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Sir Gibbie by George Macdonald

Apr30

I got a rotten version of this book, or else George Macdonald wrote a dud. The story is there, and it’s a good one. But the “edited” version I read was tedious and much too explanatory, over-simplified and dull. Kathryn Lindskoog, a C.S. Lewis scholar and an author herself of literary and critical works, was the editor of the book I read, in the Classics for Young Readers series, published by P & R Publishing. She also edited several other classics for this series, including  Little Women, The Little Princess, Robinson Crusoe, Hans Brinker, and Black Beauty. If they are all written in the style that I read in her version of Sir Gibbie, I would not recommend them. And honestly, I am not sure why any of those other classics need updating or editing in the first place. They were all readable and lovely in the original for me as a child or young adult.

I do understand why Macdonald’s work is often edited to translate the Scots dialect that is prominent in many of his novels, including Sir Gibbie. I’ve only compared the version I read with the original (from Project Gutenberg) in few places, but I’m fairly sure that a lot of the dialogue, instead of being translated into modern English, is just explained. And most of the descriptive passages are simply left out or edited down to near-nothings. The back of the book says that Lindskoog “stepped up the pace of each chapter.” Also it says “this edition is a winner of the Gold Medallion Book Award in recognition of excellence in evangelical Christian literature.” Ouch! I don’t know why this rather wooden and tedious retelling won such an award, but I’m just not a fan.

According to Wikipedia, Lindskoog wrote, about her edited versions of classics:

I’m as much of a purist as you. I absolutely love these authors. That’s why I’m hand-polishing them for today’s readers and performing what I call literary liposuction – removing flab and fat. I keep every bit of the original story, the style, and the values – even restoring parts cut out in other versions. I know my work would make the author happy; otherwise, I wouldn’t do it

Sir Gibbie, a mute orphan with a heart of gold, is an engaging character, and the plot, although somewhat convoluted, is interesting and even surprising at times. But again, I just couldn’t enjoy the story as it was told in this edited version. I plan to try the original at some point. What I’ve read of George Macdonald’s writing shows him as a much better writer than this “literary liposuction” version displays.

I Must Betray You by Ruth Sepetys

Apr21

First of all, Ruth Sepetys is an excellent writer. I read three of her books, Between Shades of Grey, Out of the Easy, and Salt to the Sea, and her ability to place vivid fictional characters within an historical event and context was impressive. The first book, Between Shades of Grey, came out of Sepetys’ own Lithuanian American background and is set in Stalin’s Lithuania and Siberia. The other books, including this latest one set in Ceausescu’s Romania, show evidence of extensive historical research and an ability to create an atmosphere in reading the book that mirrors the cultural ambience of the times.

The place and time of this book are not a good place to be immersed in. In reading about a high school boy, seventeen year old Cristian Florescu, who is attempting to understand how to live in 1989 Romania, I felt a small part of what the people of Romania must have felt: claustrophobia, fear, entrapment, and suspicion. Ceausescu, his family, and his Securitate (secret police) control everything and everyone. And alongside the official apparatus, there are the civilian informers. In her Author’s Note at the end of the book Sepetys says, “It’s estimated that one in every ten citizens provided information.” All of these spies and informers generated thousands and thousands of pages of reports on the daily activities of every citizen, and each page added to “Romania’s perpetual sense of surveillance.”

This story is one that needs to be told, needs to be repeated. I see and hear people in the United States and in Europe flirting with communism, calling themselves “Marxists” or “socialists.” They think that such ideas are “just a better economic system”, that they won’t lead to tyranny or to a cult of charismatic leadership or to poverty and slavery. But everywhere—Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Vietnam, East Germany, and Romania—that’s exactly what communism has produced, has been used to produce. And the stories needs to be told again and again, both as cautionary tales and as a monument to the very real people who suffered under the horror and brutality of life in what was meant to be “just a better economic system.”

Cristian and his friend Luca and his girlfriend Liliana live through the fall of Ceausescu and his regime, but the story doesn’t really have a happy ending. Communism didn’t end in Romania until fifteen years after the death of the Ceausescu’s. And there are still many unanswered questions about what exactly happened in Romania during the rule of communism: who killed whom, and who gave the orders, and who benefitted and how it all came to be. All of the answers to these questions are perhaps buried in tons of records and files and reports, or perhaps just buried, destroyed. I Must Betray You is one attempt to illuminate through story what it felt like and what it required to live in a certain time and place, Bucharest, Romania, 1989 under the communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu.

Lost in the Barrens by Farley Mowat

Apr15

I realized that I have in my library three books written by Canadian environmentalist and author Farley Mowat—Lost in the Barrens, Owls in the Family, and Never Cry Wolf—but I had not until now read any of them. Mowat’s writing is somewhat controversial; he was accused of fabricating some of the events and the science in his nonfiction books. His response that he “never let the facts get in the way of the truth” did nothing to refute or placate his critics.

However, Lost in the Barrens is fiction, a survival story about two teen boys who are lost and forced to survive during winter in northern Canada. So, if the boys, Jamie and Awasin, are a bit too lucky and plucky and skilled to be believed, and they are, it makes a good story, nonetheless. The book, published in 1956, calls Awasin a Cree Indian rather than Native American or First Nations, and his people’s traditional enemies are called Eskimos. Both groups and the individuals in them are presented in a way that is respectful and admiring of their culture and traditions. Jamie is non-native, of Scottish Canadian extraction, and he is the more impulsive and foolhardy of the two boys. It is Jamie’s fault that the boys are lost, and it is mostly Awasin’s skill and strength and courage that saves them, although Jamie is said to contribute “inventiveness” and “persistence” to the partnership that the boys form.

I must admit that I found myself skimming the many passages in this book that describe exactly how Jamie and Awasin hunt and preserve their food, build their cabin, manage their fuel supply, and do all of the other multitude of things required for survival in a Canadian winter wilderness. I couldn’t tell you if the solutions and inventions that the boys come up with to keep themselves from freezing or starving to death are actually workable and believable or not, and I couldn’t tell even if I had read about them ever so carefully. It all seemed possible, and it made for a good story.

Fans of survival stories such as Hatchet by Gary Paulsen or My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George would probably enjoy Lost in the Barrens. Lost in the Barrens is a little more challenging in terms of vocabulary and detail than either of those two books, but there are no content considerations other than vivid descriptions of hunting and killing animals for food and of the steps involved in curing and preserving the parts of the animals that were killed. I would recommend the book to children ages twelve and up, younger if the child has an interest or experience in outdoor life and hunting in particular.

Mr. Mowat is a good storyteller, factual or not. (Oh, and there’s a movie version of this story. Anybody seen it? Recommended or not?)

The Lion’s Paw by Robb White

Jan1

I got this book for Christmas, and it was the last book I read in 2021. Author Robb White wrote for magazines and for television (several episodes of Perry Mason) and the movies, but he is best known for his 24 novels for young people. His books would be classified as “Young Adult” nowadays. Although they are full of adventure and feature somewhat rebellious and independent heroes, by today’s standards they probably wouldn’t be quite edgy enough for the YA market. I have read four of his books now, and I like them very much.

The Lion’s Paw is the tale of three runaway children who sail fifteen year old Ben’s father’s boat through the inland waterways of south Florida, down the Atlantic coast all the way to Captiva Island in the Gulf of Mexico. Ben is running away from a guardian who wants to sell his father’s sailboat because the uncle/guardian believes that Ben’s father, a Navy sailor, is dead. (The book was originally published in 1946, so Ben’s dad is assumed either dead or captured by the Japanese in the Pacific during WWII.) The other two runaways, Penny and her little brother Nick, have escaped from an orphanage. The orphanage doesn’t sound exactly cruel, just sterile, regimented, and uncaring. The story begins with Penny and Nick deciding that that they aren’t likely to be adopted by anyone decent and they just can’t stand life in the orphanage anymore. So they run away and meet up with Ben, and off they go!

The story includes tropical storms, bounty hunters, alligator encounters, near escapes, and the hunt for a seashell called the Lion’s Paw. Ben is convinced that if he can find a Lion’s Paw for his dad’s seashell collection, then his dad will come home. The story itself is beguiling with three plucky, courageous, and determined children facing both the dangers of sailing and surviving on the ocean and the strictures of the adult world which threatens to put an end to their freedom and adventure. There are couple of caveats: the children and an adult in the story use slang to refer to the Japanese (“Japs” and “Japoons”), and at one point the children use some potentially deadly weapons to fight a man who wants to turn them in to the searchers for a reward. Being prepared to use deadly force to counter an intruder would probably be disallowed or at least disapproved of if the book were written and published in the twenty-first century.

Still, I thought it was an exciting story with some brave and admirable characters. Both boys and girls, anyone over the age of twelve or so, would enjoy the tale and be inspired, not to run away from home or go out alligator hunting alone, I hope, but to “do hard things” and face difficulties with courage and ingenuity.

2021 MGF: In a Flash by Donna Jo Napoli

Nov11

I’ve enjoyed Donna Jo Napoli’s books in the past; the author blurb says she’s published more than eighty books for children in her long career. Most of the ones I’ve read have been fairy tale and folk tale retellings (The Wager and Zel) or historical adventure tales (Alligator Bayou and North and Song of the Magdalene). Ms. Napoli, a professor of linguistics and social justice at Swarthmore College, is a good writer. Her books tend to fall toward the upper end of the middle grade fiction age group, maybe even pushing into young adult. In a Flash has a child narrator/protagonist, eight years old at the beginning of the story, but the subject matter and setting, the horrible plight of two Italian sisters surviving on their own in WWII Japan (1940-1946), is harrowing enough to call for some maturity in the reader. I was appalled by the suffering that SImona and her little sister Carolina undergo, and I’m a grown up who knew what to expect when the children, toward the end of the story, end up in the city of Hiroshima.

Because the chapter headings have dates affixed at the beginning and the book is written in first person from Simona’s point of view, I thought at first that the author was trying to pretend that this was SImona’s diary or journal. However, the writing isn’t a child’s writing, and the story is told mostly in present tense. Neither of those choices works for a diary entry. So, I soon realized that the dates were just there to assist the reader in knowing how much time had passed between chapters and where the children were in terms of age and in regard to the war. I found the story fascinating, a little slow-moving at first, but the details about life in Tokyo and in Japan as a whole were vivid and enlightening. The cultural differences between Japanese manners, language, and expectations and Italian cultural mores manifest themselves through the eyes of two little girls who struggle to live as the Japanese do while remembering that they are also Italians.

As I indicated, the book doesn’t shy away from the gruesome details of the starvation, fear, political repression, and sheer misery and trauma of living in wartorn Japan, especially as hated Westerners, Italians who were at first welcomed as friends of the Japanese, then despised as traitors after Italy’s surrender to the Allies. The suffering of the common people of Japan, as well as the choice of some of them to resist the suicidal “patriotism” required of them, are also portrayed in the story.

Because of all the suffering and bombing and starvation and imprisonment, the novel read like a Holocaust story, but with a very different setting. I would recommend In a Flash for mature young people who have been reading about the horrors of World War II as a different perspective and view of the atrocities and difficulties of that time.

At the Sign of the Golden Compass by Eric P. Kelly

Mar24

Eric P. Kelly‘s historical novel, The Trumpeter of Krakow, won the Newbery Medal in 1929. At the Sign of the Golden Compass was published ten years later in 1938, and it has a lot in common with Mr. Kelly’s earlier award-winning novel. Although Golden Compass begins in London in 1576 with the nineteen year old printer’s apprentice Godfrey Ingram being accused of crime he didn’t commit, the main setting is the European continent, specifically the city of Antwerp, Belgium. Spain and Holland are at war, and rebellious and undisciplined Spanish troops are quartered in the Flemish city of Antwerp, threatening violence and pillage to the citizens of the city at any time. Or perhaps the Dutch troop will fight the Spanish in the very heart of the city itself.

Godfrey Ingram, after fleeing to Antwerp, finds himself in the middle of not only a war between the Spanish and the Dutch, but also an intellectual battle between medieval astrologers, sorcerers, and assorted fakirs who fear the spread of knowledge and of literacy and the progressive printers, authors and translators who are working to educate and illuminate by the power of the written word and the printing press. Godfrey finds sanctuary and begins work at the printshop of Christopher Plantin, who is memorialized at the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp to this day. Other actual historical characters who make an appearance in the novel are philosopher Justus Lipsius, Governor of Antwerp Champagney, Phillip II of Spain, and the painter Peter Paul Rubens.

The central antagonist in the novel is a famous astrologer and sorcerer (as in The Trumpeter of Krakow), and the book shows the controversy between the new ideas brought to the public by means of the printing press and the old superstitions that held men in bondage before the advent of mass printing. In fact the two main characters, Godfrey Ingram and Christopher Plantin, discuss the allure and power of printing toward the end of the book:

“I would far rather be a master craftsman in this trade than posses a doctor’s gown. Yea, I would rather print fine books than own a hundred ships that bore treasures from the Americas or the East.”

The Master’s eyes brightened. “You have it, too,” he said. “The fatal fascination of the press. I sometimes think that ink is a curse, that it lures men on when nothing else in this life interests them. I, indeed, am one such, caught in this folly. Yet, I would not have it otherwise. Write, I cannot. The gift of words has not been given me. But I have the desire, the madness–call it what you will–to print the words of others. To keep alive in the world the thought of thinking men, to spread abroad ideas that enliven and elevate.”

p.189-190

Eric P. Kelly’s style of writing is somewhat florid and overly dramatic; however, he is dealing with dramatic events: the rise of the printing press, the evil of deviltry and superstition, and the sack of Antwerp in 1576, also called the Spanish Fury and known as the greatest massacre in Belgian history. If you’ve read The Trumpeter of Krakow, the style of writing in this book is much the same as in that earlier book. It was off-putting at first, but as I persisted, I became quite engaged in the narrative. It’s not a time or series of events in history that I knew anything about, and I’m glad to have read about it in Mr. Kelly’s book.

Winterbound by Margery Williams Bianco

Aug13

Illustrated by Kate Seredy and published in 1936, Winterbound is a Newbery Honor book that would be classified as Young Adult fiction nowadays, if it were even considered for publication. I doubt it would be considered or published in the current century, however, since it’s a clean, wholesome story of two teen sisters, ages nineteen and sixteen, and how they work together to manage an impoverished household in the country through a Connecticut winter. The older sister, Kay, is an aspiring artist whose art education has been cut short by the family’s move from the city to the country. Kay is refined and tasteful, but also hard-working and determined to make the best of their financially strained circumstances. The younger sister, Garry (short for Margaret), is an outdoors type, interested in gardening, travel, science, and animals. Garry is the practical sister, the one who keeps them afloat financially while both parents are unavoidably absent from the home: Dad is off on a two year long scientific expedition, and Mom is in New Mexico, caring for a sick relative.

This story of two strong, independent young women learning to care for a home and a family is just the sort of “feminist” novel that should be required reading for today’s up and coming generation. There are two younger siblings in the family, Martin and Caroline, and Kay and Garry are responsible for the care and upbringing of their younger family members as well as for feeding the wood stove, doing the shopping, making the meals, pumping the water from an outside pump, and scrounging for extra income when their money almost runs out. It’s really a delightful, self-reliant sort of story that shows how some young people used to learn to be adults in difficult circumstances. I was quite impressed with Kay and Garry and their good humor and their tenacity and determination while living in a home—-no running water, no electricity, cracks in the walls, below zero temperatures—that would be daunting to me and absolutely impossible for most anyone younger than I am. (I sound OLD.)

I think fans of the later Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace (Heavens to Betsy, Betsy and Joe, etc.) or of the later Anne of Green Gables books ( Anne of the Island, Anne of Windy Poplars, etc.) or of the Emily books also by L.M. Montgomery would enjoy this story by author Margery Williams Bianco, most famous for her children’s book The Velveteen Rabbit. Winterbound is as I said for older readers, with just a touch of hinted romance at the very end of the book, and it’s not nearly as sentimental as The Velveteen Rabbit. But Bianco’s writing skill and ability to tell a good yarn are evident in both books. My copy of this book is a Dover reprint edition, published in 2014 in Dover’s series Dover Newbery Library. Thanks to Dover Press for making these older books available again.

The Borrowed House by Hilda van Stockum

Oct10

Janna is proud of her membership in the Hitler Youth. She’s proud of her parents, famous actors, who have left Janna in Germany while they tour and entertain the troops of the Reich. Janna is also proud of having been chosen to play Brunhilde in the upcoming play that her youth group is going to perform, the story of Siegfried and Brunhilde from Hitler’s favorite opera by Wagner. Most of all, Janna is proud to be German and Aryan, and not a member of those inferior Jewish or Slavic races.

The Borrowed House is a young adult story, not because it’s about a teenager; Janna is only twelve years old in the book. And it’s not YA because of explicit sex or even violence, although there is some of the latter as the author describes the violence against Jews and others in Holland where Janna goes to join her parents. The Borrowed House is YA because it deals with mature themes of racism and indoctrination and trust and adultery in a way that is nuanced and complicated and respectful of the maturity of its audience. Janna is an unusual twelve year old, and she sees and understands things that most twelve year olds wouldn’t even think about. And there is a developing romance between twelve year old Janna and an older resident of the borrowed house that Janna and her parents live in. Nothing explicit or illicit, but the romantic subtext is there.

Maybe you should read this one yourself before handing it to your child, because first of all, it won’t be the right book for every young person. And secondly, The Borrowed House is one of those rare novels that adults can appreciate just as well as teens can. The book gives a lot insight into the way the German civilians looked at the war and at Herr Hitler as well as the privations and persecution and courage of the Dutch and Jewish people in Holland during World War II.

Republished by Purple House Press in 2016, this World War II novel is an excellent story and a definite discussion starter. Just think carefully about who would appreciate it properly and at what age.The writing and subject matter and characterization remind me a little bit of Madeleine L’Engle’s young adult novels. If you’ve read and enjoyed A Winter’s Love or The Small Rain by L’Engle, then The Borrowed House has about the same maturity level with some similar themes.

Firestorm by Robb White

Oct9

Robb White was the son of Episcopalian missionaries, but his stories are stories of adventure and war and survival. Mr. White is listed in Jan Bloom’s book, Who Should We Then Read?, A Busy Reader’s Concise Guide to the Best Authors of Living Books, Volume 2, and well he should be. I have read three or four of Robb White’s novels, and I was absorbed by each one of the ones that I have been able to find.

Firestorm is about a forest fire. It’s a short book, only 111 pages, but it’s perfect for reluctant but intelligent readers. The plot and characters and the ending are all surprising and give the reader food for thought. I was especially moved to think about what I would do in similar circumstances, as a boy and the forest ranger who believes him to be an arsonist are trapped together in a ring of fire that threatens to kill both of them.

I gave this book to Engineer Husband to read, and he was fascinated, too. I can’t tell much more, no spoilers, but this brief story reads like an excellent short story or novella with the same punch you would find in a well-written short story. I highly recommend.

If you like this one, you might also enjoy:

Up Periscope by Robb White.

Deathwatch by Robb White. Another survival story, this 1972 novel about a boy surviving in the desert while being hunted and hounded by a predatory criminal was both exciting and absorbing.

If you find any more Robb White books (he wrote quite a few), grab them, and if you don’t want them, then send them my way.

High Lonesome by Louis L’Amour

Aug20

I read this book partly to see if it would be appropriate for the young adults who patronize my library and partly just to see if I liked L’Amour’s fiction as much as I did his autobiography, The Education of a Wandering Man. I found two instances of mildly bad language (h— and d–n), not that I’m into counting. And there was a romance, but rather chaste even though the guy is an outlaw gunslinger and the girl is the daughter of an outlaw. I think it would be perfectly good for anyone fourteen or fifteen and up.

I don’t read many Westerns, but I can see how L’Amour’s books became so popular. This story of an attractive outlaw and a young but strong girl who falls for him has more going for it than just the romance. There’s male-bonding, a bit of bromance, and a lots of fighting and honor among thieves and standing up for what’s right even when it looks hopeless.

L’Amour’s characters are flawed, but likable. The peril they find themselves in is partly due to their own bad decisions, but partly just the luck of the draw. The idea is that everybody eventually has to choose to do the right thing or be a self-seeking coward, even those who have chosen the wrong side of the law in the past. And it’s not whether you follow the law that makes you a good man, rather it’s whether or not you follow your own internal compass of right and wrong and make the hard right choice when the crisis comes. I would argue that if you haven’t built up those muscles of choosing right in the minor issues you are unlikely to choose right when a really big choice requiring self denial comes along, but L’Amour’s characters don’t have that much nuance.

Considine, the hero of the novel, is a man who “had a way of getting to where he wanted to be without being seen.” “[T]he big, quiet man was very sure of himself, and was known to be a dangerous man with a gun.’ “Considine did not seem like an outlaw. He had the air of a gentleman and there was something undefined in his manner that set him apart.” “Nor were they free of the images their own minds held of themselves. The man on horseback, the lone-riding man, the lone-thinking man, possessed an image of himself that was in part his own, in part a piece of all the dime novels he had read, for no man is free of the image his literature imposes upon him. And the dime novel made the western hero a knight-errant.”

I’m casting, of course, John Wayne, in my mind’s eye as Considine. If you like that kind of movie or book or if you like dime novel western heroes, High Lonesome should be just the ticket. No irony here, just straight up shootin’ and ridin’ and honor and heroism with a little bit of bank robbing thrown in.