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The Wonderful Winter by Marchette Chute

Sep10

The Wonderful Winter is a wonderful story, exciting but fairly unrealistic in that the runaway protagonist, young Sir Robert Wakefield, mostly meets up with kind and helpful people as he spends the winter on his own in London. And he gets to act and live with Shakespeare’s company of actors in the first production of Mr. Shakespeare’s new play, Romeo and Juliet!

In 1596, orphan boy Robin Wakefield runs away from his home in Suffolk with his three formidable aunts because said aunts won’t let him keep the spaniel puppy he found and named Ruff Wakefield. He very politely leaves a note:

Dear and honored ladies,

Do not worry about me and the dog. We will be all right. I wish you long life and every happiness.

Your respectful nephew,
Robert Wakefield

By a series of choices and events, Robin ends up in London where he takes refuge from a thief, the only bad guy in the story, in the theater. And from that point on, we get to explore with Robin the lives of Shakespeare and his fellow players and the exciting culture of the Elizabethan theater.

The go-to historical fiction book about Shakespeare and his life and times is Gary Blackwood’s The Shakespeare Stealer. Comparing Blackwood’s book to The Wonderful Winter is difficult since I read The Shakespeare Stealer many, many moons ago. I would say either/or, and if you or your child like one you might enjoy the other. Other historical fiction books with a Shakespearean setting:

Shakespeare’s Scribe and Shakespeare’s Spy, both by Gary Blackwood. Sequels to The Shakespeare Stealer.

The Playmaker by J.B. Cheaney. Another runaway boy-joins-Shakepeare’s-company story. This time young Richard Malory is hiding out from enemy or enemies unknown at the Globe Theatre.

Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease. Peter and his friend Kit find jobs as apprentices to the Bard himself.

Mistress Malapert by Sally Watson. In this exciting story the runaway is a girl, Valerie, who dresses as a boy and gets to meet Mr. Shakespeare and various other personalities of the time. Sally Watson is especially good at writing spunky girls who manage to get themselves into all sorts of scrapes and adventures.

Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides

Sep2

Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II’s Most Dramatic Mission by Hampton Sides.

Ghost Soldiers is a well-written and engrossing narrative history of the rescue of 513 American and British POWs from the Japanese prison camp of Cabanatuan in the Philippines. The soldiers imprisoned at Cabanatuan at the time of the rescue (January, 1945) were mostly survivors of the infamous Bataan Death March, survivors who were barely surviving since most of the somewhat healthier prisoners had already been transferred to Japan in anticipation of the Americans retaking of the Philippine Islands. This who were left at Cabanatuan were diseased, injured, and in a very precarious situation—not quite liberated, still under Japanese control, and dispensable because of their lack of usefulness as workers for the Japanese. There were indeed rumors of and precedent for a Japanese massacre of all the prisoners left at the camp as the Japanese retreated before the advancing U.S. armed forces.

The U.S. Army 6th Ranger Battalion was tasked with the mission of rescuing these prisoners of Cabanatuan from behind Japanese lines in January, 1945. The mission had to be done secretly and quickly. No one knew how long the prisoners would remain alive to be rescued. And the Rangers were a new and untried group of elite “commandos”, sort of an experiment. Would they be able to find the prisoners and bring them out before the Japanese army stopped them?

So, Mr. Sides, a journalist and author, has grabbed onto a great story. And it’s one I had never read about before, although I had read some things about Bataan (The Jersey Brothers by Sally Mott Freeman, We Band of Angels by Elizabeth Norman). He tells the story from alternating points of view, that of the Army Rangers who were sent to rescue the prisoners and that of the prisoners themselves who struggled with feelings of hopelessness and abandonment in addition to the physical deprivations and tortures of their ordeal. This way of telling the story works to increase the suspense as the two stories merge into the climactic scene of the Rescue.

One of the interesting things about this story was meeting unexpected heroes that I would like to read more about. Chaplain Robert Taylor, one of the prisoners who was selected to go to Japan just before the rescue took place, ended up on the ill-fated ship, Oryoku Maru, a hellish prison ship that was sunk off the coast of Bataan by the U.S. Navy. Taylor survived, went on another ship which was also disabled by U.S. bombers, finally was sent to Manchuria, survived his imprisonment there, and eventually after his return home became the highest ranking chaplain in the U.S. Armed Forces. Days of Anguish, Days of Hope by Billy Keith is a biography of Chaplain Taylor that I would like to read.

Then, among the 6th Ranger battalion, I encountered Dr. James Canfield Fisher, son of the famous author Dorothy Canfield Fisher. Captain James Fisher was a surgeon assigned to the Ranger battalion that freed Cabanatuan, and he insisted on going with his men up to very gates of the prison camp in order to be available to treat those who might be wounded in the attempted rescue. His story is all the more intriguing and poignant for me since I know of his mother and her books, including the classic Understood Betsy. Who knew that reading about World War II in the Philippines could circle around to connect back to children’s literature?

I recommend Ghost Soldiers to readers who are interested in reading about World War II adventures, the War in the Pacific, stories of courage and endurance, and just good narrative nonfiction. (If you liked Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand or Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff . . .) I found it to be fascinating and inspiring.

Great Northern? by Arthur Ransome

Aug16

Most books don’t have titles that end in a question mark. None of the other books in the Swallows and Amazons series have questioning titles. But this one, appropriately, does because in this installment of the adventures of the intrepid children who make up the Swallows and Amazons and their friends, Dick, the resident naturalist and birder, is looking for and hoping he has found a pair of Great Northern Divers in the Hebrides islands where the children are sailing with their uncle and enabler, Captain Flint.

“The Great Northern Diver nests abroad . . . usually seen solitary.”
“. . . nests in eastern North America, Greenland, and Iceland.”
“. . . may nest in the Shetlands, as it is often round these islands all summer, but this has never been proved.”

When Dick finds this rare bird, or at least thinks he has found it, in the Scottish Hebrides, he and his friends compete to protect the divers with other birdwatchers who want to exploit the birds for fame and fortune. This exciting story will delight all Swallows and Amazons fans.

I only have three more Swallows and Amazons books to enjoy for the first time now: Missee Lee, The Picts and the Martyrs, and The Big Six. I found a copy of this book Great Northern? while Engineer Husband and I were in Oxford, England in a small Oxfam bookstore. It will always hold a special place in my heart because of the good story, but also because of where I found it.

One of the things about Ransome’s stories that should make them popular nowadays is their concern with nature and its preservation and protection. The children in these stories are careful to observe birds and other flora and fauna without disturbing them or destroying their habitats. I won’t say that Ransome was ahead of his time because many naturalists, if not most, have always been concerned with protecting the creatures they study and with protecting habitats. However, the general tone and themes of the books is perfect for today’s environmentalist mindset.

July 30th Thoughts

Jul30

Today is the birthday of Emily Bronte, author of Wuthering Heights, which seems to be a rather polarizing book. One person on Facebook who was reading it asked, “Does it ever move beyond unhappy people causing misery to themselves and others?” Someone else said, “Anyone who says they love Wuthering Heights is lying to sound smart.” But yet another reader said, “The prose just wraps me up and sweeps me away and I can’t help but love it. My relationship with that book is such a mess.”

I’m not lying when I say that I liked the story, even though I found almost all of the characters unsympathetic and sadly unlikeable, especially Heathcliff and Cathy. I’m not sure what that opinion says about me as a reader or as a person, but nevertheless I recommend you form your own opinion by reading Wuthering Heights. If you get fifty pages in and you hate it, I give you permission to quit and go read Jan Karon or P.G. Wodehouse to get the taste out of your palate. (Or you could try Diary of a Nobody. See below.)

Allan Wesley Eckert (not born on this date), author of Incident at Hawk’s Hill, a Newbery Honor book in 1972, “spent much of his youth hitchhiking around the country, living off the land and learning about wildlife from direct observation.” He was born in 1931, so this hitchhiking would have taken place in the late forties/early fifties. I wonder what his family thought about his choice to wander about and live off the land. This was before the era of the hippies and free-spirited sixties peaceniks. He wrote a lot of books. I wonder if he wrote one about his youthful experiences hitchhiking about the country.

I read the first couple of chapters of Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith, a book I picked up while Engineer Husband and I were in Oxford. It’s a fictionalized diary of an ordinary man in the late nineteenth century who lives in a small house outside the City (London?) with his wife Carrie. The man’s name is Charles Pooter, and he’s a perfectly ordinary little man who takes himself quite seriously, which makes the book quite funny. The humor is dry and unassuming, but definite. For example, it begins:

“Why should I not publish my diary? I have often seen reminiscences of people I have never even heard of, and I fail to see—because I do not happen to be a ‘Somebody’—why my diary should not be interesting. My only regret is that I did not commence it when I was a youth.”

CHARLES POOTER
The Laurels
Brickfield Terrace
Holloway

George Grossmith went on to become a famous comic actor, starring in many of Gilbert and Sullivan’s most famous operas: as The Sorcerer, The First Lord in H.M.S. Pinafore, Ko-Ko in The Mikado, Robin Oakapple in Ruddigore, Bunthorne in Patience, and Jack Point in The Yeoman of the Guard. George’s brother, Weedon, illustrated Diary of a Nobody, and the illustrations are a great part of the charm of the book. I’m looking forward to savoring it over a period of several days.

This post is probably the first time that Emily Bronte’s Heathcliff and Cathy and George Grossmith’s Mr. Pooter have been referenced in the same piece of writing, but perhaps there will be connections as I continue reading Diary of a Nobody.

Revive Us Again by W. Leslie

Jul22

We just returned to Houston from the trip of a lifetime, ten days in Ireland and England. We began the journey with three days in southern Ireland, near Cork. We were able to stay with some friends of my daughter in a small Christian community there, and we were blessed to worship with the church there on Sunday. Engineer Husband accidentally carried the two hymn books out of the church with him, and when he tried to give them back one of the leaders there asked if we would like to take the two hymnals with us. I was delighted to say yes since I wanted a chance to study the hymns in these Irish/UK hymn books more closely.

This hymn is the first one in the book Songs of Victory. The book is undated, and this first hymn by “W. Leslie” is, I think, probably written by William Leslie, for whom hymnary.org has a brief biography. Mr. Leslie was a Scottish Methodist lay preacher and “proprietor of a drapery shop”, and he wrote several hymns. This particular hymn is not listed at Hymnary, nor can I find it anywhere else online. And the hymn book only gives the lyrics for the hymns, no tunes, so I have no way to sing it.

Still, the words of of this poem/hymn spoke to me this mornings I was reading it, echoing some of the thoughts I have had lately about myself, my country, my children, and others.

LORD, Thou has with favour
Smiled upon our land,
Yet the powers of darkness
Press on every hand;
And the hearts that love Thee
Often cry in pain—
“Wilt Thou not revive us,
Revive us again?”

Wilt Thou not revive us,
Revive us again?
For our nation’s sake
And for Jesus’ sake,
Revive us again!

2. Precious, guileless children
To our homes are given,
That our love might win them
To the life of Heaven.
Yet what snares and pitfalls
Make our labor vain!
Oh, to save the children,
Revive us again!

3. Kindly friends and neighbors,
Kindred, near and far,
Learn the love of Jesus
Just by what we are;
Make our daily witness
Patient, pure and plain!
By Thy love o’erflowing,
Revive us again!

4. Deep in heathen darkness
Blood-bought millions wait
For a voice to tell them
Of their ransomed state;
Break the spell that binds us
But to selfish gain!
By Thine own compassion,
Revive us again!

Don’t we need daily, even hourly revival? And the lives of the children, the friends, the neighbors, the kindred, and the millions, all depend on the reviving power of the Holy Spirit at work in us and in them. For Jesus’ sake, revive us again!

Noteworthy and Encouraging: May 31st

May31

Born on May 31st:

Walt Whitman, b. 1819, poet. I’m not a great Whitman fan, but he did write some things that I can appreciate. There’s a Messner biography of Whitman that I don’t have but I would like to read it and maybe own it: Walt Whitman: Builder for America by Babette Deutsch. Messner, 1941. Perhaps the biography would give me a better appreciation for his poetry.

Robert Louis Stevenson on Walt Whitman: “A large shaggy dog just unchained scouring the beaches of the world and baying at the moon.”

Walt Whitman on Walt Whitman: “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”

And if you want to read G.K. Chesterton’s parody of Walt Whitman’s version of the nursery rhyme Old King Cole . . .

Nan Terrell Reed, b. 1886, poet and songwriter. At some point in her career, she decided to attempt to write a poem every day. Her poems, at least the ones I sampled, are not terribly memorable or literary, but writing a poem a day seems as if it might be worth the effort, if only for one’s own satisfaction and enjoyment.

It’s only a little tumble-down house
That’s sadly in need of repair—
With a rickety fence and a yard unkept—
Yet the Spirit of God dwells there.

It’s there you may learn the portion of joy
That lies in an everyday thing
From a woman with hair as white as the frost
And a heart as young as the Spring.

Yes—only a little tumble-down house
That’s sadly in need of repair—
The home of a mother with toil-worn hands
Yet the Spirit of God dwells there.

Elizabeth Coatsworth, b. 1893, author of the Newbery Medal book, The Cat Who Went to Heaven. She also wrote a series of five books about Sally, a girl who lived in New England in the late 1700’s/early 1800’s. And she wrote the book I just finished, Door to the North, about a Viking expedition to the Vinland, the Great Lakes area, and Hudson Bay. In addition to historical fiction and fiction set in other times and places, Elizabeth Coatsworth also wrote poetry.

Swift things are beautiful:
Swallows and deer,
And lightening that falls
Bright-veined and clear,
Rivers and meteors,
Wind in the wheat,
The strong-withered horse,
The runner’s sure feet.

And slow things are beautiful:
The closing of day,
The pause of the wave
That curves downward to spray,
The ember that crumbles,
The opening flower,
And the ox that moves on
In the quiet of power.

Madeleine Polland, b. 1918, Irish, also an author of historical fiction for children. I read and reviewed Mission to Cathay quite a few years ago. She also wrote Children of the Red King, Beorn the Proud (Vikings), Flame Over Tara (St. Patrick), and many others. I have those latter two, but I haven’t read them yet.

Forward Me Back to You by Mitali Perkins

Apr10

Mitali Perkins’ new book, Forward Me Back to You, is excellent YA fiction that deals with adoption, searching for birth parents, sexual assault, human trafficking, faith, and the meaning of family, all in the context of an exciting and romantic story that shows both Christian and non-Christian characters as real people with complex motives, thoughts, and desires. This book is going to be hard to classify, which is a great move in the right direction as far as I’m concerned. It’s not traditional “Christian fiction”. Nobody gets saved or converted at the climax of the novel, and it’s not preachy or trolling for Christian converts. But it’s also not the regular old “sanitized” secular novel either. Prayer and church-going and the application of Scriptural principles to life are a normal part of many of the characters’ lives, just as they are a normal part of my life and the lives of many of the people I know.

In the story eighteen year old Robin, whose birth name was Ravi, goes on a mission trip to Kolkata, India to help an organization that is dedicated to the fight against human trafficking. But Robin/Ravi has a secondary (or maybe primary) motive for traveling to India: he has decided, after many years of seeming indifference to his birth culture and parentage, to search for his birth mother who abandoned him to an orphanage in Kolkata eighteen years ago. Also on the mission trip are Katina, a tough girl with secrets of her own, and Gracie, the girl who has had a crush on Ravi for as long as she can remember. As they each work out their own ways to serve in Kolkata, they also learn to be served and to experience healing from the wounds that they have carried with them to this place.

Both the romantic aspects and the sexual assault themes of the novel are explored frankly but appropriately. Teens should certainly be able to handle the subjects as they are incorporated into the story. Although adoptees and victims of assault should be aware of possible triggers in the story, they should also know that the novel might be helpful and even cathartic. For those of us who have not experienced either adoption or assault, Forward Me Back to You should be helpful in developing understanding and empathy.

However, the novel is primarily a story, not a therapeutic exercise. As such, it’s the best kind of story—a tale in which I could ride along with the characters, grow to care about them, experience their joys and tragedies, and learn something about how to handle my own. And I got to do it all in the safety of my own living room. It’s a good book, one I plan to share with my own teenage and young adult children and with some others that I know who would particularly enjoy it because of their own background with similar issues and themes.

From “Little Pictures of Japan”, My Travelship by Olive Beaupre Miller

Apr5

I think this would be a lovely idea for a spring celebration, perhaps sometime during April, poetry month:

“Of Poetry Picnics and Fireflies”

“In Japan they sometimes have poetry picnics. When Master Sogi has an especially fine flowering tree, a cherry perhaps, all pink and with a wealth of bloom, he invites his friends to a party. There they come in their holiday robes and little clattering wooden sandals. They walk about the tree and admire it, they drink in its fragrance, and tea is served to them under its branches. Then they sit down and begin to scribble narrow , little slips of paper. By and by each one has written a poem in pretty Japanese characters, and after he has read it to the others, he goes and fastens it to a branch of the tree in honor of which the party was given.
That is pleasure enough, certainly, for one afternoon, but if the guests stay until nightfall it is possible that Master Sogi will provide for them another lovely game, that they may enjoy the beauties of Nature still further. When it is quite dark, he will let loose hundreds of captive fireflies in the garden, and as the pretty things flit here and there, showing their airy, elfin lights in the dusk, the guests will chase them hither and yon, over little bridges, in among the flowers, around quaint stone statues, about the tea house. All the garden will be gay with flitting forms and silver laughter, till the fireflies lose themselves in the moon-beams.”

I would show you the pictures in the book of the poetry-tree and the children chasing fireflies, but I’m not good at photography or posting pictures. You will just have to find your own copy of this delightful book of Japanese poetry and stories to share with the children in your life under your own poetry tree.

Across a Dark and Wild Sea by Don Brown

Apr2

Columcille, aka Saint Columba, was born in Ireland in 521 AD. The son of a king, he became a scribe and a monk and a bard in a world that was falling apart with the fall of the Roman Empire and final end of the Pax Romana (the peace had been eroding for several centuries before the sixth century).

Don Brown’s picture book biography paints the time of Columba as a dark time without much love for learning, except among the monks and religious of Ireland, a real Dark Ages. The book goes on to tell how Columba became involved in a violent and bloody battle over possession of a copy of a book and how he left Ireland to become a missionary in the wilds of Iona, an island off the coast of Scotland.

I like Mr.Brown’s telling of the story of Columcille/Columba. The illustrations by the author are a little too sketchy in style for my taste, but it’s more a matter of taste than of talent or quality. You may love the pictures. An author’s note in the back of the book gives more information about Saint Columba, and there’s a page showing the letters of the uncial alphabet, a writing style used in Saint Columba’s time. Brown’s bibliography includes Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization, a book I have read and would recommend if you want to read more about the Irish monks and their missionary efforts and their preservation of many of the texts of Western civilization.

Saint Columba is supposed to have written the following poem, called Altus prosator (not included in this book):

Altus prosator, vetustus
dierum et ingenitus
erat absque origine
primordii et crepidine
est et erit in sæcula
sæculorum infinita;
cui est unigenitus
Christus et sanctus spiritus
coæternus in gloria
deitatis perpetua.
Non tres deos depropimus
sed unum Deum dicimus,
salva fide in personis
tribus gloriosissimis.

High creator, Ancient
of Days, and unbegotten,
who was without origin
at the beginning and foundation,
who was and shall be in infinite
ages of ages;
to whom was only begotten
Christ, and the Holy Ghost,
co-eternal in the everlasting
glory of Godhood.
We do not propose three gods,
but we speak of one God,
saving faith in three
most glorious Persons.

If you can read and pronounce Latin, the poem sounds lovely in that language. I can’t really read Latin, but I tried, and I enjoyed the attempt. The poem is also an acrostic; the part above is just the first verse, the beginning with “A” part. Here’s a link to a translation of the entire poem.

Here’s another section of the poem that I especially liked:

By chanting of hymns continually ringing out,
by thousands of angels rejoicing in holy dances,
and by the four living creatures full of eyes,
with the four and twenty happy elders,
casting down their crowns beneath the feet of the Lamb of GOD,
the Trinity is praised with eternal threefold repetition.

I’m reviewing and highlighting poetry picture books this month on Semicolon in honor of Poetry Month. What’s your favorite poetry-related picture book?

The Namesake by Cyril Walter Hodges

Mar18

Alfred the Great (in this book) at Stonehenge: “I like to come here, because among these stones I know that I am standing where other men like me have stood and thought the same thoughts as I, a thousand years before I was born, and where others like me will stand likewise after I am dead. This place is like Memory itself, turned to stone, and Memory was given to us by God to make us different from the animals. . . . Every man is a part of the bridge between the past and the future. Whatever helps him feel this more strongly is good. By feeling this, God gives us to know for sure that we are not beasts and do not die as the beasts die.”

I watched the BBC/Netflix television series, The Last Kingdom, based on Bernard Cornwell’s The Saxon Stories series of novels. I haven’t read Cornwell’s novels, and I don’t really recommend The Last Kingdom, although it was enthralling. It was much too violent and had too much sexual content for my tastes. Nevertheless, aside from the sex, the story was probably true to the times. It was a violent and bloody time in ye olde Wessex.

Anyway, the TV series inspired me to read more about Alfred, and a bit of fiction to fill in the gaps in the heroic saga between battles and kingly decrees, is in order. In The Namesake, Alfred is just beginning his reign in Wessex and just beginning his long fight to unite England and drive out the invading Danes.

The title refers to the narrator of most of the story, a young boy who has lost one of his legs in a Danish incursion and whose name happens to be Alfred, just like the king. This happy coincidence, along with a rather mystical vision that that the boy has, both serve to form a connection between peasant and king that lasts through battles and sickness and captivity among the Danes and eventually ends in the boy’s becoming a scribe to King Alfred.

The story is not as fast-paced as modern readers might be accustomed to, but it does have a lot of battles and exciting adventures. Fans of the books of G.A. Henty, when they have exhausted that author’s copious number of novels, would probably enjoy this story about a boy in the time of Alfred the Great of Wessex. (Did Henty write about Alfred the Great in any of his novels?) There is a sequel to The Namesake, called The Marsh King, which I would like to read. I assume the title refers to Alfred’s time in exile, a time spent hiding from the Danes in the marshes of Somerset.

Author and illustrator C. Walter Hodges was born on this date, March 18th, in 1909. In addition to this book about King Alfred the Great, Mr. Hodges illustrated three of the Landmark history series books: The Flight and Adventures of Charles II, Queen Elizabeth and the Spanish Armada, and Will Shakespeare and the Globe Theater. According to the author bio in my copy of The Namesake, Mr. Hodges once said that he wished to “continue to the end of his life in the peaceful occupation of an illustrator.” Instead, he became an author as well as an illustrator, and readers are well-served by his decision to do so.