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Bletchley Park Books for Teens

Nov8

The Enigma Girls: How Ten Teenagers Broke Ciphers, Kept Secrets, and Helped Win World War II by Candace Fleming.

The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin.

Bletchley Park and the code breakers who lived and worked there during World War II are hot topics these days. Maybe it’s because the whole episode is less “mined” because of all the secrecy that surrounded the work there. Maybe it’s just a fleeting trend. At any rate, there do seem to be a lot of books about Bletchley floating around, but not so many for the younger set. Until now.

These two books, one fiction and one nonfiction, were recently published (2024) and are appropriate for young people about 13 years of age and up. The Enigma Girls tells the story of several teenaged girls who were recruited to work at Bletchley either because of their math skills or their language proficiency. But these girls were not, for the most part, doing the high level code breaking that was the most intriguing and intellectually challenging work going on at Bletchley Park. Rather, they were keeping records on notecards of all of the code words and German double speak that had been decoded. Or they were servicing and keeping the huge “bombes” running. These were the machines that were created to infiltrate and determine the settings for the German Enigma coding machines. Machines (or primitive computers) were fighting machines, and teenagers were keeping the machines moving and computing.

By limiting her story to the females who worked at Bletchley, gifted nonfiction author Candace Fleming risks over-emphasizing and even distorting the role that these women and girls played in the overall mission of breaking and intercepting the Nazi communications. But she doesn’t fall into that trap, and instead as I read I was moved to admire the persistence and hard work of these unsung heroines who toiled in harsh conditions doing work that they were unable to discuss or even understand completely. It wasn’t a romantic, spy-novel kind of job. The “bombes” were huge, oily, and loud, and the girls who tended them knew very little about how they worked or what significance their work might have. And after the war was over, the Enigma Girls were still left in the dark about how their work helped England win the war because they and everyone else who worked with them were bound to secrecy by the Official Secrets Acts that they all had to sign. They only knew that they were needed to “do their part” in defeating Hitler—and they did.

The Bletchley Riddle, although it is “based on the real history of Bletchley Park, Britain’s top-secret World War II codebreaking center,” makes the whole setting and story much more exciting and romantic. (Fiction can do that.) Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin, both well known in YA literature circles, wrote this spy novel together, and the joint authorship shows. It’s a bit disjointed at times, but the two authors do tie up most all of the loose ends by the end of the story. Fourteen year old Lizzie Novis has lost her mother, Willa, a single parent who works for the U.S. Embassy in London. Willa went to Poland to help evacuate tens of U.S. Embassy there in anticipation of the Nazi invasion of Warsaw. And she didn’t come back. Everyone says that Willa is dead, that she most likely died in the invasion. But Lizzie is sure that Willa is still alive, and she’s determined to find her mother no matter what it takes.

I’ll let you read to find out how Lizzie ends up in Bletchley, with several hurried trips back to London. I’ll let you read about Lizzie’s older brother Jakob, and how he becomes the other major character in the story. And finally in the pages of the book, you can meet Lizzie’s new friends, Marion and Colin, and read about a little harmless romance that springs up as they all try to keep up with the irrepressible Lizzie and her quest to find Willa. It’s a book about lying and spying and secret-keeping and persistence in a time and place where all of those qualities, even the dishonesty, are necessary for survival.

But the story never becomes too thoughtful or deep. It’s barely believable that Lizzie can get away with all of the shenanigans that she pulls. And Jakob seems too befuddled to be as intelligent as he’s supposed to be. Maybe he’s a bit of an absent-minded professor at the ripe age of nineteen. Anyway, it’s a lark, but not to be taken seriously. And the minor characters—Alan Turing, Dilly Knox, Gordon Welchman—as well as the setting provide a good introduction to Bletchley Park and its importance to the British war effort and eventual victory.

I recommend both books for those teens who are interested in World War II and Bletchley Park and codes and codebreaking. Oh, both books spend a fair amount time talking about codes and ciphers and Enigma and how it worked and how the Enigma code was broken? Or deciphered? I can never keep the difference straight in my head between codes and ciphers, much decode or decipher anything. But you may have better skills than I do.

Across So Many Seas by Ruth Behar

Oct17

Across So Many Seas, the story of four twelve year old Sephardic Jewish girls from different time periods, felt very . . . educational. I didn’t mind the didactic tone of the story, and I was somewhat fascinated by the saga of the Sephardic Jewish experience from Spain to Turkey to Cuba to the United States (Miami). We tend to know and read more about Ashkenazi, Eastern European Jews and Judaism than we do about the Sephardic Jewish people, who came from Spain after the 1492 expulsion of the Jews under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (yes, Columbus’s sponsors). These Sephardic Jews spoke a Spanish-derived language called Ladino and either became conversos (converts to Catholicism) under threat of death, or left Spain as refugees, going to Italy and Turkey and other places to find freedom to practice their Jewish faith.

The first story in Across So Many Seas features Benvenida, a Jewish girl living in Toledo, Spain in 1492, during the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of the Jews. Benvenida’s family is forced to leave Spain, and they end up living in Turkey where the sultan has promised them freedom of religion. Again the story feels as if the author has a lesson to teach: “Here’s a story, children, to teach you about your history and heritage. Listen, while I make it into a tale for your edification.” Benvenida, who speaks and thinks like a miniature adult, never seems like a real person, only a vehicle for the teaching of history. But still, I was interested enough in the history to keep reading.

The other three girls in the story are Reina (Turkey, 1921), Alegra (Cuba, 1961), and Paloma (Miami, FL, 2003). These three are grandmother, mother, and daughter, and their tales are full of more displacement and emigration, as each girl experiences her own story of travel across the seas. Only Paloma seems to have a stable home where she can make free choices for herself without having to labor under the prejudice of others and the expectations that her family has for proper Jewish girls.

The author, Ruth Behar, comes from both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish ancestry. The book is based in part on the story of Ms. Behar’s Abuela, her paternal grandmother, who came to the United States via Turkey and Cuba and who was of Sephardic heritage. It’s a lovely tribute to Ms. Behar’s heritage and to her grandmother, and I enjoyed learning more about this stream of history. But be warned that the book is heavy on the history and light on believable characterization, dialogue, and plot.

The Silver Donkey by Sonya Hartnett

Oct15

It’s easy, almost inescapable, to find children’s books set before, during and after World War II–fiction, adventure stories, Holocaust stories, biography, memoir, nonfiction about battles and about the home front. I have about three shelves full of World War II books. But when I am asked to recommend books about or set during World War I, the task is harder. There are some good books about World War I, fiction and nonfiction, even picture books, but that war just doesn’t live in our collective imaginations in the same way that World War II does.

Someone recommended The Silver Donkey to me, and I thought, what with the comparative dearth of books set during that war in comparison to the Second World War, I’d add it to my library. Sonya Hartnett, the author, is an Australian writer. Her books, mostly written for children and young adults, have won numerous awards and prizes, including for the author the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council in 2008, a sort of lifetime achievement award in children’s literature. Knowing all of this, I was primed to enjoy The Silver Donkey.

And enjoy it I did. However, I must say that it’s an odd sort of book. Two sisters who live on coast of the English Channel (do the French call it the French Channel?) in France, find a man lying in the forest who appears to be dead. The sisters, Marcelle, age 10, and Coco, age 8, are deliciously thrilled with their discovery, brimming with “anticipation and glee.” Their response feels very French, and somewhat true to the nature of children. As they approach the man, they find that he is not dead, but merely sleeping. He also tells them that he cannot see.

Marcelle and Coco have found a British deserter who wants nothing more than to go home across the Channel, to see his family, especially his younger brother who the soldier believes is calling to him to come home. Marcelle and Coco, and later their brother Pascal, find a way in their childish simplicity to help the soldier by bringing him food and eventually by discovering means for him to cross the Channel to England. In return for their help, and to pass the time, the soldier tells the children stories–stories about donkeys.

These are not perfect children, nor are they role models. They take food from the family larder and lie to their parents about what has happened to the food. They keep secrets. They aid and abet an army deserter, and they squabble with one another. They are somewhat ghoulish; Pascal in particular wants stories about war and battles and violence and heroism. The donkeys in the stories are more admirable. The first story the soldier tells is about a faithful old donkey who takes the expectant Mary to Bethlehem for the census and brings her and her baby home safely. The second story is about a humble donkey whose humility saves the world from a terrible drought. And the war story that Pascal begs for ends up being about a donkey who carries the wounded to safety in the midst of battle–at the cost of his own life.

The whole book is bittersweet. The heroes are all fictional donkeys. The children are funny and very human; somehow they feel as if they could only be French children with a sort of French attitude toward life. The soldier is a hero who calls himself a coward, and he is both brave and tired, tired of war. He is so tired that he decides one day, after having fought courageously in the war for a year or more, to leave the battlefront and walk home. His blindness seems to be a psychosomatic response to the horrors of war.

I wouldn’t recommend this book for younger readers, but for children thirteen and older it might be a good introduction to the controversies surrounding the entirety of World War I. Was it a wasteful stalemate of a war, initiated and perpetuated by old men who sent young men to die for no reason? Is honor worth fighting for? Should a soldier be like the donkey, brave and humble and faithful, or are humans called to be more discerning and wise than donkeys can be? What is the proper response to a war or to a soldier who has abdicated his responsibility in a war? These are certainly questions for older children and adults to think about, and The Silver Donkey gives rise to thought and discussion about questions of this sort.

The donkey stories are the best parts of the book, though.

This book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators in The Secret of Terror Castle by Robert Arthur

Sep27

Read for the 1964 Project, and because I wanted to revisit The Three Investigators series that I remember from my childhood.

The Secret of Terror Castle is the first installment in The Three Investigators series of mystery detective stories, also known as Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators. The original series was published from 1964 to 1987 and comprised 43 finished books, written by at least five different authors and illustrated by a multiplicity of illustrators over time. Robert Arthur, who invented the series and had the idea of using Alfred Hitchcock as a character and a marketing ploy, wrote the first nine books in the series as well as Book #11. After Mr. Arthur died in 1969, subsequent adventures were written by various other authors hired by Random House, the publisher. All of Mr. Arthur’s books and some of the others were given a fictional introduction and epilogue said to be written by the famous movie director Alfred Hitchcock (but actually written by the author himself). Hitch also appears as a minor character in at least the first book.

It is Mr. Hitchcock who reluctantly gives the three boys of The Three Investigators Detective Agency their first case: they are tasked with finding a truly haunted house for Hitchcock to use as a setting to film his upcoming movie. The boys discover a deserted mansion called Terror Castle, “located in a narrow little canyon up above Hollywood, called Black Canyon.” And they proceed to investigate to see if the castle is really haunted by the ghost of Stephen Terrill, a star of horror pictures from the silent film era.

The Three Investigators are Jupiter “Jupe” Jones, Peter “Pete” Crenshaw, and Bob Andrews. They are young teenagers, about 13 or 14 years old, who maintain their headquarters and crime/photographic lab hidden away in the back of Jupiter’s uncle’s junkyard. Jupiter is the chief detective with a knack for figuring out riddles and puzzles, Pete is the athletic brawn of the trio, and Bob is the researcher and information guy. (Bob works in a library!) The three boys are too young to drive, but they have the use of a car (gold-plated Rolls-Royce) and a chauffeur (Worthington) that Jupiter won in a contest. And their trusty bicycles come in handy for transportation, too.

The whole book gave me “Scooby Doo” vibes. (For the uninitiated, Scooby Doo is a cartoon series from the 1970’s.) Terror Castle seems to be haunted with some very spooky events and activities, but of course, the ghosts and scary incidents and eerie sounds turn out to have perfectly natural explanations. For those who are worried, there’s nothing occult-ish in any of the first 20 or so books in this series, although there is plenty of “woo-hoo” that seems as if it might be the result of spirits and ghosts and fortune tellers—until Jupe and his buddies figure out the real source of the seemingly supernatural phenomena.

Although these books were written for and marketed to middle school boys, I enjoyed them as a ten to twelve year old myself. The books are from an earlier time, when boys (and girls) were free to roam the community they lived in, talk to adults, and become involved in all sorts of exciting but fairly harmless adventures. The boy characters are unsophisticated by today’s standards, not having been exposed to the wonders of the internet, but they also display a vocabulary, a deductive skill, and an intrepid spirit that would put most 21st century boys to shame.

Unfortunately, my hard cover copy of The Secret of Terror Castle disappeared a couple of years ago, and the one I have how is a 1985 revised paperback edition. Because Mr. Hitchcock died in 1980, Random House decided to replace him with a fictional British movie director named Reginald Clarke (in this first book). And then to confuse us all, I suppose, Reginald Clarke turns into some other guy named Hector Sebastian in Books 2-30. I hope those are the only changes made in the revised editions, but I’m not sure, and I don’t like the jettisoning of Alfred Hitchcock as a character. I just switched the introduction and the cameo appearances of “Reginald Clarke” to “Alfred Hitchcock” in my mind, but I wish I hadn’t needed to do so,

If you want to know all you could ever want to know about The Three Investigators series, also called T3I, this website is a goldmine of information for serious readers and collectors. If you just want to enjoy or help your kids enjoy the stories, try your local public library or private lending library. I would suggest the hardcover, unedited editions, if you can find them.

This book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Maybelle The Cable Car by Virginia Lee Burton

Aug29

Burton, Virginia Lee. Maybelle the Cable Car. Houghton Mifflin, 1952.

Maybelle the Cable Car! A San Francisco treat!

Virginia Lee Burton wrote and illustrated the classics Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel and The Little House and Katy and the Big Snow. Maybelle the Cable Car ranks right up there with Ms. Burton’s other lovely books. Set in San Francisco, this picture book tells the story of how Maybelle and the other cable cars work hard going up and down the many hills of the city. In their big green barn at night, Maybelle and the other cable car reminisce about the good old days in San Francisco when the city was smaller and slower and every one knew everyone else and everyone appreciated the cable cars. Now the cable cars, who work for the city government, are neglected, and Big Bill the Bus says they are “too old and out of date, much too slow and can’t be safe.”

Like Mary Anne, Mike Mulligan’s steam shovel, Maybelle is in danger of becoming obsolete and being scrapped. But, of course, the book is named for Maybelle, so that can’t happen. “Virginia Lee Burton’s . . . classic story recounts actual events in the city of San Francisco’s efforts to preserve and protect its cable cars and illustrates how the voice of the people can be heard in the spirit of democracy.”

The story of Maybelle the Cable Car might require some explanation of how votes and petitions and ballots work and how people can band together to ask their government leaders to change their plans. But you could just read the book and answer questions afterwards, if asked. Children often don’t need to understand everything in a picture book in order to enjoy it. There are also some technical details about how cable cars work at the beginning of the book that will be of great interest to some children and not so much to others.

I’m adding this book to my guide, Picture Book Preschool, in the new, expanded edition under the subject heading of United States History. It really does show the history of San Francisco from the perspective of the cable cars who remember how the city grew and changed. And with so many picture books and children’s books set in New York City and on the east coast, it’s good to have one that takes place on the west coast. Now, if only I could find a fantastic picture book set on the Gulf Coast!

This Picture Book Preschool book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

The Hidden Treasure of Glaston by Eleanore M. Jewett

Aug21

In twelfth century England the feud between Archbishop Thomas Becket and King Henry has ended in the murder of Becket, forcing the boy Hugh’s noble father, an ally of the king, into exile in France. Young Hugh, crippled by a childhood disease, is left behind in the care of the Abbot of Glastonbury. Glaston soon becomes Hugh’s sanctuary and his beloved home as he finds both mentors and friends as well as a quest to find remnants and reminders of King Arthur’s and perhaps even Joseph of Arimathea’s presence, centuries prior, in that part of the country.

Hugh’s first friendship formed at Glaston is with Dickon, a young oblate at the monastery of Glaston. (oblate: a person dedicated to a religious life, but typically having not taken full monastic vows.) Dickon’s peasant family has signed him over to the monks of Glaston, but Dickon aspires to become a knight, or at least to serve knight. Hugh wishes he could be a knight and make his father proud, but his crippled legs make this dream an impossibility. The two boys become friends, with very different personalities, but also with a common goal of finding or at least seeing a vision of the legendary Holy Grai

Hugh’s mentors and adult friends are Brother John, the monastery’s librarian (armarian), and Bleheris, a seemingly mad hermit who shares Hugh’s and Dickon’s interest in the vision of the Holy Grail. The story moves rather slowly, but the picture of Hugh’s growth and healing and of the friendships he makes is compelling. I kept reading, not to see whether Hugh and his friends would find the Grail, but rather to see whether and how Hugh would find healing for his physical and spiritual wounds.

Honestly, although I enjoyed this Newbery honor-winning novel, I’m not sure what group of children or young people would be the audience for it. Perhaps those who are deeply interested in the whole Arthurian legend would enjoy this Arthur-adjacent story, or maybe fans of Rosemary Sutcliff’s historical fiction. The plot and characters remind me of the Newbery Award book, The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli; however, The Hidden Treasure of Glaston is a much more intricate and involved look at life in a medieval monastery and the difficulties facing a young boy with a disability in that society–at a much higher reading level. If The Door in the Wall was a favorite for an eight to eleven year old reader, this book might be a good follow-up for ages twelve and up.

I read this book as a part of the 1964 Project. A reprint edition of The Hidden Treasure of Glaston is available from Bethlehem Books.

This book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

He Went With Hannibal by Louise Andrews Kent

Aug16

He Went With Hannibal is everything you ever wanted to know about Hannibal and his wars with Rome, encased in the story of a fictional Spanish companion and spy named Brecon. Brecon comes to Hannibal in Spain as a hostage at the age of thirteen and remains Hannibal’s loyal friend and servant throughout his life. Hannibal’s famous crossing of the Alps—with elephants–and his march to the gates of Rome as well as all of the battles, both victories and defeats, are all described vividly and in detail, but not so much detail as to get bogged down in minutiae. Brecon gathers information for Hannibal and goes everywhere and meets everyone of note, including Archimedes, Hannibal’s brothers, Hasdrubal and Mago, Fabius Maximus, Marcellus, Flaminius, Scipio Africanus, and of course, Hannibal himself. These are all historical figures whose adventures are chronicled in Roman history, and Brecon becomes the thread that ties all their stories together and makes them come alive for the reader.

I read this story for my 1964 Project, and I’m very glad I did. I really didn’t know much about Hannibal the Carthaginian general, and now I know a little. (I could definitely have learned more with the aid of a map or two, of Italy, North Africa, Spain. But alas, there are no maps in this book.) In her Author’s Note, Louise Kent Andrews writes, “One of the striking things about Hannibal is that we know him only through the eyes of his enemies. There are no Carthaginian accounts of his life.” Andrews read the the Roman histories of the Punic Wars (wars between Carthage in North Africa and Rome in Italy and Spain), particularly Livy’s Annals and Polybius’s history as well as many other modern and ancient books about the time period and about Hannibal and his exploits. She lists several of the books she read in the Author’s Note. Although I’m not a Roman or Latin scholar by any means, it seems to me that she was quite thorough in her research. And the story becomes a fictionalized attempt to tell the history from Hannibal’s point of view. He Went With Hannibal is also the only historical fiction book that I know of that showcases this particular time of the Roman Republic and the Punic Wars. (Biblioguides does list one other historical fiction book about Hannibal, I Marched With Hannibal by Hans Baumann.)

Louise Kent Andrews wrote several other books in her series of books about famous explorers and soldiers, and I am anticipating adding all of them to my reading list. Her style of writing is detailed and descriptive, but she uses mostly short, simple or complex, declarative sentences, no rambling purple prose to be found. The story of Hannibal, which includes quite a lot of his battle tactics and musings on warfare and politics, should appeal especially to those middle school and high school boys who are keen on such subjects. The ending is rather bittersweet/sad, but of course, Ms. Andrews was constrained by the historical facts from giving the story a completely happy ending.

“I hope that some of my readers will feel, as I did, that reading about Hannibal makes them wish to learn more about the great change that took place when the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire. The war with Carthage was one of the causes for that change.” ~ Author’s Note

Other books in the series by Louise Kent Andrews:

  • He Went With Champlain
  • He Went With Christopher Columbus
  • He Went With Drake
  • He Went With John Paul Jones
  • He Went With Magellan
  • He Went With Marco Polo
  • He Went With Vasco da Gama

All of the books in this series are available in reprint editions from Living Book Press.

This book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Knights Besieged by Nancy Faulkner

Aug13

This historical fiction novel, published in 1964, is set on the island of Rhodes during the siege of Rhodes in 1522. The Knights of St. John, or Knights Hospitallers, whose headquarters is on the Greek island of Rhodes, are besieged by the Ottoman Turks under the leadership of Suleiman the Magnificent. The battle will decide who will control trade and commerce in the eastern Mediterranean Sea for the immediate future as well as its being a religious war between the Muslim Turks and the Christian (Catholic) Knights.

Our protagonist, Jeffrey Rohan, is an English merchant’s son, fourteen years old, and an escaped former slave of the Sultan Suleiman. After his escape from Constantinople, Jeffrey ends up by accident on the island Rhodes and finds that he cannot leave since the city of Rhodes is under siege. Jeffrey takes solace in his prayers and his belief in the courage and piety of the Knights Hospitallers, but he is also aware, in a way that his friends are not, of the strength and overwhelming numbers of the Turkish force.

I found this story to be intriguing, partly because I didn’t know how it would end. I didn’t know much about the Knights Hospitallers, and I certainly didn’t know whether the Turks or the Knights would have the victory in this particular battle and siege. I would love to discuss the ending, but I won’t spoil it for you. Suffice it to say that Jeffrey is brought to question many of his beliefs and presuppositions over the course of a very long and wearing siege, and yet in the end his faith in God and in chivalry are validated in an unusual way.

This 1964 novel is still fresh and relevant today. The attitudes in the novel are those of sixteenth century people: the Knights are sworn to kill all Muslim infidels, and they do so without mercy. (No gore, just plainly stated facts.) The Turkish besiegers are more inclined to kill those that they must, but rather to enslave and tax the population if they can —and to require allegiance to Suleiman and to the Islamic religion. These are all very medieval attitudes. Now we are trying as a Western post-Christian civilization to come to some sort of compromise and peaceful co-existence with the Muslim world, and they are what? I’m not sure, and this children’s/YA novel certainly didn’t have the answers to our modern problems. However, it did make me think about the complicated and fraught relationship between Westerners and Christians and Muslims and Easterners over the course of history.

Anyway, Knights Besieged would be an excellent introduction to the history of Middle East and the Mediterranean in the late Middle Ages and a great springboard for discussion of past and current events in that part of the world. You will probably want to learn more about the Ottoman Empire, the Knights of St John, and the history of Europe and the Middle East in general after reading the story. I certainly did. And some boys will just be in it for the war and the knights and the intrigue. That’s fine, too. Not every work of historical fiction has to be a history lesson in disguise, even if it is.

This book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

The Letter on the Tree by Natalie Savage Carlson

Jul31

Carlson, Natalie. The Letter on the Tree. Illustrated by John Kaufmann. Harper & Row, 1964. Read for The 1964 Project.

“Albert Caron is really my name but everybody calls me Bébert . . . . ‘It rhymes with gray bear,’ I taught them. Then they liked to say, ‘Hey, there, Bébert, the gray bear.'”

Bébert is a ten year old French Canadian boy who lives with his family on a small dairy farm in Quebec. The family is poor, and although Bébert longs for an accordion like the one he has heard played on the family’s radio, his Papa says that they are too poor to buy one from Pére Noel (Father Christmas). Mamie says that it is God’s will that they are so poor, but perhaps if they work hard, it won’t always be God’s will to keep them in poverty. Bébert tries to think of ways to make the cows that they have give more milk or ways for Papa to earn more money, but none of his ideas work out—until the day that Bébert goes with his Papa to cut Christmas trees to sell. Bébert gets the wonderful idea of writing a letter to whoever gets one of the trees, asking for an accordion for the poor little French boy in Canada whose family is too poor to provide a Christmas gift. Of course, the poor little French boy is Bébert himself.

So, the rest of the story is a lesson, clothed in story, about contentment and hard work and creative problem solving and honesty, but it’s not a preachy or didactic lesson. The book also gives readers a glimpse into a year in the life of a French Canadian farm boy of the mid-twentieth century, with church holy days to celebrate, friends to play with, and always, every day, twice a day, the cows to milk. Bébert is a stolid little boy with ideas that carry him into difficulties sometimes, but also other ideas that truly are a help and support to his family. Bébert learns gratitude for what he has and not to make snap judgements about people over the course of the year, and in the end Bébert has made new friends and grown to love the life that he has instead of longing for what he does not.

The Letter on the Tree is only 116 pages long, and the reading level is about third grade. Boys and girls will enjoy the story of Bébert and his life on the dairy farm, and the book would make a good read aloud bedtime story any time of the year, but maybe especially around Christmas or birthday time when it is easy for children (and adults) to become discontented and greedy and anxious about the gifts that are given and received.

Natalie Savage Carlson wrote several books set in Canada, among the French Canadian people, perhaps because although she was American, born in Virginia, she was of French Canadian descent. Her first published book was The Talking Cat and other stories of French Canada, a collection of folk tales and family stories. She also wrote Jean-Claude’s Island, about a French Canadian boy, living on a small island in the St. Lawrence River, and Chalou, the adventures of a lost farm dog in French Canada. Some of Ms. Carlson’s other stories are set in France, including the Newbery Honor winning book, The Family Under the Bridge and the series about a group of French orphans, The Orphelines.

This book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Secret Castle by Anne Colver

Jul30

Colver, Anne. Secret Castle. Illustrated by Vaike Low. Knopf, 1969.

My copy is a paperback published by American Education Publications. It’s marked on the front cover with a price of 75 cents. The cheapest copy I could find online was $25 for the paperback. The original hardcover is much more expensive. But maybe you can find a copy at your library, if you have a good old-fashioned public library or a private lending library near you.

In this mystery adventure story Molly-O Moore and her good friend Pip Parker go on vacation with Molly’s family to the St. Lawrence Seaway, Alexandria Bay, NY in the Thousand Islands. According to a note at the beginning of the book, “the town of Alexandria Bay, N.Y., Devil’s Oven Island, and the fascinating Boldt Castle itself, landmark of the Thousand Islands, are true settings for this imaginary story.”

Molly-O and Pip are horse-loving, pet owning, ice cream eating, giggly, and adventurous girls (about ten years old, although the book never tells their exact ages) who “set off to solve the mystery of a lost legacy.” Actually, the girls spend most of their time in the first half to three-quarters of the book looking for a mystery to solve and learning to row a boat and fish. They get to know a young man named Christie who takes the girls and Molly’s father out on his boat to learn to catch fish. Soon the girls also learn that Christie has a rather sad secret, and they are impelled to solve a mystery and help Christie find a fortune.

I would have enjoyed this mystery story if I had read it as a child right along with my Trixie Belden mysteries and the Lookout Mountain series by Emmy West and Christine Noble Govan. It’s not very challenging for an adult reader, but perfect for seven to ten year old readers who love mystery and adventure stories. If I had a library in New York or Canada or anywhere near the St. Lawrence River or Seaway, I would certainly be on the lookout for an inexpensive copy of Secret Castle for local color and a good story to boot.

Anne Colver is the author of quite a few children’s books from the sixties and seventies, including Bread-and Butter Indian and Bread-and-Butter Journey, historical fiction books that are highly recommended by those who have read them. (Pricy, too!) She also wrote another Molly-O and Pip book before this one, called Borrowed Treasure, as well as many more beloved children’s fiction books and biographies. Her husband, Stewart Graff, was also a children’s book author. Any one of the couple’s many books is worth a look if you find it in the library or at the thrift store.

This book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.