This is my last chance to post before my mom comes home (she is arriving back from Mexico any minute now). Even though this is largely a book/homeschooling blog, I thought I’d change things up a bit by listing the menu I prepared for my little sisters’ tea party yesterday afternoon at four o’ clock. We had:

– chicken salad sandwiches
– cucumber sandwiches with mint butter
– milk and honey bread with honey butter
– jam thumbprint cookies
– raspberry tea

It is a lot of fun to have a tea party with four little girls between the ages of four and seven, all gussied up in their best dresses. Though we didn’t have matching blue china, Frances would have approved.

Okay, I haven’t been doing too well on this guest-blogging thing. I’m impressed that my mom finds something to post about as often as she does.

I’m actually sort of exhausted from book-hunting right now. We’re supposed to be able to find all our library books easily because we have a bin to keep them in, but somehow that doesn’t work for all the books, and I’m still missing two out of 38. And we have a rather large fine at the library at the moment, which means we can’t check out any more books or renew the ones we have, until we pay it. This is especially ironic because my mother used to be a librarian.

My little sister who is fourteen checked out a tall stack of young adult books from the library a couple of weeks ago, and I thought to myself, “Why not see what the state of YA fiction is right now? That might be interesting,” so I took three of the ones she had picked out and read them. Here is what I thought of them:

– Dear Great American Writers School, by Sherry Bunin. I thought this story was really sweet. The heroine, Bobby Lee Pomeroy, lives in a small town during World War Two and has recently decided to become a writer. She sends letters concerning the daily happenings of her life to the Great American Writers School, which responds by sending her demands of payment for its writing lessons. Bobby is remarkably innocent for a fifteen or sixteen year old, which I found refreshing. Otherwise, the novel is fairly predictable; Bobbie tries to befriend various local personalities, falls in and out of love, and is ever hopeful, for “no one can predict the future.” Nothing really bad happens to any of the characters, so it is a nice light read which includes just enough real history to be informative. (It’s mostly just fun.)

– The Pigman, by Paul Zindel. One of my sister’s friends recommended this one to her. Zindel wrote this coming-of-age novel in 1968, when the genre was just coming into being (I mean as a genre – I can think of quite a few novels appropriate for teenagers and written prior to the birth of YA fiction), and compared to the previous book, it is quite a downer. This in itself does not make it a bad book; after all, The Great Gatsby and For Whom the Bell Tolls are wonderful novels even though they are depressing. They are tragic, just as Thomas Hardy’s novels are tragic, and appropriately so. However, this book was sad in a sickening sort of way and did not offer any sort of redemption for its characters. John and Lorraine are high school sophomores whose friendship with an lonely old man turns sour when they unthinkingly take advantage of him. I did not like these characters, even though the story was written from their point of view, with the two protagonists alternating as narrators. The main thing I got out of reading the book was the conviction that I would not have liked to go to an American high school in the 1960’s or any decade since.

– Enthusiasm, by Polly Shulman. This one was published just this year, and the premise made me smile when I read the blurb: Julie has always had to put up with and even join in her friend Ashleigh’s crazes, which range from horseback riding to King Arthur, but the latter’s latest obsession is Julie’s own favorite book, Pride and Prejudice. Donning approximations of eighteenth century fashion, the girls crash a local prep school ball and find a twenty-first century Mr. Darcy – only problem is, both of them fall for him immediately. The novel is witty, clever, and satisfying, even if it is apparent early on how the story will end. Julie is a good role model, without being prudish or too unbelievable.

Of the three, I’d recommend Dear Great American Writers School and Enthusiasm with pretty much no reservations – not great literature, but good reads. The Pigman is probably better written than either one, but its lack of sympathetic characters – besides the unfortunate Mr. Pignati – made it hard for me to stomach.

One last YA novel which I reread recently and which I would rate ahead of any of the choices I’ve just reviewed is The View From Saturday, by E.L. Konigsburg (author of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler). Definitely a classic, this novel tracks the emotional and geographical journeys of four sixth-graders, oddballs each in his or her own way, who go on as a team to win the State Academic Bowl. I’ll let you discover this one for yourself. Let’s just say this is what YA fiction/childrens’ lit should be.

Trollope on Jane Austen:

“Miss Austen was surely a great novelist. What she did, she did perfectly. Her work, as far as it goes, is faultless. She wrote of the times in which she lived, of the class of people with which she associated, and in the language which was usual to her as an educated lady. Of romance, — what we generally mean when we speak of romance — she had no tinge. Heroes and heroines with wonderful adventures there are none in her novels. Of great criminals and hidden crimes she tells us nothing. But she places us in a circle of gentlemen and ladies, and charms us while she tells us with an unconscious accuracy how men should act to women, and women act to men. It is not that her people are all good; — and, certainly, they are not all wise. The faults of some are the anvils on which the virtues of others are hammered till they are bright as steel. In the comedy of folly I know no novelist who has beaten her. The letters of Mr. Collins, a clergyman in Pride and Prejudice, would move laughter in a low-church archbishop.”

Trollope’s Framley Parsonage reminds me of Jane Austen–or maybe a combination of Jane Austen Pride and Prejudiceand Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, with a decidedly clerical atmosphere. The main characters are parsons and deans and bishops —and their wives and daughters —but the concerns of these ecclesiastical persons are the same concerns that Jane Austen’s characters have: Who is going to marry whom? And how rich is the bride and/or the groom?

Lady X is concerned that her son and heir marry a lady of property and education. Lady Y is worried that, since she is not very pretty nor very young, her many suitors have only one goal: to get their hands on her money. Lady G can’t decide whether to encourage her daughter to marry Lord X or Lord Y.

However, it all turns out well in the end, and some of Trollope’s scenes would “move laughter” in a Baptist preacher. I think some Jane Austen fans who have read all of the Austen canon and are in need of a fix would do well to try Trollope’s Barsetshire novels.

To begin my week of guest-blogging for my mother, I’ve decided to cheat and answer a book meme that I found chez Laura. It’s as good a way of introducing myself as anything else, especially since I think you should always judge a man or woman by what he or she reads.

1. A book that made you cry: Well, aside from the obvious choices (Anne of Green Gables, anyone?), I was moved by the middle sequence of To the Lighthouse, the part wherein Woolf narrates the disintegration of a house and a family. The writing itself is completely unemotional, and I think that’s why the passage works.

2. A book that scared you: Usually I don’t read scary stuff, because I don’t enjoy the thrill that comes with being afraid (never liked to ride the roller coaster at Astroworld either). And I’ve never considered classic British murder mysteries scary (think Dame Agatha, Sayers, Tey, etc.), so I’ve gobbled up quite a few in my day, but one that really frightened me was And Then There Were None. Keep in mind that in the book version, as opposed to the play, everyone but the murderer ends up dead. Very creepy. Oh, and I remember being quite scared by the character of Simon Legree in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which I read very late at night around the age of fourteen. One of those can’t-get-out-of-the-bed-because-something-might-grab-me experiences.

3. A book that made you laugh: James Herriot’s animal books are a hoot–start with All Creatures Great and Small.

4. A book that disgusted you: The Grapes of Wrath. My first Baylor roommate loved Steinbeck, but to me he is simply depressing. Maybe I just read it at the wrong time.

5. A book you loved in elementary school: I was really into series reading at the time, but one stand-alone choice I loved was Lark, by Sally Watson. I believe it is out of print, even though it is an enchanting introduction to the British Civil War through the eyes of an independent-minded young girl who must aid a Royalist spy to evade his enemies by means of disguises, play-acting, and even the Gypsies as a last resort.

6. A book you loved in middle school: Jane Eyre. Read it the summer of seventh grade and was inspired to read Wuthering Heights as a follow-up; don’t remember being quite as impressed at the time by Emily as I was by Charlotte.

7. A book you loved in high school: Just one? My favorite was probably either Emily’s Quest, by L.M. Montgomery (confession: during my sophomore and junior years of high school I was heavily addicted to a kindred-spirits listserv, of all things, which aside from your humble servant was mostly made up of librarians) or A Ring of Endless Light, by Madeleine L’Engle–yes, we’re all fans at my house.

8. A book you loved in college: I’m still in college. I discovered Dorothy Dunnett’s Chronicles of Lymond two summers ago and fell in love with the complicated erudite hero–sort of a renaissance Lord Peter Wimsey minus the moral principles. There are six books, all set in the mid-sixteenth century, and they take a little while to get into, but if you have a little patience you’ll soon be hooked. As a side note, Dunnett’s historical research is impeccable, or at least so I’ve read. The Game of Kings comes first.

9. A book that challenged your identity or your faith: Believe it or not, The Westminster Shorter Catechism, which I was assigned to read for school in seventh grade, and which forced me to realize there were other brands of Christianity besides the one affirmed at my Southern Baptist church.

10. A series that you love: Definitely Dorothy Sayers’ Wimsey mysteries, beginning with Strong Poison, in which the aristocratic detective saves Harriet Vane from the hangman’s noose, and ending with Busman’s Honeymoon, in which he marries her. The best one, though, is Gaudy Night, where Sayers explores the issue of women in academia versus women who choose to marry– yes, this was an issue in 1935, and no, it’s not totally irrelevant in 2006.

11. Your favorite horror book: See answer to question 2.

12. Your favorite science-fiction book: I’m going to have to pick another L’Engle and go with A Wrinkle in Time. Read it and the sequels for the first time when I was sick with a very bad cold, which just made them that much stranger. I’m not actually that much into sci-fi as a genre.

13. Your favorite fantasy book: The Lord of the Rings, no contest. But I also love Robin McKinley’s stuff, especially Beauty and Rose Daughter, two varying approaches to the re-telling of the same fairy-tale.

14. Your favorite mystery book: Leaving Sayers out because I’ve already mentioned her, it would probably come down to one of Josephine Tey’s novels, either Brat Farrar or The Daughter of Time.

15. Your favorite biography: Maybe Nicholas and Alexandra, by Robert K. Massie. Had to read it for a European history class senior year of high school, and I guess it’s not exactly a biography, but it is a thrilling narrative of the tragedy of the last Russian emperor and his family.

16. Your favorite coming-of-age book: The Greengage Summer, by Rumer Godden, in which an adolescent girl spends a summer with her family in the Marne Valley and must deal with evil coming from an unexpected source.

17. Your favorite book not on this list: That is very hard to say, but I’ll go with The Brothers Karamazov. Dostoevsky asks all the right questions and gives literature its most convincing and sympathetic good guy. I dare you to read it and not fall in love with Alyosha.

Early in the morning Organizer Daughter and I leave for Mexico. We’re headed for Matamoros to do construction work on a church building. And I’m supposed to help teach Vacation Bible School. In Spanish.
(Please pray for my Spanish.)

However, I’m leaving the blog in capable hands. I have some posts scheduled to appear at intervals throughout the week. And I have a guest blogger who actually writes more lucid and fascinating prose than I do. Eldest Daughter, the one who just returned from a year of study in Paris, will post a few times while I’m gone. I told her to write about whatever she wanted, but it will probably be something about her twin passions: literature and languages.

Hasta luego, amigos.