Valley of Dragons by Christina Baehr

Apr24

The series, The Secrets of Ormdale by Christina Baehr:

  • Wormwood Abbey, Book #1
  • Drake Hall, Book #2
  • Castle of the Winds, Book #3
  • City of Serpents, Book #4
  • Valley of Dragons, Book #5

I already reviewed the first book in this series, and now that I’ve finished all five books in The Secrets of Ormdale saga, I’m going to give you my thoughts on the entire series, rather than review each book individually. My immediate reaction is: excellent fantasy and romance fiction! Set in Victorian London and Yorkshire, these books are appropriately Victorian, with a nod to “new ideas” (at the time) such as women’s suffrage and equality of the sexes and classes. Each book tells a separate contained story, and yet each one leads on to the next. The themes and characters are obviously influenced by Christian and Charlotte Mason ideas and principles, but with a light touch, not at all didactic. There is some exploration of the status and plight of Jewish people in England during the time period when many Ashkenazi Jews were fleeing Eastern Europe to come to British shores. And the central character and narrator, Edith Worms, is a part of a delightful and deeply Christian family who live their commitment to Christ and his teachings rather than grounding their Christianity in Victorian cultural morality.

So, that’s the overview. As for Book #5 in the series, Valley of Dragons, it is much longer than the other four books in the series, clocking in at 499 pages. But the author needed all of those pages to finish her story. As the story commences in Book #5, there are yet many secrets to be revealed, prisoners to be released, enemies to be defeated, and dragons to be tamed.

About those dragons, these stories do feature reptiles, many kinds of serpents, salamanders, cockatrices, basilisks, sea monsters, wyverns, and lizards–even a Quetzalcoatl–all collectively termed as dragons in this alternate world. Indeed, Britain harbors at least four families of dragon keepers who have kept their many species of dragons safe and secret for centuries.

Some literary experts insist that dragons and serpents must always only be shown in literature as “bad guys”, archetypal monsters and symbols of satanic influence, like the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Anyone who writes about a “good dragon” or a dragon ally or pet is inverting the symbols and distorting the fundamental meaning of the literary tradition, and maybe even Scripture itself. However, Edith Worms and her father, a clergyman, and I beg to differ:

“‘You said once that the church had been a comfort to you when you were young, Father, because it mentioned dragons. But aren’t they always a symbol of evil in the scriptures?’

‘A symbol, yes. To say evil is like a dragon is to say evil is deadly and long-lived. . . . But not all of the dragons in the scriptures are evil. What of Job’s leviathan? You will not find a passage more full of wonder than that. Everything was good when it was created. . . .’

‘When I look at the dragons, I see something beautiful–something worth protecting,” I said. . . . “But the people of Dale, they see something fearful. Something only an archangel can save them from.’

‘God made both people and dragons, my dear. What we must find is a way for us to live together peacefully–as He intended. . . ,’ Father said encouragingly.”

Dragons can certainly signify evil and danger and monstrosity with in the literary tradition, but they can also simply stand for power and peril and wonder within that same tradition. Stories are not bound by such petty rules of literary nitpicking. Nor is Scripture. The serpent on a pole that Mose was instructed to elevate before the Israelites in the wilderness was a symbol and vehicle of healing (Numbers 21:4-9). The dragons in The Secrets of Ormdale are certainly dangerous, like lions and tigers are dangerous, but they are subject to men (and women) to whom God gave the job of tending His creation, including all kinds of reptiles, even dragons.

Dragons aside for the moment, these books are all about secrets, especially family secrets, and how they can destroy relationships and even block love itself. The books do involve romance as Edith learns to “open her heart” and accept the pain and loss that loving someone can entail. The romantic scenes themselves are completely chaste, with only a few kisses described, but there are allusions to the perversion of sexual attraction as one character recalls being sexually assaulted and another is kidnapped and almost forced into an unwilling marriage.

I thought these books with their emphasis on freedom and openness and the free choices of responsible men and women to care for each other in mutual, self-sacrificial and loving relationship were a perfect antidote to the typical Gothic romance with its brooding atmosphere of secrets and seduction. In The Secrets of Ormdale, all secrets are eventually brought out into the open, and the happily-ever-after is built on a firm foundation of mutual respect and truth.

The entire series, The Secrets of Ormdale, is available for check out from Meriadoc Homeschool Library for adults and young adult who are prepared for romantic themes, practical young heroines, and of course, beautiful and perilous dragons.

Will’s Race for Home by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Apr22

Rhodes, Jewell Parker. Will’s Race for Home: A Western. Illustrated by Olga and Aleksey Ivanov. Little, Brown and Company, 2025.

This middle grade novel is indeed a western, but a bit different from most books in the genre. Set in 1889 before and during the Oklahoma Land Rush, the story features twelve year old Will, and his family who are Black sharecroppers on a farm in Texas. Will’s father is a taciturn man, formerly enslaved, and tired of working on another man’s land. Will doesn’t understand his father, and doesn’t believe his father cares much for him. Then life changes when Father hears about free land available in Oklahoma for those who rush in to claim it. He is anxious to travel to the border to try to be one of the few who benefit from the opportunity.

Father needs someone to go with him, someone he can count on when the journey becomes difficult. So since Will can read and since there’s no one else, Will becomes his father’s trusted companion on the long way to Oklahoma and the land rush. The book also chronicles Will’s internal journey toward becoming what his father calls “tough”, becoming a man.

At first, I didn’t particularly like the prose style the book was written in: lots of short choppy sentences, with phrases interspersed between the sentences. “Sometimes Grandpa lets me try shooting a rabbit. Not often. I’m a bad shot.” “Father and Grandpa study the map. Marking, re-marking the trail. Praying for ten miles a day.” But as I read I began to appreciate the spare, straightforward prose as a reflection of the character of Will’s father in particular, and of the other western men they meet along the way. These are men who work hard and don’t always have much to say, but when they do speak, it’s important enough to require listening. The kind of man Will eventually will become, too.

So, it’s a coming of age story, a western, and a boy’s tale. In her afterword, Ms. Rhodes writes,

“Tales of African Americans on the western frontier are few. But having spent most of my life in the West and as a historical fiction writer, I felt compelled to explore the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889. . . Will’s Race for Home is only one story, exploring a fictional African American family experiencing tragedy and triumph in their quest for freedom and a home in a ‘promised land.’ Will, the son of formerly enslaved people, is my hero. He has resilience, courage and loyalty.”

Many boys , and even some girls, would enjoy this story becoming a man at the turn of the century in the Wild West. There is some extended, and I think balanced, discussion, in short bursts, of guns and violence and when to use a gun and when to threaten violence in self-defense. And the ideas about the use of guns and violence are put to the test when Will must defend his family’s land claim from claim-jumping thieves.

I haven’t read too many middle grade fiction books from 2025 yet to compare, but this one is a favorite so far. Will is my hero, too. And with the tie-in to history and the Oklahoma Land Rush, I may very well put this novel on my wish list for Meriadoc Homeschool LIbrary’s collection.

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower

Apr18

Brower, Beth. The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volumes 1-4. Rysdon Press, 2019-2021.

I saw these books recommended here and there on the internet, and the synopses and reviews sounded interesting, so I decided to try the first volume of The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion. (I assume that “unselected” means “unedited”.) Miss Lion’s journal in its first volume was a brief read, only 107 pages, but it was indeed enticing enough to make me immediately order a copy of Volume 2. Which led to Volumes 3 and 4, and I am hooked.

In Volume 1 we meet Miss Emma M. Lion as she arrives at Lapis Lazuli House in the neighborhood of St. Crispian’s, London on March 5, 1883. Miss Lion’s journal entries are filled with intriguing and mysterious references to various incidents and persons such as “The Great Burning of 1882” and “The Incident which led to The Scar” and “the monkey’s head Maxwell sent me” and “the Roman centurion (ghost) at Jacob’s Well” and more. Some of these are explained as one reads on; others are left to the imagination and most probably to later volumes. This first volume of the journals really just introduces Emma Lion and a cast of characters who include a nefarious uncle, a formidable aunt, a few friends and cousins, and various inhabitants of the slightly magical, eccentric neighborhood of St. Crispian’s.

In Volume 2, Emma, determined to remain in her home, Lapis Lazuli House, despite financial and social difficulties, begins to enter into multiple adventures and schemes and to add a bit a romance to her life. Even though Emma is not particularly interested in romantic entanglements or marriage, and even though she is not particularly eligible, having little or no money, she does have an awful lot of young men in her orbit: the photographer to whom she rents a room, her childhood nemesis turned into a handsome bachelor, the duke who lives in the neighborhood, a poetic and somewhat eccentric Church of England curate, and a charming scoundrel named Jack, to name a few. Emma navigates all of these with grace and wit, while also doing the bidding of her autocratic Aunt Eugenia, somewhat reluctantly, and managing at least a stand off with her arch-enemy Cousin Archibald.

At this point and into volumes 3 and 4, the story begins to remind one of a TV series (like Downton Abbey or All Creatures Great and Small) with lots of characters, some lovely dialog, little stories embedded into a larger story, and hints and revelations that pique the curiosity and keep one coming back for more. So far the romance is chaste and Victorian, and the language is tame, although there are a very few instances in which characters use God’s name in vain, which I wish were not present. Since I’ve only read Volumes 1-4 so far, I can’t guarantee that Emma remains a paragon of virtue, by twenty-first century standards. By Victorian standards, she’s already lost paragon status by the end of Volume 2. However, her adventures are not really shocking for anyone who is not Aunt Eugenia or of her ilk, and Emma is a church-going, Scripture reading, young lady in all I have read so far.

I love these books, and I foresee spending a great deal of time reading Emma’s journals. Author Beth Brower has promised:  “the plan is to write four years of Emma’s life, give or take. And as every volume covers two months of Emma’s life, that is, indeed, six volumes each year.” So, twenty-four or more volumes. (Volume 2 and succeeding volumes are much longer than Volume 1; 191 pages for Volume 4.) At about $12.00 apiece in paperback, I also foresee spending a great deal of money collecting all of Miss Lion’s journals. If you read books in ebook form, you will have a much less expensive journey, should you decide to read your way through the Unselected Journals. If you can get them from the library, even better; however Rysdon Press seems to be Ms. Brower’s personal imprint, and many libraries do not purchase self-published books as a matter of policy. (Oh, I think Kindle Unlimited may have them for free.)

Still, here I go to order Volumes 5 and 6. At least, you will be able to check out Volumes 1-6 from Meriadoc Homeschool Library in the future. As I said, I am hooked.

Orris and Timble: Lost and Found by Kate DiCamillo

Apr18

DiCamillo, Kate. Orris and Timble: Lost and Found. Illustrated by Carmen Mok. Candlewick Press, 2025.

In my review of the first book in this early reader chapter book series, Orris and Timble: The Beginning, I said that the illustrations by Carmen Mok were adequate, but nothing special. Either the illustrations have improved in this second book, or I have grown in my appreciation. Whatever it is, there were several pictures in this book, which continues the saga of the friendship between the snowy white owl Timble and the curmudgeonly rat Orris, that I wanted to frame and enjoy at my leisure. Timble the Owl grows up in this book, and his world gets bigger. But he eventually returns to his home in the barn and to the comfort of his friendship with Orris the Rat.

If that first book was “about friendship and adventure and choices and risk taking”, this second book is a twist on the story of the Prodigal Son from the Bible. Timble is lost, but eventually found. And the central ideas that I took from the book are two: Stories tie us together. And we can always find our way home if we look hard enough.

Maybe these books are too meditative and philosophical for some children, and even some adults, but I think others will appreciate them deeply. The vocabulary is somewhat challenging, but the sentences are simple, with only a few sentences on each page, along with those now lovely pictures. And the plot line is easy to follow, even though the ideas contained in these “easy” stories are beautiful and profound.

This book and the one that precedes it, Orris and TImble: The Beginning, are both available for check out from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

My Rows and Piles of Coins by Tololwa M. Mollel

Apr11

Mollel, Tololwa M. My Rows and Piles of Coins. Illustrated by E.B. Lewis. Clarion Books, 1999.

One of the themes for May in Picture Book Preschool is AFRICA. I have many picture books set on the African continent in my library, but one of my favorites is My Rows and Piles of Coins, which takes place in Tanzania. Tanzanian-born storyteller, actor, and author Tololwa M. Mollel, who eventually moved to Canada as a young man, wrote this and many other stories drawing on the storytelling tradition passed down to him by his grandfather and also on his own experiences growing up in rural Tanzania.

In the book, Saruni, a boy about ten or eleven years old, earns a small number of coins every Saturday when he helps his mother take her goods to the market to sell. Although he is tempted by the many things available for sale in the Saturday outdoor marketplace, Saruni is saving his coins in a secret money box for a special purchase–a bicycle of his own!

One the things I like about this story is that Saruni is saving his money for a bicycle because he thinks it would be exciting to own and ride a bicycle of his own just as his father, Murete, does. But Saruni also wants a bicycle because it will enable him to help his mother carry her goods to market more effectively. He wants to help his mother!

Another element that makes this book stand out is the illustrations by American illustrator E.B. Lewis. Lewis’s watercolor paintings are colorful, vivid, and engaging as they present across each two-page spread giving readers a beautiful picture of life in a Tanzanian village.

Finally, the story is easy to understand, even if it is set in a different culture and place, but it’s complicated enough to have a couple of unexpected twists at the end. Saruni’s quest to help his mother and to buy a bicycle does have a happy ending, but not without some obstacles and surprises along the way. I loved the way the story turned out, with a realistic but satisfying conclusion.

My Rows and Piles of Coins is a Picture Book Preschool selection for Week 22: AFRICA. This picture book was also a Coretta Scott King Award Honor book, an award recognizing outstanding books for children by African American authors and illustrators. This book is available for check out from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

A Walk in the Rain by Ursel Scheffler

Apr10

Scheffler, Ursel. A Walk in the Rain. Illustrated by Ulises Wendell. Translated by Andrea Mernan. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1986. A Picture Book Preschool book.

I don’t know how I discovered this under appreciated and mostly unknown German picture book, but I know I loved it at first sight, more than thirty years ago. Published in German in 1984, this one is simple, but it stands the test of time for me. It’s out of print, but at present multiple copies are available online, used for less than $10.00.

“Josh loved visiting his grandparents, especially on rainy days. Because Josh’s grandmother loved to walk in the rain.”

So begins our story. Josh appears to be four or five years old, and his grandmother is grey-haired but healthy enough to walk on logs and pretend to be a tightrope walker with Josh walking ahead. The narrative simply details the various things that Josh and his grandmother see and do as they walk in the (gentle) rain: a ladybug, birds sheltering from the rain, leaves collected near a drain in the street, the logs in the forest, mushrooms sprouting.

Josh’s grandmother answers his questions, feeding him a little bit of information about rain and its effects, in answer to his questions. “[T]he birds’ feathers are covered with oil, which helps keep them dry in the rain just like a raincoat.” Mushrooms “sprout everywhere when it rains.” But mostly Grandmother just lets Josh explore the rainy day and the various wonders that the two of them find on their walk.

Before the walk Josh’s grandparents give him a yellow raincoat and rain boots, and afterward the nature explorers dry off, and Grandfather reads a story to Josh as they look out the window at the rain. The illustrations are just as simple and delightful–and rainy–as the story. Artist Ulises Wendell used soft colors, mostly blues and greens and yellow, for the raincoats, and brown for the trees and the dog. Wendell, now deceased, was a prolific illustrator of more than fifty picture books and other children’s books in Europe, mostly published in Spain or Germany.

I like to walk in the rain myself, and I must like the theme of a walk with grandparents because two other books in Picture Book Preschool have this basic plot. In Rain by Sam Usher, a boy goes out to mail a letter with his grandfather after the rainstorm is over. In Gramma’s Walk by Anna Grossnickle Hines, Donnie and Gramma, who is in a wheelchair, take an imagined walk to the seashore and smell the salty breeze, walk barefoot on the warm sand, observe animals, and build a sand castle. Those are both lovely books, but A Walk in the Rain complements the other two rather than replacing them. Read Mr. Scheffler’s simple story specifically before a walk IN the rain, and then take that walk and see what you and your young child or grandchild discover on a rainy day nature walk.

You can check out a copy of A Walk in the Rain from Meriadoc Homeschool Library

Scotland’s Story by H.E. Marshall

Mar27

Marshall, H.E. Scotland’s Story. Illustrated by J. R. Skelton, John Hassall, and J. Shaw Crompton. Living Book Press, 2020. Originally published in the United Kingdom in 1906-7 and in the United States in 1910.

I would love to visit Scotland! I’ve been to England (London and Oxford) and to Ireland for a brief visit, and I’d love to go back to either or both of those countries for more. However, my more immediate travel goal is Scotland. Reading Scotland’s Story by H.E. Marshall only intensified my desire to go to the land of Burns and Bruce and heather on the hills.

I’ve been an Anglophile for most of my life, and I’ve read a lot of British history and historical fiction. I read and enjoyed Thomas Costain’s four volumes about the history of the Plantagenets and England. So good! I thought that in all that reading about kings and queens and commoners in England that I knew a fair amount about Scottish history, too. After all, weren’t the two, Scotland and England, unified as one nation after that regrettable incident concerning the death of Mary, Queen of Scots?

However, for hundreds of years Scotland and England were emphatically not unified, and the two countries were at war or near-war more frequently than not. Scotland’s Story is a collection of legends and true stories from history, written by the author of Our Island Story, as a supplement to that book, focusing on the stories and history of Scotland and the Scots people. The book begins in the ancient mists of once upon a time with “The Story of Prince Gathelus” and continues through ninety chapters of Saint Columba and Macbeth, William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, and various other kings and battles and lords and ladies all the way down to George III and Sir Walter Scott in the early nineteenth century.

I read this book over the course of about three months (January-March), one or more chapters or stories per day. Each chapter is about two or three pages long, the perfect length for morning time read aloud and for narration, and I found the stories so absorbing that I couldn’t always limit myself to one a day. Sometimes I just had to know what happened next. During my reading, I found out about many episodes and people that I knew very little or nothing about before: the Picts, the alliance between France and Scotland, the full stories of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, James I the Poet King and all the Jameses, the covenanters, Flodden Field, Killiecrankie, and Glencoe. I already knew about Mary Queen of Scots and Bonnie Prince Charlie and their unfortunate histories, but even about those two and others, I was reminded of stories I had forgotten and I learned new details and stories that I hadn’t read about before.

The book was written by Ms. Marshall for children to introduce them to the tales of Scotland’s history. And it turns out that Ms. Marshall had a special affinity for her subject in this particular book: she was actually a Scot herself and an ardent admirer of that most famous Scottish novelist, Sir Walter Scott! The history of Scotland, especially in pre-modern times, is rather violent and bloody, but Marshall glosses over the actual gore. Any child who is ready to read about actual battles and political intrigues and deaths of traitors and patriots is ready for this book. And anyone who is a Scotophile (just found that word) or interested in visiting Scotland someday should read Scotland’s Story first. You can check out a copy of Scotland’s Story from Meriadoc Homeschool Library, or you can purchase a copy of the book from Living Book Press.

(So, now I want to read A History of France or A History of Germany, both by Marshall also. Or maybe I’ll just read the entire Our Island Story, a book I’ve only dipped into but never read from cover to cover.)

Wormwood Abbey by Christina Baehr

Mar26

Baehr, Christina. Wormwood Abbey. (The Secrets of Ormdale, Book 1). Independently published, 2023.

I’m generally skeptical about self-published books by debut authors. Even though I believe the publishers are “gate-keeping” to keep out authors who write good books free of progressive social agendas, the publishing system with its editors and agents and extensively vetted authors does serve a purpose, or at least it should. These systems were put in place to make sure that only the best books got published, but it’s becoming the case that only the politically progressive books are accepted for publication.

At any rate, I kept seeing references here and there to Christina Baehr’s Secrets of Ormdale series about a family of dragon keepers in late Victorian (1899) England, and finally I took the bait and ordered the first book in the series. I have only read that first book, and I can’t vouch for the rest of the series. Nevertheless, I immediately ordered the other four books in the series after reading Wormwood Abbey. It’s a good book, and I expect it to be a good series.

Christina Baehr describes herself at her website as a “cozy Gothic novelist” and in her newsletter as a mother of ten who lives and works in Tasmania. However, The Secrets of Ormdale books are set in Yorkshire, not on the island of Tasmania in Australia. Edith Worms, a clergyman’s daughter and an author herself (of detective novels), travels from London with her parents and younger brother to Wormwood Abbey, the ancestral estate of her father’s estranged family. Father’s older brother has died suddenly, and the estate is now entailed on Father, an inheritance he and the Worms family have no wish to take up. However when the family arrive at Wormwood Abbey, they find that it’s not so easy to give up an inheritance or to ferret out its secrets.

Beginning on the first page, Ms. Baehr makes all sorts of literary and historical allusions and references, to everyone from Charlotte Mason to Jane Austen to the Bronte sisters to Chesterton to many other authors and poets and cultural icons. The references are not pretentious, but they are fun. “Mother also looked up from her new issue of The Parents’ Review (April, 1899).”

The vocabulary and speech patterns in the book could be considered a bit pretentious, but then again, maybe they really talked–and thought– like that in 1899, especially if the narrator had a Charlotte Mason education, as is implied in the story. And the ideas in the books are lovely and inspiring.

“Mother would say that every day is a miracle. That it is we who have grown so dull and stupid that we do not see it, expecting the miracles to go on and on, without recognizing them for what they are.”

When Edith and her brother are trying to find their way out of a cavern: “We sang the Doxology a few times, laughing a bit over the line ‘all creatures here below.’ Then we sang ‘Marlborough Has Gone to Battle.’ This did the trick nicely. I found it impossible to think of wolves leaping on me in the darkness when loudly singing a nursery song.”

“All of God’s creatures are beautiful and useful, though not all of them are pleasant.”

The story includes a touch of romance, with a tall, dark, and handsome neighbor thrown into the mix of characters. But the “romance” is very chaste and completely unrealized in this first book. There is also a plot element involving a child in being left to die and an illegitimate child in the household. So the book is for older teens and adults. I found a couple of typographical errors, but the writing itself is good, with rich language and lots of literary allusions, as I mentioned before.

The novel is well-plotted and ends in a satisfactory manner, but also leaves the reader with an appetite for more. Indeed, Wormwood Abbey is an excellent beginning to a promising fantasy series—with dragons! And as an added bonus, if you go to Christina Baehr’s website and sign up for her newsletter, she offers to send you the first few chapters of Wormwood Abbey so that you can test to see if the book is right for you before you buy. Who could ask for a better deal?

Wormwood Abbey, and its sequels, are available for check out from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Facing the Mountain by Daniel James Brown

Mar25

Brown, Daniel James. Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II. Viking, 2021.

Daniel James Brown, author of The Boys in the Boat, has another (2021) book out, Facing the Mountain. Despite my wholehearted support for the idea of “never forget”, I have to admit that I am somewhat jaded and tired of reading about the World War 2 Holocaust, and the Japanese internment camps in the U.S., and really, World War 2 in general. The stories are important and even relevant to our own time, but they are starting to sound like old news.

Nevertheless, this one deserves a place in your reading line-up or stack or To-Be-Read list, wherever you keep those titles that you are planning to read soon. The book covers the internment of Japanese American citizens and legal residents, but the emphasis is on the service of the young men, Nisei–second generation Americans of Japanese descent–“who volunteered for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and were deployed to France, Germany, and Italy, where they were asked to do the near impossible in often suicidal missions.”

Definitely not old news for me. I learned a lot. The story of these men is a lesson in courage and fortitude and persistence that went way beyond my small store of those virtues. There are even a couple of stories that feature peace-making in the midst of war.

One example, many of the soldiers of the 442nd were Hawaiian-born Japanese Americans; others were from the mainland, mostly the west coast. The two groups may have looked similar with the same ancestry, but their cultural heritage and general attitudes were not the same. The Hawaiians, who were called “Buddhaheads” by the mainlanders, were much too easy-going and rule-breaking for the “Kotonks” (nickname given the mainland Japanese Americans). And the Kotonks were too serious and legalistic, having come mostly from the internment camps, as far as the Buddhaheads were concerned. This difference in outlook led to arguments, even fights, while the guys of the 442nd were in training, and it took some time and some hard knocks for the 442nd to become a cohesive fighting unit.

Then, also, the author Brown tells the story of Gordon Hirabayashi who fought his own battle in prisons across the Southwestern United States as a conscientious objector and resistor not only to the war but also to the restrictions that were being placed on Japanese Americans as a result of their ethnicity. And the Japanese American chaplains who served the 442nd are also featured with quotations from letters that these men sent home.

Daniel James interviewed several of the men of the 442nd, “by most reckonings, . . . the most decorated military unit of its size and length of service in American history.” He also talked to their families and descendants and read and shared their letters and notes and memories. The result is a well-written narrative history of the wartime service of several Nisei soldiers as examples of the entire combat team. And readers get a picture of the chronology of all of the battles and assaults and rescues performed by the 442nd, including the rescue of the “Lost Battalion”, a group of mostly Texan soldiers who in late 1944 in Germany were sent into a trap and only saved at the expense of many lives by the 442nd Nisei.

If you’re a World War II buff, you must read this book. If you’re not particularly interested in WWII, but you do like inspiring stories of courage, like Unbroken and The Boys in the Boat, you should also pick up a copy of Facing the Mountain. Finally, if you have a relationship with anyone of Japanese heritage or if you are a Japanese American yourself, this book is a must read. I’m not Japanese at all, but it made me proud to be an American, even though our record as a country in regard to how we have treated people of color is mixed to say the least. Still, the stories of people overcoming obstacles of racial prejudice and mistreatment, and even becoming heroes, belong to us all.

Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine by Jay Williams and Raymond Abrashkin

Mar18

Williams, Jay and Raymond Abrashkin. Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine. Illustrated by Ezra Jack Keats. Whittlesey House, 1958.

The Danny Dunn books were a series of 15 science fiction adventure books, published in the late 1950’s and into the 60’s, about Danny, who’s a red-headed, adventurous, all-American boy who loves mathematics and science. Danny lives with his widowed mother, the live-in housekeeper for Professor Euclid Bullfinch, a researcher and inventor who works for Midston University. In Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine, Danny is flanked by his two friends Irene and Joe as the trio experiment with getting Professor Bullfinch’s new mini-computer, Miniac aka Minny, to do their homework for them.

As dated as the science is in this book, I think this particular Danny Dunn adventure has a lot to say about present day technology and our relationship to it. Professor Bullfinch, in the story, has invented a computer that is much smaller and faster and more powerful than the actual computers (IBM) available in 1958. However, when Irene says to the professor that Miniac is “a kind of Superman”, the professor disagrees.

The Professor shook his head. “No, my dear,” he said. “It is only a kind of supertool. Everything in this machine is inside the human head, in the much smaller space of the human brain. Just think of it–all the hundreds of thousands of switches, core memory planes, miles of wires, tubes–all that’s in that big case and in this console–are all huge an awkward compared to the delicate tiny cells of the human brain which is capable of doing as much as, or more than, the best of these machines. It’s the human brain which can produce a mechanical brain like this one.”

“The computer can reason,” he went on. “It can do sums and give information and draw logical conclusions, but it can’t create anything. It could give you all the words that rhyme with moon, for instance, but it couldn’t put them together into a poem. . . . It’s a wonderful, complex tool, but it has no mind. It doesn’t know it exists.”

Professor Bullfinch goes away to a conference and leaves Danny in charge of Miniac. That’s when Danny and his two friends impulsively decide that it would be a great idea to program Miniac to do their homework for them. They don’t think of it as cheating, just using a tool like a pencil or a typewriter, but better, to help them do their homework more effectively. Complications ensue.

So many ideas are embedded in this simple story, so many questions to discuss. Are computers just a learning tool? is it fair for some students to have access to a computer while others do not? What about AI (artificial intelligence)? AI can write poems and produce art and author stories and more. Is AI just another tool? Does ChatGPT “know it exists”? Will AI applications become self-aware in the future?

Some people, called trans-humanists believe that AI and humans will someday soon be able to emerge, creating trans-humans with super intelligence and abilities. Although discussion of this particular fallacy (and I do believe it’s a false and potentially evil goal) would not be appropriate for most of the students who would be reading Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine, elementary school students should be introduced to the issues and questions surrounding the use of computers and AI. I don’t a better way to introduce these topics than a quick read of Danny Dunn—and much discussion.

This book is the first Danny Dunn story I remember reading. I was aware of these books as a child, but I wasn’t too interested in science at the time, so they didn’t really appeal to me. The science in these books was said to have been up to date and based on a solid science foundation at the time. The authors consulted with IBM and toured their facility while writing Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine.

Content considerations: The book has some 1950’s language and behaviors that have become somewhat unacceptable in our “enlightened times.” Joe and Irene get into an argument when Joe blames Irene and women in general for some trouble that kids are having. Irene pushes Eddie “Snitcher” Phillips into a mud puddle in retaliation for his tattling on them and their homework machine. And it is implied that Irene has a mild crush on Danny, or vice-versa. The children are in eighth grade in this particular story.