Archives

The Higher Power of Lucky and Another Place at the Table

Apr30

Another Place at the Table by Kathy Harrison. Not a children’s fiction title, this book reminded me of the dozens of women I know who are just like author Kathy Harrison, foster moms and adoptive moms who are called and able to parent damaged and abused children who come to their homes via CPS with love, courage, patience, and realism. In fact, I know of a little girl right now who’s adopted and in need of a heart transplant. She’s four years old, and her adoptive mom is pouring out her life at the hospital, taking care of and praying for C. Would you say a prayer for them, too?

The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron. I read these two books back to back, by chance, and they meshed well. Another Place is nonfiction about one couple’s experience as foster parents in Massachusetts. The Higher Power of Lucky is Newbery Award winning fiction about Lucky, a young resident of hard Pan, CA (pop. 43, whose guardian is Brigitte, her father’s first wife from France. Lucky’s mom died in an accident, and Lucky is just as insecure about her place in the world and her future as are many of Mrs. Harrison’s foster children. The Higher Power of Lucky should be comforting and familiar for children like Lucky who live in fosterhomes and other insecure situations, and it mught just help the rest of us understand those children a little better. On top of that, it’s a good story and one which will add new words to some vocabularies (scrotum, crevice, commodity, cremation).

I recommend Another Place at the Table for anyone considering foster parenting or foster-to-adopt. ALso, people like me who are interested in children and in mental health issues should be able to learn something from Mrs. Harrison’s account of her experiences, both good and bad, in the foster care system. I recommend The Higher Power of Lucky for its quirky characters and setting and its true-to-life description of the thoughts and feelings of a kid trying to survive in a family and in a community that are both a little shaky and unstable at times.

Quirky Quotations:

“Lucky had a little place in her heart where there was a meanness gland. The meanness gland got active sometimes when Miles was around. She knew he knew he had to do what Lucky wanted, because if he didn’t , she’d never be nice to him. Sometimes, with that meanness gland working, Lucky liked being mean to Miles.”
(Don’t we all have one of those glands? I believe Christians call it a sin nature.)

” . . . the valve that kept secrets locked up in Lucky’s heart was clamped shut.”

“It made her feel discouraged, like if you took the word apart into sections of dis and couraged. It was getting harder and harder to stay couraged.”

“The sky arched up forever, nothing but a sheet of blue, hiding zillions of stars and planets and galaxies that were up there all the time, even when you couldn’t see them. It was kind of peaceful and so gigantic it made your brain feel rested. It made you feel like you could become anything you wanted, like you were filled up with nothing but hope.”

So, in spite of death (her mother) and desertion (by her father), Lucky’s got “a sense of hope.” And I, for one, am a lot more concerned about that aspect of a children’s book than about any scrotal references.

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

Apr25

I think this book is the kind of fantasy/fairy tale that I would have liked very much had I read it at a different time in my life or when I wasn’t feeling ill or something. As it was, I could see that it was a good story, even a great story, but somehow I didn’t appreciate it properly. There were some wonderful passages about books and reading and some episodes that made me think that the author might be quite profound if only I could figure out what profound thought it was that lay just beneath the surface of the story.

Bastian Balthazar Bux is a great name for a main character, I must say.

No, I’ve never seen the movie.

“I wonder,” he said to himself, “what’s in a book while it’s closed. Oh, I know it’s full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must be happening, because as soon as I open it, there’s a whole story with people I don’t know yet and all kinds of adventures and deeds and battles. And sometimes there are storms at sea, or it takes you to strange cities and countries. All those things are somehow shut up in a book. Of course, you have to read it to find out. But it’s already there, that”s the funny thing. I just wish I knew how it could be.”

Book Review: Bella at Midnight, by Diane Stanley

Apr20

newonce2
Note from Sherry: This book is on my list for the Once Upon a Time Challenge because Brown Bear Daughter read it and enjoyed it so much. I haven’t read it yet, but she did and here’s her review:

I wasn’t too enthusiastic about reading this book at first. I didn’t think I would like it very much, though I love a few others similar to it (Ella Enchanted, to name one). Nevertheless, I did read it, and I really enjoyed it. I like books with romance in them almost as much as I like depressing books, and this was a romantic book.

The whole book is in first person, but the chapters switch from character to character narrating, which was interesting. (I wrote a story like that except that it switched between two characters while this one switched between many more than two.) I really liked this because it gave me different views of different people though of the same situation.

It starts with Maud, the title character (Bella’s) aunt, narrating. She is sent a letter from her brother-in-law, which said that her sister, was pregnant and that he wanted Maud to be there during the birth. Maud, greatly surprised at this because her brother had never shown any interest in her family except for her sister and had moved his family away soon after the marriage, rode quickly to Sir Edward, to her brother-in-law’s, house. There, Catherine, her sister, gave birth to a baby girl named Isabel, but died soon afterwards. Maud gives the baby to Beatrice, who fosters Isabel for a time. Beatrice has also fostered Julian, a prince of Moranmoor, who, when he was about three years old, left them. He came back to visit them, however, and there he met Isabel, still a baby. He could not pronounce her name, so he called her “Bella.” Later, when many events have changed Bella’s life to where she lives with her unloving father and his harsh, new wife, Bella discovers that the life of Julian may be in danger. Julian, who is a truce hostage at a neighboring kingdom, is far away and Bella despairs of warning him soon enough to save his life.

I liked this book for its adventure and romance. It’s too bad I’m not going to give away the ending, which is one of the best parts of the entire story. You’ll just have to read it.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born April 12th

Apr12

Johanna Spyri, b. 1827. I have found birthdates of April 12, June 12, and July 12, all in 1827, for this author of the beautiful story Heidi. Take your pick, but read Heidi. It’s a wonderful story about a feisty little girl, Heidi, and her friend Peter and how they are tempted to do wrong, confused about spiritual things, and finally loved and forgiven. The themes of the story—broken relationships, reconciliation, forgiveness, sin and temptation–are woven into the story in a way that teaches and entertains at the same time. Modern writers of “Christian fiction” could learn a few things from reading and emulating Johanna Spyri’s classic book.

Henry Clay, b. 1877. He ran for president and was defeated three times. Always a bridesmaid . . .

Hardie Gramatky, b. 1907. Author of Hercules: The Story of an Old-Fashioned Fire Engine and Little Toot.

Beverly Cleary, b. 1916, is 91 years old today, and the celebration includes D.E.A.R. Day. Do all you children’s literature aficionados know what D.E.A.R. stands for? Have you D.E.A.R.-ed today?

Resurrection Reading: The Hawk and the Dove by Penelope Wilcock

Apr4

It was Easter, two years after Father Peregrine had come to be their abbott. Easter, the greatest feast of the Christian year, and all the local people had come up to the abbey, and the guest house was full of pilgrims come to celebrate the feast of the Resurrection. So many people, so many processions, so much music! So many preparations to be made by the singers, the readers, those who served at the altar and those served in the guest house, not to mention those who worked in the kitchens and the stables. The abbey was bursting with guests, neighbors, relatives, and strangers.

The Easter Vigil was mysterious and beautiful, with the imagery of fire and water and the Paschal candle lit in the great, vaulted dimness of the abbey church. Brother Gilbert the precentor’s voice mounted joyfully in the triumphant beauty of the Exultet; all the bells rang out for the risen Lord, and the voices of the choirboys from the abbey school soared with heart-breaking loveliness in the music declaring the risen life of Jesus. Easter Day itself was radiant with sunshine for once, as well as celebration. Oh, the joyful splendor of a church crammed full of people, a thundering of voices singing, ‘Credo –I believe.’

Another trilogy, another book for the whole family, children, teenagers, and adults, another resurrection reading. I re-read The Hawk and the Dove by Penelope Wilcock over the Palm Sunday weekend and found it as inspiring and insightful as ever. In the books, an English mother tells her daughters, especially her fifteen-going-on-grown-up daughter Melissa, stories about their long ago ancestor, the abbot of a Benedictine abbey, and the monks under his care. The stories are deceptively simple and quotidian: stories of forgiveness asked and given, monks who are injured and need healing, others who don’t fit into the abbey life and must learn to do so. However, these are the same issues that Melissa, her mother and sisters must deal with in daily family life, and they’re the same things we try to iron out and work through here at Semicolon House.

In the other two books in the trilogy, the brothers of St. Alcuin monastery continue to work together and grow in community. They also grow older and must confront the difficulties that old age brings in its train. In fact, the third book in the series is about death and dying and living with serious impairments —all to the glory of God. It’s quite timely in these days of “death with diginity” and compassion redefined as hurrying the dying into death, but it may be a bit too much for children. Again, I think the entire family will enjoy the first two books in the trilogy.

A few more excerpts:

“Theodore saw his hopes of a new beginning turn to ashes in the miserable discovery that even men who had given their whole lives to follow Christ could be irritable, sharp-tongued, and hasty.” How many new Christians upon becoming involved in a church have stumbled over that particular realization? Monasteries, and churches, are simply places for imperfect people to come and begin to learn to serve and show kindness and love, not places where the already perfected live in flawless harmony.

Fifteen year old Melissa to her teacher in English class: “Mother says, that love is only true love when it shows itself in fidelity, —ummmm, faithfulness. She says if a person has the feeling of love, but no faithfulness, his love is just self-indulgent sentimentality. And that’s what Shelley was like, isn’t it? He wrote fine peoms to his wife and his lovers, but he wasn’t a faithful man. So how can his poetry about love be worth anything if his love in real life wasn’t worth anything?” From the mouths of babes, can an untrue person write truly? Can he write true poetry that he hasn’t lived in some fashion, however imperfectly?

“Mother said these stories were true, and I never knew her tell a lie . . . but then you could never be quite sure what she meant by “truth”; fact didn’t always come into it.”

I assure you that the stories in Ms. Wilcock’s Hawk and the Dove trilogy are quite true —as fiction sometimes is.

The Dark Frigate by Charles Boardman Hawes

Feb15

Philip Marsham was bred to the sea as far back as the days when he was cutting his milk teeth, and he never thought he should leave it; but leave it he did, once and again, as I shall tell you.

Book #2 in my 2007 Newbery Award Project is Charles Hawes’ tale of adventure and piracy in a seventeenth century sailing frigate, The Rose of Devon. It’s a “dark frigate” because of the dark deeds that take place in and around it as the ship is captured by pirates, and the hero of the story, young Philip Marsham, is forced to join the pirates against his will —or lose his life.

In an introductory note on back of the dedication page, Hawes writes, “From curious old books, many of them forgotten save by students of archaic days at sea, I have taken words and phrases and incidents. The words and phrases I have put into the talk of the men of the Rose of Devon; the incidents I have shaped and fitted anew to serve my purpose.”

Lots of sailor talk and sea-going jargon in this book: mainmast, mizzenmast, scupper-holes, lee, maintop, lanthorn, forecastle, capstan, windlass, sheet anchor, ship’s liar, boatswain, bullies, whip-staff, breeching, sheet, brace, halyards, clew garnets, leechlines, buntlines, aft, amain, downhaul, traverse, gall, belay, spritsail-yard. Those are just a few of the words for which I had to guess at the meanings from only one chapter. It might be well to do a short lesson on nautical terms before reading this book aloud to a class or at home.

There were also some delightful insults that I’m sure any red-blooded child would love to write down and save for later use: lobcock, lapwing, puddling quacksalver, vagabond cockerel, old cozzener, rakehell muckworm, base stinkard, bawcock. (I’m rather attached to “puddling quacksalver” myself.) Of course, I would never allow a child of mine to use such terms in polite company, but then again, no one would know what they meant anyway. so . . .

I think with a bit of preparation and a bit of explanation along the way, The Dark Frigate could be a great read aloud, especially for boys. I can envision hours of pretend play following the reading of this book. And the book doesn’t idealize pirates, either; these pirates are real villains, bloodthristy and greedy and cruel with hardly any redeeming qualities. There’s a moral to the story: be careful whom you trust, and don’t get involved with bad company if you can help it. Or get away from bad company as quickly as possible before you get tarred with the same brush as they are. But the moral is something to be derived from the narrative; not once is the story preachy or unrealistic.

This Newbery Medal book (1923) holds up well. The introduction to the copy I got from the library was written by Lloyd Alexander, and he says much the same thing, “Though it lies beyond our power to sail with him again, we have had the good fortune to sail with him at least once in The Dark Frigate, and we could ask for no more fascinating voyage.”

Kiki Strike by Kirsten Miller

Feb11


Reviewed by Brown Bear Daughter, age 12:

I’ve been reading the five finalists for the Middle Grade Fiction Cybil award (Kiki Strike by Kirsten Miller, Drowned Maiden’s Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz, Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce, Heat by Mike Lupica, Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata), and Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City has, so far, been my favorite.

What I really loved about Kiki Strike was that I could imagine myself as many of the different characters, and I would be content with who I was. I would think, “If I was Kiki Strike, would I be happy?” And the answer was yes. This made me love the book. Because simply imagining something can make me so happy.

Of course, it was terribly sad in the end, and yet happy too. I really enjoy sadness in a book. This one, sadly, didn’t make me cry, but it was very pathetic nevertheless. I can’t reveal the ending, but I wish I could because then I could explain why it made me so sad. But now you’ll probably want to find out why it is so sad, and you’ll read it.

The book is about a girl named Ananka Fishbein. Kiki Strike is a girl who goes to her school. Kiki Strike, with her deathly pale features and mysterious actions, arouses Ananka’s curiousity. Kiki Strike chooses Ananka and few other girls to form the Irregulars, a group which discovers one of the greatest secrets of underground Manhattan.

Sidonia Galatzina, or The “Princess,” as Ananka calls her, and Sidonia’s mother are the villains of the story. Sidonia is rich and snobbish, and becomes very interested in Kiki Strike, when Sidonia’s precious ring is stolen at school and Kiki reveals the real thief when Ananka is blamed. Sidonia’s suspicions are aroused, and not until the end of the book do you find out why Sidonia is so interested in Kiki.

Now I hope I’ve gotten you so interested in Kiki’s fate that you’ll read the entire book.

Note from the blog owner:
The winners of the 2007 Cybil Awards for Children’s and Young Adult Literature will be announced in just two days, on Valentine’s Day. I am one of the judges for the Middle Grade Fiction category, so I haven’t posted my reviews of the the finalists that I hadn’t read or reviewed before the judging started. The Middle Grade Fiction committee has chosen a winner, and you’ll see the announcement, as I said, on the 14th. Now you know which book was Brown Bear Daughter’s favorite, although she’s enjoyed all of the books she’s read for the award.

Semicolon review of Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce.

Semicolon review of Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata.

Semicolon review of Heat by Mike Lupica.

A list of the books nominated in the Middle Grade Fiction category for the Cybil Award.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born February 5th

Feb5

William Earl Johns, British children’s author, b. 1893. Has anyone ever heard of a series of children’s books about a character named Biggles? I never have, but apparently they were very popular in England and around the world in the 1940’s and 1950’s.

“By 1964, the UNESCO Statistical Yearbook placed Biggles books 29th on a list of the most translated books in the world and Biggles was the most popular juvenile hero in the world. However, sales in North America were low and Johns never really cracked the American market. The books were considered just ‘too British’.” From the website biggles.org

David Wiesner, b. 1957, children’s author and illustrator, also has a birthday today. He’s 50 years old today (and I know that for a very good, non-mathematical, reason). As an early birthday present Mr. Wiesner won the Caldecott Medal for the third time in January 2007 for his pcture book, Flotsam. He’s the second person to win three Caldecott Medals. Does anyone know who the other author/illustator who won three Caldecott Medals was? Can you name her three Caldecott medal-winning books? Can you name Mr. Wiesner’s other two winners?

(This is a test of the Emergency Caldecott System. Had this been an actual emergency, you would have been directed to your nearest children’s librarian.)

Newbery Project: The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles by Padraic Colum

Feb4

In 1922, the first year that the Newbery Medal was awarded, one of the “runners-up” later called “honor books,” was The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles by an Irish storyteller named Padraic Colum. Mr. Colum was a poet and a playwright and a friend of James Joyce, but his retelling of myths, legends, and folklore for children came to be his most enduring work. Padraic Colum won the Regina Medal in 1961 for his “distinguished contribution to children’s literature.” Some of his other books include The Children’s Homer, The Children of Odin, The Arabian Nights, and The King of Ireland’s Son. Padraic Colum was born December 8, 1881, and he died on January 12, 1972.

“In transferring a story of the kind I heard then to the pages of a collection, elements are lost, many elements —the quietness of the surroundings, the shadows on the smoke-browned walls, the crickets chirping in the ashes, the corncrake in the near meadow, or the more distant crying of a snipe or curlew, and (for a youngster) the directness of statement, or, simply the evocation of wonder.” ~Padraic Colum

Padraic Colum grew up listening to stories told by the fire or in the meadow, and The Golden Fleece is written in the voice of a storyteller; it’s meant to be read aloud and to evoke wonder. The syntax and writing style are poetic and begging to be read to listening ears. In addition to the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece, Colum blended into his narrative many of the older Greek myths: Persephone, Pandora’s Box, Theseus and the Minotaur, and the Labors of Hercules, just to name a few. I’m planning a year of ancient history and literature next school year, and I think The Golden Fleece will be our first read aloud as we study Greek history and literature.

Willy Pogany, the illustrator for this compilation, is one of my favorites. In some of the other books I have that are illlustrated by Pogany, his illustrations are full-color paintings, but the illustrations in The Golden Fleece are black and white line drawings reminiscent of the pictures on Greek vases. I can envision having my urchins copy one of the pictures in the book as an art project, then maybe make their own drawing in the same style.

Although The Golden Fleece would be perfect for read aloud time, I also think that all those kids who can’t get enough of Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief might want to go to the source, so to speak, and I can’t think of a better source for Greek mythology than Colum’s The Golden Fleece. So, as I begin my Newbery Project, Padraic Colum’s Newbery Honor Book wins a Newbery renewal for its beautiful use of language and powerful storytelling voice. This one stands the test of time, maybe because the stories themselves are timeless, but also because the storyteller, like Orpheus the Singer, knew how to tell a tale.

“Many were the minstrels who, in the early days, went through the world, telling to men the stories of the gods, telling of their wars and of their births. Of all these minstrels non was so famous as Orpheus who had gone with the argonauts; none could tell truer things about the gods, for he himself was half divine.

Orpheus sang to his lyre. Orpheus, the minstrel, who knew the ways and the stories of the gods; out in the open sea on the first morning of the voyage Orpheus sang to them of the beginning of things.”

The Newbery Award: 1923 and 1924

Feb1

In 1923 and 1924, the second and third years that the Newbery Medal for Distinguished Children’s Literature was awarded, only one book was named for the award, no honor books or runners up as they were called at first.


1923 Medal Winner: The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting (Stokes)

1924 Medal Winner: The Dark Frigate by Charles Hawes (Little, Brown)

Since I’ve already read The Voyages of Doctor Doolittle (it was OK, not my favorite kind of story), I thought I’d try to find a copy of The Dark Frigate by Charles Hawes. I looked it up, and it’s available from several libraries in my area. But the most interesting thing I found was the subtitle. Get a load of this subtitle: wherein is told the story of Philip Marsham who lived in the time of King Charles and was bred a sailor but came home to England after many hazards by sea and land and fought for the King at Newbury and lost a great inheritance and departed for Barbados in the same ship, by curious chance, in which he had long before adventured with the pirates.

King Charles I? What was Newbury?

I read a book recently (From Cover to Cover: Evaluating and Reviewing Children’s Books by Kathleen T. Horning) that gave this information about the early history of the Newbery Award:

The proponents and producers of formula series books launched a verbal attack on children’s librarians, claiming that since they were mere women (and spinsters at that), they had no right to judge what was fit reading for red-blooded American boys. Librarians, in alliance with the Boy Scouts of America, countered by emphasizing “good books for boys” in their early recommendations, thus advancing the notion of gender-specific reading tastes.

The first several winners of the Newbery Medal are a case in point. They are for the most part titles that would be touted as books for boys.
p. 151, From Cover to Cover by K.T. Horning.

So I’m thinking that Colum’s tales of ancient Greece, and Dr. Doolittle, and the adventure tales of Mr. Hawes are all books that were chosen to appeal to those red-blooded American boys who would otherwise have been reading Tom Swift or Horatio Alger’s stories or . . . what? What series were those spinster librarians trying to outclass in the early to mid-1920’s? Do the Newbery award committee members still try to choose books that will apppeal to boys or has the pendulum swung in other direction, to choosing books that will appeal to feminist girls? Or is gender appeal something that award committees should not discuss or consider?

Attitudes about “fit reading” have changed since the 1920’s. Most librarians (and parents) that I know of are perfectly content to not only allow, but positively encourage, boys and girls to read series books that are of very little literary value. I mean by this rather slippery term “literary” that the books that aren’t literary are books that won’t even make children laugh fifty years from now, much less make them think. They still don’t award the Newbery to Captain Underpants or to Garfield Takes the Cake, but nowadays, as long as they’re reading something . . .

Do you think children should be encouraged to read whatever attracts their interest, or should they be required to read books that will make them think, books that have literary value? Or is it a false dichotomy? Should they be allowed/encouraged/required to read both?

So, anyway, next week I’ll be reading The Dark Frigate, and on Sunday I’ll tell you how I liked Padraic Colum’s The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles.

More posts from my Newbery Project.