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Picture Book Preschool Book of the Week (12)

Mar20


Today is the first official day of spring here in the Northern Hemisphere. To celebrate, all the books listed in my curriculum, Picture Book Preschool, for this week have something to do with springtime. One of the best of the best is Springtime for Jeanne-Marie by Francoise Seignobosc.

Z-baby loves this story. The little French girl, Jeanne-Marie, loses her pet duck, Madalon. Jeanne-Marie also has a pet sheep, Patapon, and she and Patapon set off down the river to look for Madalon. Of course, they ask everyone they meet whether or not they have seen a little white duck, but the answer is always “no.” Eventually, Jeanne-Marie and Patapon make a new friend, Jean Pierre, who helps them in their search. And finally, when they have almost given up hope, the children and Patapon find Madalon in a most unlikely place.

The watercolor illustrations in this picture book are beautifully Old World European. There’s also some counting practice involved in reading the story, and the book is just right for three or four or even five year olds who are just beginning to appreciate a simple plot with some repetition and a little surprise at the end. The children, Jeanne-Marie and Jean Pierre, are delightfully innocent and seem to come from the French countryside of about the 1940’s or 50’s, maybe even earlier. The Jeanne-Marie books, of which there are several, were actually published in France in the 1950’s.

I couldn’t find any information on the internet or in my home reference books about Francoise Seignobosc. Does anyone else have any information about this French author/illustrator?

Picture Book Preschool is a preschool/kindergarten curriculum which consists of a list of picture books to read aloud for each week of the year and a character trait, a memory verse, and activities, all tied to the theme for the week. You can purchase a downloadable version (pdf file) of Picture Book Preschool by Sherry Early at Biblioguides.

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

Mar17

Another thrift store find, I picked up a paperback copy of this 1994 novel for 66 cents because I had heard of it, and it sounded interesting. On the front and back of the novel other adjectives are used to describe the story: “compelling,” “heart-stopping,” “haunting,” and “luminous,” are a few. I think I’ll stick with “interesting,” even though it’s not nearly so descriptive.

Snow Falling on Cedars is the story of a Japanese American fisherman, Kabuo Miyamoto, who is accused of the murder of another fisherman, Carl Heine. The plot reminded me of To Kill a Mockingbird, a courtroom drama in which local prejudices and racist stereotypes play a big part. Most of the action of the book takes place in 1954, about ten years after World War 2. However, each of the characters revisits the war years in flashbacks that illuminate the motivations of the people involved in the trial. Miyamoto is married to Hatsue, a Japanese American woman who grew up on San Piedro Island with him and also with the other major character in the novel, Ishmael Chambers. Chambers, as the editor and publisher of the island’s only newspaper, is writing about the trial, and he is also involved with the Miyamoto family in another way: he was Hatsue’s secret boyfriend during their high school years, before the war.

Well, thought Ishmael, bending over his typewriter, his fingertips poised just above the keys; the palpitations of Kabuo Miyamoto’s heart were unknowable finally. And Hatsue’s heart wasn’t knowable either, not was Carl Heine’s. The heart of any other, because it had a will, would remain forever mysterious.
Ishmael gave himself to the writing of it, and as he did so he understood this, too: that accident ruled every corner of the universe except the chambers of the human heart.”

These are the final words of this murder mystery that attempts to transcend the genre and make some kind of commentary on the Meaning of Life. P.D. James does a better job. Harper Lee did a better job. First of all, there’s no mystery in Snow Falling on Cedars. It’s obvious from the beginning of the novel who didn’t kill Carl Heine, and the only mystery exists in figuring out the details of how Heine did die and trying to second-guess the author’s intentions in regard to the man who is accused of Heine’s murder.

Secondly, the novel tries to do too much. Is it a commentary on race relations and the injustice of sending Japanese nationals to Manzanar during World War 2? Or is it a courtroom drama about justice and injustice in the American system of law? Or is it a story about war and how it changes men? Or maybe it’s a novel about first love and the impermanence of innocence and the tendency of the world to disillusion and take away our youthful ideals. Or it could be an existentialist novel in disguise: we make ourselves real by the decisions we make. All of that stuff is in there, but I’m not sure any of it is developed as it could have been. Characters and themes keep getting in the way of each other instead of complementing and completing one another. Completion, resolution, or even character growth are not terms that I would use in connection with this novel, although the trial itself does come to an end.

I hesitate to question the literary quality of Guterson’s award-winning novel, but I must say that I found it disappointing. The novel raised many questions. Can human beings form any deep. lasting, or meaningful relationships? Does “accident rule every corner of the universe”? Or is the human heart free to make decisions and to remain unpredictable? Is the author trying to say that people of Japanese descent and people of Caucasian descent can never understand one another? (A seemingly near-racist conclusion.) Or is it that we are all unknowable? Is the American justice flawed or does justice triumph in the end? Do the people in this novel learn anything, or do they just act on impulse and a desire for self-gratification?

Guterson is quoted in his Random House bio: “Fiction writers shouldn’t dictate to people what their morality should be. Yet not enough writers are presenting moral questions for reflection, which I think is a very important obligation.” I think he’s got plenty of questions ,reflection in abundance, but isn’t the place to get any answers or even find out which questions are the most important and need answers. The characters in the novel are just drifting through life in reaction to whatever “weather conditions” come along. When individuals in the novel did make a definite decision about something, I never understood why they made the decisions they did.

I recommend Snow Falling on Cedars with reservations. It may grow on me. I know I’m still thinking about it a week after I finished reading it. However, by next year this time, I may have forgotten all about Guterson’s novel. I’m just not sure it goes deep enough to stick.

By the way has anyone seen the movie based on this book, and if so, what did you think of it?

River Rising by Athol Dickson

Mar3

Once upon a time, several lives ago, I was a Spanish major in college, and for a literature class I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s classic, Cien Anos de Soledad—in Spanish. In the middle of the book something odd happened; it started raining yellow flowers, I think, or something like that. I re-read and re-read, but I couldn’t figure out whether there was some Spanish idiom I wasn’t getting or if it was really supposed to be raining yellow flowers. I had to ask the Spanish professor, and he said that yes, it was raining yellow flowers, and that was my introduction to “magical realism.”

So, when I read on the back cover of River Rising that the novel “explores a variety of complex issues, such as racial equality and religious faith—all with a tasteful touch of magical realism,” I thought I should prepare for a wild ride. What I wasn’t prepared for was the “variety of complex issues” part. And I wasn’t prepared to be blown away by the powerful story that Dickson tells. Comparatively speaking, the magical stuff was fairly tame. It was the part of the book that could be real, the part that felt real, that made me stop, think and breathe deeply.

River Rising is set in southern Louisiana, near the mouth of the Mississippi River, just before and during the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927. The characters are residents of Pilotville, LA, a small town surrounded by swampland, and one stranger who comes to town to find out about his parentage. Hale Poser, the stranger, grew up in an orphanage, became a preacher, and now has come to Pilotville in hope of finding out something about his heritage. As soon as Rev. Poser hits town, strange things start happening, odd things like fruit growing where no fruit is expected to be, things that are attributable either to God or to chance or to Hale Poser the Miracle man. Along with the good and the merely odd, evil things begin to happen, too. A baby is kidnapped, and Mr. Poser may be responsible for her disappearance, or he may be her saviour.

By the time you get this far in the book, I think you’ll be hooked. As you read on, you’ll encounter more “magical realism” but also more and more Biblical allusions and symbolism and more and more food for thought. Hale Poser is Moses, or maybe Noah, or a miracle worker, or a prophet, or maybe a representative of Satan. Pilotville is heaven on earth where black folks and white people work together and help each other and get along, or it’s a hell on earth where things are not at all what they seem to be on the surface. There’s a flood, reminiscent of the Biblical deluge, but also strangely enough, a reminder of recent events in New Orleans, events that hadn’t even occurred at the time that River Rising was written. Even so, the book shows, as Katrina’s devastation showed, that such a flood can be horribly destructive, but also can provide an opportunity for cleansing and for a new beginning.

The novel also explores slavery and race relations using a plot premise that may be as old as the hills but one that I hadn’t thought of before. I don’t want to give anything away, but I was surprised and and intrigued by the basic plot of this story and the possibilities inherent for drawing analogies to spiritual realities.

River Rising was published by Bethany House and is available from Amazon or other bookstores. In case you need more information or persuasion to read this spiritually challenging and fascinating novel, here are a few other blog reviews of River Rising:

Lars Walker: “Buy this book (or at least keep it in mind for when it comes out in paperback). Bethany should be rewarded for publishing something this good, and Athol Dickson ought to be the bestselling novelist in CBA. He ought to be a bestselling novelist in mainstream literature, for that matter.”
Christian Fiction Review: “If this is an example of what Christian fiction will bring us in 2006, we are in for a banner year. Highly Recommended.”
Violet Nesdoly at promptings: “Dickson does not hesitate to sink his teeth into some pretty grand themes.”

Thank you to Bethany House for sending me such an excellent piece of fiction to review.

The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Feb25

This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous. For twenty years I had been perfectly comfortable; for twenty years I had had the window boxes filled in the spring, the carpets lifted, the awnings put up, and the furniture covered with brown linen; for as many summers I had said good-bye to my friends, and, after watching the perspiring hegira, had settled down to a delicious quiet in town, where the mail comes three times a day and the water supply does not depend on a tank on the roof.
And then the madness seized me.

Isn’t that a delicious beginning for a murder mystery? I don’t know why it’s so appealing, but the thought of a middle-aged spinster gone mad, her madness taking the form of renting a house in the country, is amusing and inviting. And of course, such a lapse in sanity can only lead to crime, murder, and mayhem.

Unfortunately, the rest of this 1907 mystery by Mary Roberts Rinehart does not move along quite so swimmingly. I liked the narrator, Miss Innes, and her companion, Liddy, but the rest of the characters were rather flat and one-dimensional. The plot is involved, with more than one villain, and more than one sub-plot, combining together to keep the reader guessing. But I found that three-fourths of the way through the book I didn’t really care whodunnit.

The writing is fun and feels more like the 1920’s than 1907. Rich people near the East Coast drive cars and have telephones and hire servants and hang out at The Club. I sometimes felt as if I were reading an early Americanized Agatha Christie, but where were the quirky characters with such strong motivations to crime? The novel ambles along, people die, but no one in the police department insists on answers to basic questions. The suspects (because they’re rich?) are free to refuse to tell the police detective whatever information they feel disinclined to share—with impunity. Maybe the police were more patient early last century than they are now.

As an historical exhibit in the history of the detective novel, I can see that The Circular Staircase would be of interest to those studying the genre. As amusement for a rainy day, it falls short. But there is that wonderful opening paragraph . . .

An interesting incident of true crime in the life of Mary Roberts Rinehart.
Mrs. Rinehart’s tombstone at Arlington Cemetery and a brief biography
First Lines, Anyone?: A Semicolon flashback

Jewel by Bret Lott

Jan11

Wow! I just found another author/book to add to my list of Semicolon’s 100 Best Fiction Authors Ever (a list which only had 68 authors on it, now 69). I read A Song I Knew By Heart by Bret Lott a little over a year ago, and I thought it was OK. I read it because I had heard that Lott wrote Christian-influenced fiction and because the book was based on the book of Ruth from the Bible. I thought that sounded interesting, and it was.

When I wrote about A Song I Knew By Heart I said that “the plot wasn’t much.” Well, Jewel isn’t about plot either. A Mississippi woman named Jewel grows up poor, marries, has five children, the last of whom is a girl with Down’s Syndrome. The family lives in Mississippi, moves to California, moves back to Mississippi and then back to LA. No thriller here. However, it doesn’t matter how much or how little happens externally in the book; the action is inside the characters. The reader gets to see inside a marriage– that of Jewel and her husband Leston. At the same time we get to see the unfolding relationship of a mother to her children, especially that of a mother and her child with special needs, Brenda Kay. The doctors call Brenda Kay a Mongolian Idiot when she is born; those same doctors tell Jewel to put her daughter away in an institution and forget about her. The attitude of unthinking cruelty and dismissal that most of society has toward Brenda Kay, toward all mentally handicapped individuals in the 1940’s is mirrored in the unthinking and racist attitude that Jewel herself has toward the black people that live all around her. She freely uses the n-word to refer to black people and expects them to wait on her, to defer to her because she is white. Jewel knows that she and her family are nothing but crackers, poor white trash. She calls them that herself. The attitude is captured so well. In Mississippi in the 1940’s black people are servants and children with Down’s Syndrome are freaks. In California, Jewel’s “promised land”, these attitudes begin to break down and change.

In fact, that contrast between California and Mississippi is the only thing in the book that I would argue about with the author. In Jewel Mississippi is a backwoods place; nothing ever changes there. No one has any idea of justice for black people nor of education for the mentally handicapped. And by 1962, nothing has changed for the better. California, on the other hand, is a paradise of racial harmony and opportunity for the mentally handicapped. It’s a story, so I guess the author can make the places the way he wants. But I don’t believe that one place was all good and the other completely dark and full of ignorance.

The language and the images in this book are beautiful. The details of a mother’s thoughts and feelings, of what it’s like to live in poverty, of what it’s like to care for a mentally handicapped child, of what it means to balance the needs of one family member against those of another–all these descriptions and more are drawn artfully and engagingly. The characters in the novel remind me of people I know. Leston is a little like my daddy. Jewel reminds me of my great-grandmother and of my grandmother. I’ve known her sons, Wilmer and Burton, poor, working class and moving up.

In this interview, Bret Lott says that what he writes about is family:

I don�t know what else to write about, that�s the bottom line. I don�t know what else there is to write about. I�m not saying that to be glib or a quick answer. Family, that�s basically everybody�s story. Whether you are writing away from the family or trying to extract from the family or trying to get hold of the family, or the family�s dying or being born, or are you meeting your soul mate or your lover or whatever; it�s all about the family. So, when I�m writing, I�m not thinking about trying to say something so much as to write clearly and in love�what I love and what I hold dear. I know that�s kind of a vague answer, but I don�t want you to think I�m trying to instruct or preach or anything.

If the only thing I know about is family, then what I�m trying to say is that family is all that matters; but that comes out of the fact that that�s all I know what to write about, for better or worse again.

If you like Southern fiction or novels about the inner workings of families, not “dysfunctional” families, just ordinary hard-working folks who are trying to make things work the best they can, Jewel is a masterpiece. I’m definitely going to read some more books by Bret Lott.

Swift Rivers by Cornelia Meigs

Nov17

Yesterday I finished reading this book aloud to Karate Kid and Brown Bear Daughter. We always have a history-related read aloud book going, and this one occupied most of the past three weeks.

Swift Rivers was published in 1932, and it made the Newbery Honor roll in 1933, the same year that Elizabeth Lewis won the Newbery Medal for Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze. The very next year in 1934 Ms. Meigs won the Newbery Medal herself for her biography of Louisa May Alcott called Invincible Louisa. The year of publication is important because children, and adults, who are used to reading more recently published children’s literature will be challenged by the language and somewhat complicated plot line of Cornelia Meigs’s novel about the journey to manhood of a young man who brings a job to completion in spite of many obstacles.

Here’s an example of the language, chosen at random:

“Mr. Howland knew how to put shrewd provocative questions. In half a day’s acquaintance he seemed to have come to understand completely that restless Stuart Hale and his wish to ‘find things, or build something nobody ever thought of building before,’ and that impatience of his, not of study, but of authority over their students of professors whom he deemed no wiser than himself.”

The entire book reads much this same way. The language is somewhat stilted by today’s standards, rich in vocabulary, and very descriptive. Once while I was reading the book aloud, the author used the word “exceedingly.” Karate Kid interrupted, not rudely but just wanting to share with us, and said, “I really like that word ‘exceedingly.’ It sounds good.” I say any author who can make an All-Boy Eight Year Old Karate Kid listen and notice words–and follow the story at the same time, by the way–is a talented writer.

Swift Rivers is the story of eighteen year old Chris Dahlberg, a farm boy in northern Minnesota in the early 1800’s, who decides to make his fortune and take care of his elderly grandfather by running logs down the Mississippi River. Chris and his friend Stuart take the logs all the way to St. Louis and along the way they learn lessons in both forgiveness and persistence. Subplots reinforce the themes: the significance of good character, the necessity for hard work and determination, and the importance of forgiveness and friendship. All these qualities are show to be vital to true manhood and to survival in frontier America.

Karate Kid says he liked the part of the book where they were fighting over the fool’s gold and the part where Chris Dahlberg fought with the Indian. (Can you tell where Karate Kid got his nickname?) And Brown Bear daughter liked the part about the thieves because it was “kind of spooky” and the ending because everything turned out OK. Swift Rivers is a good read aloud book; I wouldn’t send most elementary age children off to read it by themselves. Middle schoolers who love history ought to be able to handle it, and high schoolers could learn a few things from this book about character as well as history.

The Most Dangerous Thing Is Illusion

Oct31

Harry Houdini died of gangrene and peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix on October 31, 1926. Magician dies on Halloween; how odd is that?

Houdini was born in Budapest, Hungary on March 24, 1874. He was the son of a rabbi, and his birth name was Erik Weisz. The family moved to America in about 1878. Erik/Houdini ran away from home at the age of twelve. Houdini worked hard to become a vaudeville magician and entertainer; eventually he concentrated on escapes. He was known as “The King of Handcuffs” and “The Genius of Escape.”

In 1922 Houdini was vacationing with his friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Doyle’s family. He attended a seance with Lady Doyle who claimed to receive a message from Houdini’s deceased and beloved mother. Houdini did not believe in the message, and he and Doyle became estranged over this seance and over Houdini’s continuing efforts to unmask fake and fraudulent “mediums.”

Teaching materials on Harry Houdini from PBS’s The American.Experience.

Born September 20th

Sep20

Upton Sinclair, b. 1878, socialist author of The Jungle, a novel about the meat-packing industry that resulted in passage of The Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) and The Meat Inspection Act (1906)).

Upton Sinclair, letter of resignation from the Socialist Party (September, 1917)

I have lived in Germany and know its language and literature, and the spirit and ideals of its rulers. Having given many years to a study of American capitalism. I am not blind to the defects of my own country; but, in spite of these defects, I assert that the difference between the ruling class of Germany and that of America is the difference between the seventeenth century and the twentieth.

No question can be settled by force, my pacifist friends all say. And this in a country in which a civil war was fought and the question of slavery and secession settled! I can speak with especial certainty of this question, because all my ancestors were Southerners and fought on the rebel side; I myself am living testimony to the fact that force can and does settle questions – when it is used with intelligence.

In the same way I say if Germany be allowed to win this war – then we in America shall have to drop every other activity and devote the next twenty or thirty years to preparing for a last-ditch defence of the democratic principle.

I wonder what Sinclair would say about the war in Iraq were he alive today? Also, just out of curiousity, did anyone else become a vegetarian for a week or two after reading The Jungle in high school? I would strongly suggest that you NOT read Sinclair’s muckraking classic if you are squeamish or if you wish to remain comfortable in your meat-eating habits. Then again, if you want cheap motivation for a healthier diet . . .

The Bible or the Axe by William O. Levi

Sep16

Subtitled “one man’s escape from persecution in the Sudan,” this autobiography reads like a novel. Wiliam Levi, the founder and president of Operation Nehemiah, was born in a village in Southern Sudan and grew up in Uganda in exile from his native land as a result of persecution and war in Sudan during the 1960’s. He returned to Sudan as a young teenager to go to school, but soon found that Islamic persecution intensified and interfered with his schooling and, eventually, threatened his life. At one point, William and couple of other young men decide to flee to Kenya in hopes of continuing their education. They are arrested, however, and charged with intending to join the Southern rebels against the government in Khartoum, the SPLA.

It’s funny what you think about when you know you are marked for death. Perversely, I was filled with regret that I would not be able to go to school. When you are seventeen, you have your whole life ahead of you; but for me, the desire to finish school was the first thing that came to my mind. (p. 183)

William experiences torture but is able to escape from the custody of the Sudanese government soldiers. He and his family see that he must leave Sudan, and William eventually travels to Egypt, then Turkey, then France, and finally seeks asylum in the United States. Throughout all his travels and adventures, William remains faithful to God and to his vision for obtaining an education for the sake of serving his people in Southern Sudan.

I was impressed with several things in William Levi’s life as I read his story. First of all, he is passionate about becoming educated. His family sacrifices for the sake of William’s education, and his first thought after gaining asylum in the U.S. is to further his education. Oh, that our children would realize the value of education and the riches that they have here in the United States in being able to pursue an education amid an abundance of educational resources.

Secondly, I am inspired by Mr. Levi’s steadfast faith. At his baptism, William’s grandfather gives him a choice of weapons: the Bible or the axe? Wiliam consistently chooses the Bible and faith as his weapons to defeat both earthly and spiritual enemies. None of his struggles are made to seem easy, either, whether it’s the difficulty of living with worldly roomates or the confusion of not knowing where God is leading and how He will provide. The Christian life requires faith in a God who is there even when we cannot see His ways, and the story of William Levi gives numerous examples of the real life application of this kind of faith.

Finally, I see in William Levi a man who is dedicated to service in the name of Jesus Christ. At the very end of the book, Mr. Levi concludes:

In 1972, there was a peace accord, but eleven years later it was followed by renewed oppression and genocide. Please help us build a strong and united biblically based Christian community in the South Sudan and throughout the entire country during this window of opportunity.

He then tells about some of the ministries of the Nehemiah Project: church planting, education, trade school, health care, ministry to Sudanese widows and orphans, investment in micro-businesses, agricultural projects and construction and infrastructure projects. Surely ministries like this one and projects that are grounded in a deep Christian faith are the hope of Sudan and of Africa. The novel I read a few months ago, Acts of Faith by Philip Caputo does a good job of showing the problems and the temptations inherent in any kind of relief work, especially in Sudan and northern Africa. This true story, The Bible or the Axe? sounds a note of hope. The problems and divisions in the Sudan are rooted so deeply in history and in the sinfulness of the human heart that Christ is the only hope.