The Camping Trip That Changed America by Barb Rosenstock

Jun1

“I do not want anyone with me but you, and I want to drop politics absolutely for four days and just be out in the open with you.” ~Theodore Roosevelt’s letter to John Muir, March 14, 1903.

Back in the days (1903) when a president could actually go off on a camping trip alone with a famous author and naturalist, President Teddy Roosevelt (Teedie) asked naturalist John Muir (Johnnie) to take him on a camping trip, and the rest was history. After Teedie’s and Johnnie’s journey through Yosemite, President Roosevelt became more than an outdoorsman; he “turned . . . into one of nature’s fiercest protectors. Roosevelt pushed Congress to pass laws saving the wilderness. He failed at first, but that didn’t stop him. He created national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, and national forests.”

“Teedie” Roosevelt is my favorite president, and this story of his encounter with Johnnie Muir and the wilderness of Yosemite is a colorful and fascinating introduction to Roosevelt’s ideas and his personality. (“Bully!” said Teedie, stretching. “What a glorious day!”) It also introduces children to the concept of nature conservation and even the political concept of changing the president’s mind and direction by a little well-placed lobbying for a good cause. (Maybe someone needs to take our current president on a camping trip?)

There’s a touch of generalized “spirituality” in the imagined dialog between Teedie and Johnnie: “Everywhere nature sang her melody. Can you hear it?” And, of course, Muir adheres to the tenets of “old earth” geology: “a massive river of slow-moving ice carved the rock beneath them millions of years before.” Teedie is said to depend on “John Muir’s spirit as his guide” as the president goes about his work in preserving American parks and wildlife. However, these are minor and personal quibbles, things I would have worded differently, that don’t spoil the overall beauty and message of the book at all.

If you or your child is a fan of TR or John Muir or just a nature lover or even a wannabe naturalist, this book serves up a great slice of American history. The imagined dialog is taken from Muir’s books and from newspaper accounts of the famous camping trip.

The Seashore Book by Charlotte Zolotow

May31

Take an imaginary trip to the seashore.

This 25th anniversary edition from Charlesbridge publishers of a Charlotte Zolotow classic is illustrated by Wendell Minor, not an illustrator I’m familiar with, but a talented one indeed. From what I can tell, the cover illustration for this new edition is new, but the inside illustrations are the same as the ones from 1993 when the book was first published.

Charlotte Zolotow, one of my favorite picture books authors, was more of a poet than a storyteller. Her books usually create a mood or tell a simple story of parent and child or friends enjoying a quotidian experience together, such as a day in the park (The Park Book) or a thunderstorm (The Storm Book) or the choosing of a birthday present (Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present). Other books feature sisters or brothers or even grandparents with family squabbles and misunderstandings that generally get resolved in the end. Her books are gentle and familial, full of beautiful, evocative, but simple language.

A couple of examples from The Seashore Book:

“You stand and look at the ocean. Far, far out, so far it seems like a toy, a little white sailboat skims over the water and disappears.”

“The fishing pier we pass is white as a snowfall with hundreds of crying seagulls waiting for the fishing boats to come in when the sun sets.”

For children who live near the ocean and who might get to take a beach trip, this book is a lovely introduction to the sights and sounds that a day at the seashore might yield. For children like the child in the book who live “in the mountains” and have “never seen the sea”, the text along with the beautiful illustrations by Minor will give a pretend trip to the beach such a real feel that they might want to go back over and over again.

I’m definitely going to read this book for my next library story time.

A Traveller in Time by Allison Uttley

May30

If ever the term “time slip” applied to a book, it’s this one: Penelope Taberner Cameron slips in and out of two time periods, the twentieth century and the late sixteenth century, like butter slipping about on a plate. She never knows exactly when or how she will slip out of her own time at Thackers, the Derbyshire farm that belongs to her great aunt and uncle, and into another time, the time of Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, and the Spanish Armada. And no one in either period seems to worry too much about Penelope’s odd absences and re-appearances. It’s a sort of ghostly time travel, although it’s clear that Penelope never becomes a “ghost” in either time that she visits.

This British classic was published in 1939, and the pacing and language reflect the publishing date. Penelope’s adventures, and indeed her personality, are rather languid and slow-moving, even though the excitement of a plot to rescue Mary Queen of Scots from her English captivity does something to enliven the novel. A lot of time is spent describing farm life in the 1930’s as Penelope and her sister and brother come to spend their summer holiday, and then an even longer term, with Aunt Tissie and Uncle Barnabas. Then, there’s also a lot of description of what it was like to live in Elizabethan England. I can see how some children and teens would grow impatient with all of the descriptive passages, but I loved it all, as well as the historical aspects of the novel.

There was a BBC series of five episodes made in 1978 based on this book by Ms. Uttley, but it’s not widely available outside of Britain. Alison Uttley was also a prolific author of very popular books for younger children in England, including a series of books about Sam Pig and another about Little Grey Rabbit.

Wikipedia contrasts time slip novels like A Traveller in Time, where the protagonist has no control or agency in going from one time to another, and time travel books, in which characters use a device like a time machine or a magic talisman to make the time travel happen. Even with time travel books, however, the device often gets lost or malfunctions, leaving the characters marooned in another time period. In Traveller in Time, Penelope worries about getting stuck in the 1500’s, and at one climactic point she almost dies while she’s visiting the sixteenth century, an event which she thinks would surely cause her to also die in the twentieth century. Time slipping and time traveling is fun to read about, but I think it would make my head hurt if it actually happened to me.

If you could time slip or time travel, what time period would you like to visit? What is your favorite time slip or time travel book? (Mine are the Connie Willis books: The Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Blackout and All Clear.)

Minnow on the Say by Philippa Pearce

May29

British author Philippa Pearce’s second novel was the time travel Carnegie award winning Tom’s Midnight Garden. This beloved novel was and is so popular that it was voted in 2007 one of the top ten Carnegie Medal winners of all time. Ms. Pearce’s debut novel in 1955 was the lesser known Minnow on the Say, not a fantasy or time travel book at all, but rather an adventure story about two boys, a canoe, and a hunt for hidden treasure.

David Moss can’t believe his good fortune when a canoe shows up, caught against the bank of the river Say behind his house. Of course, the canoe must belong to someone, and David soon finds the owner, a boy his age named Adam. Adam and David become friends and work together to varnish and repair the canoe so that they can use it to search the river bank for a long lost treasure. It’s a treasure that Adam and his aunt and grandfather need desperately so that Adam can continue to live with his aunt in rural England instead of with cousins in the city. If the treasure, hidden at the time of the Spanish Armada in 1585, can’t be found, all the boys’ adventures on the river, with the Minnow, their very own canoe, will be over.

Ms. Pearce wrote in the afterword to her first book:

“I didn’t bother much about the plot, except to make sure that it worked. It wasn’t at all original: an old family home in danger of being sold up; a long lost treasure, and the hunt for it; an ancient family likeness; and lots of tricky clues. (I rather enjoyed those clues.)
The plot was all right; but the pleasures of the river and the canoe were, of course, the important things—the real things. I put in other, lesser realities. For instance, I used some surnames that were common in the village then; and I managed to use all the names of my own family, in one way or another, as a kind of private joke.
I knew how to type, and so I typed out the whole story as I made it up, chapter by chapter. It took a long time, and sometimes I felt it was very good and sometimes I felt it was hopeless.”

I thought it was very good, not hopeless at all. Boys and girls who like books with puzzles and clues and the freedom of a summer spent canoeing on the river will surely enjoy this one. It reminds me a little of Swallows and Amazons or of the Hardy Boys, but better written than the latter and more mystery than the former. The boys themselves are well drawn characters, not at all wooden or perfect in their detective skills. They follow lots of red herring clues and spend the entire summer searching for the treasure without much success, but they exhibit persistence and ingenuity, while discouragement and even bad temper and greed all play a role in their character and growth.

I have one child who spent more than one spring and summer messing about with canoes, and I wish I had known about this book at the time. I think he would have liked it then, and although he’s grown now, maybe he still would. I found it absorbing, and it made me want to look for more books in which the children (or adults) spend time paddling canoes or rowing boats or sailing or the like.

Boating Adventure Books:
The afore-mentioned Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome, and all of its sequels, which I may make a point of reading this summer. The children in these books sail about in a catboat, which is “a sailboat with a single mast placed well forward and carrying only one sail.”

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, of course. “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” Rat and Mole go up the river in a rowboat.

Robert Rows the River by Carolyn Haywood is about a nine year old boy who rows his boat across the river Thames to get to school each day and spends his holidays rowing and even drifting along the river.

Paddle-to-the-Sea is a 1941 children’s book by American author and illustrator Holling C. Holling. In the story a small carved wooden canoe with a wooden Indian passenger travels through the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.

Downriver by Will Hobbs is a YA canoeing adventure that I just read a couple of weeks ago.

Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe by Vera Williams is a lovely picture book adventure featuring a family canoe trip.

Boats on the River by Marjorie Flack and The Little Sailboat by Lois Lenski are two more picture books about boats that I have in my library for the preschool set.

The Island by Gary Paulsen tells the story of Wil, a teen who, with his parents, moves to a rural area of northern Wisconsin near a lake, Sucker Lake, with an unnamed island in the center of the lake. Wil sees the island while riding his bike, and he also finds a small rowboat conveniently abandoned on the shore so that he is able to row out to the island by himself.

N.D. Wilson’s Leepike Ridge has a boy traveling downriver on a styrofoam raft.

I just remembered Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, a summer classic for sure.

Any other suggestions for “messing about in boats” books this summer?

O Ye Jigs and Juleps! by Virginia Cary Hudson

May28

Today is the birthday of Virginia Cary Hudson (b.1894, d.1954)

I was never sure whether Virginia Cary Hudson actually wrote these humorous essays when she was only ten years old, or whether that was the fictional framework for a series of rather insightful (for a ten year old) essays that manage to make me laugh even when I read them over again at my ripe old age of 59.

Wikipedia says of Ms. Hudson’s age and authorship:

“As a 10-year-old in Versailles, Kentucky, she wrote a series of charming essays that were kept in a scrapbook by her mother, Jessie Gregory Hudson. Her daughter Virginia Cleveland Mayne copied the essays in the spring of 1952 before a disastrous attic fire destroyed the originals in October 1952. Virginia succeeded in publishing the essays with the Macmillan Company as O Ye Jigs and Juleps! The book reached the New York Times Bestseller List for 66 weeks and sold over a million copies.”

I really find it hard to believe that these chapters are the unedited work of a ten year old girl.

Here’s a sample, the first chapter called “Sacraments”, read by Terri Lackey:

I found a brand-new looking paperback copy of O Ye Jigs and Juleps at the used bookstore, and since my old copy is bedraggled and torn, I thought I’d bring it home for my library. This edition is illustrated by Karla Kuskin, the prolific children’s author, poet, and illustrator of one of my favorite picture books,

A few quotes to brighten your day:

“Etiquette is what you are doing and saying when people are looking and listening. What you are thinking is your business.”

“I asked Mrs. Harris when we were plaiting rags for her kitchen rug what good Marco Polo would ever do me, and Mrs. Harris said education gave you satisfaction, but I had rather be ignorant and have fun than be educated and have satisfaction.”

“Most of the things you get, somebody dies so you can get it, but you have to die your own self to get Everlasting Life.”

“When you stroll you never hurry back, because if you had anything to do, you wouldn’t be strolling in the first place.”

“O ye Sun and Moon, oh ye beans and roses, oh ye jigs and juleps, Bless ye the Lord, Praise Him and Magnify Him Forever.”

The Jigs and Juleps Girl! Virginia Cary Hudson: Her Life and Writings by (grandaughter) Beverly Kienzie was self-published last year (2016). I suppose I could read it to find out for sure if young Ms. Hudson was as precocious as these essays make her out to be.

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The Goldfish Boy by Lisa Thompson

May26

The Goldfish Boy is a problem novel from a British perspective. I liked reading it because I have a family member with OCD. However, I’m not sure that the protagonist, Matthew, rises above the level of the stereotypical “child with an illness who learns to overcome”, and his parents are extremely annoying when they take over his first therapy session with their own bickering. Matthew spends a lot of time washing his hands and worrying about germs, but there is a plot/mystery as a neighborhood toddler goes missing. Matthew is the last person to have seen the young missing boy, since Matthew also spends a lot of time observing the neighborhood from his bedroom window. (He’s become house-bound because of his germ-phobia.)

The book paints a sympathetic and generally believable picture of a child who is dealing obsessive-compulsive disorder, I suppose. However, the implication is that Matthew’s OCD is caused by one initiating incident in his past, and I’m not sure that’s a good message to give. OCD isn’t usually connected to some traumatic or difficult experience, and we don’t really know what causes it. From the International OCD Foundation:

“While, we still do not know the exact cause or causes of OCD, research suggests that differences in the brain and genes of those affected may play a role. Research suggests that OCD involves problems in communication between the front part of the brain and deeper structures of the brain. These brain structures use a neurotransmitter (basically, a chemical messenger) called serotonin. Pictures of the brain at work also show that, in some people, the brain circuits involved in OCD become more normal with either medications that affect serotonin levels (serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SRIs) or cognitive behavior therapy (CBT).”

So, in the book Matthew starts having obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors because of a very specific bad thing that happened to his family. And he seems to get some relief when he finally tells his therapist and his parents about that specific incident and its accompanying anxiety spiral. The therapist does indicate that Matthew will need cognitive behavior therapy to completely recover, but it all seems a little too simplistic as far as cause and effect are concerned. (Also, there’s another child in the story, minor character, who just seems to be a “bad seed”, murderous and uncaring, and that was a bit disturbing.)

All in all, I was fascinated because of my personal relationship to the subject matter, but I’m not sure I’d recommend it to anyone else.

The Family From One End Street by Eve Garnett

May25

Published in 1937, The Family From One End Street and Some of Their Adventures by author/illustrator Eve Garnett broke new ground by detailing the joys and sometimes misadventures of a large working class British family. “Mrs. Ruggles was a Washerwoman and her husband was a Dustman.” (A dustman for us Americans who don’t collect “dust” or rubbish is a garbage collector.) The Ruggles family consists of Rosie and Jo, the parents, and seven children: Lily Rose, Kate, the twins James and John, little Jo, Peg, and baby William. “The neighbors pities Jo and Rosie for having such a large family and called it ‘Victorian’; but the Dustman and his wife were proud of their numerous girls and boys, all-growing-up-fine-and-strong-one-behind-the-other-like-steps-in-a-ladder-and-able-to-wear-each-others-clothes-right-down-to-the-baby . . .”

From the beginning chapter that introduces the family and tells about how all the children were born and named to the concluding chapter in which the entire family takes a much-anticipated bank holiday in London, the story is a very British, very enjoyable look at a happy family. Tolstoy said that happy families are all alike, implying that they are not very interesting, but the Ruggleses are generally happy and fun to read about. The language is both British and somewhat dated, but an intelligent eleven year old should be able to puzzle it out, even an American child. And these are poor/lower class children of the 1930’s, loved but not hovered over, so they do things like stowaway on a boat or take a ride with a wealthy couple in a motorcar or try to help with the ironing—with disastrous results. Each child gets his or her own story or chapter in the book, vignettes that distinguish the children from one another and let readers follow along on their various and sundry adventures. The book would make a lovely read aloud, as long as the reader could do a proper British accent.

Speaking of British accents and the like, The Family From One End Street won the Carnegie Medal in 1937 for the children’s book of most outstanding literary quality published in the UK. It is an outstanding book, but its award as a sort of “book of the year” for British children in 1937 illustrates the problem with choosing the best books in the moment, before time and thoughtful appreciation and criticism have been brought to bear upon the staying power and literary quality of a given year’s crop of titles.

Also published in Britain in 1937? The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien.

Journey Across the Hidden Islands by Sarah Beth Durst

May24

“‘Once, there were two princesses, Sisters. One trained to be a warrior, at the top of a mountain. She was never allowed to go home. The other trained to be the perfect princess. She was never allowed out of the palace. Until one day, when their father said they were ready . . .’
‘They weren’t ready,’ Ji-Lin admitted.
‘They weren’t,’ Seika agreed. ‘But they had to go, because they were needed. And their journey was more dangerous than anyone thought it would be.'”

In this middle grade fantasy with a hint of Japanese influence (no actual mention of Japan), the twin princesses Seika and Ji-Lin, heir and guardian respectively of the island kingdom of Himitsu, travel together on the ritual Emperor’s Journey to the volcanic mountain where Seika will meet with the dragon who keeps the hidden kingdom hidden with a protective magical barrier. Ji-Lin’s task, along with her winged lion Alejan, is to protect her sister, Seika, and help her to complete the journey. They must reach the the Shrine of the Dragon by Himit’s Day. The safety of the islands and their people depends on two twelve year old princesses and a strong, but immature, winged lion.

What a fantastic book—humorous, thrilling, and at times, even thoughtful. It’s a celebration of sisterhood as the twins test themselves and learn to depend on each other’s strengths and compensate for their weaknesses. There are koji, monsters of various sorts, to fight or avoid, and there are choices to be made, both moral and strategic. Seika, who depends on her mastery of the traditions and rituals of her people’s history to keep the world stable and safe, must learn that perfection in word and deed isn’t always possible and isn’t always what’s needed. Ji-Lin, who has been trained to fight and to protect, must learn that sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. Both girls, and indeed their father, the Emperor, and all of the people of the Hidden Islands of Himitsu, must grow to accept change and to make new traditions.

It’s not as complicated or indeed as literary as Grace Lin’s award winning novels Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Starry River of the Sky, and When the Sea Turned to Silver, books to which Journey Across the Hidden Islands is sure to be compared. The books do share a common theme: that stories are important and powerful, especially the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell about ourselves. But as it turns out I’m more a fan of straightforward with a little bit of funny thrown in, so if you want a fantasy for ages nine to twelve with a hint of an Asian flavor, a solid plot, and good themes, I’d recommend this one.

Hero of the Empire by Candice Millard

May23

Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard.

“I don’t like this fellow, but he’ll be Prime Minister of England one day.” ~Sir George White in reference to young Winston Churchill.

“Winston has spent the best years of his life composing his impromptu speeches.” ~ F.E. Smith.

“Winston is like a strong wire that, stretched, always springs back. He prospers under attack, enmity and disparagement . . . He lives on excitement.The more he scents frustration the more he has to fight for; the greater the obstacles, the greater the triumph.” ~John Black Atkins.

“I said to myself, ‘Toujours de l’audace!'” (Always more audacity). ~ Winston Churchill.

Audacious indeed, Churchill, like Teddy Roosevelt, the subject of another of Candice Millard’s narrative nonfiction histories, would have been a difficult man to befriend or to live with or to be married to. Although I have great deal of respect for both Churchill and Roosevelt, I like the distance that history and books give me. I suspect a close encounter with either man would have left me speechless or even angry or completely dumbfounded. Churchill may have gained some perspective and selflessness as he aged, but as a youth he seems to have been supremely self-centered and cocky.

But he was definitely a leader, even in his twenties during the Boer War in South Africa. Supposedly sent to the war zone as a journalist, Churchill almost immediately became entangled in combat, trying to find opportunities for heroism and acclaim. He did audacious and reckless things, and he got away without getting himself killed in the process. And he got the acclaim he wanted after he escaped from a Boer prisoner of war camp, almost by accident, but sustained by sheer persistence and “good luck”.

“The practice [of prayer] was comforting and the reasoning led nowhere. I therefore acted in accordance with my feelings without troubling to square such conduct with the conclusions of thought.” ~Winston Churchill, from South Africa during the Boer War.

According to the author, Churchill didn’t have much faith in God or religion or Christianity in particular, but when he was at the worst, darkest hour of his harrowing escape across South Africa, he could think of nothing to do except pray. It’s a sort of a foxhole religious awakening, and one doesn’t get the sense that Churchill took much spiritual growth or humility with him into the rest of his escape and subsequent life. But in the depths of the darkness of the 1930’s when no one would listen to him as he trumpeted the dangers of Nazism or in the darkest hours of World War II when none of the countries of the world were really standing alongside Britain against Hitler, maybe he remembered to pray, remembered that God was the one who rescued him during his South Africa escape journey. No one really knows. (I don’t believe in luck.)

After his escape from the Boers, Churchill could have sat on his laurels and drunk copious amounts of champagne, a drink of which he was extremely fond. However, he returned to to South Africa to fight and write about the war. After the Boer War was over, Churchill published two memoirs of the war, London to Ladysmith via Pretoria and Ian Hamilton’s March. His heroism and notoriety gained him a seat in Parliament, and the rest, as they say, is history.

This article gives a good overview of Churchill’s relationship and attitude to Christianity and God.
And here’s an interview at Bible Gateway with the joint authors of a book called God and Churchill.

Other books by Candice Millard:
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President.
River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey.

The Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas

May22

It’s the 1930’s, the depths of the Great Depression, and the farms of Harveyville, Kansas are drying up. No rain. No money. Very little work. And the crops are burning in the fields.

The Persian Pickle Club are a group of ladies who meet together to quilt. They work together, share quilt pieces, read together, gossip a little, and keep each other’s secrets. Twenty-something farm wife Queenie Bean is happy to welcome the newest member of the Persian Pickles, Rita Ritter, who has come to Harveyville with her husband, Tom. Tom is home from the city to work on the family farm, and his new wife is about Queenie’s age and a big city girl. So, Queen decides that she and Rita will be best friends.

As the story progresses, it turns into a murder mystery, and newcomer Rita is determined to double as detective and journalist, crack the murder case, and write it up for the near-by town’s newspaper. Rita and Tom both want to get out of Harveyville and back to the big city, while Queenie loves farm life, is content to let sleeping dogs lie as far as the murder is concerned, and just wants a friend and a little rain.

I’m not thinking that The Persian Pickle Club breaks any new ground in the genres of historical fiction or murder mysteries, but it’s a good solid read for quilters, cosy mystery fans, and readers who remember or want to experience a taste of the Depression era.

Sandra Dallas is the author of fifteen adult novels, two young reader novels, and ten nonfiction books. I read her children’s book Red Berries, White Clouds, Blue Sky in 2015, and I added another of her books to my TBR list, Prayers for Sale, from this recommendation at Small World Reads. I think I’d like to explore more of Ms. Dallas’s work. Anyone else have a book by Sandra Dallas to recommend?