Back home is a posticum, too, but you’d never know it. Color Master told me it was one of the first. All the oldest posticums are worn out and run-down and only have oval sheep and round chickens. The sheep and chickens in the newer posticums are more refined. Plus, they have all kinds of other creatures as well. That’s how you know the age of posticums.”

Ishmael only left home to find his brother Luc and bring him back to help Mam and the family on the farm, but when he does find Luc in the Commons, Luc is unwilling to leave. And Ishmael himself is fascinated by the new sights and possibilities he glimpses in the many halls and schools of the Commons. The Hall of Hue, where Luc lives and works, also welcomes Ishmael as an apprentice of exceptional promise, but Ishmael is determined to return home and to bring Luc with him, after just one more day, and then another, and then another . . .

It’s hardly an insult to say of this debut novel that when I reached the end I was disappointed that there wasn’t more. I really would like to know what happened to Ishmael and his friends after the posticum closed and the stones rested. Maybe I should use my own creativity and imagine it for myself.

At any rate, I’m looking forward to whatever might come next from this talented new writer, and I really like the fact that she sprinkles lines from one of my favorite poems throughout this book about the diverse and variegated world(s) in which we live and breathe and move and have our being:

Pied Beauty by Gerard Manly Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

And this TED talk that I saw the other day seems to serendipitously belong alongside The Splintered Light:

Oh, today is the official publication date for The Splintered Light.

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This book may be nominated for a Cybils Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

This Dear-Bought Land by Jean Latham

Aug23

“This dear bought land with so much blood and cost, hath only made some few rich, and all the rest losers.” ~John Smith, Virginia Colony, 1624

In 1607 fifteen year old Davy Warren joins the sailors “before the mast” as the expedition sails to found a colony in Virginia. As Davy’s father says, Davy’s participation in the expedition is inevitable since “every ship that ever sailed for the glory of England has carried a Warren.”

However, when young David meets the bold and bellowing Captain John Smith, and when Davy finds out what a sailor’s life is really like, he has a choice: grow up and face danger and hardship like a man or give up and go home. In fact, the choice presents itself over and over again as the founding of Jamestown becomes an exercise in survival punctuated by Indian attacks, starvation, disease, and violence and thievery among the settlers themselves. David goes back and forth from hero-worship to hatred for the man who manages, by hook or by crook, to hold the colony together, Captain John Smith.

John Smith was an enigmatic character: was he a born leader or a blustering liar? Or both? Many of the stories that he wrote down about his own life seem a little too big and heroic to be true, but some of those seemingly inflated stories turn out to have been very little, if at all, embellished. As a young man, John Smith was a mercenary, captured by the Ottoman Turks, sold into slavery, and somehow escaped. He became a leader among the Jamestown settlers who trusted him enough to elect him “president” of the colony in 1608. Smith did require all of the settlers, even the gentlemen, to work, saying “He that will not work, shall not eat.”

This work of historical fiction by Newbery award winning author Jean Latham takes a charitable and admiring view of Captain John Smith and a mostly disparaging view of the other leaders of the Jamestown colony. Davy learns to be a man who can be depended upon. And the Jamestown colony itself survives in spite of sword, sickness, and famine. It’s a heroic, violent, tragic, and inspiring story, and this fictionalized version of true events is well worth reading for adults and for children ages ten and up.

“We called it a free land, didn’t we? It was not free. It was dear-bought. But we have paid the price.” ~Captain John Smith, This Dear-Bought Land.

Oh, by the way, this book is selling for $40.00 or $50.00, used, on Amazon and other used book selling sites. I am told that BJU Press is currently working to obtain the rights to reprint the book, so the price may go down. In the meantime, it is well worth the time and effort to at least borrow the book from your local library, if they have a copy, or via interlibrary loan. You can also borrow a digital copy at Internet Archive.

The Summer of Broken Things by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Aug13

I can’t really talk about this book without spoilers, so be warned. This review will reveal at least some of the secrets that the book itself reveals slowly and carefully.

I also don’t believe in surrogacy, which is what the book is about in the final analysis. Surrogate mothers, hired wombs, remind me of Hagar, Abraham’s concubine, and of Rachel’s and Leah’s maidservants having children for Rachel and Leah and Jacob. It was a bad idea then, and it remains a procedure fraught with pitfalls and possible physical and psychological harm to both the surrogate mother and to the “recipients’ of the fruit of her womb. I think The Summer of Broken Things is meant to paint a sympathetic picture of both the woman who chooses to become a surrogate and the parents, father and mother, who benefit from or take advantage of the surrogate mother’s ability to carry a pregnancy to term. However, coming from my own place of conviction about this practice, I found myself reading the book as a cautionary tale. Finding out about one’s birth story as a teenager and finding that that birth story includes surrogacy is a difficult and perhaps mind-shattering discovery.

So, to return to the beginning of the book, Avery’s father is taking her to Spain for the summer. Many things about this trip of a lifetime seem a little off: Avery doesn’t want to go. She would rather spend the summer at soccer camp. Avery’s mother is acting strangely about the trip. Avery’s dad hires a paid companion for Avery, a girl named Kayla whom Avery knows, but not well. Kayla and Avery have very little in common. Avery is rich; Kayla is poor. Avery is a city girl and well-traveled; Kayla is from a small town, and she’s never travelled. Avery is spoiled and entitled; Kayla is altruistic and self-effacing.

Margaret Peterson Haddix’s books are a bit hit or miss with me. I read her Shadow Children series several years ago, and although it became somewhat repetitious around about the third or fourth book in the series, I liked the premise very much. I enjoyed The Shadow Children series, The Missing series, and her stand alone novels such as Leaving Fishers or Double Identity. However, her Under Their Skin series about robots and artificial intelligence was poorly written, unbelievable, and ridiculous. Even in the books that I liked, her characters tend to edge towards the borders of stock and predictable. Avery and Kayla are interesting characters, and there is some growth in each of them as they confront the secrets from their shared past.

I would recommend the book for teens who like to think about current ethical issues and family dynamics. It’s a decent story, but not great or enduring.

The Six by K.B. Hoyle

Jul26

This first book in the Gateway Chronicles, a fantasy adventure series by author K.B. Hoyle, The Six definitely contains echoes of Narnia and Tolkien: a gateway to another world, gnomes, fairies, elves, talking animals (sort of), and war against The Shadow, to name just a few. But it’s a good story in its own right, not overly derivative and full of world-building detail and creativity that make the novel a delight to read.

Some of the more creative aspects and characters of the land of Alitheia:

A god-like being, Pateros, who incarnates as a huge bear or sometimes an eagle or sometimes a stag.

Narks, creatures with double personalities, one person in the daytime and another during the night.

A magical teacher whose cottage stays in one place while the door is able to be moved about to provide access wherever the bearer might go.

Silent, telepathic communication with animals.

Gifts of discernment, camouflage, and musical finding of lost things for the teenagers who travel to Alitheia. Oh, and a quill that prophesies.

Actually, there’s rather a motif of camouflage and hiding and keeping secrets and how that “gift” can be used for good or for evil. Also, the importance of honesty and trust and how trust can be broken is another theme that runs through the story. The Six are a group of six thirteen year olds who find themselves thrown together at a family summer camp. Their difficulties and successes in initiating and maintaining friendships among the group are another theme that weaves through the action in the novel.

Don’t be worried, however, that this book is all heavy philosophical themes and sermons. The action and plot elements are certainly adequate and intriguing enough to carry the reader along to the end. And I wanted more by the time I came to that end, so I’m looking forward to reading Ms. HOyle’s second book in the Gateway Chronicles series, The Oracle.

Little Britches, or Father and I Were Ranchers by Ralph Moody

May2

This autobiographical memoir/novel is actually the first in a series of such books written by the adult Mr. Moody about his childhood in Colorado, Boston, and later as a young adult, the West and Midwest. Ralph is eight years old as the story begins, but one has to remind oneself just how young he really was as the books progress through Ralph’s long life and he takes on more and more adult responsibility.

SPOILER: Ralph’s father dies at the end of the first book, Little Britches, but not before Ralph manages to learn some very important lessons from his almost saintly father.

A man’s character is like his house. If he tears boards off his house and burns them to keep himself warm and comfortable, his house soon becomes a ruin. If he tells lies to be able to do the things he shouldn’t do but wants to, his character will soon become a ruin. A man with a ruined character is a shame on the face of the earth.

Little Ralph takes this lesson to heart, not so much because the words are so impactful, but because he sees this character-building project as it takes place in his own father. Father is straight-talking, creative and innovative, hard-working, and above all, honest. And Ralph, aka “Little Britches” as the other boys and cowboys in Colorado call him, learns to be the same kind of man his father is, with a few mishaps and mistakes along the way.

The other books in the series are:

The Man of the Family. Nine year old Ralph and his older sister, Grace, work with their mother, an industrious and faith-filled example in her own right, to take care of the family after Father’s death. They start a baking business, and Ralph finds other ways to work and contribute to the family coffers. Life is hard, but good, and the family pulls together to recover from the tragedy of Father’s death.

The Home Ranch. Ralph finds new friends and mentors as he takes a job on a ranch for the summer.

Mary Emma & Company. Mary Emma is Ralph’s mother, and the family has moved back east to Boston in this fourth book in the series. The older members of the family must find new ways to support the family, and they start a laundry business while Ralph works as errand boy in a small grocery store. Over and over again, the lessons of diligence, faithfulness, and honesty are taught and learned through experience as Ralph, Grace and Mother work through illness, accidents, and mistakes to win through at the end.

The Fields of Home. In this book, a young teenage Ralph goes to live with his grandfather in Maine for a time. I didn’t read this one because I don’t have a copy of it yet.

Shaking the Nickel Bush. In 1918, Ralph is nineteen years old, thin and losing weight. The doctor diagnoses Ralph with diabetes and sends him west to work in the sunshine, follow a very restricted diet, and hope for the best. But everyone, including the doctor and Ralph’s family, knows that a diagnosis of diabetes (pre-insulin therapy) is practically a death sentence. Ralph manages to “shake the nickel bush”, support himself, and send money home—and survive and even thrive in spite of a ne’er-do-well companion and an ornery, broken-down “flivver” (automobile). Ralph does lie to his mother in his letters, to protect her from worry, and his friend, Lonnie, is a thief and a slacker. These aspects of the story are disappointing; nevertheless, the period details and the pure adventure of two young men traveling about and supporting themselves by their own hard work and ingenuity (mostly) are worth the read.

The Dry Divide. Ralph takes a laborer’s job on a wheat farm with a very cruel and dictatorial farmer, but by the end of the harvesting season, Ralph is a young entrepreneur with a thriving business and money in the bank. He works hard and smart, and everyone around Ralph shares in the prosperity that results from Ralph’s ingenuity and tenacity.

Horse of a Different Color: Reminiscences of a Kansas Drover. In this last book of the series, Ralph is a farmer/rancher himself. I still have this one to read in the future after I get hold of a copy.

I really loved these books, as evidenced by the fact that I read six of them in a week’s time, one after the other. I would have read all eight books that Mr. Moody wrote in his extended Bildungsroman if I had owned them all. Ralph “Little Britches” Moody and his friends and companions are not always perfect—there is some swearing and gambling in some of the books, condemned by Ralph’s mom, but still tolerated—nevertheless, I wish I had known about these books when my boys, and girls, were younger. I may still send one of my young adult sons a Ralph Moody book, if I can decide which one would most capture his interest and inspire him.