Archives

Out and About by Shirley Hughes

Sep27

Hughes, Shirley. Out and About: A First Book of Poems. Candlewick, 2015. (U.S. edition)

Shirley Hughes is a well known author and illustrator on the other side of the pond in Britain. She has won the Kate Greenaway Medal for British children’s book illustrations twice –for her books Dogger and Ella’s Big Chance—and many more awards and honors for her work in writing and illustrating children’s books. The author blurb in my library copy of Out and About tells me that she illustrated more than two hundred children’s books in her lifetime. Ms. Hughes died in 2022.

Out and About is a collection of poems for each of the seasons, spring, summer, fall, and winter. Katie and her baby brother, Ollie, explore nature in the poems and pictures that fill this little 42 page picture book brimful to overflowing. The book begins with a poem called “Out and About” and a picture of Katie walking down the garden path while her baby brother stands in the doorway and watches her. The laundry is flapping in the breeze on the clothesline, birds are flying about, and it looks like an altogether lovely day to be outdoors. In some of the other poems Katie tells us why and how she likes mud and water and sand and wind. The entire book is an ode to nature and the changing seasons, and it would be a great addition to a nature study time or a poetry tea or any read aloud time with younger children.

The poems in this book reminded me of Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses. Ms. Hughes’ poems are more impressionistic, like lists of images and brief reactions to them. However, they are, like Stevenson’s poems, about simple childhood experiences: going to the beach, playing in the snow and in the water, Christmas Day, climbing a hill and rolling down, walking in the rain, a fall harvest. I added this book to Picture Book Preschool under the heading of Wind and Weather because so many of the poems are about the seasonal changes in weather and about experiencing the outdoors.

One of my favorite hobbyhorses is the idea that children need to hear and enjoy lots of poetry: nursery rhymes, silly songs, RLS, A.A. Milne, Christina Rossetti, and more. Shirley Hughes’ Out and About: A First Book of Poems would be perfect for the poetry section of your library and of your morning time or read aloud time.

This Picture Book Preschool 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.

The Piper by Eden Vale Stevens

May30

This Dickensian Christmas tale could have come straight out of Victorian England, but instead it’s a story from an American writer. Set in Oliver Cromwell’s England of the 1600’s, this 128-page quest story tells of a young orphan boy, Ned, and his search for food and a mother and a home. As he navigates his way through the threatening city of London, avoiding the officers who want to take him to the poorhouse, and the others who want to imprison him for thieving bread, Ned searches for the Mother and Babe that the bells of the cathedral are said to herald.

The illustrations for this story by Fermin Rocker are beautiful, and they help to bring the tale down to earth and make it more accessible. I have to admit, though, that the story itself struck me as a bit odd. Ned lives with a group of street children, but he leaves them to go and find his family. We never know what happens to his street urchin “family”. Eventually, the poet Robert Herrick (1591-1674) finds him and feeds him, but Ned leaves Herrick’s warm hospitality in a tavern to continue on his quest to find either his own mother or the Holy Mother proclaimed by the bells of the cathedral. Then, he finds a family, father, mother and three children, who decide to take him in, maybe because he reminds them of the Christ Child?

The best idea I have is to try this story out as a read aloud at Christmas time and see if your children are taken by the small piper, Ned, and his search for a mother and a family. The poem in the very back of the book is this one by Herrick, which I suppose is the inspiration for the story:

Go prettie child, and beare this Flower
Unto thy little Saviour;
And tell Him, by that Bud now blown,
He is the Rose of Sharon known:
When thou has said so, stick it there
Upon his Bibb or Stomacher:
And tell Him (for good handsell too)
That thou has brought a Whistle new,
Made of a clean strait oaten reed,
To charm his cries (at times of need):
Tell Him, for Corall, thou hast none;
But if thou hadst, He sho’d have one;
But poore thou art, and knowne to be
Even as monilesse as He.
Lastly, if thou canst win a kisse
From those mellifluous lips of his;
Then never take a second on,
To spoile the first impression.

The Easter Cat by Meindert DeJong

Mar26

Mr. DeJong is fast becoming one of my favorite children’s authors of all time. His books are usually animal stories, often child-centered, with quite a lot of insight into the way a child thinks and acts. The books were written, set, and published in the 1950’s and 60’s, and the children in the stories are therefore much more free to roam, to play, to wonder, and yes, to get into trouble. These children that DeJong portrays are imperfect; they sometimes tell lies or disobey parents and other authorities. They wonder about things that they dare not ask adults. They make unwise decisions.

But these children are real, believable, and I daresay lovable. They don’t have special powers with which they can save the world. They don’t engage in community action in order to save the trees or the community center or whatever is threatened by the Big, Bad Developers. Millicent in The Easter Cat is just a little girl who wants a pet cat. However, her mother’s allergy to cats makes that wish impossible to fulfill. So Millicent plays with the stray cats in the alley, even feeds them, even though her mother has forbidden it.

Then, early on Easter Sunday morning, Millicent finds a cat, inside her house, next to her Easter basket. Could it be that mother has gotten over her allergy? Could this beautiful blue Siamese cat be the gift that Millicent has always longed for? And if he’s not an Easter surprise, can she somehow keep him anyway?

If you want the children in your books to be superheroes or obedient little automatons, The Easter Cat isn’t the book for you. Millicent certainly isn’t a bad child, but she is cat-obsessed. Her deep desire to love and care for a cat of her own can be identified with by many children, and any fellow cat lover will enjoy this story. The tale also includes a secret hide-out, a favorite story element of mine. So I recommend it to readers of Easter stories and animal stories and secret hiding place stories and family stories of all kinds.

Oh, it’s also short, a little over 100 pages. For those who like it short and sweet.

Round the Year in Pudding Lane by Sarah Addington

Jan6

A Guest Review from Jeannette Tulis of Green Door Children’s Heritage Library in Soddy Daisy, TN. Round the Year in Pudding Lane by Sarah Addington

This book was so clever, it made me laugh out loud. It’s an especially good book to read aloud if your children know a lot of nursery rhymes because there are so many references to classic Mother Goose rhymes, and they are worked into the story in such a charming fashion.

This is a story of one year in Pudding Lane where Santa Claus, a young boy, lives with his family: Mr. and Mrs. Claus, and the twins, plus a new baby. On Pudding Lane are also the Woman who lived in a Shoe with all her children, Old Mother Hubbard, The Candlestick Maker and, well, you get the idea.

Round the Year in Pudding Lane is a book full of kindness and generosity. Each chapter deals with a different holiday or season of the year. I especially enjoyed the last chapter of Christmas surprises. This book was published 100 years ago (1924), and I read the e-book free on Internet Archive. I had recently read another book by this author, The Boy Who Lived in Pudding Lane, which was about the boyhood of Santa Claus and how he grew up to be the famous personage of Christmas. It is available as a reprint. 

The Christmas Camera by Alta Halverson Seymour

Dec19

Another entry in the Christmas Around the World Series from Purple House Press, The Christmas Camera (originally Erik’s Christmas Camera) is the story of the twelve year old Swedish boy Erik Dahlquist and his cousin Bertil and the reclusive old fisherman Gunnar Eklund. It’s a gentle story, as is the rule with Ms. Halverson Seymour’s fiction. Bertil comes from the big city of Stockholm and is at first a bit haughty and inclined to look down on his country cousins. But all is well in the end. Gunnar Eklund is a somewhat secretive and scary character at first, but it soon becomes apparent that he is also good at heart.

The art of photography and Erik’s interest in it tie the story together much more than the actual plot does. And Erik’s pursuit of excellent and artistic photos gives the author an opportunity to work into the story a number of Swedish customs, celebrations, and folkways that make the book appealing in a different way. The children with their families celebrate Midsummer’s Eve, a bicycle trip, crayfish parties in August, St. Lucia Day, and finally Julafton (Christmas Eve). Anyone who wants to know more about traditional Swedish holidays and pastimes would enjoy reading about Erik and his photographic adventures.

The other books in the Christmas Around the World Series by Alta Halverson Seymour are:

And a few other books that fit a Christmas Around the World theme are:

These books can all be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Why Marry?

Jun27

We live in a utilitarian age. If you can’t show me a practical use for any given practice or cultural institution, I’m free to throw it out, take it or leave it, make my own traditions, fashions, and rules. With this modern attitude, what is the use of marriage? Why go to the expense and worry of a wedding, why get a marriage license, why marry?

And many couples do not. They live together, engage in a sexual relationship, combine finances, make joint decisions, and even have children, forming families, without ever troubling themselves to obtain that pesky little piece of paper that legalizes and solemnizes their liaison. Some of these “partners” move from one relationship to the next, never settling, and never committing themselves to one person. But others are seemingly committed, seemingly married in everything but name, but just don’t see the use of getting actually, legally, really truly married.

So why marry? If you ask me to give you a utilitarian reason for legal marriage, I can’t really do it. Is it better for a society if the majority of couples who are forming families and educating the coming generation are legally married? Yes, I believe so. Is it better for children if their parents are formally and publicly committed to one another in marriage? Again, yes. Better how? Well, marriage implies and calls a couple to a stable and lasting relationship, a foundation that is important, even vital for the mental and spiritual health of children in a family. But you can answer that as individuals we are committed. We plan to stay together till death does us part. What difference does it make whether or not we have a marriage certificate or have had a wedding ceremony?

And in strictly utilitarian terms, I cannot give an adequate or convincing answer. The real reason for marriage, as I have come to understand after much thought, is not utilitarian at all. It is transcendent in nature–for Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus and other religious people, certainly. We all believe that marriage is a solemn vow of union before God. But even for many nonreligious people who still believe in marriage and who continue to marry one another, marriage is something more than “a piece of paper” or a legal contract or a meaningless ritual. When we get married, we are doing something real, initiating a relationship, that has meaning beyond the words we say or the papers we sign. We are making a commitment before God (whether you believe in Him or not, He is there) and our community to cleave to this one husband or wife and to no one else for the rest of our natural lives. We are initiating a new family relationship, husband and wife, a relationship that will exact responsibilities from us and give privileges to us and that will shape us for the rest of our lives, even if the marriage itself someday ends in divorce or in the death of one of the couple.

What I’m trying to say is that marriage has a transcendent meaning, and we marry because of that meaning. Yes, marriage is a picture of Christ and His church. That’s a part of the reason and meaning for marriage. And marriage was instituted by God in the beginning when Adam and Eve were joined by God and told to cleave to one another and be fruitful and multiply. That’s another piece of the meaning of marriage. Furthermore, marriage is an invisible bond and contract between two people in the presence of family and community to love and care for each other, both physically and spiritually. It’s an announcement that says, “Hey, world, we are not just interested in exploring or exploiting each other physically and sexually. We are a married couple. We are spiritually, mystically committed to each other in all senses, physically, emotionally, intellectually, and even supernaturally.”

If the man and woman involved in a physical relationship are not willing to make that announcement loudly, proudly and publicly in an actual ceremony of some kind and a legal binding contract, then there is something wrong with the relationship itself. The partnership that is not willing to be a marriage may be practical, sensible, and even lasting, but it is ultimately soulless. And that’s why we marry: for the sake of our mutual souls and for the creation of a one flesh spiritual union together.

Dog Journeys: Books About Dogs

Jun19

Roverandom by JRR Tolkien.

One Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith.

I have often heard people say that they avoid dog books because the dog always dies. And indeed, many beloved dog books do turn out that way: Old Yeller, Sounder, Where the Red Fern Grows, The Art of Racing in the Rain, Stone Fox, White Fang, and many more. (Sorry for the spoilers. Or maybe, you’re welcome to the warning.)

Anyway, I read a couple of books recently in which the doggy plot heads in a different direction. The dogs in these two books are endangered and face obstacles and go on a difficult and challenging journey, but the dogs do not die. Roverandum by JRR Tolkien, of hobbit fame, began as a bedtime story for Tolkien’s sons to explain and console them for the loss of a toy dog on the beach. In the story Roverandom was once a real live dog, turned into a small toy by an irascible wizard. When Roverandom is lost on the beach, another, more benevolent wizard can’t undo the first wizard’s curse, but he can send Roverandom on a journey, first to the moon where he has many adventures, and then to the depths of the ocean where Roverandom, after many more adventures, finally manages to get permission to be returned to his normal doggy state. The stories in this short 148 page book would be fun as a read aloud for elementary age children and might even engage the interest of those a little older than that.

I have also heard some people opine that the adventures of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins become somewhat repetitious and even tedious after a while. Those same readers would find Roverandom even more dull. On the other hand, those of us who enjoy imaginative flights of fancy and dueling wizards and journeys full of unusual adventures are primed for reading about a toy dog who visits the dark side of the moon as well as hobbits who visit dragons and gigantic spiders.

The other book I read was 101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith. I saw the Disney movie long ago, and of course, I thought I knew the story. But also of course, the book is much more engaging and humorous than the movie ever could have been. It’s a Christmas story, beginning just before Christmas, in which a pair of Dalmatians, mother and father, Pongo and Missus, go on a perilous and difficult journey to rescue their kidnapped puppies–all fifteen of them. Cruella de Vil is both cruel and devilish, but she eventually gets her just deserts. There are no wizards or magic spells in this book, but it is full of fun as the dogs, who think they own their humans, the Dearlys, exhibit humor and personality and independence and courage in the face of danger.

I highly recommend both Roverandom and 101 Dalmatians as stories in which the dog does NOT die, but instead goes on a brave journey of self-discovery and also exploration of the world and its wonders.

More good dog journey stories in which the dog does not die (I don’t think):

  • The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford.
  • Silver Chief, Dog of the North by Jack O’Brien
  • Lassie, Come-Home by Eric Knight
  • Big Red (and sequels) by Jim Kjelgaard
  • Kavik the Wolf Dog by Walt Morey
  • Red Dog by Bill Wallace
  • Hurry Home, Candy by Meindert DeJong
  • Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes

Any other suggestions?

The Christmas Crocodile by Bonny Becker

Dec21

“The Christmas Crocodile didn’t mean to be bad, not really.”

When Alice and Jayne and her family find a crocodile under the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, they really don’t know what to do. “He was eating up Christmas and no one knew what to do with him.” What would you do with a crocodile on Christmas?

This book is a hilarious, ridiculous romp about a compassionate family with a crocodile problem. The illustrations by David Small are cartoonish, which is not usually my preference, but for this humorous story, the pictures are appropriate and add to the silliness. This one is a must-add to the holiday picture book shelf. I’m wrapping up my copy for this year’s box of “12 Books of Christmas” for my three year old grandson and his little sister, and I really think Teddy will find it laugh out loud funny. However, older children will also enjoy the fun and will perhaps understand the ending which will probably elude the understanding of the three year old.

The Christmas Crocodile is in print, available wherever you buy books, and also available for checkout from my library (after Mr. Teddy returns it). It would probably be just as good an after-Christmas read as before, especially since you will be discussing what might happen after the ending page.

The Christmas Anna Angel by Ruth Sawyer

Dec6

The Christmas Anna Angel by Ruth Sawyer, illustrated by Kate Seredy. Viking Press, 1944. (Christmas in Hungary, c.1918)

“Here is one of those heart-warming tales that never grow old but take their place on the Christmas shelf to become year after year a part of the family Christmas. Ruth Sawyer heard the story from a friend named Anna, whose little girlhood was spent on a Hungarian farm where her own Christmas Anna Angel came to her. Miss Sawyer’s text and Kate Seredy’s lovely drawings retell the tale with a feather-light touch that would not brush away the loveliness of a dream or of a little child’s belief in Christmas.

~New York TImes

This book is absolutely beautiful. The story is great, but the text combined with the illustrations make the book a children’s masterpiece. Miklos and his older sister Anna are growing up on a farm during the later years of World War I. The book begins on St. Nicholas Eve, “the day that begins the Christmas time,” and ends on Christmas Day. In between, Anna tells Miklos about Christmases past, before the war, when there was plenty of flour and honey and eggs and fuel for the baking of Christmas cakes to hang on the Christmas tree. And as the children welcome St. Nicholas on his day, celebrate St. Lucy’s Day, and wonder at the marvels of the Christmas Eve celebration, Anna maintains her faith that the angels in heaven, especially her own Christmas Anna Angel, will see to the baking of Christmas cakes in spite of the war conditions and privations.

This story is Hungarian Catholic in its culture and setting; Protestant readers may have to explain about talking and praying to saints and going to Mass on Christmas Eve. However, it’s also a very Christian book, with an emphasis on the true wonder and meaning of Christmas and the coming of the Christ Child while holding onto a child’s ability to imagine and embroider even in wartime. I wish I could send a copy of this story to every child in Ukraine this Christmas, along with a copy of the gospel of Luke, to give them hope and imagination and joy in their time of war.

Whatever war or harshness is in your life this Christmas, I wish for you, too, some hope and joy and Christmas cakes. If you get a chance to read The Christmas Anna Angel this Christmas and you like it, I recommend Kate Seredy’s books, The Good Master and The Singing Tree, both also set before and during World War I in Hungary and quite reminiscent of Ruth Sawyer’s Christmas story.