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.

Noteworthy and Encouraging: May 30th

May30

Born on May 30th:

Alfred Austin, b. 1835. British Poet Laureate after the death of Sir Alfred, Lord Tennyson, a hard act to follow. Austin’s poetry is not highly regarded, but he did write a couple of books extolling the virtues of gardens and gardening, The Garden That I Love and In Veronica’s Garden. I wouldn’t mind taking a look at these, even though I’m a terrible gardener. (I have a small garden with five tomato plants. One of my tomato plants has three tomatoes. The rest have none . . . yet?)

The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.

There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder.

Katrina Trask, aka Kate Nichols Trask, b.1853. The following poem was written by a woman, Kate Trask, who had all four of her children die in their childhood or infancy. And then her house in Saratoga Springs, which was to be her and her husband’s legacy to the artists and writers of the world, burned to the ground. But she and her husband, businessman Spencer Trask, rebuilt the house and its gardens and made it a retreat for artists. I don’t know if the poem, Consolation, was written before or after she endured all this tragedy, but either way it is a striking commentary on her life and work.

Lie down and sleep,
Leave it to God to keep
The sorrow, which is part
Now of thy heart.

When thou dost wake,
If still ’tis thine to take,
Utter no wild complaint,
Work waits thy hands.
If thous shouldest faint,
God understands.

Gladys Conklin, b.1903 She wrote 25 children’s books about insects and other nature topics, and she was also a children’s librarian in California. There’s a very sad story about her disappearance (or death) in 1982. I have three of Ms. Conklin’s books in my library: When Insects Are Babies, How Insects Grow, and The Bug Club Book: A Handbook for Young Bug Collectors.

Millicent Selsam, b.1912. Ms. Selsam also wrote numerous children’s books, more than a hundred, about animals, insects, plants, and other nature topics. She taught biology in high school and at Brooklyn College. I have many of Ms. Selsam’s books in my library, including Terry and the Caterpillars, Plenty of Fish, Tony’s Birds, Seeds and More Seeds, Tree Flowers, A First Look at Leaves, Peanut, and many more. I would be quite happy to have all 100+ of her books because she writes with engaging text in a way that is simple and direct but also richly informative.

Noteworthy and Encouraging: May 29th

May29

Born on May 29th:

Gerald Massey, b. 1828. Poet and amateur Egyptologist.

There’s no dearth of kindness
In this world of ours;
Only in our blindness
We gather thorns for flowers.

Mary Louisa Molesworth, b. 1839. Author of children’s books during the nineteenth century. Known as “Mrs. Molesworth”, her most famous book was The Cuckoo Clock, which I read recently. If you have a child who is a good reader looking for a story about fairies, you might try this one. It doesn’t have much of a plot, not much dramatic tension. Griselda comes to live with her two elderly great-aunts for reasons that are never stated throughout the story. She is sometimes bored and lonely, and the cuckoo from her late grandmother’s cuckoo clock comes to visit and amuse Griselda. Griselda wants the cuckoo to take her to fairyland, but he says that “the way to true fairyland is hard to find, and we must each find it for ourselves.” The cuckoo does take Griselda to some other magical places, and she eventually finds a friend and playmate. Some of the scenes in the book are beautifully described, but as I said, not much happens. I do have a solid library rebound copy of this old book in my library, but my book has illustrations by E.H. Shepard (the illustrator famous for his pictures for Winnie-the-Pooh.)

Eugene Fitch Ware, b. 1841. Kansas poet and politician. “Man builds no structure which outlives a book.”

Charles Francis Richardson, b. 1851. Maine poet and literary historian.
2 John 1:6: And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the very commandment you have heard from the beginning, that you must walk in love.

If suddenly upon the street
My gracious Saviour I should meet,
And he should say, “As I love thee,
What love hast thou to offer me?”
Then what could this poor heart of mine
Dare offer to that heart divine?

His eye would pierce my outward show,
His thought my inmost thought would know;
And if I said, “I love thee, Lord,”
He would not heed my spoken word,
Because my daily life would tell
If verily I loved him well.

If on the day or in the place
Wherein he met me face to face,
My life could show some kindness done,
Some purpose formed, some work begun
For his dear sake, then it were meet
Love’s gift to lay at Jesus’ feet.

G.K. Chesterton, b. 1874. Author of Orthodoxy, his spiritual autobiography, and many, many other works fiction, essays, and general musings. Chesterton himself was a merry old soul. He weighed over 300 pounds, played the part of the absent-minded professor in his daily life, and enjoyed a beer, a debate, and a nap, but not all at the same time. Nicknamed “The Prince of Paradox,” his verbal gymnastics are sometimes exhausting, usually entertaining, and at the same time full of wisdom and insight into the fallacies of pagan and modern philosophy and into the satisfying rightness of Christian orthodoxy.
The Convert by G.K. Chesterton
A selection of Chesterton’s wisdom.
My reaction to The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton.
More gems (quotes) from Gilbert K.Chesterton.

Terrence Hanbury (T.H.) White, b. 1906. Author of The Once and Future King, White’s version of the Arthurian legends. The musical, Camelot, and the Disney film, The Sword in the Stone, were both based on White’s retelling and embellishment of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. I have a copy of The Sword in the Stone in my library, but the rest of the story that makes up the four books of The Once and Future King is a bit too dark for children, IMHO.

Noteworthy and Encouraging: May 28th

May28

Born on May 28th:

Thomas Augustine Daly, Philadelphia poet, known for his humorous poems in Irish American and Italian American dialect. He worked as a grocery store clerk and as a cub reporter and developed an ear for immigrant speech. My mom used to quote one of Daly’s poems to us every February 22nd, “Leetla Georgio Washeenton.” In 1924, Daly published the autobiographical story about his large family, Herself and the Houseful; Being the Middling-Mirthful Story of a Middle-Class American Family of More Than Middle Size. It sounds like a good one to track down and read.

Louis Agassiz, b. 1807. Nineteenth century biologist and geologist who believed that the earth was created by God, who also created each species of animal and each “race” of humankind separately. Agassiz has been accused of being racist, but some say he was merely mistaken about his theories in regard to the creation of man. Agassiz is particularly known for advancement of the study of fish and their classification and for his work in the study of glaciers. I have this book in my library, The Ghost Lake: The True Story of Louis Agassiz by John Hudson Tiner, and I’m reading it now.

Louis Agassiz: “Those who have succeeded best have followed for years some slim thread which once in a while broadened out and disclosed some treasure worth a lifelong search.”

“I cannot waste my time in making money!”

Thomas Moore, b. 1779. Irish poet, singer, and songwriter. He wrote the lyrics of the well-known ballad, The Minstrel Boy. The tune is called The Moreen, an old Irish folk tune. (This tune would have been a great one to listen to yesterday on Memorial Day, but who’s to say we can’t continue to remember bravery and freedom and the price that has been paid to keep them?)

The minstrel boy to the war is gone;
In the ranks of death you’ll find him;
His father’s sword he has girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him;
“Land of Song!” said the warrior bard,
“Though all the world betrays thee,
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,
One faithful harp shall praise thee!

The Minstrel fell! But the foeman’s chain
Could not bring that proud soul under;
The harp he loved ne’er spoke again,
For he tore its chords asunder;
And said “No chains shall sully thee,
Thou soul of love and bravery!
Thy songs were made for the pure and free
They shall never sound in slavery!

Ian Fleming, b. 1908. You may know him for his spy novels that became rather famous, but I know his rollicking-good-fun book for children, Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang. Fleming was an author, a journalist, and a naval intelligence officer. The latter job provided him with background material for his James Bond novels. Fleming was an avid birdwatcher, and he named his fictional spy for a famous American ornithologist, James Bond. Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, Fleming’s only children’s novel, was taken from the bedtime stories that he made up for his son, Caspar.

The Sun King: Louis XIV of France by Alfred Apsler

May25

Because we’re planning to visit England this summer and because I’m an Anglophile, anyway, I’ve been reading quite a few books set in England lately, sort of preparing myself for the journey. And a lot of my reading has happened to be centered around the seventeenth century, particularly the English Civil War between the Cavaliers and the Roundheads, Charles I, Oliver Cromwell, and all that jazz. So, I thought I’d stay in the same ballpark, 1600’s, but switch it up a bit and read this Messner biography of Louis XIV of France.

Louis XIV was an amazing man, but not so very admirable. He seems to have been blinded by his upbringing, his cultural assumptions, and his own pride and greed into making a lot of misery for a lot of people. His biographer calls him “disdainfully aloof” and “a proud absolute ruler” and “the supreme embodiment of Absolute Monarchy.” Although his seventy-two year reign, longer than the reign of any other French king in history, saw many accomplishments and triumphs for French hegemony as well as French literature, art and architecture, Louis’s rule also perpetrated the horrendous persecution of French Huguenots and eventually drained the French economy to the point of bankruptcy. (It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.)

Louis XIV is famous for the slogan, “I am the state.” He truly believed what he was taught: that France existed for him and that he, Louis XIV, was the sole judge and arbiter of everything that happened in that ever-expanding nation. His only responsibility was to God, and the people of France existed to serve God by serving Louis. He said, “It is for kings to make their own decisions, for no one dares or is able to suggest any that are as good or as royal as those which we make ourselves.”

It was particularly interesting to me to read about Louis’s economic policies. The French under Louis XIV adhered to the economic theory of mercantilism, “the economic theory that trade generates wealth and is stimulated by the accumulation of profitable balances, which a government should encourage by means of protectionism.” However, in addition, Louis IV’s economy was an example of what came to be called “Colbertism” named for Louis’s chief financial advisor, Colbert. “Colbertism meant unlimited government control of economic life. Louis XIV, as the foremost exponent of absolute despotism, felt it perfectly natural to give his finance minister freedom in directing with an iron hand all of France’s production and distribution of goods.”

“These principles led seventeenth-century France on the road to forced nationalization, in some even to socialization, of its economy.” But instead of being done for “the people”, as Marxism would later claim, this centralized and autocratic government of the economy was intended for the glory of France and even more for the glory and increased power of Louis XIV. And the interesting thing is that such dictatorship for the sake of the nation’s power and glory does work for a time in increasing the nation power and fame. France did indeed become larger, taking over more and more territory, more organized and orderly, richer and more powerful. The arts flourished in France under Louis XIV. The economy and the middle class bourgeoise also grew and became more prosperous.

BUT as taxes became higher and higher to sustain Louis’s army, his territorial ambitions, and his extravagant lifestyle as well as that of his courtiers and as Louis himself felt the need to appease God by purifying the church and driving out the Huguenots, the whole scheme began to collapse. As Margaret Thatcher so aptly put it many centuries later, “Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money.” Louis’s government and economic system was the worst of all possible systems, combining an absolute monarchy or dictatorship with the nationalization of much of the industry in the country and with nothing going back to the people except the satisfaction of living in the glorious Age of Louis XIV. This idea of the common people living and working for the monarchy and the higher classes living off of the monarchy and not working led directly to the French Revolution a little less than a century after Louis’ death.

“Louis’ state remained anchored to one person, the sovereign. He had willfully neglected to allow the growth of any institution fostering participation by the people whom he ruled. The success of the state depended solely on the manner in which the monarch played his role. When the successors of Louis XIV completely failed to fill this role which he had created for them, the whole system collapsed, like a house erected on shifting sand, in the French Revolution of 1789.”

This biography was such a good read with many insights that can be applied to our own times as well as just interesting bits of knowledge and information. Did you know that Louis XIV was the king who built the enormous and expensive palace of Versailles or that he was one of the first European kings to have a standing army?

Castle Adamant by Sally Watson

May24

Sally Watson was an author who wrote several books I loved as a child: Mistress Malapert, Linnet, Jade, and Lark are the ones I remember reading. Several years ago I found a couple more of her books, Highland Rebel and The Hornet’s Nest, and added them to my library. I already had a copy of Lark, and my daughter enjoyed it when she was a girl just as much as I did. However, all of Ms. Watson’s books were out of print and nowhere to be found for many years.

Then, I found that many of her books had been reprinted or republished, either by the author herself or by some small reprint publishers. And there were more books, set during the English Civil Wars of the 1640’s, Cavaliers versus Roundheads, with strong-willed female protagonists and exciting historical plots just like the Lark/Linnet/Jade books. So, I ordered myself a copy of Mistress Malapert and of a new-to-me book, Castle Adamant.

Unfortunately, I didn’t look closely at the suggested target age group for the novel, and I won’t be able to put this book in my library. That’s a shame because it’s a good story, and the others that I do remember are completely appropriate for middle grade readers. However, Castle Adamant (and apparently the two other books that form a trilogy with it, The Outrageous Oriel and Loyal and the Dragon) has just enough “adult” or “young adult” content to make it too much for the middle grades.

Castle Adamant features the defense of Corfe Castle by its Royalist owners from assault by the Parliamentary forces. The story of Corfe Castle and the battles that took place there are true, but Ms. Watson throws in a few fictional characters to make it interesting. Peregrine Lennox is the second son of a Royalist lord and advisor to King Charles I. Verity Goodchild is the independent-thinking daughter of a Roundhead colonel. Trained to be a Calvinist but also educated in the classics and in logic, Verity is a mass of contradictions, determined to forge her own ideas and convictions through the various conflicting and confusing issues of the time. Peregrine is an “arrogant sprig of nobility”, “vain, kind, condescending, and resigned to boredom.” When Peregrine’s lazy intelligence meets up with Verity’s fiery intelligence, the arguments and the Latin quotations fly fast and furious, along with many a Scripture verse from Verity’s unlimited and memorized storehouse.

So, the novel is made up of two elements: the battle(s) for Corfe Castle and the battle(s) between Verity and Peregrine. The content warning is that the author keeps throwing in not so subtle hints about the the physical attraction between Verity and Peregrine:

“The maleness her small breasts pressed against was firm and strong and hard and smelled of horse and herbs. Prevented–not for fear of Satan, but by her painful arms–from holding yet more tightly, she allowed the unslapped side of her face to rest against his doublet.”

“Verity instantly fell into lusting even harder after her friend’s husband-to-be. With passion, Satan was indeed tempting her; and it was a shock, for she had never willed it.”

“At one point she ripped her skirt all the way up, providing a stunning view of a long shapely leg. She was not aware of it, nor even of the long deep scratch down her thigh. . . .She had no idea she had titillated Peregrine, or indeed showed him her leg at all.”

“‘I won’t wed anyone. I’ll be a spinster. But—” She looked at him, and all virtue left her. ‘Peregrine— If we could manage— I would come to your bed anyway.’
For a moment, she thought in anguish that he was repulsed by her froward and sinful thoughts. His face was blank, and an odd bulge appeared just in the front of his breeches. A strong instinct told Verity it was something not to be asked about nor even noticed—but that perhaps it was not revulsion either?”

That, and couple of scenes where a villager and a soldier try to assault Verity and steal a kiss, are as explicit as it gets, but sadly way too much for children. The theological debates that Verity has with Peregrine, with the doyenne of Corfe Castle, and with God Himself are certainly somewhat mature also, but her questions are nothing an intelligent eleven or twelve year old wouldn’t be able to handle.

I haven’t read The Outrageous Oriel, but I did read this bit about it at Sally Watson’s website:

“Outrageous Oriel was lots of fun–-and possibly a bit shocking to a few–-but times change, don’t they? That was Oriel, all right. Outrageous.
In the ’50’s and ’60’s the trilogy would be definitely Adult, with Oriel and her friend Evan agreeing to marry platonically, because, he tells her, he loves her dearly as a friend but prefers fellows in his bed. Now? Who knows? I’ve read YA much nearer the mark.”

So, yes, the three books in “the trilogy” are adult or young adult, and the others I’ve named are middle grade reads that can be enjoyed by all ages. I liked Castle Adamant for the most part, but I plan to stick to Sally Watson’s juvenile novels from here on out.

The Mantlemass Chronicles by Barbara Willard

May9

The Sprig of Broom (1485)
The Lark and the Laurel (1485)
The Eldest Son (1534)
A Cold Wind Blowing (1536)
The Iron Lily (1557)
A Flight of Swans (1588)
Harrow and Harvest (1642)

These books take us through English history from the Battle of Bosworth, to the reign of the Tudor kings, to Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, to the Spanish Armada, to another English civil war between Cromwell’s Roundheads and the King’s Royalists or Cavaliers. During all these great events the families in and around the manor house Mantlemass—-Mallorys, Medleys, Plashets, and Hollands–-pursue their own ends and keep their own secrets. From reading the synopses of these other novels in the series, I can see that marriage and romance and family secrets and loyalty and independence continue to be themes that Ms. Willard explores in her books. I’m going to enjoy exploring with her and her characters.

**********************

And I did it. I “binge read” the last five of The Mantlemass Chronicles and enjoyed the experience immensely. Barbara Willard is not well enough known or regarded. Her family saga that covers multiple generations (about with or ten?) is insightful and compelling. The characters remind me of Elizabeth Goudge or Winston Poldark (Poldark), but they are more believable than Winston Graham’s sometimes over-wrought and over dramatic characters, and Willard sticks with the same family for seven books, unlike Goudge. And even though the people who inhabit Mantlemass in the last book of the series, Harrow and Harvest, know almost nothing about the ancestors whose story is told in the first two books, there is a family secret that is handed down from generation to generation over 150 plus years. This thread of secret plus inheritance plus genetic line plus the house itself, Mantlemass, ties all of the books together, making for a very satisfying read.

A Cold Wind Blowing covers the same time period that was chronicled in The Eldest Son, but this time we get to read about events from the perspective of the second son of the Medley family, Piers. Gaps and events that are only alluded to but never explained in The Eldest Son make up the story in A Cold Wind Blowing, and readers learn to understand this family and relationships within it in a deeper and more illuminating way. Piers, a likable character in the first book, becomes the center of the family in this book, the young man seasoned by grief and tragedy who will in the next book/episode be both the patriarch and the source of continued family drama.

The Iron Lily introduces readers to another branch of the Medley/Mallory family, an illegitimate daughter who finds her family and brings a new strength and will to the family she finds. Lilias and her daughter Ursula move into the vicinity of Mantlemass and become a part of the community there despite not a little struggle and misunderstanding. Lilias, a widow, is determined to support her daughter and make her own way in the world of the iron industry. In a world of men workers and owners, Lilias is an anomaly, a strong woman who runs her iron foundry as she runs her life, with stubborn purpose. However, she’s not completely out of place in the Mallory/Medley family, which has a history of strong-willed women and men to match them. The question is whether or not Lily with her autocratic ways will ruin the life of her daughter Ursula when the two clash over Ursula’s future.

A Flight of Swans moves the story to the next generation and the attempted invasion of England by the Spanish Armada. Ursula is now the mistress of Mantlemass, and a couple of Jolland cousins, Roger and Humfrey, have come to visit. Ursula must deal with a broken marriage and with suspected treachery in the ironworks as it becomes profitable to sell the iron industry secrets to the highest bidder in a time of war. This book displays exactly what I liked about the entire series. Ms. Willard’s characters are real people who grow (or deteriorate) and change just as real people do, sometimes disappointing the reader but always continuing to be compelling and intriguing. The novel covers a great deal of time, and the reader must pay close attention to “fill in the gaps”, sometimes from one chapter to the next. But the attentiveness is worth cultivating for the sake of a fine story.

The last book in the series, Harrow and Harvest, takes place during the English Civil War between the Royalists and the Roundheads in the 1640’s. The family is in decline, and the family secrets have been all but lost. Nicholas Highwood and his sister Cecelia are managing Mantlemass, barely, when a distant relative from an estranged part of the family shows up with possibly a better claim to the inheritance. All of this family drama is made almost irrelevant by the approach of war and the necessity to declare their loyalties either to the king or to Parliament. Again, there are traitors in their midst, and the ironworks is a source of support and contention.

I thought the story ended well, and I very much enjoyed the ride. Again, I think this series could be an excellent period drama series along the lines of Poldark or Downton Abbey, but it’s better than Poldark since the characters never do anything that is wildly out of character as they sometimes do in Winston Graham’s series. I definitely recommend this series to fans of the family saga or British historical novels.

It’s May!

May3

Merry, rollicking, frolicking May
Into the woods came skipping one day;
She teased the brook till he laughed outright.
And gurgled and scolded with all his might;
She chirped to the birds and bade them sing
A chorus of welcome to Lady Spring;
And the bees and butterflies she set
To waking the flowers that were sleeping yet.
She shook the trees till the buds looked out
To see what the trouble was all about,
And nothing in Nature escaped that day
The touch of the life-giving bright young May.

~George MacDonald

Miss Flora McFlimsey’s May Day by Mariana.

I’m a day or two late and a dollar short, as the saying goes, but this vintage picture book by the author who went by the one name Mariana (Marian Foster Curtiss) is a perfect pick for reading aloud anytime in May. “[T]he nineteenth-century poem by William Allen Butler about the original Miss Flora McFlimsey . . . was her inspiration for the Miss Flora stories.” The poem is worth reading in its own right, but it really has little to do with Mariana’s creation of a doll character, Miss Flora McFlimsey, who stars in her own series of nine mostly holiday-themed books:

Miss Flora McFlimsey and the Baby New Year
Miss Flora McFlimsey’s Birthday
Miss Flora McFlimsey’s Christmas Eve
Miss Flora McFlimsey’s Easter Bonnet
Miss Flora McFlimsey’s Halloween
Miss Flora McFlimsey and Little Laughing Water
Miss Flora McFlimsey and the Little Red Schoolhouse
Miss Flora McFlimsey’s May Day
Miss Flora McFlimsey’s Valentine

Miss Flora McFLimsey’s May Day tells the story of how Miss Flora wakes up on the first of May feeling ugly, unloved, and unwanted, and through a series events in which she is given opportunity to help others, improves her mood and has a happy day. The book isn’t preachy at all, and yet it teaches a lesson: we can gain contentment through serving others and forgetting about ourselves.

I haven’t actually read the other Miss Flora McFlimsey books, but I would think they would be worth seeking out, simply on the strength of this one May Day book alone. The lovely watercolor illustrations, also by Mariana, add to the book’s sense of classic delight and wonder.

Do you know of any other picture books or poems that specifically refer to the moth of May?

Cuddle Doon by Alexander Anderson

Apr30

Alexander Anderson, a Scottish poet you’ve probably never heard of, was born on this date in 1845. His father worked in a stone quarry, and according to Wikipedia, so did Alexander, beginning at the age of sixteen. However, he found enough leisure time and reading material to teach himself German, French, and Spanish! And then he proceeded to read “the chief masterpieces in these languages.”

In 1870, when he was 25 years old, he began to send poetry in to the newspaper, and he signed his poems, The Surfaceman, because by this time he was working as a surfaceman (some kind of laborer) on the railway. People liked his poems well enough for him to have three or four books of poetry published, and he eventually became an assistant librarian, then head librarian, at the University of Edinburgh.

He wrote this poem, Cuddle Doon, about my children when I was trying to get them to go to bed, rather some children whose mother is putting them to bed. It’s worth reading through the Scots dialect to enjoy the sentiment and humor.

The bairnies cuddle doon at nicht
Wi muckle faught and din.
“Oh try an’ sleep, ye waukrife rogues,
Your faither’s comin’ in.”
They niver heed a word I speak,
I try tae gie a froon,
But aye I hap’ them up an’ cry
“Oh, bairnies, cuddle doon!”

Wee Jamie wi’ the curly heid,
He aye sleeps next the wa’
Bangs up and cries, “I want a piece!”
The rascal starts them a’.
I rin and fetch them pieces, drinks,
They stop a wee the soun’,
Then draw the blankets up an’ cry,
“Noo, weanies, cuddle doon.”

But ere five minutes gang, wee Rab
Cries oot frae neath the claes,
“Mither, mak’ Tam gie ower at aince,
He’s kittlin’ wi’ his taes.”
The mischief in that Tam for tricks,
He’d bother half the toon,
But aye I hap them up an’ cry,
“Oh, bairnies, cuddle doon!”

At length they hear their faither’s fit
An’ as he steeks the door,
They turn their faces tae the wa’
An Tam pretends tae snore.
“Hae a’ the weans been gude?” he asks,
As he pits aff his shoon.
“The bairnies, John, are in their beds
An’ lang since cuddled doon!”

An’ just afore we bed oorsel’s
We look at oor wee lambs,
Tam has his airm roun’ wee Rab’s neck
An Rab his airm roun’ Tam’s.
I lift wee Jamie up the bed
An’ as I straik each croon,
I whisper till my heart fills up:
“Oh, bairnies, cuddle doon!”

The bairnies cuddle doon at nicht
Wi’ mirth that’s dear tae me.
But soon the big warl’s cark an’ care
Will quaten doon their glee.
Yet come what will to ilka ane,
May He who rules aboon,
Aye whisper, though their pows be bald:
“Oh, bairnies, cuddle doon!”

The Eldest Son by Barbara Willard

Apr24

The Eldest Son is the third book in Barbara Willard’s Mantlemass Chronicles series. In the two first books of the series, The Lark and the Laurel and A Sprig of Broom, the two families, whose lives become intertwined by marriage and by incident in the books, are founded and begin their multi-generational saga. These families, the Mallorys and the Medleys have a family secret that is passed down from generation to generation. And there are family traits, talents, and curses that are also inherited, sometimes twisted, combined and re-combined to display themselves in new and interesting ways.

The Eldest Son focuses on the family of Master Medley, the owner and patriarch of Ghylls Hatch, a horse breeding farm near Mantlemass Manor in Sussex. The book takes place in and around Ashdown Forest, which coincidentally is also the setting of A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the Pooh. Also near Ashdown Forest is the castle where Henry VIII courted Anne Boleyn, but although The Eldest Son is set in 1534, about the time that Henry VIII was disrupting his household, the church, and the whole of England for the sake of a son, Anne Boleyn doesn’t come into the story. The ripple-effects of Henry VIII’s feud with the Catholic Church do work their way into the story, though.

Master Medley’s eldest son is Harry, who receives the nickname “young falcon” from his mother, daughter to the Mallory family of Mantlemass Manor. “For . . . you do ever hover above what you most desire. And though you might see it to be wrong, and know it to be so, and know you must wait to take it, yet you will have it–and like the falcon, swoop at last, and carry it away.” In short, Harry is a stubborn man with strong ideas and desires. And unlike his younger brother Piers, Harry does not wish to be a breeder of horses like his father. Instead, Harry is drawn to the new and exciting work of the iron foundries that are becoming the mainstay of the area’s economy in Tudor England.

The Lark and the Laurel was a book about marriage, what it means and what it can become, both for good and for evil. The Eldest Son is a book about the relationship between father and son and about the bond between brothers. It also features a conflict between a man’s vocation and his devotion to family and place. Harry does not love horses as his brother Piers does, nor is Harry content to follow the family business in spite of his own inclinations, as the youngest of the three brothers Richard seems destined to do. Harry’s falcon-like stubbornness and focus are both his strength and his weakness as he works throughout the story to become his own man and yet be responsible to his family.

These books remind me of the Poldark saga series of novels by Winston Graham. Both series chronicle the lives and fortunes of families in rural England, far from the centers of power in London and in the coastal port cities. Sussex and Ashdown Forest are only about thirty miles south of London, but in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when travel was by foot or by horse, it might as well have been a hundred miles away or more. Similarly, Cornwall, where the Poldark novels of the eighteenth century are set, is in the far south of England, isolated from the seat of governmental and economic power in England, but affected by the decisions made in those places nonetheless. As history swirls about these families, they both influence and are influenced by the times that they live in and the changes that are taking place in their respective centuries.

I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the books in the Mantlemass Chronicles:

The Sprig of Broom (1485)
The Lark and the Laurel (1485)
The Eldest Son (1534)
A Cold Wind Blowing (1536)
The Iron Lily (1557)
A Flight of Swans (1588)
Harrow and Harvest (1642)

These books take us through English history from the Battle of Bosworth, to the reign of the Tudor kings, to Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, to the Spanish Armada, to another English civil war between Cromwell’s Roundheads and the King’s Royalists or Cavaliers. During all these great events the families in and around the manor house Mantlemass—-Mallorys, Medleys, Plashets, and Hollands–-pursue their own ends and keep their own secrets. From reading the synopses of these other novels in the series, I can see that marriage and romance and family secrets and loyalty and independence continue to be themes that Ms. Willard explores in her books. I’m going to enjoy exploring with her and her characters.

This book is an example of the kind of young adult literature I wish were being written and published nowadays. It’s exciting, with full and subtle characterization, and respectful to young adult readers who really can appreciate something more than vampires and dystopias and love triangles. By the way, I think these novels would make a really good historical mini-series, like Poldark, if anyone has the ear of a good producer who is interested in making the next big PBS or BBC hit series.