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The Borrowed House by Hilda van Stockum

Oct10

Janna is proud of her membership in the Hitler Youth. She’s proud of her parents, famous actors, who have left Janna in Germany while they tour and entertain the troops of the Reich. Janna is also proud of having been chosen to play Brunhilde in the upcoming play that her youth group is going to perform, the story of Siegfried and Brunhilde from Hitler’s favorite opera by Wagner. Most of all, Janna is proud to be German and Aryan, and not a member of those inferior Jewish or Slavic races.

The Borrowed House is a young adult story, not because it’s about a teenager; Janna is only twelve years old in the book. And it’s not YA because of explicit sex or even violence, although there is some of the latter as the author describes the violence against Jews and others in Holland where Janna goes to join her parents. The Borrowed House is YA because it deals with mature themes of racism and indoctrination and trust and adultery in a way that is nuanced and complicated and respectful of the maturity of its audience. Janna is an unusual twelve year old, and she sees and understands things that most twelve year olds wouldn’t even think about. And there is a developing romance between twelve year old Janna and an older resident of the borrowed house that Janna and her parents live in. Nothing explicit or illicit, but the romantic subtext is there.

Maybe you should read this one yourself before handing it to your child, because first of all, it won’t be the right book for every young person. And secondly, The Borrowed House is one of those rare novels that adults can appreciate just as well as teens can. The book gives a lot insight into the way the German civilians looked at the war and at Herr Hitler as well as the privations and persecution and courage of the Dutch and Jewish people in Holland during World War II.

Republished by Purple House Press in 2016, this World War II novel is an excellent story and a definite discussion starter. Just think carefully about who would appreciate it properly and at what age.The writing and subject matter and characterization remind me a little bit of Madeleine L’Engle’s young adult novels. If you’ve read and enjoyed A Winter’s Love or The Small Rain by L’Engle, then The Borrowed House has about the same maturity level with some similar themes.

Castle Adamant by Sally Watson

May24

Sally Watson was an author who wrote several books I loved as a child: Mistress Malapert, Linnet, Jade, and Lark are the ones I remember reading. Several years ago I found a couple more of her books, Highland Rebel and The Hornet’s Nest, and added them to my library. I already had a copy of Lark, and my daughter enjoyed it when she was a girl just as much as I did. However, all of Ms. Watson’s books were out of print and nowhere to be found for many years.

Then, I found that many of her books had been reprinted or republished, either by the author herself or by some small reprint publishers. And there were more books, set during the English Civil Wars of the 1640’s, Cavaliers versus Roundheads, with strong-willed female protagonists and exciting historical plots just like the Lark/Linnet/Jade books. So, I ordered myself a copy of Mistress Malapert and of a new-to-me book, Castle Adamant.

Unfortunately, I didn’t look closely at the suggested target age group for the novel, and I won’t be able to put this book in my library. That’s a shame because it’s a good story, and the others that I do remember are completely appropriate for middle grade readers. However, Castle Adamant (and apparently the two other books that form a trilogy with it, The Outrageous Oriel and Loyal and the Dragon) has just enough “adult” or “young adult” content to make it too much for the middle grades.

Castle Adamant features the defense of Corfe Castle by its Royalist owners from assault by the Parliamentary forces. The story of Corfe Castle and the battles that took place there are true, but Ms. Watson throws in a few fictional characters to make it interesting. Peregrine Lennox is the second son of a Royalist lord and advisor to King Charles I. Verity Goodchild is the independent-thinking daughter of a Roundhead colonel. Trained to be a Calvinist but also educated in the classics and in logic, Verity is a mass of contradictions, determined to forge her own ideas and convictions through the various conflicting and confusing issues of the time. Peregrine is an “arrogant sprig of nobility”, “vain, kind, condescending, and resigned to boredom.” When Peregrine’s lazy intelligence meets up with Verity’s fiery intelligence, the arguments and the Latin quotations fly fast and furious, along with many a Scripture verse from Verity’s unlimited and memorized storehouse.

So, the novel is made up of two elements: the battle(s) for Corfe Castle and the battle(s) between Verity and Peregrine. The content warning is that the author keeps throwing in not so subtle hints about the the physical attraction between Verity and Peregrine:

“The maleness her small breasts pressed against was firm and strong and hard and smelled of horse and herbs. Prevented–not for fear of Satan, but by her painful arms–from holding yet more tightly, she allowed the unslapped side of her face to rest against his doublet.”

“Verity instantly fell into lusting even harder after her friend’s husband-to-be. With passion, Satan was indeed tempting her; and it was a shock, for she had never willed it.”

“At one point she ripped her skirt all the way up, providing a stunning view of a long shapely leg. She was not aware of it, nor even of the long deep scratch down her thigh. . . .She had no idea she had titillated Peregrine, or indeed showed him her leg at all.”

“‘I won’t wed anyone. I’ll be a spinster. But—” She looked at him, and all virtue left her. ‘Peregrine— If we could manage— I would come to your bed anyway.’
For a moment, she thought in anguish that he was repulsed by her froward and sinful thoughts. His face was blank, and an odd bulge appeared just in the front of his breeches. A strong instinct told Verity it was something not to be asked about nor even noticed—but that perhaps it was not revulsion either?”

That, and couple of scenes where a villager and a soldier try to assault Verity and steal a kiss, are as explicit as it gets, but sadly way too much for children. The theological debates that Verity has with Peregrine, with the doyenne of Corfe Castle, and with God Himself are certainly somewhat mature also, but her questions are nothing an intelligent eleven or twelve year old wouldn’t be able to handle.

I haven’t read The Outrageous Oriel, but I did read this bit about it at Sally Watson’s website:

“Outrageous Oriel was lots of fun–-and possibly a bit shocking to a few–-but times change, don’t they? That was Oriel, all right. Outrageous.
In the ’50’s and ’60’s the trilogy would be definitely Adult, with Oriel and her friend Evan agreeing to marry platonically, because, he tells her, he loves her dearly as a friend but prefers fellows in his bed. Now? Who knows? I’ve read YA much nearer the mark.”

So, yes, the three books in “the trilogy” are adult or young adult, and the others I’ve named are middle grade reads that can be enjoyed by all ages. I liked Castle Adamant for the most part, but I plan to stick to Sally Watson’s juvenile novels from here on out.

The Mantlemass Chronicles by Barbara Willard

May9

The Sprig of Broom (1485)
The Lark and the Laurel (1485)
The Eldest Son (1534)
A Cold Wind Blowing (1536)
The Iron Lily (1557)
A Flight of Swans (1588)
Harrow and Harvest (1642)

These books take us through English history from the Battle of Bosworth, to the reign of the Tudor kings, to Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, to the Spanish Armada, to another English civil war between Cromwell’s Roundheads and the King’s Royalists or Cavaliers. During all these great events the families in and around the manor house Mantlemass—-Mallorys, Medleys, Plashets, and Hollands–-pursue their own ends and keep their own secrets. From reading the synopses of these other novels in the series, I can see that marriage and romance and family secrets and loyalty and independence continue to be themes that Ms. Willard explores in her books. I’m going to enjoy exploring with her and her characters.

**********************

And I did it. I “binge read” the last five of The Mantlemass Chronicles and enjoyed the experience immensely. Barbara Willard is not well enough known or regarded. Her family saga that covers multiple generations (about with or ten?) is insightful and compelling. The characters remind me of Elizabeth Goudge or Winston Poldark (Poldark), but they are more believable than Winston Graham’s sometimes over-wrought and over dramatic characters, and Willard sticks with the same family for seven books, unlike Goudge. And even though the people who inhabit Mantlemass in the last book of the series, Harrow and Harvest, know almost nothing about the ancestors whose story is told in the first two books, there is a family secret that is handed down from generation to generation over 150 plus years. This thread of secret plus inheritance plus genetic line plus the house itself, Mantlemass, ties all of the books together, making for a very satisfying read.

A Cold Wind Blowing covers the same time period that was chronicled in The Eldest Son, but this time we get to read about events from the perspective of the second son of the Medley family, Piers. Gaps and events that are only alluded to but never explained in The Eldest Son make up the story in A Cold Wind Blowing, and readers learn to understand this family and relationships within it in a deeper and more illuminating way. Piers, a likable character in the first book, becomes the center of the family in this book, the young man seasoned by grief and tragedy who will in the next book/episode be both the patriarch and the source of continued family drama.

The Iron Lily introduces readers to another branch of the Medley/Mallory family, an illegitimate daughter who finds her family and brings a new strength and will to the family she finds. Lilias and her daughter Ursula move into the vicinity of Mantlemass and become a part of the community there despite not a little struggle and misunderstanding. Lilias, a widow, is determined to support her daughter and make her own way in the world of the iron industry. In a world of men workers and owners, Lilias is an anomaly, a strong woman who runs her iron foundry as she runs her life, with stubborn purpose. However, she’s not completely out of place in the Mallory/Medley family, which has a history of strong-willed women and men to match them. The question is whether or not Lily with her autocratic ways will ruin the life of her daughter Ursula when the two clash over Ursula’s future.

A Flight of Swans moves the story to the next generation and the attempted invasion of England by the Spanish Armada. Ursula is now the mistress of Mantlemass, and a couple of Jolland cousins, Roger and Humfrey, have come to visit. Ursula must deal with a broken marriage and with suspected treachery in the ironworks as it becomes profitable to sell the iron industry secrets to the highest bidder in a time of war. This book displays exactly what I liked about the entire series. Ms. Willard’s characters are real people who grow (or deteriorate) and change just as real people do, sometimes disappointing the reader but always continuing to be compelling and intriguing. The novel covers a great deal of time, and the reader must pay close attention to “fill in the gaps”, sometimes from one chapter to the next. But the attentiveness is worth cultivating for the sake of a fine story.

The last book in the series, Harrow and Harvest, takes place during the English Civil War between the Royalists and the Roundheads in the 1640’s. The family is in decline, and the family secrets have been all but lost. Nicholas Highwood and his sister Cecelia are managing Mantlemass, barely, when a distant relative from an estranged part of the family shows up with possibly a better claim to the inheritance. All of this family drama is made almost irrelevant by the approach of war and the necessity to declare their loyalties either to the king or to Parliament. Again, there are traitors in their midst, and the ironworks is a source of support and contention.

I thought the story ended well, and I very much enjoyed the ride. Again, I think this series could be an excellent period drama series along the lines of Poldark or Downton Abbey, but it’s better than Poldark since the characters never do anything that is wildly out of character as they sometimes do in Winston Graham’s series. I definitely recommend this series to fans of the family saga or British historical novels.

Forward Me Back to You by Mitali Perkins

Apr10

Mitali Perkins’ new book, Forward Me Back to You, is excellent YA fiction that deals with adoption, searching for birth parents, sexual assault, human trafficking, faith, and the meaning of family, all in the context of an exciting and romantic story that shows both Christian and non-Christian characters as real people with complex motives, thoughts, and desires. This book is going to be hard to classify, which is a great move in the right direction as far as I’m concerned. It’s not traditional “Christian fiction”. Nobody gets saved or converted at the climax of the novel, and it’s not preachy or trolling for Christian converts. But it’s also not the regular old “sanitized” secular novel either. Prayer and church-going and the application of Scriptural principles to life are a normal part of many of the characters’ lives, just as they are a normal part of my life and the lives of many of the people I know.

In the story eighteen year old Robin, whose birth name was Ravi, goes on a mission trip to Kolkata, India to help an organization that is dedicated to the fight against human trafficking. But Robin/Ravi has a secondary (or maybe primary) motive for traveling to India: he has decided, after many years of seeming indifference to his birth culture and parentage, to search for his birth mother who abandoned him to an orphanage in Kolkata eighteen years ago. Also on the mission trip are Katina, a tough girl with secrets of her own, and Gracie, the girl who has had a crush on Ravi for as long as she can remember. As they each work out their own ways to serve in Kolkata, they also learn to be served and to experience healing from the wounds that they have carried with them to this place.

Both the romantic aspects and the sexual assault themes of the novel are explored frankly but appropriately. Teens should certainly be able to handle the subjects as they are incorporated into the story. Although adoptees and victims of assault should be aware of possible triggers in the story, they should also know that the novel might be helpful and even cathartic. For those of us who have not experienced either adoption or assault, Forward Me Back to You should be helpful in developing understanding and empathy.

However, the novel is primarily a story, not a therapeutic exercise. As such, it’s the best kind of story—a tale in which I could ride along with the characters, grow to care about them, experience their joys and tragedies, and learn something about how to handle my own. And I got to do it all in the safety of my own living room. It’s a good book, one I plan to share with my own teenage and young adult children and with some others that I know who would particularly enjoy it because of their own background with similar issues and themes.

The Edge of Time by Louella Grace Erdman

Feb7

Bethany and Wade Cameron begin their journey by wagon from Missouri to the Texas Panhandle on their wedding day. They take with them, or acquire along the way, a few necessary items: a milk cow, a horse, seeds, curtains, a rag rug, and a rosebush cutting from the rosebush in Bethany’s parents’ front yard. When they reach their homestead in Texas, they will have no near neighbors, no railroad nearby to bring in supplies or take crops to market, and no extra resources other than their own faith, courage, and stick-to-it-tiveness. Bethany is not even sure of Wade’s love for her; he was originally pledged to marry another girl who jilted him, and he only turned to Bethany when she rashly promised to go with him anywhere.

One reviewer on Amazon said of this book: “I started reading this book and thought it was going to start off slow. It wasn’t slow just in the beginning… I think it was a horrible pointless book.” I disagree, but if you’re looking for a modern thriller or romance, you will be as disappointed as the Amazon reviewer was. Bethany’s and Wade’s story unfolds slowly; their love and commitment grow over time. And the story is as much about their love affair with homesteading and with the land as it is about their marriage and their love for each other.

Two things impressed me. I was reminded of the old song from the musical Oklahoma: The Farmer and the Cowman. One of the major themes of the book is the inevitability of change, and the conflict between the ranchers and the new farming homesteaders. Wade and Bethany are determined to make a go of farming in the new lands that the state of Texas is selling to homesteaders. Their neighbors and friends are mostly cowboys and ranchers who are kind and helpful to the new couple but not at all sympathetic to the fences and the plows that are breaking up the open range lands.

The other thing I noticed was the pattern of Bethany’s and Wade’s marriage. The story takes place in the late 1880’s; the book was published in 1950. The Camerons’ relationship displays the customs and expectations of both time periods. Wade is the strong, silent type. He makes the decisions and expects Bethany to agree with him. Bethany also expects things to be this way, although there is a scene in which she wants him to consult her about a major financial decision, but realizes that he can’t show that kind of “weakness” in front of other people. He later admits that he should have asked her about the decision, “that it was cowardly not to have asked her . . . But I just—well, I just couldn’t tell him—” And Bethany ends up glad that Wade didn’t embarrass himself and “come trailing in to ask [her]”.

It’s a different kind of marriage relationship than very many people would try nowadays. But perhaps our lack of trust in one another, and our need to always have everything “equal” and “fair” with all decisions being joint decisions, 50/50, creates its own set of problems and incongruities.

Louella Grace Erdman was a Texas writer who penned a number of books for adults and for children, mostly set in the Texas Panhandle where she lived the majority of her life. Ms. Erdman was a teacher of creative writing at West Texas State College, and she wrote about fifteen or more novels about pioneer and frontier life in Texas and elsewhere and a couple of volumes of memoir. I’m definitely going to keep an eye out for more of Ms. Erdman’s books.

Her books include:

Tales of the Texas Panhandle series. The Pierce family–father, mother and five children—are homesteaders in the Texas Panhandle during the late 1800’s. For middle graders and young adults.
The Wind Blows Free
The Wide Horizon
The Good Land

Other books for adults and teens:
Separate Star. A young schoolteacher’s first year of teaching.
Fair Is the Morning Connie a young school teacher moves the to rural town of Hickory Ridge to write a thesis on rural schools. The job soon proves to be a greater challenge than she had first imagined.
Lonely Passage. Coming of age story about a young girl growing up in a family of strong women.
Many a Voyage. Fiction about Kansas senator, later territorial governor of New Mexico, Edmund G. Ross through the eyes of his wife.
My Sky Is Blue.
The Far Journey. A young woman is reluctant to join her husband, Edward, on the Texas frontier, but eventually she does as they make a life together.
Room to Grow. French immigrants move to the Texas Panhandle from New Orleans.
Another Spring. Civil War era romance about families displaced by Order Number Eleven at the end of the Civil War.
A Bluebird Will Do. “Orphaned in San Francisco during gold rush days, a sixteen-year-old girl travels east by way of the Isthmus of Panama to seek out relatives in New Orleans.”
Save Weeping for the Night.. A fictional account of the life of Bettie Shelby, wife of the Confederate hero, General Jo Shelby.
Three at the Wedding. The wedding of Meredith Dunlap and Rodney Carlyle in the town of Linston, Texas shortly after World War II changes the lives of three other women in various ways.
The Years of the Locust.. The life and influence of an eighty year old farmer, Dade Kenzie, after his death in rural Missouri.
Life was Simpler Then. “Memories of the author’s Missouri farm childhood, within the framework of the four seasons.
A Time to Write.. Writing memoir.

Blog post on Louella Grace Erdman and her books at From Sinking Sand.
Handbook of Texas entry on Louella Grace Erdman.

You Bring the Distant Near by Mitali Perkins

Jan18

A multigenerational story of a family that combines and stands out with so many common traits and differences that it’s hard to keep up with who resembles whom and who’s going to defy cultural and family expectations and strike in a new direction.

The Das family is Bengali to begin with, immigrants from India/Bangladesh to the United States, via England and Ghana for brief stays in both of the latter places. Over the years in the U.S. the Das girls, Sunny and Starry, find their own connections to their Bengali heritage while forging a new connection to the United States and to its many peoples and varied cultures. And their children, the third generation, also have to negotiate the sometimes delightful and sometimes treacherous decisions that come with upholding tradition and opening oneself up to change at the same time.

I found this book to be both insightful and challenging. I am plain bread white Texan (with maybe a little bit of Native American heritage that’s been mostly lost in the annals of time). I have no cultural heritage except for the culture of white Southern/West Texas country folks. My family never expected me to square dance or two-step or enjoy certain books or music or dress is a certain way. And yet. I understand the pull of family expectations, both the ones I felt from my parents and the ones I have for my own children. I get the difficulties of combining very different families and learning to accept each other’s differences while appreciating the commonalities. Families are a great joy and a great challenge, and this book speaks that truth in a Bengali/American context.

It’s also a great book about growing up, about appreciating your family and their strengths and weaknesses while at the same time working to differentiate yourself from them. Sunny and Starry grow up to be just like their parents, except for the many ways that they are not at all like their parents. And the book also takes socioeconomic differences and challenges and decisions into account as yet another set of intricate cultural influencers that make the characters in the book look at themselves and and others in disparate, sometimes conflicting, ways.

Don’t get the idea that Sunny and Starry and their parents and their children are simply flat, stand-in characters representing Every Immigrant or the “immigrant experience” or AnyTeen who has a journey to make to “find herself”. The people in You Bring the Distant Near are memorable, well-rounded people who make choices that are sometimes surprising and sometimes predictable, always thought-provoking and endearing. Not all of the people in the book make the best decisions, but they are all trying, and as a reader I was rooting for them to succeed in building strong families and strong connections, the same things I want for my own family.

Best Young Adult Fiction I Read in 2017

Jan9

You Bring the Distant Near by Mitali Perkins. Such a good young adult novel about family and cultural heritage and bonds across generations. I read this story of a multi-generational Bengali American family as they both adjusted to and influenced the places and people they became a part of, and Ms. Perkins’ new book quickly shot to the top of my YA list of favorites for 2017.

Deathwatch by Robb White. Something new, something old-ish. Robb White’s 1972 novel about a boy surviving in the desert while being hunted and hounded by a predatory criminal was both exciting and absorbing. Deathwatch won the 1973 Edgar Award for Best Juvenile Mystery from the Mystery Writers of America.

A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge. Those who inhabit the underground city of Caverna are born with blank faces, and have to learn to put on preset patterns of expression. These learned Faces enable the citizens of Caverna to lie and dissemble and carry on dizzying political intrigues. One girl, Neverfell is different. Her guardian, Grandible the Cheesemaster, insists that she wear a mask whenever she meets with anyone else, though she does not know why. Maybe “Ugly” is the only Face she has been given? Or maybe it has something to with her past before she was taken in by Grandible as a seven-year-old, which she can’t remember. Long, but worth the time.

Downriver by Will Hobbs. Another survival story. This one is about eight teens, four girls and four guys, who ditch their instructor in an outdoor education camp, steal his van and equipment, and drive to the Grand Canyon to paddle the rapids of the Colorado all the way through the canyon.

Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott. A re-read of one of my favorite Alcott stories. Rose in Bloom is the sequel to Eight Cousins.

Ashes by Laurie Halse Anderson. This third and final book in Ms. Anderson’s Seeds of America trilogy wraps up the story of Curzon and Isabel, the black teens who have weathered the vicissitudes of the American revolution and of slavery, freedom, and re-capture and are now near their goal: the liberation of Isabel’s younger sister, Ruth, and her restoration to freedom and the only family she has, Isabel.

Only six books on this list because I didn’t read that many young adult books in 2017. But these were all definitely top-notch reads, highly recommended.

Frederica by Georgette Heyer

Jun19

Best Regency romance ever with strong characters and witty and slangy repartee. I liked the romantic leads quite a bit, and I even felt sympathy for the ingenue parts, played by Frederica’s sister Charis and her crush. Oh, I just had a thought: this book would translate into a K-drama quite nicely.

The male lead of the novel, the Marquess of Alverstoke, is thirty-seven years old, rich, cold-hearted, uninterested in marriage, and unwilling to become involved in the lives and fortunes of his various relatives. However, Miss Frederica Merryville, a distant country cousin, breaks through his defenses without even meaning to do so. By the end of the novel, of course, Alverstoke and Frederica are in love and well on their way to becoming a “good match.”

I’ve been reading several of Gerogette Heyer’s Regency and other romance novels, and I find them of uneven quality. They are rather predictable, but the journey to the happy, married ending is rather fun, IF I like the characters from near the beginning. On the other hand, as in The Devil’s Cub, if the characters are unbelievable or unlikeable in the extreme, displaying the worst characteristics of the time period and culture, then it’s hard to develop much sympathy for them or interest in their eventual fate.

So far, here are the best and worst of Ms. Heyer’s oeuvre, in my opinion:

Best: Frederica, The Grand Sophy, Lady of Quality

Worst: The Devil’s Cub and perhaps by extension, These Old Shades, which is about the parents of Vidal from The Devil’s Cub. I didn’t like Vidal nor his parents in the latter book, so I doubt I would develop much affection for the Alistair family by reading These Old Shades.

Still planning to read: Cotillion, Venetia, The Convenient Marriage.

Any others you recommend I seek out?

Devil’s Cub by Georgette Heyer

Jun13

Set in the late eighteenth century and originally published in 1932, this book has a lot of conflicting cultural mores and values to balance, and I’m just not sure it works in the feminist-imbued twenty-first century. A virtuous young lady, Mary Challoner, disguises herself as her sister who has a date to run away with the rakish and self indulgent Dominic Alistair, Marquis of Vidal (Vidal for short). In the first chapter Vidal very casually murders a would-be highway robber and leaves the body lying in the middle of the road because he’s too lazy to dispose of it. Then he wounds his opponent in a duel, leaves him for dead, and rushes off to arrange his assignation with Mary’s feckless and gullible sister, Sophia. So, Mary, to save her sister, runs away with Vidal, reveals herself after a while, and hopes that Vidal will lose interest in ruining Sophia. Instead, Vidal decides to abduct Mary out of spite, and he comes close to attempted rape until Mary shoots him in the arm with a pistol.

After all of that set-up, we’re supposed to believe that Vidal is just a misunderstood “bad boy”, kind of a Rhett Butler character, and Mary is just the girl to take him in hand and tame him. Oh, and we know that he’s really a good guy deep down inside because when Mary gets seasick while crossing the Channel with her abductor, Vidal fetches a basin for her to throw up into. By the time they get to France, they are in love with each other although neither one is aware of the other’s regard, and all that remains is for them to discover their mutual admiration, soothe and get the approval of the parents on both sides of the match, assuage Sophia’s wounded pride, and save Mary’s reputation and honor.

I’m just not buying. Vidal never does come across as a good character, although Mary thinks he is. If she marries him, Mary Challoner is in for a rude awakening when he murders a servant someday for polishing his boots the wrong way or tells her that he didn’t know that she would mind his having a mistress on the side. Vidal is not shown to be misunderstood or misjudged, but rather he is absolved of all responsibility and guilt for no discernible reason. He’s actually a cad and a murderer. And if there is such a thing as slut-shaming, Sophia is a victim; it’s said to be justifiable to abduct her because she’s a naive but willing runaway. However, Mary is supposed to be honorable and a cut above her sister because she would never really run away to Paris with Vidal; it’s all a horrible misunderstanding, an adventure, and an accident.

What with the male-female double standard for marital and sexual behavior in the 1930’s and the class distinctions for what is honorable and moral behavior in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this romance is a hot mess. Honorable, decent girls shouldn’t fall in love with their would-be abductors and rapists, and if they do they can expect trouble in the subsequent marriage. As for Vidal, he doesn’t deserve a wife or a mistress, and I don’t believe his protestations of innocence and undying affection for Mary.

The spectacle of the various characters in the novel chasing one another all over France is somewhat entertaining, but othe wise this novel is both infuriating and forgettable. I’ve liked some other Heyer Regency romances, but I’d recommend giving this one a pass.

Summer Reading: High School

May6

Shaking the Nickel Bush by Ralph Moody. “Skinny and suffering from diabetes, Ralph Moody is ordered by a Boston doctor to seek a more healthful climate. Now nineteen years old, he strikes out into new territory hustling odd jobs, facing the problem of getting fresh milk and leafy green vegetables. He scrapes around to survive, risking his neck as a stunt rider for a movie company. With an improvident buddy named Lonnie, he camps out in an Arizona canyon and ‘shakes the nickel bush’ by sculpting plaster of paris busts of lawyers and bankers. This is 1918, and the young men travel through the Southwest not on horses but in a Ford aptly named Shiftless.” This book is the sixth book in a series of eight autobiographical novels by Ralph Moody, the author and protagonist who had to grow up fast after his father’s death when Ralph was only eleven years old. High schoolers may want to start with the fist book in the series, Little Britches, or just begin with this one, a gripping tale of a young man’s adventures and growth.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. High school is the right time to be introduced to Harper Lee’s great American novel. And then to the movie, which by my exacting standards is just as good as the novel. The story takes place over the course of more than one year, winter summer fall and spring, but it feels like a summertime novel, as Jem and Scout play with the summer visitor, and as they grow and learn about the realities of life in A good follow-up story is I Kill the Mockingbird by Paul Acampora, about a trio of rising ninth graders who spend the summer promoting TKAM and preparing for their big move to high school.

Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson. In the fictional account of the Philadelphia 1793 yellow fever epidemic, Fever 1793, Laurie Halse Anderson illustrates the deadly nature of yellow fever and its effects on the community with a story about Mattie Cook, a girl of fourteen who lives above a coffeehouse that provides her family’s livelihood. Since Mattie’s father is dead, Mattie’s mother, her grandmother, and the black cook, Eliza, run the coffeehouse, and Mattie and the serving girl, Polly, help. At the beginning of the book in August 1793, Mattie worries about her mother’s temper and about how to get a little extra sleep and avoid as much work as possible. By the end of the story, Mattie has been forced to take on adult responsibilities: nursing, providing food for her family, repelling thieves and intruders, and running the coffeehouse. Take a look at this post on Semicolon for more books about fevers, epidemics, and plagues.

Monsoon Summer by Mitali Perkins. Light summer reading. Fifteen year old Jazz Gardner’s mom tells her that the family is going to spend the summer in India, helping out at the orphanage that Mrs. Gardner lived in before she was adopted. And at about the same time, Jazz realizes that her feelings for Steve, her longtime business partner, have turned into something more than just platonic friendship. Unfortunately, there’s no indication from Steve that he sees Jazz as anything but a friend and a partner. And other girls are after Steve. And the business needs her. And who wants to go to India, anyway?

A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L’Engle. I love Madeleine L’Engle, and Ring of Endless Light is one of my favorites. The Austin family is spending the summer with Vicky’s grandfather who is dying. As Vicky writes her poetry and deals with her grief over her grandfather, she also finds friendship and maybe even romance with three very different boys: Zachary, the wild romantic; Leo, an old friend; and Adam, the dolphin researcher.

Summer Moonshine by P.G. Wodehouse. Sir Buckstone Abbott is an English baron with a house he can’t keep up, so he rents out the rooms in Walsingford Hall to an odd assortment of boarders. Then, Sir Bucksone Abbott goes into debt, then into hiding, and leaves his daughter, Jane, to take care of things in his absence. Wodehousian romantic and monetary entanglements, confusion, and ridiculousness ensue. This one is not Bertie and Jeeves and not set at Blandings Castle, but it’s humor from 1937 that translates into the twenty-first century quite satisfactorily. Many high schoolers should be ready to be introduced to Wodehouse, especially those who became Anglophiles, as I did, while reading British children’s literature.

Nonfiction for High School Reading:

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown. Subtitled “Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics”, this narrative nonfiction book is for anyone interested in sports stories in general, rowing in particular, the rise of Nazism, the 1930’s, Olympic history, and just plain inspirational stories of perseverance and courage.

Miracle at Philadelphia by Catherine Drinker Bowen. “Over Philadelphia, the air lay hot and humid: old people said it was the worst summer since 1750. . . . In the Pennsylvania State House, which we call Independence Hall, some fifty-five delegates, named by the legislatures of twelve states (Rhode Island balked, refusing attendance) met in convention, and during a summer of hard work and high feeling wrote out a plan of government which they hoped the states would accept, and which they entitled The Constitution of the United States of America.” Catherine Drinker Bowen tells readers, teens and adults as well, all about what took place in “the room where it happened” during that summer of 1787.

Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins. The true story of a young man who decided to walk across the country from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific in search of . . . himself? Meaning? Patriotism? It’s a great story, and I absolutely loved living vicariously through Mr. Jenkins’ journey through the United States of 1979. (Jenkins only made it to New Orleans in the first book, so there’s a sequel, The Walk West.)

More Summer Reading ideas:

Summer Reading, Summer Setting.
Summer Reading: 52 Picks for the Hols.
June: Death in Summer.
Summer Reading: 2006.
Summer Reading List: Summer After High School.