Archives

Before There Were Blogs

Sep30

Nowadays for snippets of information, household tips, news analysis, and humorous and autobiographical stories, I go to the internet, usually to blogs. Ten or more years ago I had a subscription to Reader’s Digest. It served much the same purpose, “an article a day of enduring significance.”

Dewitt and Lila Wallace founded the Reader’s Digest Association in 1922.
Their vision for the company was based on a simple notion that people did
not have enough time to read all that was being published, and that people
needed a reading service that selected editorial material to inform, enrich,
entertain and inspire.

The result of the Wallaces’ vision was a pocket-sized magazine, sold at an
annual subscription that would provide an article a day of lasting
interest – and of enduring significance – in condensed form. Today the
magazine offers a mix of engaging original and republished content to appeal
to contemporary tastes. It is the largest-selling magazine in the world,
published in 48 editions and 19 languages, and sold in more than 60
countries.

So how much “enduring significance” did those Reader’s Digest articles contain? Well, it just so happens that I have a lot of those old magazines collecting dust on a top shelf in my bedroom. I thought it would be fun to look at one every now and then and see how significant and enduring it was.

Reader’s Digest, September, 1974.

Current events: a compilation of articles and opinions on the possible eminent impeachment of Richard Nixon (didn’t happen), another on the “rise and fall of the Symbionese Liberation Army” (whatever happened to Patty Hearst?), and still others on busing, Teamsters and the underworld, and the real cost of foreign aid. All of these pieces, while maybe of some historical interest, are dated, not enduring.

“The Colonies Must Be Punished!” by O.K. Armstrong is one of a series of articles, called Great Moments in American History: Bicentennial Feature; this particular article deals with the reaction in Britain and the colonies to the Boston Tea Party. I remember the Bicentennial celebration in 1976. On the Fourth of July, 1976, I was on my way to a youth evangelism conference in Dallas/Fort Worth. For a long time after that, through college, I had the T-shirt with bicentennial colors to prove it. Date yourself; where were you in July 1976?

Back to Reader’s Digest, September, 1974, there are some useful tips on how to make your houseplants behave, how not to get gyped by your auto-repairman, and how to reduce college costs. There’s the obligatory diet article, called “Beware the Diet Saboteur.” “Thousands of people are unable to reduce, obesity specialists find, because their kinfolk knowingly or unknowingly undercut their efforts.” The “psycho-analyze yourself” article is called “What Are You Afraid Of?” and gives us eight suggestions for coping with fear.

Merle Haggard and Sheik Ahmed Zaki al-Yamani get biographical profiles, not in the same articles.

The “special feature” at the end of the magazine is “Solzhenitsyn: Conscience of a Nation.” Enduring significance, yes.

He does not want his country remade in the image of the modern, free-enterprise West. In fact, to some of his admirers, this fierce clinging to everything Russian, including the old concepts of the Russian earth, Russian people, the spiritual values inherent in backward Russia, is one of his limitations as a man and a writer. But it is also one of his greatest sources of strength.

Finally, there’s a kidlit note:

Statement on the copyright page of Toolchest by Jan Adkins: “We have gone to considerable difficulty and expense to assemble a staff of necromancers, sorcerers, shamans, conjurers and lawyers to visit nettlesome and mystifying discomfort on any ninny who endeavors to reproduce or transmit this book in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission from the publisher. Watch yourself!”

By the way, Toolchest is a beautiful, old children’s book. It’s out of print, but available used from Amazon.

Two Books by Nevil Shute

Sep27

On the Beach by British author Nevil Shute was published in 1957, the same year I was born. It tells the story of the last survivors of a nuclear war that has left enough radioactive fallout to eventually blanket the entire globe and annihilate all humankind. Almost the last inhabitable places are near Melbourne in southern Australia. The book is set in and near Melbourne and begins with T.S. Eliot’s famous words:

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river . . .

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.


On the Beach may be the saddest book I’ve ever read. I’d add it to my list of Best Tear-Jerkers, but it’s not exactly a tear-jerker. It’s just ineffably sad. The world is ending with a whimper, and Shute describes the effect of that sort of hopeless situation on a group of rather ordinary people. I have a few quibbles with the way he describes it all; I think there might be more religion, and more violence at the same time, in such a world, but maybe it would be just as Shute says. I hope I never live in such a time and place to find out. This book was fascinating, in a morbid sort of way, but it’s as close as I want to get to the edge of hopelessness.

Nevil Shute Norway was an aviation engineer who started his own aircraft company and worked on the development of secret weapons for the British during World War II. Before and after the war, he worked as a novelist and wrote a total of twenty-four novels. He’s said to be better at plots than at characterization, but I found his characters in On the Beach and A Town Like Alice, the other of his books I read, to be quite memorable. Commander Dwight Towers of the U.S. Navy is a law-abiding faithful Dobbin of a ship’s captain who nevertheless is attracted to Moira, an Australian party girl. Jean Paget, in A Town Like Alice, is a heroine of uncommon depth and character although it takes a war and the Australian outback to bring out all the resources she finds within herself.

I must say something more about A Town Like Alice, especially since it was my favorite of the two books by Nevil Shute that I read. If the the two books have a common theme it’s that of ordinary people responding to extraordinary circumstances with courage and ingenuity. Much more upbeat than On the Beach, A Town Like Alice is a novel in two parts. The first part is about Jean Paget, one of eighty women captured by the Japanese on the Malay pennisula and then marched from place to place because their captors don’t know what to do with them. (This first part of the novel is based on a true event that happened in Sumatra rather than Malaya.) The second part of the story takes place in Australia as Jean comes to see that she is more than just a survivor; she’s also a builder, able to grow and thrive in the Australian desert.

Engineer Nevil Shute Norway does know how to tell a good story. I recommend both of the books I read. Just don’t choose On the Beach for a day when you’re already depressed about life and the world in general. It’s more appropriate for the times when you’re feeling a little cocky and need a bit of a sobering reality check. A Town Like Alice is useful for inspiration and a good, decent story.

On the Beach and A Town Like Alice have both been made into movies, each one twice in fact. The 1959 version of On the Beach starred Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astair, and Anthony Perkins. Nevil Shute hated the movie, but it made him famous and probably scared the heck out of a whole bunch of people.

Links:
Nevil Shute Norway Foundation.
Will Duquette at View from the Foothills has reviewed several of Nevil Shute’s novels.

Visit Semicolon’s Amazon Store for more great book recommendations.

Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon by Dhan Gopal Mukerji

Aug16

If you’re interested in carrier pigeons, or pet birds, or India, or birds used in war, this Newbery award book from 1928 might just fit the bill. Yes, it’s somewhat dated in style and content. Yes, the first half of the book is a nature story reminiscent of Jean Craighead George’s books such as The Other Side of the Mountain, and the second half changes focus and deals with themes of fear, war, and religion. Yes, the narration jumps back and forth from the boy who owns and trains the pigeon to Gay-Neck himself telling his own story by means of “the grammar of fancy and the dictionary of imagination.” Yes, its audience would probably be limited, but I think there are some children and adults, especially nature lovers and bird lovers, who would really like this book.

Dhan Gopal Mukerji was born near Calcutta in 1890 and came to the United States at the age of nineteen. So, I’m fairly sure he gets the atmosphere of life for a boy in early twentieth century India. Mukerji wrote other nature stories, including Kari the Elephant and Hari the Jungle Lad. In Gay-Neck, Mukerji gives a lot of information about pigeons and about training pigeons, and he imparts that information by means of a fascinating story of the adventures of one particular pigeon, Gay-Neck or Chitra-griva.

The descriptions of the pigeons’ defense against their enemies, eagles and hawks, and of their capacity to deliver messages even in the midst of battle are detailed enough to make the reader feel as if he could go out, purchase a pigeon, and begin training tomorrow. And it sounds like fun. As an adult and a non-animal lover, I’m sure it’s not that simple, but don’t be surprised if a child, after reading this book, wants his own bird to train and watch and admire.

Gay-neck is admirable. Even when he gives in to fear after a deadly encounter with a predatory hawk, and again after his war experiences, Gay-Neck is able to make a comeback. “Love for his mate and the change of place and climate healed him of fear, that most fell disease.”

The story does take place in India, and it’s filled with lamas and monks and Hindu or Buddhist prayer and meditation. If that’s going to bother you or confuse your child, but you still want a book about training pigeons or about India, try something else. However, if you can appreciate the story as a picture of another place and another time, a vivid portrait of a boy and his pet bird, and a good imaginary tale of India and its culture and a childhood in the Indian countryside, you should enjoy this book

Gay-Neck is a good homeschool book. It would make a fun read aloud for children who haven’t been spoiled by too much action in TV and movies. Gay-Neck has lots of action, war and predators and natural disasters, but the reader or listener must have an imagination to appreciate the story. Gay-Neck would be good to read during a science study of birds or ecosystems, or as we’re doing, during a study of India and its culture. The boy in the story spends most of his time with his pigeons, caring for them and training them, and he learns a great deal about birds and about communication and about fear and courage. I can see a homeschooled child making the raising of pigeons a cross-curricular project and learning more than just how to train birds, too.

Finally, I leave you with a sample of Mukerji’s observations on nature, especially animal life:

I thought, “The buffalo that in nature looks healthy and silken, in a zoo is a mangy creature with matted mane and dirty skin. Can those who see buffalo in captivity ever conceive how beautiful they can be? What a pity that most young people instead of seeing one animal in nature–which is worth a hundred in any zoo–must derive their knowledge of God’s creatures from their appearance in prisons! If we cannot perceive any right proportion of man’s moral nature by looking at prisoners in a jail, how do we manage to think that we know all about an animal by gazing at him penned in a cage?”

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale

Aug3

I just finished this Newbery Honor book, and I loved it. Shannon Hale has a way with characters, plot and words. I wrote about another of her books, Goose Girl, here.

Princess Academy is the story of a group of uneducated mountain girls who are chosen to attend the Princess Academy. One of the girls will be chosen to marry the Prince and become the new Princess of Danland. Miri, the central character of the novel, is not sure she even wants to become the princess, but she does want to learn and excel at the academy. And she does want to do something extraordinary to prove to her village and to her Pa that she is not useless even though she is not allowed to work in quarry with the rest of the villagers.

There are some fairy tale elements to this story, but mostly it’s a story about teenage girls thrown into a challenging situation, about they cope with adversity, about how they relate to one another, about their growth from children into adults. I looked immediately after I finished the book to see if Miri was on JKR’s list of Cool Girls of Children’s Literature. She was, of course. Miri is definitely “smart, brave, funny, and independent.’ However, she does have some growing up to do in this book, some decisions to make, and an important realization to attain.

Have all the girls in your life read this book. Some of the boys might enjoy it, too. Read it yourself for a dose of growing up realism in the midst of fairyland. I think this book should have won the Newbery Award instead of being a runner-up, but it wins my award for 2005 anyway.

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

Wind, Sand, and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Jul8

I did manage to find this 1939 book and read it:
“And these human relations must be created. One must go through an apprenticeship to learn the job. Games and risk are a help here. When we exchange manly handshakes, compete in races, join together to save one of us who is in trouble, cry aloud for help in the hour of danger —only then do we learn that we are not alone on earth.” p. 29

“What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.It is always the same step, but you have to take it.” p.38

“Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction. There is no comradeship except through union in the same high effort.” p. 215

I think I’ve read that last quotation in a greeting card somewhere, but that only makes it shopworn, perhaps, not untrue. Saint Exupery’s strength in Wind, Sand, and Stars is the stories he tells about his almost death of dehydration stranded in the Sahara desert, about his experiences in Spain during the Spanish civil war, about flying over the Pyrenees and the Andes. To get those stories, you’ll have to read the book.

His diagnosis of the plight of mankind and the cause of war is not so profound. He says that we all believe in something, and “fulfillment is promised each of us by his religion.” All beliefs are essentially the same, and we must not discuss ideologies. We must instead understand that “what all of us want is to be set free.” “There are two hundred million men in Europe whose existence has no meaning and who yearn to come alive,” writes Saint Exupery.

I don’t know if Saint Exupery was a Christian although he was educated in Jesuit schools. Nevertheless, he ends his book with these rather cryptic words: “Only the Spirit, if it breathe upon the clay, can create Man.”

Read the book, and his other classic Le Petit Prince and draw your own conclusions.

Galveston’s Summer of the Storm by Julie Lake

Jun27

Fried chicken and pinto beans. “I’d give my eyetooth” and “getting a goose egg on your head.” Iceboxes and clotheslines and feather beds and porch swings. Dr. Pepper and lemonade to drink. Playing dominoes in the parlour and croquet in the front yard. Hand-cranked ice cream and watermelon. The Tremont Hotel and Ashton Villa in Galveston and Hyde Park in Austin. I could tell that Julie Lake is a native Texan when I read about all these things and even more Texas-y stuff in this fiction book for elementary age children about the Galveston hurricane of 1900.

I read Isaac’s Storm by about a month ago, so it was interesting to compare the information in these two very different books about the same event. Isaac’s Storm is nonfiction, written for adult readers, and would be good background material for teachers or older children who read Ms. Lake’s book for fun or as an introduction to a study of hurricanes and natural disasters or Texas history.

Published by TCU Press, this story takes a long time to lead up to the crisis of the hurricane —all summer long, in fact. Fourteen year old Abby Kate is visiting her grandmother in Galveston for a few weeks. Illness in the family at home in Austin means that Abby Kate must stay in Galveston for a lot longer than originally planned. And she’s still there on September 9, 1900 when the deadliest disaster to ever hit the United States comes to Galveston Island, a category four hurricane.

I’m not sure that someone from, say Michigan, would enjoy this book quite the same way I did. The familiar colloquialisms and the comfort foods and the Texas details were so much fun. However, it’s a good story in its own right, and especially timely as we face another hurricane season a year after Katrina and Rita reminded us that even in the twenty-first century hurricanes can still wreak havoc. Not only does Ms. Lake spend several chapters leading up to the hurricane’s arrival, her descriptions of the event itself are vivid and compelling. Then the reader gets to see how people on the Island and on the mainland coped with the aftermath of the hurricane.

Lots of historical detail, information about sailing ships and steam trains, and book characters that make the history come to life all make this book an excellent choice for middle grade (3-6) readers and classrooms. I’m thinking that we could use it a the basis for a unit study in our homeschool co-op, tie in a field trip or two to Galveston and to the Weather Service. Yes, I definitely recommend this one for Texas readers and for others who are interested in the turn of the century history and or in Texas history or in the history of natural disasters.

Isaac’s Storm by Eric Larson

Jun1

“As we watched from the porch were amazed and delighted to see the water from the Gulf flowing down the street. ‘Good,’ we thought, ‘there would be no need to walk the few blocks to play at the beach, it was right at our front gate.'”


The deadliest hurricane in U.S. history was not the one that hit New Orleans last year. It was the Galveston hurricane of September 8,1900; author Eric Larson calls it “Isaac’s Storm.” (Hurricanes did not begin receiving official names from the U.S. Weather Bureau until the late 1940’s.) Isaac Cline was the chief weatherman for the U.S. Weather Bureau on Galveston Island in the year of the hurricane.

This history is not the best organized one I’ve ever read. The narrative skips back forth from Thursday to Saturday to Friday and back again. However, I did learn some fascinating facts about the Galveston Hurricane and about Isaac Cline:

1) Before being sent to Galveston, Isaac Cline was stationed at Fort Concho in West Texas, a fact which is of interest to me because I was born and grew up in San Angelo, Texas, the town that formed in the shadow of Fort Concho.

2) On Galveston Island at least 6000 people died in the hurricane, possibly as many as 10,000. Records were not carefully kept, and the dead had to be buried or burned rather quickly to prevent disease.

3) In 1891 Isaac Cline wrote that “[t]he coast of Texas is according to the general laws of the motion of the atmosphere exempt from West India hurricanes and the two which have reached it followed an abnormal path which can only be attributed to causes known in meteorology as accidental.” The two hurricanes of which he wrote struck Indianola, Texas in 1875 and again in 1886. After the second hurricane, the town was abandoned.

4) After the Indianola hurricanes, the residents of Galveston did make plans to build a seawall, but it was never built—until after 1900.

5) The storm surge in 1900 covered the island with water, uprooted trees, toppled houses, and carried masses of debris that did as much damage as the water itself.

6) Isaac Cline’s pregnant wife, Cora, died in the hurricane, and Cline’s brother, Joseph, who also worked for the Weather Bureau, became estranged from Isaac apparently as a result of the events of that day.

The most interesting aspect of the story was the failure of the U.S. Weather Service to warn Galveston of the approaching hurricane. Weather forecasting methods were not as sophisticated or accurate as they are now, but other problems included a rivalry between the U.S. Weather Bureau in Cuba and Cuban weather forecasters and a reluctance to frighten the public with possibly false alarms. In fact weather forecasters were not even allowed to use the word “hurricane” in their forecasts without permission from Washington. This failure followed upon the the failure of the weather service to warn the public of the Blizzard of 1888 and both caused people to further lose faith in the ability of the weather service to predict storms and precipitated changes in the organization and leadership of the weather bureau in order to improve its performance.

Nevertheless, we are dealing with some of the same problems today. When is it prudent and/or necessary to tell the people of a large metropolitan area to evacuate in the face of a possible hurricane? How accurately, even now, is it possible to predict the path of such a hurricane? Can we trust the instructions given by government bureaucrats, or should we trust our own judgment? Even as the freeways backed up and became impassable in Houston before Rita, we were being told not to leave yet, but rather to wait until the next day. Was this advice, heeded by hardly anyone, good or bad? Would it really be possible to evacuate Galveston Island and the coastal areas behind the Island and up towards Houston in the face of a major storm? Would people listen to evacuation notices, or was Rita the “false alarm” that would cause people to stay home and take their chances rather than face gridlock and dehydration and gas lines on the freeways again?

Lots of unanswered questions even 100 years after the Galveston Hurricane that practically destroyed that city once. By the way, hurricane season in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico officially begins today.

Summer Reading Challenge

May24

I’m quite fond of setting goals and making lists and formulating plans —even though I don’t follow through very well. So when I found Amanda’s Summer Reading Challenge, I joined up immediately. Here are my summer reading goals:

1. Read 10 Newbery Award or Newbery Honor books that I’ve not read before.

2. Re-read five books from my (college) Advanced Reading Survey course, and post about them here.

3. Read as many of the books that I bought at the used book sale as I can.

4. Read at least three of the books from the list I gave my AP US history students, three that I’ve not already read. Here’s the list I gave my students. They’re supposed to choose one to read over the summer.

Foster, Genevieve. The World of Columbus and Sons.
Bradford, William. The History of Plymouth Plantation.
Edwards, Jonathan. Personal Narrative.
Forbes, Esther. Paul Revere and the World He Lived In.
Marrin, Albert. The War for Independence.
Bowen, Carolyn Drinker. Miracle in Philadelphia
Ambrose, Stephen. Undaunted Courage.
Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America
Ambrose, Stephen. Nothing Like It In the World.
Douglass, Frederick. Life of an American Slave.
Blumberg, Rhoda. Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun.
McPherson, James. Battle Cry of Freedom.
Shaara, Michael. The Killer Angels.
Oates, Stephen B. With Malice Toward None.
Stone, Irving. Men To Match My Mountains.
Addams, Jane. Twenty Years at Hull House.
Riis, Jacob. How the Other Half Lives.
Strasser, Susan. Never Done.
Washington, Booker T. Up From Slavery.
Terkel. Studs. Hard Times.
Ambrose, Stephen, Band of Brothers.
Houston, Jeanne. Farewell to Manzanar
Williams, Juan. Eyes on the Prize.
Haley, Alex. The Autobiography of Malcom X.
Kennedy, John F. Profiles in Courage.
Lewis, Anthony. Gideon’s Trumpet.
Colson, Chuck. Born Again.
Bernstein, Carl and Robert Woodward. All the President’s Men.

I’ve already read the ones in bold print. Any suggestions for which US history books I should start with? Do you have any suggestions for which Newbery Award books I should not miss? I’ve actually read a lot of those.

If you’re having trouble setting your own reading goals for the summer, Amanda also has a few suggestions for you.

The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington

May23

The only other book I’ve read by Booth Tarkington was Penrod, a story about a mischievous boy growing up around the turn of the century. I remember it as funny and profound upon the subject of boyhood, kind of like Tom Sawyer.

The Magnificent Ambersons, aside from the time period, the early 1900’s, and the setting, the American Midwest, is not at all like Penrod. As an under current in the book, Tarkington preaches about the general nastiness and inevitability of urban sprawl and how the automobile and the factory have destroyed community and cleanliness and all that makes life worthwhile. Preaching aside, Mr. Tarkington still manages to tell an engaging story, a sort of family epic, the rise and fall of the Ambersons.

Georgie Amberson Minafer is a spoiled rich brat, reared in luxury and with a sense of entitlement. The Ambersons, George’s mother’s family, are the center of society in their “Midland town.” From the beginning of the novel, the author sets Georgie up for disaster; the entire town is waiting for George Amberson Minafer to get his “come-upance”. As George grows up the reckoning is delayed again and again, but the most casual reader must know that George’s pride goeth before a fall. George’s favorite word for other people, all others who aren’t Ambersons, is “riff-raff”. His attitude can only and always be described as condescending, even with the young lady with whom he falls in love.

So, The Magnificent Ambersons is first of all a cautionary tale. Pride is destructive. Things change; no one stays on top forever. Fortunes come and go. Only those who are strong, wise, and flexible, and maybe even lucky, can persevere to enjoy the good life.

However, the book is not just a preachy, moralistic fable. It’s a picture of life at the turn of the century, of how change affects different personalities. It’s a love story about a mother who idolizes her son, and a young man who loves his family pride more than he cares for the woman who is willing to overlook many of his faults and who could have made him happy. And the ending is about forgiveness and hope and the possibility that broken things can be, if not mended, perhaps made new.

I’ve not seen the Orson Welles movie based on this book, but I plan to do so. After reading the novel, I can see how this book would make a great “old movie”. No modern remakes, however, nowadays a writer and director would most likely ruin the movie version with gratuitous sex and a plot in which only the characters’ names were borrowed from the original book.

A Work in Progress review of The Magnificent Ambersons.

Picture Book Preschool Book of the Week: #21

May21

Heilbroner, Joan. Robert the Rose Horse. Illustrated by P.D. Eastman. Random House, 1962.

Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat was published in 1957, as was Little Bear by Else Homlelund Minarik. These two are the classic easy readers, published by Random House and Harper and Row, respectively. In the late 50’s and in the 1960’s and 70’s, books for beginning readers became trendy. Lots of libraries separated the easy readers from the picture books so that beginning readers could easily find the books they could read all by themselves.

Robert the Rose Horse is another one of those old classic beginning readers, published in 1962, back when easy readers were just becoming popular with publishers and in libraries. The book tells the story of Robert, a horse who leaves his country home because he is allergic to roses. Although Robert’s allergy is the central driving plot element of the story, the words “allergy” and “allergic” are never used, of course. Robert sneezes, and the story progresses. Robert is a sort of funny, anthropomorphized, horse, too. He carries a suitcase and walks on his hind legs, except when he’s working as a cart horse. Then he needs all four feet on the ground. And he never talks to the people in the story, but he seems to be able to communicate with them quite well.

None of these oddities detracts from the delightful story of Robert, an ordinary horse with a mild disability (his allergy) who overcomes his problems with perseverance and courage. Robert the Rose Horse is one of my favorite characters. His story is not only fun for young beginning readers; it’s also fun to read aloud with preschoolers. I like making (faking) Robert’s sneezes, and my urchins enjoy reading about the bank robbery that turns Robert into a hero.

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.