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Evening in the Palace of Reason by James R. Gaines

May8

Toward the end of Johann Sebastian Bach’s life, he met Frederick the Great of Prussia. This book looks at the history of the early eighteenth century through the lives of these two men and the events that led up to their historic meeting in 1747. Bach, an honored and devout musician, was sixty-two years old at the time and only three years away from his death. Fredeick was thirty-five, in the seventh year of his reign as king of Prussia, a lover of whatever was new and fashionable and avante garde. Bach was a product of the (Lutheran) Reformation and a conservative Christian. Frederick the Great was Voltaire’s “philosopher-king”, an adept, if deceitful, diplomat and a military genius.

I found this story of how the two men’s lives intertwined and contrasted to be illuminating in its picture of the individuals and in its portrayal of the competing philosophies of the age, Reformation versus Enlightenment, Christian versus free-thinker, Baroque musical forms versus the emerging Classical style of Bach’s son Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach. Some of the musicological details went over my head, but the basic contrast between two very different men and two very different world views was clear.

“The Enlightenment’s way of knowing a thing was to identify, separate, and classify it, the encyclopedic impulse. Bach’s way of understanding something was to get his hands on it, turn it upside down and backward, and wrestle with it until he found a way to make something new.” (p. 185)

Of the Musical Offering written by Bach for Frederick after their meeting: “All of the oddities contained in the work . . . were of a piece, and this is what they say: Beware the appearance of good fortune, Frederick, stand in awe of a fate more fearful than nay this world has to give, seek the glory that is beyond the glory of this fallen world, and know that there is a law higher than any king’s which is never changing, and by which you and every one of us will be judged. Of course that is what he (Bach) said. He had been saying it all his life.” (p. 237)

“He could thank the writings and example of the notoriously, triumphantly intemperate Martin Luther for in spiring in him not only a love of God but, perhaps more important to his music, a sense of certainty rooted in something deeper than approval or respect.” (p.241)

“A poll conducted during the controversy over his reburial (1991) found that most Germans could not say when Frederick had lived or what he had ever done.” (p.268)

Gaines ends his book by saying that the tension between faith and reason, personified in the life and work of these two men, Bach and Frederick the Great, continues unresolved to this day. I think it’s a false dichotomy. Bach wins. His music proves that we cannot, do not, live in a closed materialistic system. “Bach’s music makes no argument that the world is more than ticking clock, yet leaves no doubt of it.” (p. 273)

Three Victorian-setting YA Novels

May2

First I read In the Shadow of the Lamp by Susanne Dunlap. It’s set in 1854, and Molly, our protagonist, dissembles a background in nursing in order to be able to join Florence Nightingale as she assembles a coterie of nurses to go to the Crimea. I’ve heard of the Crimean War, and I associate it with Florence Nightingale and with the Charge of the Light Brigade. The vague location in my mind of “the Crimea” is somewhere near Istanbul? It turns out that I’m not so very far off. The Crimea is farther north, on shore of the Black Sea in what is now the Ukraine, but the nurses ended up at the British army hospital in Scutari, which was in a section of Istanbul. Wikipedia:

During the Crimean War (1854-1856), the barracks was allocated to the British Army, which was on the way from Britain to the Crimea. After the troops of the 33rd and 41st[3] left for the front, the barracks was converted into a temporary military hospital.
On November 4, 1854, Florence Nightingale arrived in Scutari with 38 volunteer nurses. They cared for thousands of wounded and infected soldiers, and drastically reduced the high mortality rate by improving the sanitary living conditions until she returned home in 1857 as a heroine.

The story of how Molly learned to be a real nurse and of her comrades in healing turns into a romance and even a bit of a ghost story. I was intrigued enough to look up more information about the Crimean War and about Ms. Nightingale, and I recommend the story for lovers of historical Victoriana.

Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper takes place in almost exactly the same time period, 1854-1861, as In the Shadow. In this novel our heroine is named Grace Parkes, and she, too is poor, spunky, and determined. Grace has an older sister, Lily, who is mentally handicapped, and the two sisters are orphans. The book deals with Victorian death customs, specifically the death of Queen Victoria’s beloved husband, Prince Albert, and with the many difficulties facing a young, unprotected and unattached female in Dickensian London. Grace and Lily are adrift in the city, and they face off with evil villains worthy of a Dickens novel. I thought the history was well-researched, and the story was absorbing as Grace tries to protect her sister Lily and make a way for the two of them to live an honest and free life in a harsh world.

I liked this rags to riches story very much, even though it was somewhat unbelievable. Dickens himself is rather unbelievable, if you stop to think carefully about some of his plots, but he manages to carry it off anyway. Ms. Hooper is writing in that tradition, but the style is appropriate for a modern YA audience.

The last of the three books I read was The Agency: A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee. The other two novels were gateways to history with real historical characters, such as Dickens, Nightingale, and others, making cameo appearances and with lots of real historical events featured in each book. The Agency is more of a straight spy novel that happens to be set in Victorian London, same time period again, 1853-1858. The protagonist is again a young woman, Mary Quinn, and the lady is in just as much trouble as either Grace or Molly as the novel opens. Mary,in fact, is about to be hanged as a thief before she is rescued by a mysterious benefactress and taken to Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls to be educated. A few years later, when Mary is grown, she goes before the two ladies who run the school, Miss Treleaven and Mrs. Frame to decide with them what she is to do with her life. There Mary learns about a secretive spy/detective agency that the two ladies operate, and she is given the opportunity to begin training as an operative.

I enjoyed this book almost as much as I did the other two novels, but I did think that this one had some holes in the plot and and missed transitions. I was never sure how Mary Quinn managed to justify her detective activities to her erstwhile partner/romantic interest (who doesn’t know about the secret Agency); her story that she was looking for a runaway maid was rather thin and unbelievable since she never did anything related to the maid’s disappearance. That’s just one example. Ms. Quinn often jumps to conclusions that are not justified by the evidence, but of course, her conclusions turn out to be exactly right. And some of the characters change personalities in a bewildering manner such that it’s difficult to know whom to root for and whom to hate. There’s also an undercurrent of feminist agit-prop, but it’s easily ignored.

The Agency: A Spy in the House seems to be the beginning book in a projected series about this ladies’ spy agency, and I’m hoping that more editing will work out some of the continuity problems in the plot and characterizations. The premise is good, but the logic of the story itself could use a little work.

Three feisty heroines, three stories of romance and intrigue, three British settings. I recommend them together as a set.

Nothing To Fear by Jackie French Koller

Mar1

My American History class has reached the era of the Great Depression, the 1930’s, and we’re reading Nothing To Fear by Jackie Koller. This read is going much better than the last book they were asked to read, Christy by Catherine Marshall. Christy is one of my favorite novels, but had I known when I wrote the syllabus that I would have a class of nine fourteen-fifteen year old boys, I might have chosen a different book to exemplify the early twentieth century.

Back to Nothing To Fear. All of the boys were enthusiastic about this one. It’s the story of a boy, Danny Garvey, who lives with his Irish American family—father, mother, and little sister Maureen–in a tenement apartment in New York City in 1932. Like all of the men in Danny’s neighborhood, Danny father is out of work and feeling desperate about providing for his family. Danny’s mother does laundry and ironing from her home for Miss Emily’s Hotel for Young Women. Danny shines shoes to make a few extra pennies.

But when Danny gets in with the wrong crowd and a window gets broken at old man Weissman’s store, Danny learns just how important his good name is to his father and eventually through the course of events, Danny also learns to value his own name and reputation.

Some bad stuff happens in this book, but it ends on a note of hope and perseverance. Danny and his mother trust in God and President Roosevelt to get them through the Depression, a trust somewhat misplaced in my opinion, but it’s true to the era and matches the stories that I’ve heard from people who lived during the 1930’s. Danny and his mom and all their neighbors are ecstatic when Roosevelt is elected, and even though, again realistically, the election of Roosevelt does nothing to improve the Garveys’ lives, they still cling to the hope that FDR will do something to end the Depression and return the country to prosperity. It reminds me of people nowadays who still maintain that President Obama will get our economy going again, except that I don’t think we’re as desperate as people were during the Great Depression. Therefore, we have a little room to see clearly that Obama is not our rescuer. FDR was any port in a storm and too much of a last chance for people to give up on him, even when he didn’t/couldn’t deliver.

I would recommend Nothing To Fear for boys ages 12-16 who are studying the Depression era in history or who just enjoy history and historical fiction. A few other recommended fiction books set in the same time period for children and young adults:

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor. Cassie Logan lives with her family in rural Mississippi and experiences the family closeness and racial tensions of the 1930’s time period.

I like these Dear America diaries:
Christmas After All: The Great Depression Diary of Minnie Swift. Indianapolis, IN, 1932 by Kathryn Lasky.
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: The Diary of Bess Brennan, The Perkins School for the Blind, 1932 by Barry Denenburg.
Survival in the Storm: The Dust Bowl Diary of Grace Edwards, Dalhart, Texas, 1935 by Katelyn Janke.

Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck. Winner of the 2001 Newbery Medal. Fifteen year old Mary Alice is sent downstate to live with Grandma Dowdel while her Ma and Pa stay in Chicago to work.
Bud, not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. Bud, not Buddy, Caldwell is an orphan who thinks he might just have a dad, Herman E. Calloway, bass player for the Dusky Devastators of the Depression. Will he find Calloway, and is Calloway really his father?
Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool is the story of a girl, twelve year old Abilene Tucker, whose father, Gideon, is a hobo. Abilene and her dad have been riding the rails together for as long as she can remember, but now (summer, 1936) Gideon has sent Abilene to live with an old friend of his in Manifest, Kansas while Gideon takes a job on the railroad back in Iowa. 2010 Newbery Award winner. Semicolon review here.
Ten Cents a Dance by Christine Fletcher. For older teens and adults. Semicolon review here.
William S. and the Great Escape by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. William escapes his abusive home along with his little sister and brother, but can the three fugitives find a place to call home in a time when home is hard to find? Semicolon review here.
Turtle in Paradise by Jenifer L. Holm. Semicolon review here. Take one eleven year girl named Turtle with eyes as “gray as soot” who sees things exactly as they are. Plunk her down in Key West, Florida with her Aunt Minnie the Diaper Gang and a bunch of Conch (adj. native or resident of the Florida Keys) relatives and Conch cousins with nicknames like Pork Chop and Too Bad and Slow Poke.

W.F. Matthews: Lost Battalion Survivor by Travis Monday

Feb21

Reading Unbroken(Semicolon review here) made me want to take a look at this WW II memoir about a man who was a deacon and a patriarch at my church when I was growing up in San Angelo, Texas. Mr. Matthews also survived imprisonment with the Japanese in Southeast Asia. As I remember it, my parents told me that Mr. Matthews had been a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II but that he “didn’t like to talk about it.” So I was curious, but I never asked.

Apparently, Mr. Monday who pastored my parents’ church for a while after I had already moved away from San Angelo, did ask—and wrote this self-published book in 2004 to tell “the incredible true story of an American hero,” W.F. Matthews.

The most striking note in the book was Mr. Matthews’ almost dispassionate attitude toward his captivity.

About the Japanese treatment of prisoners: “They beat on us pretty good. It seemed like—you know most of them are short—seemed like they resented us being so much bigger than they were.”

About the New Testament BIble that he carried and hid from the Japanese all through his captivity: “I’d get down, boy, and I’d sneak out and get that thing out and sit there and read it for about 20 minutes, and boy I’d get pepped up again.”

About working near Bangkok during bombing raids: “It was pretty rough up there. The Americans started bombing us. They were bombing at River Kwai and all down through there.”

About his condition after the war’s end in hospital: “I was about 90 pounds when I got in there, and of course, I had that malaria and dysentery. And they put me in that hospital and treated me for that, and I got in pretty good shape. I started eating and I gained a little weight.” (He weighed 220 pounds when he left Texas for San Francisco at the beginning of the war.)

About his recovery from the emotional scars of the war: “People would hover around me and want to talk and I had to leave pretty quick.” “There was a creek right by the house there, and I’d go way down on that creek walking around and kind of staying by myself.”

What magnificent understatement. What a matter of fact attitude.

W.F. Matthews went on to marry and father two sons. He was, as I said a deacon in my Southern Baptist church, and I grew up with his boys. He never said much of anything about the war, certainly never intimated that he was a hero or a person to be admired. As far as I knew, until my parents mentioned something about Mr. Matthews’ war experience, he was just Randy’s and Tommy’s dad, just a good ol’ West Texas man who happened to drink coffee with my dad and some other men every morning at the Dunbar Restaurant.

I believe we are surrounded by quiet, matter of fact, humble heroes, not always war heroes, but all kinds of unheralded and unsung heroism, and we often know nothing about the stories that these quiet heroes never think to tell.

How W.F. Matthews said he wants to be remembered: “I’d like them to remember that we were Americans and that we had a little more to live for than the rest of ’em. That Bible and a few things like that made a difference.”

Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis

Feb18

Life is just one d— thing after another. ~Elbert Hubbard

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. ~John Lennon

History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. ~Winston Churchill

Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all: the conscientious historian will correct these defects. ~Herodotus, The History of Herodotus

We are the prisoners of history. Or are we? ~Robert Penn Warren

Perhaps nobody has changed the course of history as much as the historians. ~Franklin P. Jones

Connie Willis writes some of the best books about time travel and history and epistemology and philosophy that I have ever had the privilege of reading. I first read her novel The Doomsday Book, about time-traveling historians from the future, in 2009. In that book Kivrin, a history student at Oxford in 2048, travels through “the net” back in time to the fourteenth century. After I finished The Doomsday Book, I immediately went out and found a copy of Ms. Willis’s next time travel history book, To Say Nothing of the Dog. It’s a delightful romp in which the fate of the universe may or may not be at stake. However, the course of history and the universe is “self-correcting,” shades of LOST, so the universe is never really in danger of imploding or careening off-track. Probably. I loved it even more than The Doomsday Book.

Now, in 2010, Ms. Willis has published two more future-historians-travel-through-time books: Blackout and All Clear. In these some of the same characters reappear, and the universe or the space-time continuum IS in danger of going off the rails. The focal point of all the temporal disturbance and crisis is World War II, and of course, several of our intrepid historians are criss-crossing Britain through time and space, trying to avoid the temptation to interfere in history and do something that, however well-meaning, might actually change the course of the war and end up making Hitler and the Nazis the victors. It’s not easy to observe history without changing it, however, as Polly and Mike and Eileen find out. It’s also not easy to survive the Blitz in London, even if you know about when and where the bombs are going to drop. Nor is Dunkirk a safe vantage point from which to observe heroism, even though there’s a lot of it going on.

I have several things to say about these two novels. First of all, they’re not really two novels; it’s one novel in two volumes, just as The Lord of the Rings is one book in three parts. So be sure to have the second book, All Clear, on hand before you start the first one. And read them in order even though there’s lots of time travel involved so that events in the novel(s) don’t exactly appear in chronological order.

Second, read these books. If you liked LOST because of the mind-bending time travel and suspenseful and philosophical elements, you should like what Connie Willis has done with these two books. If you’re a WW II buff, you will find these books fascinating. If you just enjoy a good science fiction or historical fiction story, read Blackout and All Clear. And read all the way to the end. It’s worth the confusion that accompanies the 1000+ pages of the two books. (Time travel makes my head hurt—in a good way.)

William Holman Hunt: The Light of the Worldphoto © 2007 freeparking | more info (via: Wylio)
Finally, I think these are what I would call Christian worldview novels. It’s not blatant or didactic or obvious, but if Ms. Willis is not a Christian, she has certainly co-opted Christian values and symbols and made the books breathe a Christian ethos in a way that is both attractive and entertaining. The central images and metaphors of the novels are Christian: The Light of the World, a painting by Holman Hunt, St. Paul’s Cathedral standing above bombed-out London, The Tempest by Shakespeare, a door that opens to another world. The themes are all about redemption and sacrifice and the power of obedience to what is good and noble even when you don’t know what the outcome will be. And this conversation, between a time traveler from the future and an elderly Shakespearean actor caught in the darkest days of WW II, toward the end of the second volume, clinches it for me:

“Was that your third question?” she managed to ask.
“No, Polly,” he said. “Something of more import.” And she knew it must be. . . .
“What is it?” she asked. . . .
He stepped forward and grasped the staircase’s railing, looked up at her earnestly. “Is it a comedy or a tragedy?”
He doesn’t mean the war, she thought. He’s talking about all of it–our lives and history and Shakespeare. And the continuum.
She smiled down at him. “A comedy, my lord.”

Surely, Christians are the ones who believe that life and history are ultimately a comedy that ends in the Great Marriage Feast.

I loved these books.

Guide to the Oxford Time Travel books at The Connie Willis.net Blog.

Content consideration: These novels are adult novels, not for children, and the characters sometimes use bad language. The character Mike, in particular, does take the Lord’s name in vain on numerous occasions.

Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus

Dec17

John Manjiro was a Japanese fisherman who, as a boy in 1841, was stranded on an island after a storm and rescued by an American whaling ship. Heart of a Samurai is the fictionalized story of Manjiro’s life and his attempt to straddle two cultures, Japan and the West, especially the United States. The bare facts of Manjiro’s life are almost unbelievable:

As far as we know, he was the first Japanese person to set foot on American soil.

He was also the first Japanese to attend an American school, where he learned surveying, navigation, mathematics, and the English language.

In 1849 Manjiro left New England to go to Sacramento as a part of the Great Gold Rush, and he actually earned $600 working in the gold mines, enough to finance his return to Japan.

In Japan, a society at that time that was closed to Westerners and suspicious of even the few Japanese who traveled abroad, Manjiro was jailed and interrogated for over a year.

He translated the navigational texts of Nathaniel Bowditch into Japanese and taught in Japanese schools the geography, navigational techniques, English and mathematics that he had learned in the U.S.

In 1853, he was the intermediary and translator between the Shogun of Japan and Commodore Perry of the American fleet, who pioneered the opening of Japan to Western influence and trade.

Heart of a Samurai is a well written story of an amazing man, John Manjiro. And it has such a good theme of cultural understanding, showing how people misunderstand and calumniate one another as a result of pride and stubbornness and misinformation. Manjiro meditates on the lack of understanding between his native people and his adopted country:

“It actually made him laugh out loud, the idea of explaining at home that barbarian girls thought they were too good for a Japanese boy. But he wouldn’t be able to explain it, because at home, nobody knew what a real Westerner was like—they could only picture goblins with horns and fangs and enormous noses like bulbous roots growing out of their faces.

He wished he dared to run through the town of Fairhaven shaking people and saying, ‘Ha ha! You Americans think you are better than the Japanese! But the Japanese believe they are better than you!'”

I am so impressed with the historical fiction that I’ve read for the Middle Grade Fiction Cybils this year. In addition to Heart of a Samurai, here’s a timeline of some other historical fiction titles that should become staples in the history classroom and in libraries for pure enjoyment:

c200 AD The Year of the Tiger by Allison Lloyd. “During the second century, the Emperor sends the Tiger Battalion to northwestern China to repair a section of the Great Wall. Upon its arrival, the Commander proposes an archery contest. His son Ren thinks victory will prove his worth to his father. Hu, a local peasant boy, wants to win to save his family from starvation. As they train, the two boys form an unlikely friendship.” I haven’t read this one yet, but it sounds good, doesn’t it?

Late 1500’s Alchemy and Meggy Swan by Karen Cushman. Meggy Swan is a survivor. Crippled form birth, believed to be cursed by the devil, with a mother who doesn’t want her and a father who’s only interested in alchemy, Meggy comes to London and uses the resources she does have, courage and inner strength, to make friends and find a way to thwart the evil plans of a group of greedy plotters.

1692 The Devil’s Door: A Salem Witchcraft Story by Paul B. Thompson.

1841-1853 Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus.

1850’s Emily’s Fortune by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Semicolon review here.

1852 Emma’s River by Allison Hart. 10 year old Emma Wright and her horse, Licorice Twist, travel on a steamboat up the Missouri River.

1863 Grease Town by Ann Towell. Semicolon review here.

1887 When Molly Was a Harvey Girl by Frances M. Wood. Semicolon review here.

1890’s Wishing for Tomorrow: The Sequel to A Little Princess by Hilary McKay. Semicolon review here.

1900-1902 Zora and Me by Victoria Bond. Fictionalization of the life of author Zora Neale Hurston from age nine to age eleven. In the book Zora becomes a girl detective who tries with her friends to figure out what happened to a man who was murdered or accidentally killed in their small Florida town.

1905 Finding Family by Tonya Bolden. Another young black turn-of the century solver of mysteries, Delana must unravel the fiction from the facts in her Aunt Tilley’s family stories.

1904-1973 The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan and Peter Sis. Based on the early life of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, The Dreamer tells the story of an imaginative boy who uses the challenges in his life to become a writer of immense talent and influence.

1930’s The Wonder of Charlie Anne by Kimberley Newton Fusco. Semicolon review here.

1930’s Orphan by John Weber. When Iowa farm boy Homer finds out at age 13 that he’s adopted, he decides to ride the rails to New York City to find his birth family.

1932 Leaving Gee’s Bend by Irene Latham. Semicolon review here.

1935 Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm. Semicolon review here.

1936 Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool. “After a life of riding the rails with her father, 12-year-old Abilene can’t understand why he has sent her away to stay with Pastor Shady Howard in Manifest, Missouri, a town he left years earlier; but over the summer she pieces together his story.” (Booklist)

1940’s Stolen Child by Marcia Forchuk Skrypuch. “Stolen from her family by the Nazis, Nadia is a young girl who tries to make sense of her confusing memories and haunting dreams. Bit by bit she starts to uncover the truth–that the German family she grew up with, the woman who calls herself Nadia’s mother, are not who they say they are.” (Amazon description)

1941 Camp X: Trouble in Paradise by Eric Walters. Trouble in Paradise is the latest in a Canadian World War II spy/adventure series. The first book in the series, Camp X, featured brothers, Jack and George, in Whitby, Ontario infiltrating Camp X, a spy training school, and then warning the army of a Nazi plot to attack the training camp. The sequels to Camp X include Camp 30, Camp X: Fool’s Gold, Camp X: Shell Shocked, this latest book, Camp X: Trouble in Paradise, set in Bermuda. Solid WWII adventure stories with likable boy heroes.

1941-42 The Fences Between Us by Kirby Larson. Semicolon review here.

1944 Warriors in the Crossfire by Nancy Bo Flood. “This taut, poetic story of Saipan, set before and during the U.S. invasion of the island in spring 1944, is narrated by the 13-year-old son of a local village chief.” Joseph’s friend, Kento, is the son of the Japanese administrator of the island. ‘As war comes closer, the two trade lessons in island survival for lessons in Japanese characters. But their loyalties are tested.” (from the Amazon description)

1962 Countdown by Deborah Wiles. Semicolon review here.

1962 This Means War! by Ellen Wittlinger. Semicolon review here.

1966 My Life With the Lincolns by Gayle Brandeis. Eleven year old Mina is convinced that her family is the Abraham Lincoln family reincarnated and doomed to play out the tragedies of that family unless Mina can do something to change their fate. When Mina’s father becomes involved in the civil rights movement, Mina comes along to protect him.

1968 One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia. Semicolon review here.

1970’s To Come and Go Like Magic by Katie Pickard Fawcett. Semicolon review here.

1975 A Million Shades of Gray by Cynthia Kadohata. Semicolon review here.

1982 Mamba Point by Kurtis Scaletta. Linus’s father works for the American embassy in Monrovia, Liberia. As Linus becomes acclimated to life in Africa he finds he has a strange and wonderful kinship with the most dangerous snake in Western Africa, the black mamba.

On the Tenth Day of Christmas, Claremont, England, 1836

Dec8

From Princess Victoria’s journal, Claremont, December 24, 1836:

“Very soon after dinner Mamma sent for us into the gallery, where all the things were arranged on different tables. From my dear Mamma I received a beautiful massive gold buckle in the shape of two serpents; a lovely little delicate gold chain with turquoise clasp; a lovely coloured sketch of dearest Aunt Louise by Partridge copied from the picture he brought and so like her; 3 bautiful drawings my Munn, one lovely seaview by Peser and one cattle piece by Cooper (all coloured), 3 prints, a book called Finden’s Tableau, Heath’s Picturesque Annual, Ireland; both these are very pretty; Friendship’s Offering and the English Annual for 1837, the Holy Land illustrated beautifully, two handkerchiefs, a very pretty black satin apron trimmed with red velvet, and two almanacks. From dear Uncle Leopold, a beautiful turquoise ring,; from the Queen a fine piece of Indian gold tissue, and from Sir J. Conroy a print. I gave my dear Lehzen a green morocco jewel case, and the Picturesque Annual; Mamma gave her a shawl, a pair of turquoise earrings, an annual, and handkerchief. I then took Mamma to the Library where my humble table was arranged; I gave her a bracelt made of my hair, and the Keepsake , and Oriental Annual. I stayed up til eleven!”

Victoria was seventeen years old when she wrote this entry in her journal. The next year, 1837, when she was eighteen years old, she became Queen Victoria, Sovereign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Today’s Gifts:
A song: Be Still My Soul, music by Jean Sibelius.

A booklist: Popular and well known authors choose their favorite books of 2010.

A birthday: Finnish composer Jean Sibelius, b.1865.

A poem: Jest ‘Fore Christmas by Eugene Field.

On the Ninth Day of Christmas, New Mexico, 1850’s

Dec7

From Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop:

Father Vaillant had been absent in Arizona since midsummer, and it was now December. Bishop Latour had been going through one of those periods of coldness and doubt which, from his boyhood, had occasionally settled down upon his spirit and meade him feel an alien, wherever he was. He attended to his correspondence, went on his rounds among the parish priests, held services at missions that were without pastors, superintended the building of the addition to the Sisters’ school: but his heart was not in these things.

One night about three weeks before Christmas he was lying in his bed, unable to sleep, with the sense of failure clutching at his heart. His prayers were empty words and brought him no refreshment. His soul had become a barren field. He had nothing within himself to give his priests or his people. His works seemed superficial, a house built upon the sands. His great diocese was still a heathen country. The Indians travelled their old road of fear and darkness, battling with evil omens and ancient shadows. The Mexicans were children who played with their religion.

The novel goes on to tell how Bishop Latour is renewed in his faith by the faith of an old peasant woman, Sada. We all need renewed vision sometimes. If the above description applies to you this Christmas season, take heart. I believe Christ will meet you in the middle of a Christmas drought if you keep your eyes open and your ears tuned to His voice.

Today’s Gifts:
A song: Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus at Mocha with Linda.

A booklist: Read aloud Christmas titles from the library at Hope Is the Word.

A birthday: Willa Cather, American novelist, b.1873.

A poem: The Oxen by Thomas Hardy

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
“Now they are all on their knees,”
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
“Come; see the oxen kneel

In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,”
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

The Fences Between Us by Kirby Larson

Oct12

true-blue, in a dither, mind your own beeswax, old battle-ax, can it, the hoosegow, a good egg, bushed, conniption fit, scuttlebutt, shut-eye, cock-eyed, tough cookie, chitchat, discombobulated, peaked, dreamboat, triple whammy, in a funk, hit the jackpot, jazzed, kitty-corner, don’t take any wooden nickels.

Reading Kirby Larson’s entry into the Dear America series, set in 1941-42, was like revisiting my childhood. Not that I was alive during World War II. But the slang terms and the idioms above that I took from The Fences Between Us were words and phrases that I heard my mother and father use as I was growing up. And they were children during World War II. The language Ms. Larson used in her pretend diary of a 13 year old girl growing up in Seattle was perfect, not overdone as I’ve read in some books that attempt to portray a certain time period, but just enough to make it feel real.

Then, too, I grew up in a Southern Baptist church where we read and studied about “home missionaries” who worked with ethnic churches, and I knew that Ms. Larson’s story of a Caucasian pastor of a Japanese Baptist Church and his daughter, Piper the sometimes reluctant PK, was something that really could have happened. In fact, the afterword to the book says that the story is based on the WW2 experiences of Pastor Emory “Andy” Andrews who “moved from Seattle to Twin Falls, Idaho to be near his congregation, all of whom had been incarcerated in Minidoka“, a Japanese internment camp.

Like all of the books in the Dear America series, the story is written in the form of a diary. Piper’s diary is a gift from one of the members of her church, grandmotherly Mrs Harada, who’s trying to make Piper feel a little better about her brother Hank’s enlistment in the U.S. Navy. Hank enlists in what he thinks is a “peacetime Navy” in November 1941, and he’s soon shipped to Hawaii, a seeming plum of an assignment. December 7, a day that will live in infamy, changes everything for Hank, for Piper, for Piper’s sister Margie, for Piper’s pastor dad, and especially for the members of the Seattle Japanese Baptist Church.

The book isn’t all history. Piper experiences her first romance, and she tries to work out her own feelings about being patriotic while at the same time supporting her friends who are Japanese American and being persecuted and mistreated for no good reason. There are other books for young people about the same time period and about the Japanese “relocation camps”, but I thought this one was a good addition to the category.

Other children’s books about the Japanese American experience during World War II:
Picture Books
Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki.
The Bracelet by Yoshiko Uchida.
So Far From the Sea by Eve Bunting.
Flowers from Mariko by Rick Noguchi and Deneen Jenks.
Fiction
Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata.
Eyes of the Emperor by Graham Salibury.
The Moon Bridge by Marcia Savin.
Journey Home by Yoshiko Uchida.
Nonfiction
Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment by Jean Wakatsuki Houston and James Houston.
The Children of Topaz: The Story of the Japanese-American Internment Camp by Michael Tunnell and George Chilcoat.
The Invisible Thread: An Autobiography by Yoshiko Uchida.

The Fences Between Us has been nominated for the 2010 Cybils Awards in the category of Middle Grade Fiction.

Blood on the River: James Town 1607 by Elisa Carbone

Sep28

Ms. Carbone says she wrote this historical novel abut the founding of Jamestown partly because teachers and librarians asked her to do so. Apparently, there’s not much out there, fiction-wise, for young people set in Jamestown.

Blood on the River is the story of Samuel Collier, a street urchin with an attitude from the streets of London. Samuel was a real person about whom little or nothing is really known, so Ms. Carbone made up this story about him. It’s a good, adventurous, historically educational tale full of sound and fury and of course, blood. Samuel is flawed, but likable hero, servant to Captain John Smith. Samuel’s difficult childhood has taught him to fight for whatever he needs or wants and not to trust anyone. Life in Jamestown and especially the example of Captain Smith teach Samuel that in the New World everyone must work and work together in order to survive.

The book highlights the tension between the “gentlemen” settlers of Jamestown who were looking for gold and quick riches and those who were sent or came with the intention of making a new life for themselves. Tension and finally enmity also developed between the English settlers and the Native groups who were already resident in the land. Samuel, however, learns that he can avoid trouble by using his head and controlling his temper.

I started teaching my co-op class on American History and Literature on September 3rd, and if I had already read it I would have had this book on the reading list. I would recommend it for any group of young people (middle school to high school) who are studying this time period.

My U.S. history class was reading about Roanoke and Jamestown colonies this month, as I would guess many other U.S. history classes all over the nation are doing about now. The following books are from the children’s and young adult sections of the library, but I enjoyed them all. Actually, I find the best nonfiction in the children’s book area. Children’s authors seem to have honed the ability to explain history and science and other topics in economical but engaging prose. And children’s and young adult historical fiction usually emphasizes the history and the adventure rather than trying to work romance into every story.

Roanoke, the Lost Colony
The Lost Colony of Roanoke by Jean Fritz. Putnam, 2004.

Mystery of the Lost Colony by Lee Miller. Scholastic, 2007.

Roanoke The Lost Colony: An Unsolved Mystery from History by Heidi Stemple and Jane Yolen. Simon & Schuster, 2003. I tried to get this one, but my library system doesn’t have a copy. This series sounds like something I would really enjoy since it includes several other “mysteries of history.”

Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America
1607, A New Look at Jamestown by Karen E. Lange. Photographs by Ira Block. National Geographic, 2007. Published in honor of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, this book features National Geographic-style photographs taken on site at Jamestown Rediscovery, a working archeological site where new discoveries about the life and history of the Jamestown settlers continue to be made. The most important change in the modern views of the history of Jamestown comes from tree ring research that shows that the colonists’ descent into chaos and starvation may have been due to drought more than to laziness and ineptitude. John Rolfe’s superior tobacco plants imported from Trinidad and the arrival of 147 “Maids for VIrginia” in 1619 may have saved the day and the colony.

John Smith Escapes Again! by Rosalyn Schanzer. Another title from National Geographic (2006), but with a totally different feel and character, Schanzer’s biography of John Smith brings out the legendary qualities of a man who lived big and told even bigger stories. “In his day, John Smith was probably the greatest escape artist on the planet. He escaped from danger over and over, and not only from Indians, but from angry mobs, slave drivers, French pirates, and even the deep blue sea.” The illustrations are cartoon-like with lots of detail, and the text is exciting to match an exciting life. This one is my favorite of all the books on this list.

The Double Life of Pocahontas by Jean Fritz. An historically accurate account of the life of Pocahontas, the Indian princess who moved between the worlds of her own Powhatan tribe and that of the British settlers in Jamestown.

Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland by Sally M. Walker. In Written in Bone, Ms. Walker accompanies forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley, a scientist at the Smithsonian Institution, at his invitation, as he and colleagues from several related disciplines study the remains of some of the Jamestown settlers and of other early colonials who lived in the Chesapeake region of Maryland. Full Semicolon review here.

The World of Captain John Smith by Genevieve Foster. I really like the series of books by Ms. Foster that take a time period and focus on the life of a specific person from that time while also telling about what was going on all over the world in history.

Who’s Saying What in Jamestown, Thomas Savage? by Jean Fritz. 13 year old Thomas Savage arrived in Jamestown in January, 1608. In this book, Jean Fritz tells Thomas’s story in her inimitable style.

A Fictional Look at Jamestown and Roanoke
Cate of the Lost Colony by Lisa Klein. Catherine, one of Queen Elizabeth’s ladies in waiting and an admirer of Elizabeth’s favorite Sir Walter Raleigh, is banished to Raleigh’s colony at Roanoke. Semicolon review here. YA fiction.

Sabotaged by Margaret Peterson Haddix. Simon & Schuster, 2010. I read the first book in Haddix’s Missing series, Found, but I have yet to read the second book, Sent, or the third, Sabotaged. Sabotaged, I am told, features a missing child who turns out to be Virginia Dare. Middle grade/YA fiction.

The Lyon Saga, a trilogy about Roanoke by M. L. Stainer; the first volume is The Lyon’s Roar. Circleville Press, 1997. I read about this trilogy at The Fourth Musketeer. YA fiction.

Our Strange New Land: Elizabeth’s Jamestown Colony Diary by Patricia Hermes. Sequels are The Starving Time and Season of Promise. These three books are a part of Scholastic’s My America series for younger readers.

The Serpent Never Sleeps: A Novel of Jamestown and Pocahontas by Scot O’Dell. Serena Lynn follows her beloved Anthony Foxcroft to America to make a life in Jamestown. Protected by a magical serpent ring given to her by King James I himself, Serena will dare anything to follow her dreams. Later in the book, she becomes friends with the Indian girl Pocahontas and learns what it means to truly be a citizen of the New World. O’Dell is always good, and this particular novel, although not his best, is quite readable and informative. I got a fair idea of what King James I might have been like, and I’m not thinking I would want to be anywhere near his court.

The Corn Raid: A Story of the Jamestown Settlement by James Lincoln Collier. An indentured servant becomes friends with an Indian boy, but plans by the Jamestown colonists to steal the Indians’ corn threaten to derail and destroy the friendship.

Winter of the Dead by Elizabeth Massie. Nathaniel and Richard accompany Captain John Smith to Jamestown, and they find not gold, but rather hardship and starvation as they struggle along with the other colonists to survive their first winter in the new world.

Blood on the River by Elisa Carbone. Karate Kid read this book, too.