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All Aboard for Freedom! by Marie McSwigan

Aug11

The author of this book, Marie McSwigan, also wrote the popular World War 2 story, Snow Treasure, which is based on a true story of children outwitting the Nazis to rescue the country’s gold reserves. All Aboard for Freedom! is also based on a true story of a group of children outwitting oppressive authorities, this time in Czechoslovakia in 1951. And the oppressors are not Nazis but rather their own countrymen who have bought into the Communist regime aided by the Russians.

Ludmila Novak is foster mother to five children, orphaned by the war. The oldest, age thirteen, is Franta Kristufek. When the Communist authorities threaten to separate the children and their beloved foster mother from each other and send the children to state run institutions, Fran comes up with a plan to keep them all together. However, the plan involves a train, the help of adults, and a very dangerous, time-critical strategy for escape. Who can Fran trust to help him escape Czechoslovakia to freedom in Germany? How can he keep his plan a secret with four other children involved, the youngest only four years old? What if “they” (the Communists) come for the children before they can put their plan into action?

This book, published in 1954, is very 1950’s, very anti-communist and pro-American, and very exciting. The children, especially Fran, are believable but also intrepid and imaginative. The story reminds me of one of Helen MacInnes’ Cold War spy novels, but it’s written for children, not adults. And it pictures characters, a time, and a situation that we in the West are in danger of forgetting—the people of Czechoslovakia who suffered under communist rule and yearned for the freedom we now take for granted. One more plus to this book: Fran stops to pray for God’s guidance and protection several times during the story. And that resort to prayer seems quite believable and wise, too.

All Aboard for Freedom is a book for train lovers, patriots, and adventurers. Pair it with Snow Treasure for a double dose of good reading.

The Forgotten Daughter by Caroline Dale Snedeker

May14

If The Forgotten Daughter were published now, instead of in 1927, it would probably be classified as Young Adult, at least in terms of interest level. The story takes a young Greek slave girl from age twelve to seventeen as she grows up in Samnium, southern Italy, on a Roman farm villa in the second century B.C. Chloe, the slave girl, lives in a hut on the mountainside with her guardian, an older woman named Melissa. Chloe’s mother is dead, and her father, the Roman patrician and owner of the villa whom she hates, deserted her mother before Chloe was born. The first part of the book deals with the back story behind the marriage of Chloe’s parents and Chloe’s birth and enslavement.

Although The Forgotten Daughter was a Newbery Honor book, I can’t imagine anyone younger than 12 or 13 being able to read the book with enjoyment and appreciation. It took several chapters for me as an adult to be able to follow the plot and understand the deeply religious, cultural, and philosophical meanderings that the author indulges. I did eventually enjoy the insight into Roman culture and law and religion, but it took some mental adjustment to understand the purpose of the descriptions and explanations of Roman superstition, Greek religious practice, Stoicism, and Roman politics, among other subjects. (It was a bit reminiscent of Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, and the sewers of Paris, but not nearly as long as Hugo’s digressions.)

The story is a romance, but a chaste one, although there is some kissing mentioned. It’s also a story of redemption and of freedom from the bondage of hatred and of forgiveness. The author paints a vivid and memorable picture of ancient Roman family life and politics, mentioning or invoking Sappho, Plato, Euripides, the Grachi, Plutarch, and many other Roman and Greek politicians and philosophers and playwrights. Chloe grows up isolated on her father’s Roman farm property, but the politics of Rome impact her life in unexpected ways. Her journey from slavery to freedom mirrors her internal journey from hatred to forgiveness, and it’s all accomplished within a pre-Christian religious and philosophical environment that feels very true and well-researched.

Charlotte Mason educators who are following her advice and reading Plutarch with their students would find this story full of connections and insights. I recommend it for philosophical girls and stoical boys and interested adults. Available from Bethlehem Books.

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

Apr3

I liked this book even better than I did A Gentleman in Moscow, the only other book by Towles I’ve read. I think I need to read Rules of Civility next. Mr. Towles is good at spinning a yarn and tying all the loose ends together at the end. BUT as much as I liked the story and the characters and the way everything came together, I’m still not sure about the ending. I feel as if Towles took a couple of my favorite people and corrupted them, just a little, or maybe a lot. I’m worried about what will happen to these characters after the story ends. I can’t say much more about that without spoiling the ending. So, if you’ve read The Lincoln Highway and you have some reassurance to give me, put it in the comments. I could use the encouragement that everything is going to be okay with these people in their new life after they travel the Lincoln Highway.

The story is set in June, 1954. Eighteen year old Emmett Watson has just returned home from a prison work farm where he was serving a sentence of fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter. Emmett’s father has recently died, his mother deserted them long ago, and Emmett is now responsible for his eight year old brother Billy. Emmett has a plan to start life anew. Billy also has a plan. And the two inmates who hid in the trunk of the warden’s car that brought Emmett home have a completely different plan.

The book could have turned into a comedy, and it borders on the absurd. However, there are some rather dark events to come, along with the ridiculous. Emmett is determined to go straight and control the temper that got him into trouble in the first place. Billy is an inordinate rule-follower with a child’s penchant for literal and concrete thinking. But the two brothers are caught up in a situation where keeping to the letter of the law and self-control in the face of violence and deceit won’t be enough to save them. So the question is how far can you bend the rules of decency and honesty and nonviolence before you become the criminals you’re trying to escape from?

It’s a good story told from several different points of view. It does take the reader inside the mind of an amoral but likable(?) sociopath and of a confused and mentally incapacitated young man, but you’re never tempted to actually condone wrongdoing or accept the excuses of those who break the law. Until maybe at the end. I’m still not sure about that ending, not even after reading this interview with author Amor Towles. If you read it, let me know what you think.

The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh

Mar29

The Lost Year: A Survival Story of the Ukrainian Famine by Katherine Marsh. Roaring Brook Press, 2023.

Not having read the subtitle before beginning the book, I thought this was going to be another of the many, many books yet to come about the Covid year(s). And it was, to some extent. Matthew is a thirteen year old boy who’s been spending most of his time playing Zelda and other video games since the Covid virus made him homebound with his mother and great-grandmother. Matthew’s father, a journalist, is stuck in France, also because of the virus. The first few chapters are a little slow with Matthew acting spoiled and entitled, but the action picks up as the story switches focus to tell about the childhood experiences of Matthew’s great-grandmother, Nadiya.

But when Matthew finds a tattered black-and-white photo in his great-grandmother’s belongings, he discovers a clue to a hidden chapter of her past, one that will lead to a life-shattering family secret. Set in alternating timelines that connect the present-day to the 1930s and the US to the USSR, Katherine Marsh’s latest novel sheds fresh light on the Holodomor – the horrific famine that killed millions of Ukrainians, and which the Soviet government covered up for decades.

I figured out the “family secret” a couple of chapters before the revelation, but the story was told in such a way that the revelation was foreshadowed but not obvious and very satisfying to read about. Matthew got better as a character, and in his character, as he came to be interested in someone besides himself, namely his 100 year old great-grandmother. And the historical event, the Holodomor, that the book illumines is one that is too little known. Knowing about the Holodomor can help to explain some of the historical animosity that is being played out in war now in 2023.

Recommended for ages 12 and up. Starvation and disease are obviously a key aspect of this novel, although readers are mercifully spared the most graphic and horrific details.

The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander

Dec31
  • This book is marketed as middle grade fiction, perhaps because the author’s previous books were mostly middle grade verse novels, but I believe this particular historical fiction verse novel falls firmly into the Young Adult genre and maturity level. It includes horrific violence, war, and sexual assault, and even though these things are true to the time and setting and are not gratuitously described, they are present and central to the story. Caveat emptor.
  • I don’t care for verse novels. I chafe at the constrictions of writing (and reading) narrative/story in a series of free verse poems. The writing of a story in the form of a series of short poems seems choppy and incomplete to me. Write a novel, or write poems, or even a long narrative poem, but don’t try to combine them.
  • Nevertheless, as verse novels go, this one was a well-written one. There were some striking images, and the story managed to come through in spite of the limitations of the form.
  • So, The Door of No Return is a book that I would recommend to older teens and adults as a window into African/Ashanti history and the history of African slavery. I do believe that it is well-researched and valuable as a window into the origins and horror of African slavery in the nineteenth century.

With those initial thoughts given, The Door of No Return is a Young Adult verse novel set in 1860’s Ghana among the Ashanti people of that area. In the fictional region of Upper Kwanta, eleven year old Kofi lives in a village with his family and enjoys hanging out with his best friend Ebo, the stories of his grandfather Nana Mosi, his flirtation with his cousin Ana, and swimming in the river Offin. He does NOT enjoy his cousin who bullies and teases him, his teacher Mr. Goodluck Phillip who thinks learning the Queen’s English is the path to future success, or the rule that says he must never swim in the river at night.

When Kofi’s brother accidentally becomes the victim of old animosities and horrific injustice, Kofi is caught up in the violence and injustice himself. And thereby Kofi has his first direct encounter with “the wonderfuls” (white men) who perpetrate the greatest injustice of all–kidnapping and slavery.

This story is an indictment of war and greed and enslavement and hatred carried across generations. In the afterword, Mr. Alexander says that this was a hard book to write, and it is also a hard book to read.I want to deny the fact that these things happened, but I cannot. I wish that the book had been written in narrative prose with detailed descriptions of Kofi’s village and his life there. But I really wouldn’t wish for any more details than are already present in the book about the suffering and cruelty that Kofi experiences. So, maybe a verse novel was the best way to go.

Highly recommended for older teens and adults, poetry lovers, historical fiction fans, and readers concerned with the issues of injustice, hope, and endurance.

Mystery at Plum Nelly by Christine Noble Govan and Emmy West

Dec29

I read and enjoyed many of the books in this series of mystery books many, many years ago when I was an avid consumer of all things Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden and the Boxcar Children and Helen Fuller Orton. The books feature a group, actually two groups, of children who form two clubs: The Cherokees and later, The Lookouts. The children, who live in southern Tennessee near Lookout Mountain, are first called The Cherokees, but when the older members of the club “became less active because Mickey, Bitsy, Ted, and Buzz had new teenage interests, Jimmy, the youngest member, began a new club, the Lookouts.”

In this particular mystery, Mystery at Plum Nelly, the Lookouts and the Cherokees are all helping with the annual arts and crafts exhibit that is hosted at art teacher Miss Manning’s mountain cabin called Plum Nelly. “When people would ask how to get to her house the mountaineers would say, ‘It’s down the road a piece–it’s plum nearly out of Tennessee and plum nearly out of Georgia.’ Only they say ‘plum nelly’–so the place just got to be called Plum Nelly.” The book is full of dialect, mountain talk, and quaint sayings and aphorisms, but it’s not enough to overwhelm or confuse readers, even young readers. The mystery involves kidnapping, spies, government secrets, and midnight disturbances. It’s great, published originally in 1959, and very fifties in tone, characters, and setting.

This series of books would appeal to fans of the Boxcar Children original series (I don’t recommend the modern Boxcar Children mysteries which were written and published more recently.). However, Cherokee/Lookout series of mysteries is out of print, hard to find, and very pricey when you can find them used. If your library has them or if you happen to find them in the wild at a reasonable price, I highly recommend you check them out. None of these books are to be found in my huge, big-city library system. I have not re-read all of these mysteries for content considerations, but the only thing I found that might be objectionable in Mystery at Plum Nelly is a little bit of good-natured teasing of one of the Lookouts, Billy, who calls himself “fat” and loves to eat.

The entire series consists of sixteen books:

The Mystery At Shingle Rock (1955) 
The Mystery At the Mountain Face (1956) 
The Mystery At the Shuttered Hotel (1956) 
The Mystery At Moccasin Bend (1957) 
The Mystery At the Indian Hide-out (1957) 
The Mystery At the Deserted Mill (1958) 
The Mystery of the Vanishing Stamp (1958) 
The Mystery At Plum Nelly (1959) 
The Mystery At the Haunted House (1959) 
The Mystery At Fearsome Lake (1960) 
Mystery At Rock City (1960) 
The Mystery At the Snowed-in Cabin (1961) 
The Mystery of the Dancing Skeleton (1962) 
The Mystery At Ghost Lodge (1963) 
The Mystery At the Weird Ruins (1964) 
The Mystery At the Echoing Cave (1965) 

Bargain Bride by Evelyn Sibley Lampman

Nov26

I’ll just share the publisher’s (Purple House Press) disclaimer at the beginning of this review to get that off the table:

This book, written 45 years ago, tells the story of a young girl and her experiences in the Oregon Territory during the 19th century. An excellent storyteller, Evelyn SIbley Lampman provides the reader with the opportunity to explore this time and place through the eyes of the main character, including social customs, religious beliefs, and racial relations. Many aspects of life at that time are foreign and sometimes offensive to us now including specific customs, practices, beliefs, and words. To maintain and provide historical accuracy and to allow a true representation of this time period, words such as Indian, Injuns, savage, colored, and Negro have not been removed or edited.

So, Ginny is ten years old, living in Oregon Territory with her miserly and cruel distant cousins when she is sold into marriage to Mr. Mayhew, a man at least thrice her age. The marriage won’t be consummated until Ginny is fifteen at which time her kindly, but old, husband has promised to have a fine house built for her. When Mr. Mayhew comes to claim Ginny on her fifteenth birthday, it’s clear that he’s a kind man who has kept his promise to make a home for Ginny, but still Ginny is terrified, only sure that anything is better than living with Cousin Mattie and Cousin Beau.

Things go from bad to worse (or better?) when Ginny and her new husband get to their flourishing farm only to have Mr. Mayhew fall dead of a stroke. So Ginny is left with a rich farmstead and a whole train of suitors who can’t wait to offer their strength and protection to the wealthy young widow. Ginny has more important worries than finding a new husband, however. What if Cousin Mattie and Cousin Beau move into her house and take over as they are trying to do? Can Ginny stop them? What’s to be done about the Indian (Molalla) woman who’s living in the smokehouse in back? What will the townspeople think of a fifteen year old widow living alone on the farm? But who can Ginny find to stay with her other than that harridan, Cousin Mattie?

Many of the characters in this novel certainly are prejudiced, pig-headed, and close-minded. And that’s just the “good guys”, including Ginny herself at times. The cousins, the “bad guys” in the story are worse. Still, the people of the town and Ginny’s neighbors are generous, welcoming, and consistently helpful to Ginny as she learns to make a life for herself on the Oregon frontier. Their relationships with the Native Americans in the area are complicated, and this story presents some of those complications with all the nuance and compassion possible in a short young adult novel. None of the characters is completely right or completely wrong (except maybe Cousin Mattie). Some are more prejudiced than others. Some learn, like Ginny, to accept the Molalla people, even though Ginny never does completely understand their culture and actions.

At any rate, this young adult novel, and I think it is indeed young adult, maybe ages 13 and up, raises lots of good questions. What is marriage, and why is it important? Are economic reasons sufficient to make a good marriage? Are we so sure that romantic love is the only basis for a sound marriage? How old is old enough to be and adult? What if one is forced into adulthood? How do we begin to understand and value people from a completely background or culture other than our own? What if we can’t communicate? What if they don’t seem to value us or want to communicate? How do we confront racism and prejudice? Can you talk someone out of their prejudices?

I found this novel to be thought-provoking and compelling. I’m thankful that Purple House Press was able to reprint it, along with three more of Ms. Lampman’s novels: The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek, Three Knocks on the Wall, and The City Under the Back Steps. You can purchase all four books from PHP, or you check them out from my library, Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Sir Gibbie by George Macdonald

Apr30

I got a rotten version of this book, or else George Macdonald wrote a dud. The story is there, and it’s a good one. But the “edited” version I read was tedious and much too explanatory, over-simplified and dull. Kathryn Lindskoog, a C.S. Lewis scholar and an author herself of literary and critical works, was the editor of the book I read, in the Classics for Young Readers series, published by P & R Publishing. She also edited several other classics for this series, including  Little Women, The Little Princess, Robinson Crusoe, Hans Brinker, and Black Beauty. If they are all written in the style that I read in her version of Sir Gibbie, I would not recommend them. And honestly, I am not sure why any of those other classics need updating or editing in the first place. They were all readable and lovely in the original for me as a child or young adult.

I do understand why Macdonald’s work is often edited to translate the Scots dialect that is prominent in many of his novels, including Sir Gibbie. I’ve only compared the version I read with the original (from Project Gutenberg) in few places, but I’m fairly sure that a lot of the dialogue, instead of being translated into modern English, is just explained. And most of the descriptive passages are simply left out or edited down to near-nothings. The back of the book says that Lindskoog “stepped up the pace of each chapter.” Also it says “this edition is a winner of the Gold Medallion Book Award in recognition of excellence in evangelical Christian literature.” Ouch! I don’t know why this rather wooden and tedious retelling won such an award, but I’m just not a fan.

According to Wikipedia, Lindskoog wrote, about her edited versions of classics:

I’m as much of a purist as you. I absolutely love these authors. That’s why I’m hand-polishing them for today’s readers and performing what I call literary liposuction – removing flab and fat. I keep every bit of the original story, the style, and the values – even restoring parts cut out in other versions. I know my work would make the author happy; otherwise, I wouldn’t do it

Sir Gibbie, a mute orphan with a heart of gold, is an engaging character, and the plot, although somewhat convoluted, is interesting and even surprising at times. But again, I just couldn’t enjoy the story as it was told in this edited version. I plan to try the original at some point. What I’ve read of George Macdonald’s writing shows him as a much better writer than this “literary liposuction” version displays.

I Must Betray You by Ruth Sepetys

Apr21

First of all, Ruth Sepetys is an excellent writer. I read three of her books, Between Shades of Grey, Out of the Easy, and Salt to the Sea, and her ability to place vivid fictional characters within an historical event and context was impressive. The first book, Between Shades of Grey, came out of Sepetys’ own Lithuanian American background and is set in Stalin’s Lithuania and Siberia. The other books, including this latest one set in Ceausescu’s Romania, show evidence of extensive historical research and an ability to create an atmosphere in reading the book that mirrors the cultural ambience of the times.

The place and time of this book are not a good place to be immersed in. In reading about a high school boy, seventeen year old Cristian Florescu, who is attempting to understand how to live in 1989 Romania, I felt a small part of what the people of Romania must have felt: claustrophobia, fear, entrapment, and suspicion. Ceausescu, his family, and his Securitate (secret police) control everything and everyone. And alongside the official apparatus, there are the civilian informers. In her Author’s Note at the end of the book Sepetys says, “It’s estimated that one in every ten citizens provided information.” All of these spies and informers generated thousands and thousands of pages of reports on the daily activities of every citizen, and each page added to “Romania’s perpetual sense of surveillance.”

This story is one that needs to be told, needs to be repeated. I see and hear people in the United States and in Europe flirting with communism, calling themselves “Marxists” or “socialists.” They think that such ideas are “just a better economic system”, that they won’t lead to tyranny or to a cult of charismatic leadership or to poverty and slavery. But everywhere—Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Vietnam, East Germany, and Romania—that’s exactly what communism has produced, has been used to produce. And the stories needs to be told again and again, both as cautionary tales and as a monument to the very real people who suffered under the horror and brutality of life in what was meant to be “just a better economic system.”

Cristian and his friend Luca and his girlfriend Liliana live through the fall of Ceausescu and his regime, but the story doesn’t really have a happy ending. Communism didn’t end in Romania until fifteen years after the death of the Ceausescu’s. And there are still many unanswered questions about what exactly happened in Romania during the rule of communism: who killed whom, and who gave the orders, and who benefitted and how it all came to be. All of the answers to these questions are perhaps buried in tons of records and files and reports, or perhaps just buried, destroyed. I Must Betray You is one attempt to illuminate through story what it felt like and what it required to live in a certain time and place, Bucharest, Romania, 1989 under the communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Mar30

I didn’t know that Kazuo Ishiguro won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017. I must have been busy the day that was announced. At any rate, I’m fairly sure he deserves the honor. There are layers of meaning in his latest novel, Klara and the Sun, and I’m not at all sure I got all or even most of them.

I don’t want to write too much about the plot of the novel because half of the fun is figuring out as you read what exactly is going on, who Klara is, what her abilities are, what this society and culture she lives in is like. We do know from the beginning of the story that Klara is an AF, and Artificial Friend, and what that means for Klara and for the teenager for whom she becomes an AF, is played out over the course of the novel.

The book asks some important questions about life and death: is death something to be avoided at all costs? What would you sacrifice to avoid dying? What would you sacrifice to keep someone you love alive?

Also there are questions about life and love: what is the essence of a human being? What is it you love when you say that you love someone? Is human love eternal, lifelong, and if it’s not, is it really love at all? Is the essence of love self sacrifice or imitation or something else? Is love letting go or holding close or both?

And finally, the questions are about technology and our relationship to it: is technology good or bad? Is it killing us or replacing us or enhancing our humanity? Can we become, through technological means, gene therapy or some other futuristic tinkering with our bodies and brains and genetics, something superhuman, better than human? Or are we losing something precious, our very humanity, when we try to create (super)man in the image of a god instead of living as a created being, under the authority of God, imago Dei?

My reviews of other books by Sir Ishiguro:

I look forward to reading more books by Kashuo Ishiguro, and I will be thinking about the implications of the story of Klara and the Sun for a good while. (Fell free to discuss details and spoilers in the comments. I’d love to hear your thoughts if you’ve read the book.)