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Born on This Day: Phyllis McGinley, Housewife Poet

Mar21

Phyllis McGinley, b. March 21, 1905, was a woman who wore many hats: poet, essayist, editor, schoolteacher, children’s book author, mother, wife, homemaker (not all at the same time!). She was not just a poet, but a 1961 Pulitzer prize-winning poet, the first to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for a collection of “light verse”. Feminist writers and poets minimized her accomplishments and her poetry, saying that she “sold herself” (Sylvia Plath) and that she “did nothing to improve or change the lives of housewives” (Betty Friedan). Ms. McGinley responded by proudly calling herself “a housewife poet”. In exchanges with her feminist critics, she maintained her own dignity and humility and preference for a touch of humor in dealing with serious subjects, saying:

“Our bodies are shaped to bear children, and our lives are a working out of the processes of creation. All our ambitions and intelligence are beside that great elemental point.” And “a lady is smarter than a gentleman, maybe, she can sew a fine seam, she can have a baby, she can use her intuition instead of her brain, but she can’t fold a paper in a crowded train.”

More about Phyllis McKinley and some of the books she wrote:
The Most Wonderful Doll in the World by Phyllis McGinley.

The Headmistress at The Common Room on Phyllis McGinley and her writing.

The Book Den: Lest We Forget, Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978)

Phyllis McGinley on fathers

Other books in my library by Phyllis McGinley:
The Horse Who Lived Upstairs: In which a discontented horse named Joey lives on the fourth floor of a city apartment building.

The Horse Who Had His Picture in the Paper: In which Joey tries to become a hero so that he can get his picture in the newspaper like Brownie the police horse.

All Around the Town: In which the alphabet is used to spell out the essential elements of life in the city—in the 1940’s, a poem for each letter of the alphabet.

Kitty on the Farm, or A Name for Kitty: In which a little boy receives a brand-new kitten but must search for the perfect name for his new pet.

The Plain Princess: In which a spoiled and unattractive princess learns the true source and meaning of beauty.

Other children’s books by Mrs. McGinley that I would like to take a look at:
Blunderbus (1951)
The Make-Believe Twins (1953)
The Year Without a Santa Claus (1957)
Boys Are Awful (1962)
How Mrs. Santa Claus Saved Christmas (1963)

I would also like to read her adult book of stories of the (Catholic and a few non-Catholic) saints called Saint-Watching.

Born on This Day: Eric P. Kelly, Lover of the Polish People

Mar16

Eric P. Kelly was an American newspaperman and later professor of English at Dartmouth, but his heart was with the Polish people during and after both World War I and World War II. He worked with Polish refugees after World War I, and he came to love Warsaw, writing to his mother, “Warsaw is a beautiful city, reminds me in some ways of Denver.” Then, in 1925-26, Mr. Kelly was a lecturer at a polish university in Warsaw where he heard the legend of the trumpeter of Krakow who, in 1241, was pierced by a Tartar arrow before he could finish a song called the Heyna? Mariacki (aka St. Mary’s Song or the Krakow Anthem). Ever since then, the song has always been played every hour four times from the tower of the Church of Our Lady St. Mary, but abruptly cut short before it is finished.

I’ve never managed to finish Mr. Kelly’s 1928 novel, The Trumpeter of Krakow, either, even though it won the Newbery Medal in 1929 and even though I’ve started it several times. However, I’m working on it now (again), and I’ll let you know what I think when I finish.

Eric P. Kelly also wrote the following books, a few of which I would really like to check out:

The Blacksmith of Vilno (1930) Also set in Poland, one of Kelly’s three “Polish novels.”
The Golden Star of Halicz (1931) The third of the Polish novels.
Christmas Nightingale (1932) Christmas stories of Poland, illustrated by Marguerite De Angeli.
The Girl Who Would be Queen (1934) Biography of the Countess Franciszka Corvin-Krasi?ska who lived during the 18th century in Poland and who sounds as if she might have been a fascinating person. A Polish writer of children’s literature, Klementyna Ta?ska, wrote a novel in 1825 about Countess Krasinska, The Diary of Countess Francoise Krasinska (children’s or adult?).
Three Sides of Angiochook (1935)
Treasure Mountain (1937)
At the Sign of the Golden Compass (1938) A tale of the printing house of Christopher Plantin in Antwerp, 1576.
On the Staked Plain (1940) Maybe a cowboy story?
From Star to Star (1940) A story of Krakow in 1493.
In Clean Hay (1940) Christmas story, illustrated by Maud and Miska Petersham.
Land of the Polish People (1943) The Portraits of the Nations Series.
The Hand in the Picture (1947) Another fiction book set in Poland.
The Amazing Journey of David Ingram (1949) This one sounds amazing. Did you know that there was a young man, David Ingram, who claimed to have walked from Tampico, Mexico to Nova Scotia in 1568, the first European to have traveled across the continent. He also claimed to have seen silver, gold, elephants, and penguins on his journey, which makes some people doubt his story. Nevertheless, a book about the journey of David Ingram would be fun to read, I think.
Polish Legends and Tales (1971)

So, Eric P. Kelly, born March 16, 1884, died in 1960 after 33 years of teaching English at Dartmouth. The Trumpeter of Krakow was his first published book, and it remains his most well-known. If you happen to run across any of his other books, grab them for me.

The Danger Gang and the Pirates of Borneo by Stephen Bramucci

Mar12

I really didn’t think this was going to be “my type of humor” as I began this book, but the more I read the more I enjoyed it. I even chuckled out loud a few times, and for me that’s major.

When Ronald Zupan’s parents are kidnapped by Zeetan Z, the world’s most ruthless pirate, while they are exploring the jungles of Borneo, Ronald and his rather unadventurous butler, Jeeves, are called to the rescue. Ronald’s fencing opponent, Julianne Sato, and his pet cobra, Carter, are also enlisted to form the Danger Gang, a fearless foursome indeed.

Ronald learns some lessons in humility and respect for others. Jeeves learns courage and perseverance. Julianne becomes a leader, and the snake, Carter, saves the day once or twice. All in all, this fantastic and perilous story is rather frothy, but worth the ride nevertheless.

A few quotes to whet your appetite for this fun-filled adventure:

“‘Julianne, you are possibly the sharpest sidekick that I’ve ever met,’ I said.
‘That’s because I’m not a sidekick,’ she called over the noise. ‘I’m your partner.'”

“There are times in any master adventurer’s life when all eyes are watching him and he has to do something bold and brilliant.”

“Doubtful friends are worse than enemies, and fire ants are the worst of all.”

“The more people you care about, the more there is to scare you in the world. And yet, if you didn’t care about people, there would be nothing worth protecting.”

“He who endures will conquer. So will he who never gets stung by a blister beetle.”

“That’s what partners in dazzling schemes and grand adventures do. They stick together.”

“That’s the thing about thrilling adventures. They change you, whether you know it or not.”

The Ice Sea Pirates by Frida Nilsson

Mar8

According to the author blurb in the back of my book, “Frida Nilsson is a leading Swedish author who won the Astrid Lindgren Prize in 2014. Her books have been translated and published worldwide and nominated for multiple awards including the prestigious Youth Literature Prize in Germany. The Ice Sea Pirates has been nominated for five major awards, including the August Prize, and won of [sic] three of them.”

Well, I can see the virtues of The Ice Sea Pirates. The plot hangs together well. The characters, especially Siri the heroine and protagonist, are engaging and believable. The themes of courage and compassion for all living things are woven into the story and into the journey that Siri makes to rescue her little sister, Miki, who has been kidnapped by evil pirates. The ending is good, even if it is somewhat ambiguous and bittersweet.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that something is lost in the translation. Siri, although she is mostly a brave and likable character, goes on long crying jags at crucial moments in the story:

“I cried. I cried so hard my chest hurt.” (p.80)
“A woman came past as I sat weeping by the water.” (p.83)
“But I just carried on crying and for a long time we just sat there, me sobbing and Nanni with her hand on my back. She tried to comfort me several times but it didn’t work.” (p.100)
“And I wept about everything, about the boxes and the hat and the dice, about people who made purses out of mermaids, about everyone who took more than they needed.” (p.197)
“I burst out crying. It went on and on; I didn’t even try to hold back the tears.” (p.230)
“It made me so sad and angry that a huge lump grew in my throat and I gritted my teeth against the tears.” (p.266)
“Watching this made me feel ill and I wept to see the wounds on the wolf’s hide. . . I couldn’t stop crying.” (p.292)
“That night I lay in bed and wept.” (p.302)
“I didn’t answer, just went on crying.” (p.303)

I probably missed or skimmed over a few crying episodes. Not that crying isn’t the proper response to many of the cruel and sad experiences that Siri has in the book, but the frequency seems excessive. Maybe it’s a Swedish thing?

In addition to the excess of tears, there’s a certain ambivalence about how animals are treated, how they should be treated, whether wild animals are dangerous or friendly, and just the attitude toward animals, especially wolves, in general. Are the animals in the story to be used for food or not? Are the wolves to be feared or tamed? Siri has a heart for the animals that she encounters that are being used or mistreated, but even though she doesn’t approve of what one hunter does to catch wolves, Siri eats the wolf meat when she is hungry anyway. She repeats the adage that one should never take more from “nature” than one needs, but there is no resolution in the end with the pirates and the hunters and the slavers, just an armed truce.

It’s a book worth reading, especially if you are interested in Swedish children’s literature or pirate stories or “northerness”, but in the end it’s one I would only recommend to a select few readers who have a special interest in those topics.

The List by Patricia Forde

Mar5

The List is a rather illogical ecological dystopian story about a future Earth in which the survivors of a disaster, caused by global warming/climate change, congregate in the city of Ark. In Ark, language is limited to an approved list of only 500 words, since the corruption of language and advertising and slick persuasion made Earth’s inhabitants ignore the warnings of eco-prophets who told the people that the planet was warming and apocalypse was imminent.

“Then came the Melting. The ice that turned to water and flooded the planet, the sea devouring everything in its path. Towns and villages swallowed whole. The old technology destroyed. Animals extinct. And all the written word gone.”

Letta, however, is apprentice to the official Wordsmith, the person charged with retrieving and preserving all of the old words, to hold them in reserve for a day when it will be safe again to allow people to use a multitude of words. When mankind has again learned to use words responsibly and wisely, then the Wordsmith and his apprentice will have the words, stored away where they can do no harm in the meantime.

The villain in this story is loopy; he thinks that taking away from people the power of speech will somehow make them wise and discerning, unable to be fooled by false persuasive speeches and writings. Or maybe he just thinks he is right, everyone else is wrong, and so taking away words will force the people to obey him. But if they have no power to speak, no words, how will they know anything? How will they obey if they don’t even understand what they are being told to do?

The ending of this one is a set-up for a sequel, so expect book two to follow shortly. The List is Irish author Patricia Forde’s debut novel. Fellow Irish author Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl series) blurbed The List as “the fantasy book of the year.” So, opinions may vary.

Skeleton Tree by Kim Ventrella

Feb27

This one falls into the category of really odd and quirky middle grade fiction, but readable, if you can get past the premise: a skeleton emerges from the soil in Stanly’s backyard. Only Stanly, his friend Jaxon, Stanly’s little sister Miren, and the Kyrgyzstani babysitter, Ms. Francine, can actually see the skeleton tree, at least most of the time, and Miren calls the skeleton Princy.

Weeeell, as Jack Benny used to say, that’s a lot to take in: a dancing skeleton who may or may not be making Miren’s illness better —or worse. And Stanly wants to take a picture of “Princy”, win a prize, and force his estranged dad to pay attention to his deserted family. Stanly’s and Jaxon’s friendship is a lovely bit of business: Jaxon has OCD, and Stanly simply accepts Jaxon’s fence-post counting and food pickiness as a part of his friend’s personality.

I really liked parts of this book: Stanly’s relationship with his little sister, protective even when he was annoyed with her brattiness; Jaxon and Stanly and their friendship; the total weirdness of having a skeleton growing in a tree in your backyard. However, the sadness of Miren’s illness, the dad’s neglect of his family, and Stanly’s mom’s very difficult financial and living situation finally got to me, and I really didn’t want to finish the book, even though I had to know what would happen to Stanly and Miren and Princy.

Also, I know it’s so minor as to be nitpicking, but I really think Stanly should be spelled with an “e”, “Stanley”. It just looks wrong the way it is in this book.

Two Polish setting tales

Feb26

The Wolf Hour by Sara Lewis Holmes

The Dollmaker of Krakow by R.M. Romero.

Ms. Holmes gives us a story of pigs (three little ones plus a mama pig), wolves, and a girl with a red cap, fusing together the folklore of the Polish forest, the Puszcza, with the tales of the city, of magic flutes and stolen, enchanted girls. It’s a book that talks about the roles we are expected to fill and the changes that we can make if we have the courage to do so. Girls are not supposed to be woodcutters, but Magia, the red-capped girl, knows that becoming a woodcutter like her father is what she is meant to be. And wolves are meant to be the villains of the story, but what if the little pigs are the real tricksters and bad guys, luring the wolves to their doom?

Actually, I thought the setting for this story was somewhere in a magical Poland, but maybe it’s Ukraine or even Russia. Wherever it is set, the tale is dark and creepy but with just enough humor and lightness that it’s perfectly appropriate for middle grade readers who like a bit of scariness and suspense mixed into their fantasy reading. Fans of the TV series Once Upon a Time or Grimm might take to this twisted version of fairy tale world.

The Dollmaker of Krakow is partially set in Poland, World War II Poland, but also in a mythical Kingdom of the Dolls where events mirror to some extent the event in Poland. The evil rats have invaded the Land of the Dolls and enslaved all of the dolls, so when the doll Karolina tries to escape, she finds herself blown the wind into World War II Poland and living in the shop of the The Dollmaker. Karolina and the man known as the Dollmaker become friends with a Jewish violinist, Jozef, and his daughter, Rena, and from that friendship come danger and an opportunity to influence the course of events both in our world and in the Land of the Dolls.

Again, it’s a Holocaust tale, so it’s dark and rather scary, but there is a sense of hope that one person—or one doll— can be brave enough and persevering enough to make a difference and shine some light into that darkness.
‘

The Painting by Charis Cotter

Jan27

Annie and her mother don’t really understand one another. Annie likes to look at picture books and imagine and sketch pictures; she doesn’t care about schoolwork. Her mother believes in facts and lists and academic success.

Claire and her mother don’t see things the same way either. Claire’s mother is an artist, and she loves living in a lighthouse near the ocean in Newfoundland. Claire misses her home in the city, and she wants to pursue her education in a good school back in the city.

Annie and Claire, however, do share some things in common. They’re both about the same age, and they both believe in ghosts.

When Claire and Annie meet, Claire thinks Annie is the ghost of her dead sister, also named Annie. And Annie knows she is not a ghost, but why is she able to enter into an old painting and talk to Claire, a girl who lives in a different time? Does the painting have anything to with Annie’s mom’s car accident and the coma that she is struggling to emerge from?

The Painting is a convoluted, time-slip, mother/daughter ghost story that kept me guessing until the very end. Is one of the two girls a ghost from the past or from the future? Did Claire’s sister, Annie, die in an accident, and was she reincarnated as a present day Annie? Or is Annie’s mom in the hospital really Claire’s mom, too, or Annie-who-died’s mom or only Annie’s mom or what? As long as you’re OK with ghostly time travel and very short chapters that change perspective back and forth from Annie to Claire and back to Annie again, this book is a winner. I didn’t like the quick perspective changes, but I did enjoy the story in spite of them.

If you like this book, there are several other middle grade ghost stories you might want to check out:

The Swallow: A Ghost Story by Charis Cotter.
The Children of Green Knowe by L.M. Boston, and its sequels.
Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce.
The Court of the Stone Children by Eleanor Cameron.
The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co., #1) by Jonathan Stroud, and sequels.
The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing by Sheila Turnage
The Saracen Lamp by Ruth M. Arthur.
Children of the King by Sonya Hartnett.
The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn by Dorothy Hoobler.
Grave Images by Jenny Goebel.
Locked Doors: A Pameroy Mystery in Wisconsin by Brenda Felber. Part of a series of ghostly mystery stories that will eventually include one mystery ghost story set in each of the fifty states. Pameroy Mystery series.

Escape From Aleppo by N.H. Senzai

Jan20

The two previous books by N.H. Senzai that I read, Shooting Kabul and Saving Kabul Corner, were both about Afghan immigrants to the United States, and they were both good, informative reads. Escape From Aleppo is set in Syria, mostly in 2013, as the protagonist, Nadia, becomes separated from her family and is caught between government troops, rebel brigades, and ISIS fighters, as she tries to flee to Turkey for safety and to find her family.

The story is a little heavy on the “informative” side, probably necessarily so considering the ignorance of most Americans in regard to Syrian history and politics. Nevertheless, I enjoy learning about history and current events through the medium of fiction, and Escape From Aleppo tells a good tale of life and the struggle for survival in a war-torn country.

Fourteen year old Nadia, even as she is escaping the bombs and snipers of Aleppo, remembers her twelfth birthday, December 17, 2010, which happened to coincide with the beginning of the “Arab Spring” insurrections and demonstrations, all ignited by a young man’s suicide in Tunisia. The civil unrest and rebellion against “authoritarian regimes” moves to Syria in 2011, and to Aleppo where Nadia lives in 2012. All of this history is covered in the book by means of interspersed flashback chapters that interrupt the flow of the narrative about Nadia’s journey to safety at the Turkish border through war-torn Aleppo and through the Syrian countryside. However, I’m not sure how the background information could have been conveyed in any other way, and I did learn a lot about recent Syrian history and government, and a little about more ancient Syrian history.

The story includes some mystery; who is the mysterious old man with the donkey who agrees to help Nadia reach the Turkish border? And there’s quite a bit of suspense and adventure. Of course, since it takes place in the middle of a war, there’s violence and tragedy, but none of the descriptions is too horribly graphic. Nadia is the central and most fully realized character in the book, and readers will identify with her fight to grow up quickly, be brave, and take charge of her life and her journey.

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This book may be nominated for a Cybils Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

Rules for Thieves by Alexandra Ott

Jan16

Thieves have been rather popular in middle grade fantasy fiction for the past few years. The “thieves” are usually Oliver Twist or Artful Dodger types, lovable scapegraces who come out of poverty and sometimes end up as princes or kings or long lost sons of rich families. And mostly the thieves are boys. (Megan Whalen Turner’s Thief series, Jonathan Auxier’s Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, The Dungeoneers by John David Anderson, The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen, Jupiter Pirates series by Jason Fry, Chronicles of Egg by Geoff Rodkey, and many more that I’m not thinking of, I’m sure.)

Twelve year old Alli Rosco fits the prototype in some ways. She’s an orphan who never really suited any of the many families looking to adopt, but she didn’t like any of them either. Her mother abandoned her on the orphanage doorstep at the age of three, and Alli has been trying ever since to forget her mother and the brother who didn’t get sent to the orphanage. And she’s also been trying to escape from the orphanage, from any adoptive parents foolish enough to take her home for a trial run, from all of the rules and fences that orphanage life is all about.

But when Alli does escape, she finds that life on the streets is not so easy. And she learns that she can’t trust anyone, but also she can’t live without trusting someone. In fact, Alli must trust a thief, maybe even become a thief, if she is going to survive. She may have to commit herself to follow the rules of the Thieves’ Guild if she wants to remain free of the orphanage, but is that a trade-off she’s willing to make?

Alli is spunky, independent, resourceful, and outspoken, but she also has her own code of conduct that gets tested and crowded by the necessities of survival on the streets. At first, she’s not sure she should steal at all, but she soon realizes that in order to eat she will have to take food from market stalls. The trash cans are not an adequate source of nourishment. Then, Alli get caught in a situation in which she must choose to join the Thieves Guild and become a professional thief or choose to die a slow and painful death. She chooses the Guild, but not without some qualms. What is all of this thieving doing to her soul?

This debut novel by an Oklahoma author has a lot of action and character development, but it also tries to deal with the deeper questions inherent in a story where thieves are the protagonists, the “good guys” to some extent. Is it really fine to steal from the rich, just not the poor? How do you decide who’s rich and who’s poor? Is violence or at least the threat of violence an inexorable part of being a thief? If so, where does one draw the line? Do haughty, selfish rich people deserve to die protecting their valuables? If they do, is it the thief’s fault or the owner’s? Is there “always a price” for everything you get in life? What if someone else ends up paying the price for your survival?

Perhaps the sequel to Rules for Thieves, Shadow Thieves, will answer some of those questions as Alli “must risk everything to save her new family from a rogue organization that is threatening the Thieves Guild’s existence—and the lives of all its members.” I’m looking forward to reading it when it comes out in June, 2018.