Summer Reading Challenge: Books Set in the Summer

I’m sponsoring a summer reading challenge in my library. The rules are as follows:

Out of the forty categories listed, choose the number your child intends to complete, one book per category from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.Children in grades K-12 can choose to read 10, 20, 30 or 40 books between June 1, 2019 and August 31, 2019. Books must be recorded and responses given on the official record sheet. You do not have to check out your books from Meriadoc Homeschool Library, but many categories may be easier to find in MHSL than in other libraries or at home. Books can be read and recorded in any order you choose.

The fifth category for this challenge is to read “a book about or set in the summer.”

Summer books for primary readers (grades K-3)
The Camping Trip That Changed America by Barb Rosenstock. Naturalist John Muir and President Teddy Roosevelt go on a camping trip to Yosemite.

The Seashore Book by Charlotte Zolotow. A beautiful, poetic picture book story about a trip to the beach.

Roxaboxen by Alice McLarren. A group of children in Arizona or New Mexico, somewhere dry and desert-y, make a play town out of old woden crates, rocks, cacti and desert glass.

Sailor Jack and the Ball Game by Selma Wassermann. An easy reader about submarine sailor Jack and his friend Beanpole and jack’s parrot, Bluebell, and a rather chaotic baseball game.

Betsy’s Busy Summer by Carolyn Haywood. All of Haywood’s Betsy and Eddie books are delightful, but most of them are school stories. This one tells about Betsy and her friends and their neighborhood adventures during one fun summer.

More summer reading for younger children

Summer books for middle grade readers (grades 4-7)
Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright. Summer has a magic all its own, but this summer is different in many ways. Portia Blake and her younger brother Foster are going to the same place they always go in the summer, to visit their cousin Julian. However, this summer they’re going all by themselves while their parents spend the summer in Europe. And this summer Portia and Julian discover a deserted resort town next to a nearly dried up lake. And this summer the children also become friends with the eccentric Minnehaha Cheever and Pindar Payton, elderly sister and brother who are the only inhabitants of the ghost town across the lake. What other “magic” will the children conjure up as they listen to tales of long ago and explore the remains of Gone-Away Lake?

The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall.

Henry Reed, Inc. by Keith Robertson. A great old-fashioned book about a boy who spends the summer in a small town with his uncle and aunt. Exciting things happen whenever Henry is around!

Galveston’s Summer of the Storm by Julie Lake. Very lazy Texas summer with Texas foods and hot weather and front porches and grandmother’s house. Then disaster!

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. Originally published in 1930, this book is the first in a series of books about a group of adventurous children and a sailboat. Swallows and Amazons introduces the Walker children—John, Susan, Titty, and Roger—their camp on Wild Cat island, the able-bodied catboat Swallow, and their frenemies the two intrepid Amazons, Nancy and Peggy Blackett. The children are living the free range kids’ dream as they camp all by themselves on a small island, cook their own meals, sail their boat up and down the lake, and engage in all sorts of mock-battles and adventures.

Ash Road by Ivan Southall. This one takes place in January, summertime in Australia. A small group of children are cut off by a raging wildfire in the wilds of the Australian outback. They have only two elderly adults to help them, or perhaps it is the children who must help each other to get them all out of danger.

Summer Reading Challenge: The 1700’s

Jun14

I’m sponsoring a summer reading challenge in my library. The rules are as follows:

Out of the forty categories listed, choose the number your child intends to complete, one book per category from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.Children in grades K-12 can choose to read 10, 20, 30 or 40 books between June 1, 2019 and August 31, 2019. Books must be recorded and responses given on the official record sheet. You do not have to check out your books from Meriadoc Homeschool Library, but many categories may be easier to find in MHSL than in other libraries or at home. Books can be read and recorded in any order you choose.

The third category for this challenge is to read a “book set in the eighteenth century (1700’s).”

For preschoolers and primary ages (grades K-3)

Sam the Minuteman and George the Drummer Boy, both by Nathaniel Benchely are easy readers that tell the story of the Battle of Lexington from two different perspectives. Sam and his father refighting the British soldiers at Lexington. George is a drummer boy in the British army that was sent out to capture the weapons that the American patriots were hiding at Lexington and Concord. These are great stories and great for making comparisons and contrasts between the British and the American viewpoints about the War for Independence.

The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dalgliesh. “An eight-year-old girl finds courage to go alone with her father to build a new home in the Connecticut wilderness, and to stay with the Indians when her father goes back to bring the rest of the family.” This story, based on the true story of a pioneer girl, is rich in its language and inspiring in its themes.

Pirate’s Promise by Clyde Robert Bulla. Young Tom Pippin is sold by his greedy uncle into indentured servanthood, but in a strange turn of events it’s a pirate captain who eventually helps Tom to gain his freedom. Bulla is such a great author, and his books are easy enough for young readers to comprehend, but exciting enough to hold their interest.

George Washington’s Mother by Jean Fritz. Mary Ball Washington, the mother of our first president, sometimes smoked a pipe and hated to get all dressed up. This book shows a very human, down-to-earth founding mother who nevertheless loved little George very much. Don’t read it if all you want is a flattering portrait of an early American, but if you want relatable, this book is great. Several other books by Jean Fritz fall into this time period including Why Don’t You Get a Horse, Sam Adams, Can’t You Make Them Behave, King George?, and And Then What Happened, Paul Revere?.

Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares by Frank Murphy. Benjamin Franklin was such a polymath–politician, inventor, scientist, author, publisher, and diplomat. While he was serving as clerk for the Pennsylvania Assembly, he became bored and came up with a math game to amuse himself. He called the game “magic squares”, and this easy to read book explains the magic square game and also talks about other ingenious ideas and devices that Franklin invented.

For upper elementary ages (grades 4-6) and middle schoolers (grades 7-8)

A Heart Strangely Warmed by Louise A. Vernon. Fiction based on the life and work of Methodist evangelist John Wesley.

Jonathan Edwards (Christian Biographies for Young Readers) by Simonetta Carr. This series of picture books with advanced text for older children has several books that are both beautiful and readable. Jonathan Edwards was a fascinating character and one of the true luminaries of colonial America. This biography serves as a lovely introduction to his life and ministry.

Handel at the Court of Kings by Opal Wheeler. Read about the life and times of composer George Frederic Handel who was court composer to Queen Anne and to George I, her successor. Opal Wheeler tells the story of Handel’s music and his life with such engaging text that the reader can’t help but be interested in listening to Handel’s music.

Stowaway by Karen Hesse. Eleven-year-old Nicholas Young is a stowaway aboard Captain James Cook’s ship Endeavour in 1768 as Cook and his crew voyage around the world.

For adults and young adults:

In Mozart’s Shadow by Carolyn Meyer. A fictional story about Nannerl, Mozart’s sister, who was a musician and composer in her own right but never got the chance to rival her little brother, Wolfgang Amadeus.

Or Give Me Death by Ann Rinaldi. Patriot and Virginia statesman Patrick Henry has a daughter and a family secret. In this fictional account we can read about the American revolution in Virginia from the point of view of Patrick Henry’s daughter and his wife. Ann Rinaldi also wrote several other historical fiction books set during this time period, including Cast Two Shadows, Mutiny’s Daughter, Takng Liberty, The Fifth of March, and The Secret of Sarah Revere.

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson. A girl slave sold to a master loyal to England during the American Revolution. She must decide whether to become a spy for the American rebels; this book is the first in the Seeds of America trilogy. The other two books, which follow the same characters throughout the American Revolution, are Forge and Ashes.

Since the books in my library that deal with history, both nonfiction and historical fiction, are shelved in chronological order, it’s easy to find a multitude of books set during the 1700’s. Just check the correct shelf and find one that suits your reading interests. Or check out one of the books on this list. What books do you know and love that are set during the eighteenth century?

Castle Adamant by Sally Watson

May24

Sally Watson was an author who wrote several books I loved as a child: Mistress Malapert, Linnet, Jade, and Lark are the ones I remember reading. Several years ago I found a couple more of her books, Highland Rebel and The Hornet’s Nest, and added them to my library. I already had a copy of Lark, and my daughter enjoyed it when she was a girl just as much as I did. However, all of Ms. Watson’s books were out of print and nowhere to be found for many years.

Then, I found that many of her books had been reprinted or republished, either by the author herself or by some small reprint publishers. And there were more books, set during the English Civil Wars of the 1640’s, Cavaliers versus Roundheads, with strong-willed female protagonists and exciting historical plots just like the Lark/Linnet/Jade books. So, I ordered myself a copy of Mistress Malapert and of a new-to-me book, Castle Adamant.

Unfortunately, I didn’t look closely at the suggested target age group for the novel, and I won’t be able to put this book in my library. That’s a shame because it’s a good story, and the others that I do remember are completely appropriate for middle grade readers. However, Castle Adamant (and apparently the two other books that form a trilogy with it, The Outrageous Oriel and Loyal and the Dragon) has just enough “adult” or “young adult” content to make it too much for the middle grades.

Castle Adamant features the defense of Corfe Castle by its Royalist owners from assault by the Parliamentary forces. The story of Corfe Castle and the battles that took place there are true, but Ms. Watson throws in a few fictional characters to make it interesting. Peregrine Lennox is the second son of a Royalist lord and advisor to King Charles I. Verity Goodchild is the independent-thinking daughter of a Roundhead colonel. Trained to be a Calvinist but also educated in the classics and in logic, Verity is a mass of contradictions, determined to forge her own ideas and convictions through the various conflicting and confusing issues of the time. Peregrine is an “arrogant sprig of nobility”, “vain, kind, condescending, and resigned to boredom.” When Peregrine’s lazy intelligence meets up with Verity’s fiery intelligence, the arguments and the Latin quotations fly fast and furious, along with many a Scripture verse from Verity’s unlimited and memorized storehouse.

So, the novel is made up of two elements: the battle(s) for Corfe Castle and the battle(s) between Verity and Peregrine. The content warning is that the author keeps throwing in not so subtle hints about the the physical attraction between Verity and Peregrine:

“The maleness her small breasts pressed against was firm and strong and hard and smelled of horse and herbs. Prevented–not for fear of Satan, but by her painful arms–from holding yet more tightly, she allowed the unslapped side of her face to rest against his doublet.”

“Verity instantly fell into lusting even harder after her friend’s husband-to-be. With passion, Satan was indeed tempting her; and it was a shock, for she had never willed it.”

“At one point she ripped her skirt all the way up, providing a stunning view of a long shapely leg. She was not aware of it, nor even of the long deep scratch down her thigh. . . .She had no idea she had titillated Peregrine, or indeed showed him her leg at all.”

“‘I won’t wed anyone. I’ll be a spinster. But—” She looked at him, and all virtue left her. ‘Peregrine— If we could manage— I would come to your bed anyway.’
For a moment, she thought in anguish that he was repulsed by her froward and sinful thoughts. His face was blank, and an odd bulge appeared just in the front of his breeches. A strong instinct told Verity it was something not to be asked about nor even noticed—but that perhaps it was not revulsion either?”

That, and couple of scenes where a villager and a soldier try to assault Verity and steal a kiss, are as explicit as it gets, but sadly way too much for children. The theological debates that Verity has with Peregrine, with the doyenne of Corfe Castle, and with God Himself are certainly somewhat mature also, but her questions are nothing an intelligent eleven or twelve year old wouldn’t be able to handle.

I haven’t read The Outrageous Oriel, but I did read this bit about it at Sally Watson’s website:

“Outrageous Oriel was lots of fun–-and possibly a bit shocking to a few–-but times change, don’t they? That was Oriel, all right. Outrageous.
In the ’50’s and ’60’s the trilogy would be definitely Adult, with Oriel and her friend Evan agreeing to marry platonically, because, he tells her, he loves her dearly as a friend but prefers fellows in his bed. Now? Who knows? I’ve read YA much nearer the mark.”

So, yes, the three books in “the trilogy” are adult or young adult, and the others I’ve named are middle grade reads that can be enjoyed by all ages. I liked Castle Adamant for the most part, but I plan to stick to Sally Watson’s juvenile novels from here on out.

The Mantlemass Chronicles by Barbara Willard

May9

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.

**********************

And I did it. I “binge read” the last five of The Mantlemass Chronicles and enjoyed the experience immensely. Barbara Willard is not well enough known or regarded. Her family saga that covers multiple generations (about with or ten?) is insightful and compelling. The characters remind me of Elizabeth Goudge or Winston Poldark (Poldark), but they are more believable than Winston Graham’s sometimes over-wrought and over dramatic characters, and Willard sticks with the same family for seven books, unlike Goudge. And even though the people who inhabit Mantlemass in the last book of the series, Harrow and Harvest, know almost nothing about the ancestors whose story is told in the first two books, there is a family secret that is handed down from generation to generation over 150 plus years. This thread of secret plus inheritance plus genetic line plus the house itself, Mantlemass, ties all of the books together, making for a very satisfying read.

A Cold Wind Blowing covers the same time period that was chronicled in The Eldest Son, but this time we get to read about events from the perspective of the second son of the Medley family, Piers. Gaps and events that are only alluded to but never explained in The Eldest Son make up the story in A Cold Wind Blowing, and readers learn to understand this family and relationships within it in a deeper and more illuminating way. Piers, a likable character in the first book, becomes the center of the family in this book, the young man seasoned by grief and tragedy who will in the next book/episode be both the patriarch and the source of continued family drama.

The Iron Lily introduces readers to another branch of the Medley/Mallory family, an illegitimate daughter who finds her family and brings a new strength and will to the family she finds. Lilias and her daughter Ursula move into the vicinity of Mantlemass and become a part of the community there despite not a little struggle and misunderstanding. Lilias, a widow, is determined to support her daughter and make her own way in the world of the iron industry. In a world of men workers and owners, Lilias is an anomaly, a strong woman who runs her iron foundry as she runs her life, with stubborn purpose. However, she’s not completely out of place in the Mallory/Medley family, which has a history of strong-willed women and men to match them. The question is whether or not Lily with her autocratic ways will ruin the life of her daughter Ursula when the two clash over Ursula’s future.

A Flight of Swans moves the story to the next generation and the attempted invasion of England by the Spanish Armada. Ursula is now the mistress of Mantlemass, and a couple of Jolland cousins, Roger and Humfrey, have come to visit. Ursula must deal with a broken marriage and with suspected treachery in the ironworks as it becomes profitable to sell the iron industry secrets to the highest bidder in a time of war. This book displays exactly what I liked about the entire series. Ms. Willard’s characters are real people who grow (or deteriorate) and change just as real people do, sometimes disappointing the reader but always continuing to be compelling and intriguing. The novel covers a great deal of time, and the reader must pay close attention to “fill in the gaps”, sometimes from one chapter to the next. But the attentiveness is worth cultivating for the sake of a fine story.

The last book in the series, Harrow and Harvest, takes place during the English Civil War between the Royalists and the Roundheads in the 1640’s. The family is in decline, and the family secrets have been all but lost. Nicholas Highwood and his sister Cecelia are managing Mantlemass, barely, when a distant relative from an estranged part of the family shows up with possibly a better claim to the inheritance. All of this family drama is made almost irrelevant by the approach of war and the necessity to declare their loyalties either to the king or to Parliament. Again, there are traitors in their midst, and the ironworks is a source of support and contention.

I thought the story ended well, and I very much enjoyed the ride. Again, I think this series could be an excellent period drama series along the lines of Poldark or Downton Abbey, but it’s better than Poldark since the characters never do anything that is wildly out of character as they sometimes do in Winston Graham’s series. I definitely recommend this series to fans of the family saga or British historical novels.

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)

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.

Semicolon

Books we must have though we lack bread.

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