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Many Happy Returns: January 31st

Jan31

(Pearl) Zane Grey, Western author, b. 1875 in Zanesville, Ohio. He dropped his first name later in life. Engineer Husband has an uncle named Horace Pearl; Pearl was an acceptable name for boys around the turn of the century and before. Zane Grey wrote over 90 books, travelled all over the world, and became one of the first millionaire writers. Not bad for guy named Pearl.

Have any of you read any Zane Grey? If so, can you suggest ONE title as a starter?

Gerald McDermott, b. 1941, author and illlustrator who won the Caldecott Award in 1975 for Arrow to the Sun.
Gerald McDermott’s website.

Here’s a critical view of McDermott’s book from a blogger who writes about American Indians as portrayed in children’s literature.

An art activity to accompany the reading of Arrow to the Sun.

Semicolon Book Club: Esther by Chuck Swindoll

Jan30

This post necessarily combines thoughts about the book of Esther in the Bible and about Chuck Swindoll’s commentary on Esther, titled Esther: A Woman of Strength and Dignity. Mr. Swindoll’s book is the January selection for the Semicolon Book Club, and I chose it because the women of my church will be discussing and studying the book of Esther in early March at our yearly women’s retreat.

The first observation I read in any commentary, Bible study guide, or study of the book of Esther I picked up was that Esther is the only book in the Bible that never mentions God.

Ray Stedman (quoted in Swindoll’s Esther): “For many this little book is a puzzle, for it seems to be out of place in the Bible. There is no mention in it of the name of God; there is no reference to worship or faith; there is no prediction of the Messiah;there is no mention of heaven or hell–in short, there is nothing religious about it, at least on the surface.”

Matthew Henry (also quoted in Swindoll’s book): “But though the name of God be not in it, the finger of God is directing many minute events for the bringing about of His people’s deliverance.”

Swindoll: “When I come to this book that never mentions God, I see Him all the more profoundly and eloquently portrayed throughout it. It’s there in invisible ink. Just like life. I’ve never seen skywriting that says, ‘I’m here, Chuck. You can count on me.’ I’ve never heard an audible voice in the middle of the night reassuring me, ‘I’m here, My son.’ But by faith I see Him, and inaudibly I hear Him on a regular basis, reading Him written in the events of my life–whether it be the crushing blows that drive me to my knees or the joyous triumphs that send my heart winging.”

It’s probably not an original thought with me, but one of the things this “God-in-the-background”, God as the Silent Orchestrator of all things, made me think of was the writing of fiction by Christian authors. Why wouldn’t the book of Esther be a wonderful model for Christians who write fiction?

I’m not saying that the book of Esther is a fictional account. I believe it’s true history. I also see the hand of God very clearly in the events that are recounted in Esther. However, the human author of Esther felt no need to point out to his readers that God was the one who moved the heart of King Xerxes to love and listen to Esther, that it was God who preserved the Jewish people from annihilation by their enemies by manipulating events and moving people to do His will. And yet it’s so obvious. God is the main character in the book of Esther without his ever being named.

Wouldn’t it be a challenge to a Christian author to see if one could write a God-permeated book without ever mentioning God or prayer or worship or faith? Even better, what about a book filled with the teaching and person of Jesus that never tells the reader exactly what to think and what words to use and how to define Jesus’ presence in the world?

I’m not talking about a book with some vague new-age spirituality. I just wonder if a book that presented the gospel of Jesus Christ without ever telling the reader exactly what it was doing and what to think about it might be more of a paradigm shifter than a book that preaches explicitly. Fantasy can do something like this if it’s done skillfully (Tolkien, C.S.Lewis), but I believe it can be done with regular realistic fiction, too. I just don’t know of very many Christian authors who are writing that kind of book.

So Esther made me think about how we write and read and present stories. It also made me think about how God works in our wold and how often we can miss His presence if we’re not looking with eyes of faith. God is at work all of the time. But we don’t always have eyes to see or ears to hear. I have people I’m praying for who seem as lost as they’ve ever been, in whose lives I see nothing of God’s hand. That doesn’t mean that God isn’t at work. But it may be a while before I can see it. I may never see the complete picture this side of heaven. Esther may not have had any idea that God was at work in her elevation to the position of queen. But He was.

Key passage from the book of Esther: Esther 4:12-16

When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”

Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”

Where has God placed you for just such a time as this? What is He calling you to do?

Many Happy Returns: January 30th

Jan30

Walter Savage Landor, b.1775.
“I strove with none; for none was worth my strife,
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;
I warmed both hands before the fire of life,
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.”

Ann Taylor (b. 1782) who along with her sister Jane published several books of poems for children. Among the poems she and sister Jane wrote was the well-known Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. I found an online copy of a book of the sisters’ poems entitled Little Ann. Most of the poems in the collection sound quaintly didactic to modern ears, but I rather enjoyed reading them. This one, unlike most of the others, is just for fun:

DANCE, little baby, dance up high:
Never mind, baby, mother is by;
Crow and caper, caper and crow,
There, little baby, there you go;
Up to the ceiling, down to the ground,
Backwards and forwards, round and round:
Then dance, little baby, and mother shall sing,
While the gay merry coral goes ding-a-ding, ding.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, b. 1882.

Angela Margaret Thirkell, b. 1890. Read a short piece on Ms. Thirkell’s book, Private Enterprise or County Chronicle by the same author. I need to read some more books by Ms. Thirkell.

Barbara Tuchman, b. 1912. I am very fond of Tuchman’s book, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century, a history of France during the high Middle Ages. However, I must enjoy reading about the Middle Ages more than I like reading about WW I because I have yet to finish The Guns of August, the book that won Tuchman her first Pulitzer Prize in 1963. She also won a 1972 Pulitzer for Stillwell and the American Experience in China.

Lloyd Alexander, b.1924. Everyone is, or should be, familiar with Mr. Alexander excellent Prydain Chronicles. The five books in this series rank only just after Tolkien’s and C.S. Lewis’s fantasy series in my list of fantasy fiction. Taran, the assistant pig-keeper, Eilonwy, the princess who has a way of asking inconvenient questions, Fflewddur Fflam, the would-be bard whose truth-telling harp boasts a number of broken strings, and Gurgi, the rhyming creature of indeterminate origins, are all memorable characters and endearing ones.

However, I must mention that Mr. Alexander also wrote other books, some that I’ve read and appreciated and others that I have yet to enjoy. His Westmark Trilogy consists of Westmark, The Kestrel, and The Beggar Queen. The series features a protagonist named Theo who finds himself on both sides at various times of a simmering revolution against the monarchy of the country of Westmark. The themes of the trilogy center around the difficulties of making moral choices and the ethical implications of war and violence. I thought the books were wonderful when I first read them, and I’d like to go back and read them again sometime.

In addition to writing children’s literature, Lloyd Alexander produced the first English translation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s La nausee. Mr. Alexander died May 17, 2007.

Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney, b.1941. “Four years ago, some said the world had grown calm, and many assumed that the United States was invulnerable to danger. That thought might have been comforting; it was also false. Like other generations of Americans, we soon discovered that history had great and unexpected duties in store for us.”

Trivia Questions for Tomorrow’s Birthday Party

Jan29

Quite a few famous authors and other people have birthdays on January 30th. Can you guess the answers to these trivia questions before tomorrow’s post on the Birthdays of January 30th?

What famous children’s song lyrics did Ann Taylor and her sister Jane write?

Who wrote the book A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century?

What fictional part of England forms the setting for Angela Thirkell’s 30+ novels?

What is the name of Lloyd Alexander’s Assistant Pig-Keeper?

Who said, “Four years ago, some said the world had grown calm, and many assumed that the United States was invulnerable to danger. That thought might have been comforting; it was also false. Like other generations of Americans, we soon discovered that history had great and unexpected duties in store for us.”?

Who said, “Be sincere; be brief; be seated.”?

Who said, “I warmed both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.”?

Many Happy Returns: January 28th

Jan28

Sabine Baring-Gould, b. 1834. Victorian archaeologist, he had fifteen children and wrote the hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers”. More information on his eccentricities here.

Vera B. Williams, b. 1927, children’s author and illustrator. She wrote and illustrated two of my favorites, A Chair for My Mother and Two Days on a River in a Red Canoe. Her bio sounds as if she’s led a colorful life: she helped start a “community” (sounds like a commune) in the hills of North Carolina and a school based on the Summerhill model. Then she moved to Canada and lived on a houseboat for a while–where she wrote her first book. Oh, and she spent a month in the federal penitentiary in West Virginia after a “peaceful blockade of the Pentagon.” Well, anyway, the books are great and not really counter-cultural at all.

Lesson plan for teaching A Chair for My Mother.

Soundtrack for the Book of Esther

Jan27

I’ve been reading and studying the book of Esther all month. Here are a few songs that go well with the themes of Esther: courage, trust, God’s sovereignty, our willing obedience.

God of Grace and God of Glory by Harry Emerson Fosdick. Grant us the wisdom of a Mordecai and the courage of an Esther.

God Moves in a Mysterious Way by William Cowper. God is always at work behind the scenes. “He fashions all his bright designs and works his sovereign will.”
Listen to song sample at Sovereign Grace Ministries.

Oh, God Our Help in Ages Past by Isaac Watts. Tune by Hannah Jackson. “Under the shadow of Thy throne, thy saints have dwelt secure; sufficient is Thine arm alone, and our defense is sure.”

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms by Elisha Hoffman. We’re safe and secure from all alarms, leaning on His everlasting arms.

Be Still, My Soul by Katharina von Schlegel. “Thy God doth undertake to guide the future as He has the past.”

What songs would you suggest to go along with the themes in the book of Esther?

Heroes for Haiti

Jan27

Haitian Doctor Takes 100 Patients into his Home. “The injured sing Christian hymns as they huddle close together beneath sheets strung up as tents, but the earthquake still haunts them. Aftershocks rattled the city as recently as Friday morning.”

Couple Donate Wedding Reception Money to Haiti: “Guests at the Bogen-Nicholson wedding in June will have an interesting tidbit when they describe the couple’s big day: The bride and groom served peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

Matt and Mandy Poulter bring Maya home. They’re members of an E-free church, and they homeschool their five children. Yeah!

Many Happy Returns: January 27th

Jan27

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, b.1832 at Cheshire, England.

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.
“Which road do I take?” she asked.
“Where do you want to go?” was his response.
“I don’t know,” Alice answered.
“Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.”

1book23

Other Lewis Carroll posts to cause you to lose your way:

Of Snarks and Quarks

Lewis Carroll’s Birthday: 2006

Radio Jabberwocky

“The horror of that moment,” the King went on, “I shall never forget!”
“You will, though,” The Queen said, “if you don’t make a memorandum of it.”
This is so appropo of my life and memory. The 3M’s, middle age, menopause, and memory loss, are my constant companions.

“The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday – but never jam today.”

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.” Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

If you’ve never read Mr. Carroll’s masterpieces, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There, you really, really should do so immediately.

Some (perhaps) motivational facts to get you to pick up a copy of Alice:
Queen Victoria and the young Oscar Wilde were among the first avid readers of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
You could host a Mad Hatter Tea Party.
Lewis Carroll, aka Charles Dodgson, was a mathematician, a scholar, and an amateur photographer. There is no evidence that he was a pedophile, although he did enjoy the company of little girls.
“Dodgson was devoted to games as croquet, backgammon, billiards and chess, enjoyed conjuring and card tricks and invented many mathematical and word puzzles, games, ciphers and aids to memory.” (Source: Lenny’s Alice in Wonderland site)
“Through the Looking Glass” is the third season finale of the ABC television series Lost, consisting of the twenty-second and twenty-third episodes of the TV program. Therefore, you can read either Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass as a part of the LOST Books Challenge.

And then there’s always a dissenter in the bunch. Author Terry Pratchett has said of Alice: “”I didn’t like the Alice books because I found them creepy and horribly unfunny in a nasty, plonking, Victorian way. Oh, here’s Mr Christmas Pudding On Legs, hohohoho, here’s a Caterpillar Smoking A Pipe, hohohoho. When I was a kid the books created in me about the same revulsion as you get when, aged seven, you’re invited to kiss your great-grandmother.”

Don’t listen to him (even if you like Mr. Pratchett’s books). Alice is very funny, witty, and quite undated. The observations of Humpty Dumpty and the Cheshire Cat are endlessly applicable to current events.

Janet at Across the Page just read Alice for the first time, and here are her thoughts.

‘It’s a cravat, child, and a beautiful one, as you say. It’s a present from the White King and Queen. There now!’
‘Is it really?’ said Alice, quite pleased to find that she HAD chosen a good subject, after all.
‘They gave it me,’ Humpty Dumpty continued thoughtfully, as he crossed one knee over the other and clasped his hands round it, ‘they gave it me–for an un-birthday present.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Alice said with a puzzled air.
‘I’m not offended,’ said Humpty Dumpty.
‘I mean, what IS an un-birthday present?’
‘A present given when it isn’t your birthday, of course.’
Alice considered a little. ‘I like birthday presents best,’ she said at last.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about!’ cried Humpty Dumpty. ‘How many days are there in a year?’
‘Three hundred and sixty-five,’ said Alice.
‘And how many birthdays have you?’
‘One.’
‘And if you take one from three hundred and sixty-five, what remains?’
‘Three hundred and sixty-four, of course.’
Humpty Dumpty looked doubtful. ‘I’d rather see that done on paper,’ he said.

Unless you share a birthday with Mr. Dodgson, I hope you have a very happy un-birthday today!

Esther, Illustrated

Jan26

420px-Esthermillais

Esther by John Everett Millais.

She’s not as beautiful in this painting as I would have imagined her, or perhaps she’s just not exactly fitting my cultural expectations. Of course, she’s also awfully fair-skinned, not very Jewish looking to me at all. If there is such a thing a “Jewish-looking.” And there has been a lot of discussion of that particular aspect of illustrating stories lately.

Millais borrowed the Yellow Jacket, “a gown given to General Gordon by the Chinese emperor after his defeat of the Taiping rebellion.” But Millais turned the gown inside-out so that it wouldn’t look Chinese. (The book of Esther takes place in the Persian court of King Xerxes.) Esther is supposed to be adjusting her pearls and preparing to put on her crown. She doesn’t look particularly frightened or brave to me. Maybe thoughtful.

Texas Tuesday: Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith

Jan26

What an inspiring and absorbing book! Ms. Smith writes about Ida Mae Jones, a self-identified “colored girl” who is light-skinned enough to pass for white. The book begins in late 1941, and of course, that means Pearl Harbor, and World War II. Ida Mae learned to fly airplanes from her daddy, who was a crop duster. So when she hears that the U.S. Army has formed a group called the WASPs, Women Airforce Service Pilots, Ida Mae Jones is determined to sign up, even though she lives in Louisiana and the training is to take place in Sweetwater, Texas, two places where the very idea of a young black woman serving alongside white women is sure to be anathema. So in order to get into the WASP’s, Ida Mae basically pretends to be white.

A lot of the book is about the training and the dangers these pioneering women pilots faced as they bravely gave themselves and their abilities to the war effort. I don’t know much about flying airplanes, so although I thought the parts of the book that described the training and the women’s heroics were wonderfully written, I don’t know how accurate they were. I assume Ms. Smith did her research since the book Flygirl started out as a master’s thesis.

Another aspect of the book is the discussion and treatment of race and skin color. I thought this was fascinating, especially in light of recent discussions in the kidlitosphere. What does it mean to be black or to be a person of color? How do POC themselves see the variations in skin color? Is it wrong to pretend to be white and leave your darker-skinned family and friends behind? Even for a good cause?

One of the scenes in the book reminded me of Esther in particular. Ida Mae, like Esther has hidden her heritage and her connection with her people, but she is asked by her mother to go to the military authorities and ask for help in finding her brother who is MIA. Ida Mae knows that if she asks about her brother, she may be discovered and sent home. Her story doesn’t exactly parallel Esther’s, but it is similar. And Ida Mae shows similar courage.

All the issues, discrimination against women and against people of color, the varied reasons that people have for volunteering to fight in a war, misunderstandings and rifts between family members and friends, the cost of following one’s dreams, are explored with both sensitivity and humor. I would recommend this book to all young women who are in the middle of deciding who they are and what they want to be. And as an older woman, I enjoyed reading about Ida Mae Jones and her adventures. I wanted her to be able to “have it all,” even as I knew that the time and place where the story was set wouldn’t allow for a completely happy ending.

Reading in Color: “Flygirl made me want to go out and learn how to fly an airplane (or at least fly in one so that I can sit in the front and observe the pilot). The way the characters describe their love of flying makes you want to try it.”

One Librarian’s Book Reviews: “The setting is absolutely perfect, with the details from the time period completely enhancing the whole feel of the book. I absolutely felt like every part of it seemed like it could be true.”

Liz at the YALSA blog: Flygirl examines universal questions of identity, family, and growing up, with flying being both what Ida Mae wants to do, as well as working as a metaphor for a young woman trying to escape the limitations her country places on her because of her race and her sex.

Interview with Sherri L. Smith at the YaYaYa’s