Archives

Yugoslav Mystery by Arthur Catherall

Apr11

This novel is the second or third of Mr. Catherall’s young adult novels I’ve read, and I’m beginning to get a feel for his style and genre. He reminds me of the adult spy novelists Nevill Shute or Alistair MacLean, or even Helen MacInnes, but a bit more tame with teen protagonists. I would guess that boys ages 13 to 16 would find Catherall’s novels quite intriguing.

This mystery takes place on an impoverished island off the southern coast of the former Yugoslavia. It’s several years post-World War 2, but the people who live on this island are still trying to recover from the war and all of its many depredations and consequences. One of those consequences of war is that our protagonist, Josef Piri, fourteen years old, lives with his grandfather and his mother, all of them believing that Josef’s father died in the war before Josef was born.

One day while Josef and his grandfather are out fishing, a police boat comes alongside to ask if they have seen an escaped fugitive on or near the island. Josef, in fact has and does see the escapee clinging to a rope alongside the police launch, out of sight and desperate to remain so. What is the right thing to do? Remain silent and help the man escape or give him up to the authorities?

The choice Josef makes leads him and his entire island village into quite an adventure. There are guns and hidden treasure and narrow escapes and various people who are not what they seem to be. Josef must draw again and again on his courage and his innovative ideas to protect his family and the other villagers and to understand his heritage as his father’s son.

The story takes place in Communist Yugoslavia in about 1960, and it was published in 1964. The Communist government is far away in this story, and is neither praised nor criticized. The villagers, including Josef and his family, live far from the day to day reach of the government, and their lives continue with very little government interference or help. There are a couple of mentions of government aid to the villagers, but it’s not significant. And the adventure that Josef’s encounter with the police boat and the escaped fugitive brings has little or nothing to do with Communism or Marshal Tito.

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

Shadow of a Bull by Maia Wojciechowska

Apr3

This Newbery Award winning novel, set in Catalonia, in Spain, introduces readers to a culture and way of life that is foreign to most American children and may even be faded or fading fast in Spain itself. It’s an honor culture, and Manolo’s honor and that of his family depend on his becoming a great bullfighter like his deceased father before him.

“When Manolo was nine he became aware of three important facts in his life. First: the older he became, the more he looked like his father. Second: he, Manolo Oliver, was a coward. Third: everyone in the town of Arcangel expected him to grow up to be a famous bullfighter, like his father.”

p.1

I wonder what it would be like to grow up in the shadow of a famous parent. I have the advantage of not knowing from experience what that would feel like. But I’m sure it must be suffocating. Shadow of a Bull shows the difficulty of such expectations as they impact the growth of a nine to eleven year old boy in a small town in Spain. But the lesson is universal. The expectations of others cannot be the determining factors in the maturing decisions of an individual. Community and culture are important, but so is individuality and one’s own moral judgment. Finding a way to reconcile a person’s own inner desires and ambitions with the expectations of community and family is one possible path to maturity.

The book is also about bull-fighting, but the bullfight is a device. Although bull-fighting is controversial—in Spanish bullfighting, the bull is almost always killed at the end of the bullfight—Shadow of a Bull never tries to make a case against bullfighting itself. All the details are there, and they are somewhat gory (animal lovers beware!), but the conflict is not Manolo against the sport of bullfighting. Manolo’s conflict is within himself: how can he prove to himself that he is not a coward and yet not be forced to become, in essence, a reincarnation of his famous father? Manolo must fight his first bull in order to show himself that he is courageous, not a slave to his fear, but if he does fight the bull, he has started down a path that will lead only to more and more bullfights, not Manolo’s goal at all.

Finally, Shadow of a Bull is a story about a boy who finds his courage to become the person he is meant to be.

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

Tituba of Salem Village by Ann Petry

Apr1

This fictional account of the Salem witch hunts and trials focuses on Tituba, enslaved servant to minister of Salem, Samuel Parris. Parris, his daughter, Betsey and his niece Abigail Williams were at the heart of the witch scare in Salem, Massachusetts in the late 1600’s. The story is told from Tituba’s point of view, but in third person. Tituba, the Parris’ household servant who may have come to Massachusetts from Barbados, was accused and convicted of witchcraft during the trials, with Abigail and Betsey being among her chief accusers. Tituba was imprisoned, but she did escape with her life, although not her freedom. “In May of 1693 all persons charged with witchcraft were pardoned.” However, Tituba was sold for payment of her jail fees to Samuel Conklin, weaver, and worked for him in Boston for the remainder of her life.

Perhaps it’s good to know that background information going into the story since it is a rather harrowing tale of lies and deceit and flirtation with the occult. According to the story in this book, Tituba does tell fortunes and outlandish tales about talking monkeys and the jungles of Barbados. But from the perspective of this author, Tituba is much more sinned against than sinning. The girls who cry witchcraft are bored and overworked, with imaginations starved by Puritan legalism and the harsh conditions of colonial life. They follow Abigail and become caught up in the social contagion of the time: a belief in and fear of witchcraft. Abigail herself sounds like a piece of work, while Tituba, the character in the book anyway, is both insightful about the girls and their delusions as well as vulnerable to their insistent accusations.

It’s a somewhat scary book, perhaps disturbing to younger readers. I would wait until age thirteen or fourteen to hand this book over. Nevertheless, the outlines of the story are true, and it does illustrate the dangers of “following the crowd” or following a strong and charismatic leader. People can convince themselves of some very strange things when caught up in groupthink or hysteria. Tituba of Salem Village gives one perspective on the outbreak of such hysteria in Salem Village in the late seventeenth century.

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

If you want to read more about the events in Salem surrounding the witch accusations and trials, there are a number of good books, both well-researched historical fiction and nonfiction:

  • A Break With Charity by Ann Rinaldi (reviewed at Plumfield and Paideia) is historical fiction in the same vein as Tituba of Salem Village. A real girl whose parents were accused during the witch trials tells the story from her perspective as an outsider and a victim of the hysteria.
  • I Walk in Dread: The Diary of Deliverance Trembley, Witness to the Salem Witch Trials, Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1691 by Lisa Rowe Fraustino is part of the Dear America series of historical fiction written in journal or diary form.
  • The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Miller’s play uses the Salem Witch trials as a metaphor for and illumination of the McCarthy and the Committee on Un-American Activites (U.S. House of Representatives) blacklisting of suspected communists in government, entertainment and business. Its initial production on Broadway in 1953 won a Tony Award.
  • The Devil’s Door: A Salem Witchcraft Story by Paul B. Thompson.
  • The Witchcraft of Salem Village by Shirley Jackson is a nonfiction Landmark book about the witch trials in Salem.
  • Devil’s Shadow: The Story of Witchcraft in Massachusetts by Clifford Lindsay Alderman is another nonfiction account of the events.

Girl With a Pen: Charlotte Bronte by Elisabeth Kyle

Mar29

“This being Charlotte Bronte’s story and not her biography, I have taken a few liberties. Some minor happenings have been transposed in time, other omitted or invented. . . . But this is Charlotte’s story. I have written it in the hope of awakening interest in a remarkable girl who wrote remarkable books.”

~Afterword by Elisabeth Kyle

I can’t decide whether it would be best to have read Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre before reading this fictionalized biography or whether Jane Eyre might flow even better if the reader were to know something about the life and times of its author. Either way, Girl With a Pen is a book not to be missed by Bronte fans. Making the story of Charlotte’s life into a fictional narrative while keeping the broad outlines and many of the details was a good choice on the part of a good author herself, Elisabeth Kyle. Ms. Kyle writes vividly and fluidly of Charlotte’s young adulthood and her rise to fame, telling the story of Charlotte Bronte’s growth as a person and as an author with understanding and an affinity for Charlotte and her sisters.

I’ve read several books about the Brontes, fiction and nonfiction. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. This one emphasizes Charlotte’s life in the parsonage at Haworth as a young adult, covers her time as a student in Brussels, and shows us her rocky, yet triumphant road to becoming a celebrated novelist, all without speculating about modern obsessions with Charlotte’s love life or her relationship with her father. Mr. Bronte is this book, is a typical Victorian father, rather over-protective of his daughters by modern standards, but loving and beloved by those same daughters. And Charlotte goes to Brussels to learn French and to teach English and does not indulge in any love affairs whilst there.

This biographical fiction novel is especially appropriate for junior high and younger high school readers who are interested in learning more about Charlotte Bronte’s life since the author omits the more sordid details of Branwell Bronte’s life and death with Branwell appearing only as a minor character in the story. The book also ends before the deaths of Emily and Anne, thereby avoiding those twin tragedies as well.

And Charlotte herself is indeed the focus of the narrative. Ms. Kyle tells Charlotte’s story vividly and memorably. In this book, Charlotte Bronte, who thought of herself as a rather nondescript and even ugly young lady, is is bright and personable and full of life. I would recommend this fictionalized biography to any teens who are readers, introverts, or aspiring writers. And adults like me, librarian-types, should find it fascinating as well.

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

Other Bronte books I can recommend:

Focus on Alfred the Great

Mar7

I’ve now read three books, two fiction and one nonfiction, about the the life and times of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex (southern England) in the ninth century. I may not know all there is to know about Alfred, aka Aelfred, but I certainly know enough to admire and appreciate the man and his accomplishments.

I read The Namesake by C. Walter Hodges last year and skimmed it last week to compare it with the other two books. As you can tell from my review, Alfred in this book is portrayed as a Philosopher King, and I think that a fair portrayal, although he certainly knew battle tactics and politics, too.

In Eva March Tappan’s In the Days of Alfred the Great, the reader gains a lot more background about Alfred and his life and the political situation in Britain and the stories that were told about Alfred. I think I enjoyed this narrative nonfiction book even more than the two fictional treatments of Alfred’s life. I understand why the author who wished to write about Alfred the Great might choose a novel form: a lot of what is known about the man and his times is legend and story, not really verified. However, Ms. Tappan inserts dialog and story into her nonfiction narrative, making it readable, but also believable. I thought the story made Alfred come alive , and I learned a lot about “the days of Alfred the Great.” I purchased In the Days of Alfred the Great in a reprint edition from Living Book Press, and I recommend the LBP edition of this classic history book.

The third book I read, from another small publisher, Smidgen Press, is called The Lost Dragon of Wessex. It tells the story of an orphan boy who becomes involved in the struggle between the Saxons under Alfred the Great and the invading Danes. Wulf, in the beginning of the story, is a simple forest-dwelling peasant boy who has never been away from home. When Wulf meets a stranger and follows him to the court of Alfred, the boy encounters adventure and testing that will bring him into manhood and into his calling as either a soldier or a bard, or maybe both. The journeys in this story are from forest to city, from ignorance to education, from England to Sweden and back, and from boy to man, and the focus of the story is on Wulf and what Wulf learns in the court of King Alfred, not so much on the king himself or his character and battles.

So, the three books complement one another. The Namesake shows us a fictional, but noble King Alfred as he is remembered by the old man that King Alfred mentored and taught when the man, named Alfred also, was a boy. In the Days of Alfred the Great shows where Alfred came from, the stories that were told of him as a boy and as a man, and the challenges he had to face in defeating the Danes and bringing learning and books to his own people, the Saxons of Wessex. The Lost Dragon of Wessex presents us with Alfred at the height of powers and influence and shows what that influence might have been on one boy as well as on the country as a whole.

Have you read any books about Alfred the Great? What would you recommend?

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

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

Feb23

Whenever I am asked for a book suggestion in the vein of or as a follow up to Narnia or Tolkien, my first question is always, “Have you read Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles?” And yet, I haven’t read these five books in the Prydain series, beginning with The Book of Three, in many, many years. Since I am working on reading children’s books published in 1964, sixty years ago, it was definitely time for a reread: The Book of Three was first published in 1964.

I love Lloyd Alexander’s quirky, idiosyncratic characters:

  • Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper, is the immature, rash, and bumbling sort-of-hero of the story. Well, if not the hero, at least he’s the main character, and he’s about to go on an epic hero’s journey, even if he is only an Assistant Pig-Keeper.
  • Hen Wen, the oracular pig is lost. Can the rag-tag group that gathers around Taran help him find Hen Wen and warn the good guys of impending danger?
  • Prince Gwydion, the older and true hero, still relies on Taran and his friends to help save the kingdom of Prydain from the evil Arawn and his henchman, the Horned King.
  • Eilonwy, girl child or young woman or enchantress, speaks in metaphors and similes and always keeps Taran humble with her sharp observations.
  • Fflewddur Fflam, the bard who used to be a king. His harp is magical in the music it produces and in its response to the exaggerated stories that Fflewddur tells.
  • Gurgi, beast-man or man-beast, is a brave though smelly companion whose constant talk of “crunchings and munchings” and “walkings and stalkings” and “seekings and peekings” adds a memorable bit of spice and humor to the story.
  • Doli is the irascible dwarf guide who can’t manage to turn himself invisible no matter how long and hard he holds his breath.
  • Dallben, who only enters the story at the beginning and at the end, is Taran’s wizard mentor, three hundred and seventy-nine years old and devoted to the work of meditation, “an occupation so exhausting he could accomplish it only by lying down and closing his eyes” for an hour and a half every morning and evening.

The characters and the setting are drawn from Welsh legend and mythology, just as Tolkien’s Middle Earth was taken somewhat from Norse and Finnish mythology. “Arawn, the dread Lord of Annuvin, comes from the Mabinogion, the classic collection of Welsh legends, though in Prydain he is considerably more villainous.” I think Alexander was also influenced by Tolkien, although he never says so, never even admits to having read LOTR. And the stories of Prydain are deeply influenced by the existentialism of Jean Paul Sartre; Lloyd Alexander was the first person to translate Sartre’s novel Nausea into English.

Actually, the plot is somewhat predictable: Young Taran goes on a journey with a mission to save the land of Prydain from the forces of evil. On the way he meets many obstacles and dangers but also finds unexpected helpers and friends.The evil is defeated, temporarily, but of course not conclusively, since there are four more books to come in the series. In some series this ending-not-ending would be irritating, but this story is more about the characters and their growth and the humor and the serious philosophical and even religious journey that each of them is taking. (But there is really no religion in these books. They are more existentialist, about finding out the depths of your own character and identity, but not in an annoying way?)

Anyway, I’m just now beginning my 1964 journey. I may find other books from that year that equal or even better Mr. Alexander’s first entry into the world of Prydain. But I would guess that The Book of Three will be among the top ten books of 1964, at the very least. Highly recommended.

“Most of us are called on to perform tasks far beyond what we can do. Our capabilities seldom match our aspirations, and we are often woefully unprepared. To this extent, we are all Assistant Pig-Keepers at heart.”

~Lloyd Alexander, Author’s Note at the beginning of The Book of Three

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

Gather by Kenneth M. Cadow

Feb7

Gather is the story of a boy and his dog. The young adult novel was a National Book Award finalist, and I would go so far as to say that it deserved the nomination. The writing, especially in the way it captures the voice and character and living situation of an impoverished young man from rural Vermont, is incisive and insightful. Nevertheless, I would also say that I cannot recommend this book to young people, and that it coarsens and distracts the reader particularly with its language, the very thing that also makes it a strong and stirring portrait of a boy struggling to overcome the issues that threaten to destroy him.

First, a short summary of the plot. Ian lives with his mother in a falling-apart house on a few acres of land that are all that are left of the many acres that his father’s family once owned. Ian’s father has deserted him and his mother, and Ian’s mother is unemployed and emotionally fragile. The two of them have no money and very little prospect of gaining any financial stability. They are poor, and they are hungry, and the last thing they need is the huge stray dog that has shown up on their property, also hungry. For Ian, school is a distraction and a waste of time. What he needs is a job and a way to take care of himself, his mother, and his new dog. When finally things become so desperate that Ian must run away and try to fend for himself in the wild, will the community gather to help him, or are he and the dog he named Gather truly isolated and alone?

So Ian is a boy who is rough, not just around the edges, in a rough space, with no time for the niceties of polite society. It makes sense that his language would reflect that, and it does. Ian narrates his own story in this novel, and he uses profane language frequently and explosively. The f-word that seems to be the expletive of choice these days among some groups of young people is, thankfully, not what Ian chooses to use. But the g-d’s and other words are sprinkled liberally throughout the book. On the final pages of the book, Ian even defends his frequent use of swear words. He says, “You want my voice, but you want my voice to be out there using somebody else’s rules, somebody else’s voice. Otherwise they ignore me. Isn’t that what you call censorship or oppression or whatever? Don’t you see how screwed up that is?”

Well, no, Ian (Mr. Cadow), it’s not censorship or oppression; it’s communication. If there is a way to write an authentic novel without all the profanity, then you will be able to communicate with people who otherwise won’t listen to you or perhaps won’t even think you worth listening to because of your ignorant language. I get why Ian (Mr. Cadow) uses all of the swear words, but it is distracting. And that’s too bad because Ian is worth listening to. As a character, he has some thoughtful things to say about education and the kind of education we give our children in the public schools. About drug addiction and the nuances that attend that condition. About nature and the land and our connection or lack of connection to it.

I would love to hand this book to older students, maybe sixteen and up, without the the swearing, (and to be honest, without the seemingly obligatory nod to LGBTQ+ propaganda in the last part of the novel), and to have them read it and discuss Ian and his predicament and his attitudes toward society and school and home and conservative values and other things. But I can’t, and that’s too bad.

Stateless by Elizabeth Wein

Feb2

Having just re-read the Flambards novels by K.M. Peyton, set in the early days of flying and airplanes before, during , and after World War I, I was prepared and pleased to read another golden age of flying novel, this one set in 1937 Europe, just before World War 2 changed everything. Elizabeth Wein, author of the compelling and well written Code Name Verity, Rose Under Fire, and Black Dove White Raven (as well as a disastrously bad prequel to Code Name Verity), likes to write about female aviators, and airplanes, and flying as well as the politics and adventures surrounding the 1930’s and World War 2. In Stateless she has given us a spy and aviation thriller reminiscent of Helen MacInnes’ spy novels which is a high compliment because I am quite fond of MacInnes.

Stella North, Northie to her friends, has been chosen to represent Britain in the Circuit of Nations Olympics of the Air, Europe’s First Youth Air Race. She’s the only female flyer in the race with eleven other pilots from eleven different European countries. The race is supposed to be promoting peace and friendly relations between the peoples and nations of Europe, but with the Spanish Civil War still raging and the Nazis becoming more powerful and belligerent in Germany, peace seems somewhat elusive. And the press is no help at all, with reporters mobbing the contestants in every city they fly to and asking questions that suggest that the pilots themselves might resort to sabotaging each other’s planes to win the race. When one of the racers goes missing, and Northie has dangerous information about what happened to him, she and others begin to wonder if a murderer might be lurking among the contestants.

The themes of international and world peace and the difficulties of achieving it and of individual identity and nationality and transcending European borders are articulated, but left to simmer as the plot itself and figuring out whodunnit took up most of the space in my reading mind. I did notice that the characters were mostly multilingual and multinational with divided loyalties that were soon to tested by the outbreak of World War 2. The author in her Author’s Note at the end of the book speculates on what would happen to these young flyers in just a couple of years after 1937, but we’ll never know unless Ms. Wein decides to write a sequel.

Well plotted and exciting, this novel falls just short of brilliant. There’s the problem of why don’t Stella and the charming but volatile Tony inform the authorities of their suspicions and of what they have actually witnessed. Of course, for the sake of the story, the authorities can’t just wrap everything up, call off the race, and send everyone home. So Northie and her friends must find reasons not to tell what they know: they don’t trust anyone else. No one would believe them. They don’t have enough proof. Nonsense. If I saw what Stella saw and knew what she knew, I’d be screaming bloody murder (literally, murder!) until someone somewhere listened and believed me and did something. At least, I think I would. Anyway, if you just go with it, it’s a good story.

And it’s clean. There are one or two brief kisses, and some faked necking (standing close and pretending to kiss) while the protagonists are hiding from the Gestapo. No bad language that I recall, except for one exclamation using the word “bloody” by a British character, a word which I understand carries more weight with the Brits. There is violence, but it’s not terribly graphic. All in all, it’s a book I would be happy to recommend to older teenage and adult readers.

Red Caps and Lilies by Katharine Adams

Dec29

Another book first published in 1924, Red Caps and Lilies is historical fiction set during the first days of the French Revolution. An aristocrat family attempts to come to terms with the rapid descent into chaos and revolution that begins in Paris, 1789. Soon it is obvious that thirteen year old Marie Josephine, her older brother Lisle, and their beloved maman, along with servants and relatives and friends and other various and sundry folk, must flee Paris and even France to ensure their own safety. But who will help them? Whom can they trust? And will they be betrayed by their own pride and disbelief that their lives could possibly be in danger in the first place?

I could quibble with this historical novel from another generation. The plot is a little creaky at times, with lots of unexpected meetings and paths crossing at just the right time. The events of the family’s escape are told and then retold and retold again as the family gathers and each one recounts his adventures to the others. Some character growth is evident in Lisle, the proud aristocratic teen, who is humbled by his experiences, and in Grigge, the peasant who has good reason to hate the aristocratic family but finds reason to help them anyway, All in all, though it’s a harmless little story with a fairly happy ending.

I guess I’ve become accustomed, for better or for worse, to something a little more ambiguous and and a little more unpredictable. I knew from the beginning, or at least near the beginning, that the family would escape and that all would turn out well. There was just no real suspense in the story, even though I think the author tried to create some. Still, if you want a historical novel that give a young adult reader some introduction to the time of the French Revolution with good and noble characters and a few daring escapes, you could do worse than reading about these French “lilies” cast out to fend for themselves among the “red caps” of the mobs of Paris.

You can read this “oldie but goodie” on Internet Archive if your library doesn’t give you access to a copy.

The Strange Intruder by Arthur Catherall

Dec28

I’ve heard of Arthur Catherall as an author of children’s or young adult fiction, but I’ve always thought of him, without having read any of his books, as a sort of minor, second rate, potboiler fiction writer. Sorry, Mr. Catherall. If The Strange Intruder is a good example of the rest of Catherall’s work, he’s actually a first rate adventure writer. Maybe I had that potboiler idea because Catherall was so prolific: he wrote dozens of books using his own name and dozens more using seven different pseudonyms. Busy man.

Anyway, The Strange Intruder is a coming of age story about a sixteen year old boy, Sven Klakk, who lives on the island of Mykines in the Faroe Islands. You might need a map to locate that island exactly in your mind (I did), but it’s generally northwest of Scotland and the Shetland Islands and west of Norway, southeast of Iceland in the North Sea. In my 50 cent Archway paperback copy of the book there is a handy-dandy map, so there probably will be one in yours, too, whatever copy you end up reading.

Catherall “voyaged to the Faroe Islands, the locale of this story, and spent some time there, getting to know the islanders and their way of life.” This familiarity with the setting shows in the descriptions of not only the flora and fauna of the island, but also the way the people talk, and work, and make decisions, and form their community life. Of course, I was reminded of the TV series Shetland, with the Shetland Islands nearby, but this island Mykines in the 1960’s, is its own place with its own remote and closely bound culture and way of life.

“A reign of terror grips a storm-lashed island.” There is storm and shipwreck and peril and a big surprise that leads to even more danger and peril, and I can’t say much more for fear of spoiling the story. But just know that you won’t encounter any political agendas or preaching or morals to the story—just pure adventure and suspense and character growth and wildness. I recommend this book, and on the strength of this one, you might want to at least check out Catherall’s many other stories, too.

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