Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor by Emily Arnold McCully.
I first heard of Margaret Knight as a minor character in Christopher Healy’s book A Dastardly Plot, the first in his new series Perilous Journey of Danger & Mayhem about a late nineteenth century girl and her mother, both of whom are inventors. The girl, Molly Pepper, is a fictional character, but the characters and events that swirl around her madcap adventures are not all fictional: Edison, Tesla, Alexander Graham Bell, and of course, Margaret E. Knight.
Margaret Knight was born February 14, 1838. Young Margaret began inventing useful things when she was a child, always sketching ideas and using her tools to build things. Ms.Knight grew up in near-poverty, her father deceased, and went to work in a cotton mill at the age of twelve. As an adult, Ms. Knight had many inventions and over twenty patents to her name by the time of her death in 1914, earning her the title in the popular press of the “Lady Edison.” She had to defend her work in court as a man who tried to steal her ideas said she “could not possibly understand the mechanical complexities” of her own machine, a machine that made flat-bottomed paper bags. But Margaret was able to demonstrate her capabilities in the courtroom, and she won her case.
Another picture book biography about Margaret Knight, in the Great Idea Series by Monica Kulling, is titled In the Bag! Margaret Knight Wraps It Up. I haven’t read this second picture book bio, but it looks good. I think either book would be a lovely way to kick off Women’s History Month in March or to begin a study of inventors and inventions anytime of the year. Then, as an activity or experiment, try folding and cutting a piece of paper to make a paper bag with a flat bottom, and imagine building machine that would make these paper bags for widespread use.
If you are interested in purchasing ($5.00) a curated list of favorite picture book biographies with over 300 picture books about all sorts of different people, email me at sherryDOTpray4youATgmailDOTcom. I’m highlighting picture book biographies in March. What is your favorite picture book about a real person?
The problem with a historical novel that is “based on the true story of a forgotten hero” is that the reader is left wondering how much of the story is fiction and how much is fact. Especially when the protagonist of the novel is a World War II hero, which is relatively recent history. If a historical novel is about Cleopatra or Marco Polo, one can assume that most of the dialog and much of the action is made up while the timeline is essentially accurate, if the author did his research. But with a more recent figure and time period, a book about someone who actually gave extensive interviews to Mr. Sullivan, it’s harder to separate fact from fiction. And if I’m reading about a “forgotten hero” like Pino Lella, I can’t even scramble for a biography to fact check as I could with Winston Churchill or General Patton, fo examples.
However, despite the fact that my thoughts persisted in returning to the question of whether this or that episode in the novel “really happened” or really happened the way it was portrayed in the novel, I did enjoy this World War II tale set in northern Italy, mostly Milan, during the last gasps of the war, 1943-1945. The book raises the questions of what makes a hero and what defines a traitor. If you do something to fight against evil, but you don’t do everything you could do because that would cost you your life, is it enough? What if you do some good in the midst of great evil only as a means of hedging your bets? When is action in the face of overwhelming force, honorable and courageous, and when does it become merely quixotic and foolish?
I have read and watched other books and movies about the war in Italy. The following are the most memorable:
My Italian Secret: The Forgotten Heroes is a documentary about heroes of the struggle against Facism and Nazi Germany in Italy during World War II, particularly about some of those who rescued Jews from the Germans. I thought it was quite illuminating. The documentary features world class cyclist Gino Bartali, who secretly worked for the Italian underground during the war. (In Beneath a Scarlet Sky, Pino Lella learns to drive from Alberto Ascari, a race car driver who went on to become a Formula One World Champion after the war.)
A Bell for Adano by John Hersey won the Pulitzer Prize in 1945. It’s about Major Victor Joppolo, an Italian American officer in the U.S. army who was “more or less the American mayor after our invasion” of Adano a small village in Sicily.
God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State by Lawrence Wright.
Mr. Wright, a native Texan, is as ambivalent about Texas and Texan culture as the rest of the country is. I found his book to be both annoying and fascinating–like watching a meandering train near-miss, not exactly a wreck but definitely wandering off the rails. If Mr. Wright had a plan or an outline or a thesis for his opus on Texas, I failed to discern it. Instead it reads like a bunch of essays or magazine articles cobbled together. And he ends the book with a whimper rather than a bang. After repeatedly musing about whether or not he should have stayed in Texas or moved to New York or Washington, D.C., he finally decides that it’s too late to change his mind. I join in his wonderment at why he stayed and continues to do so.
“Because Texas is a part of almost everything in modern America—the South the West, the Plains, Hispanic and immigrant communities, the border, the divide between rural areas and cities—what happens here tends to disproportionately affect the rest of the nation.” I gathered that Mr. Wright thought that the rest of the nation thought that Texas influence and power was mostly a bad thing, but I couldn’t really tell whether Mr. Wright thought it was bad. Maybe the rest of Texas would catch up to progressive Austin, and then it would all be O.K. Again, with the ambivalence.
The writing in this book is good and clear and engaging. The ideas that Wright writes about are not. He consistently, and in not too subtle a way, displays his disdain for what he calls “AM Texas”, “the suburbs and the rural areas–Trumpland. It’s endless bluster and endless ads. Paranoia and piety are the main items on the menu.” In contrast, FM Texas is “progressive, blue, reasonable, secular, and smug—almost like California.” Lawrence Wright comes across smug in this book, and his assumption that I share his FM Texas superiority and progressive politics just because I listen to FM radio and didn’t vote for Trump was off-putting and kept drawing me out of his narrative and his stories. I would have enjoyed the stories more without the moralizing.
A lot of the book is about Texas politics, which you either have an interest in or not. I do. And the stories Wright tells about Texas politicians and their foibles are worth the read. However, I just wish he had kept his own personal reservations and hesitations and conflicting feelings about Texas and its culture and politics out of the book—or else he could have said up front, “I’m a progressive, and a self-hating Texan. I want Texas to be more like California, but I don’t want to move and go to California. And of course, this is the reasonable way to view Texas.” Well, to be fair, he practically did say just that over the course of the book. Just with more words.
Although Saint Valentine was probably a real man, martyred sometime during the third century (c.269 AD), separating fact from legend in regard to his life and work is not likely to be successful. Primary, contemporary sources for his biography do not exist. So biographers of the man who came to be identified with the holiday celebrated on February 14th, Valentine’s Day, are more storytellers and makers of legend than anything else. Illustrator and author Robert Sabuda gives us his own version of the story of Saint Valentine in this beautiful picture book, suitable for all ages.
Sabuda chooses to portray Valentine as a Christian doctor whose treatment to attempt healing of his jailer friend’s blind daughter have been unsuccessful. Nevertheless, Valentine continues to apply healing ointment to the girl’s eyes, and the jailer, the daughter, and Valentine become good friends. When Christians are blamed for “an uprising in the streets”, Valentine is arrested and sentenced to die. He sends a note and a flower to his friend, the little blind girl, and the girl is healed and able to see the yellow flower that is Valentine’s dying gift.
That’s the essence of the story as Sabuda tells it, but of course, his text is much more vibrant than my summary. And the beautiful mosaic illustrations that accompany the story are both inspiring and evocative of the early Christian era in which the story takes place. Sabuda’s story of Saint Valentine would be a lovely addition to the holiday celebration for young and old alike.
For more Valentine’s Day celebration suggestions, check out these links:
NOTE: I’m writing a series of posts on some of my favorite picture book biographies. For more picture book biography suggestions, check out the following: Read Aloud Revival: Picture Book Biographies We Love Redeemed Reader: Picture Book Biographies Booklist
In addition, I have my own list of more than 100 picture book biographies that I am willing to share with you for a contribution of just $5.00 payable via PayPal. This list is currently in a Word document, unfinished and still under construction. If you are interested in purchasing a copy of the list, just email me at sherryDOTpray4youATgmailDOTcom.
Monsieur Marceau: Actor Without Words by Leda Schubert, illustrated by Gerard Dubois. Roaring Brook Press, 2012.
Look at this man.
He climbs imaginary stairs.
He bows to an invisible person.
He tames a lion no one can see.
He plays a violin that isn’t there.
He does not speak.
His name is Marcel Marceau, and he is a mime.
An introduction to the French artist Marcel Marceau and to the ancient art of mime, this picture book would be an excellent one to read aloud to a group of young aspiring actors. I am fascinated myself by the idea of silence: what does it mean to be quiet, to refrain from speaking, to let one’s actions and gestures speak instead of the voice, to refuse to add to the clamor of voices and words that pervades our culture and our world. Marceau is quoted in this book, “Never get a mime talking. He won’t stop.” And my own experiments in silence have not lasted very long. I’m not even sure what the attraction is, why I have wanted to see how long I could last without speaking any words. I don’t know why I have marked in my Bible the many injunctions to “keep silent” (Proverbs 11:12) and “be still” (Psalm 46:10 and “control your tongue” (James 3:1-12) and just be quiet or use fewer words (Psalm 141:3; Proverbs 10:14; Proverbs 15: 1,2,4,7,28). But silence and the art of mime are a pet fascination of mine.
So, Marcel Marceau. I found a lot about him that I didn’t know from reading this 32 page picture book. He was Jewish. He was active in the French underground during World War II. His father died in a Nazi concentration camp during the war. He changed his name from Mangel to Marceau to conceal his Jewish heritage, but he said that He created the character Bip, named after the Dickens hero Pip in Great Expectations (Bip sounded better than “Peep” in French.) His screen idol was Charlie Chaplin.
The author also implies that Marceau was the originator of the famous dictum (a riff on Tolkien): “Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.” But the internet collectively seems to think that he origin of the proverb is indeterminate. And it’s morphed into dragons instead of wizards since the time Marceau said it.
Anyway, it’s a great picture book, and it made me want to read more, which is the entire purpose of picture book nonfiction, is it not? Well, also good pictures that make you want to see more are a purpose and an advantage, too. And this book has lovely colored paintings of Marceau is various poses, mostly on a solid white or dark background, to symbolize the silence around him, I suppose. As far as reading more, there’s a list of four books for further reading in the back of the book. And you can see the silent art of Marcel Marceau in this video (and many others on youtube):
Note: I’m beginning today a series of posts on some of my favorite picture book biographies. For more picture book biography suggestions, check out the following: Read Aloud Revival: Picture Book Biographies We Love Redeemed Reader: Picture Book Biographies Booklist
I have my own list of more than 300 picture book biographies that I am willing to share with you for a contribution of just $5.00 payable via PayPal. This list is currently in a Excel document, unfinished and still under construction. If you are interested in having a copy of the list, just email me at sherryDOTpray4youATgmailDOTcom.
Well, today is the anniversary of the birth of perhaps America’s most beloved president, Abraham Lincoln. (Only George Washington, whose birthday is also this month, rivals Lincoln in fame and veneration.) So, although I didn’t plan it, I picked a good day to have finished reading this biography of Lincoln’s stepmother and to post some thoughts on it.
This Messner biography is written for upper elementary and middle school readers, perhaps high school, although today’s young adult readers might find it a bit too unsophisticated for their tastes. The book certainly idealizes Sarah Lincoln and her stepson, Abe, while characterizing Abe’s father, Thomas Lincoln, as somewhat lazy and lacking in ambition. In this lightly fictionalized biography, Sarah Bush Lincoln is the backbone and foundation of the Lincoln family, careful to respect her husband, but always encouraging him to do more, provide more, and work harder. Abe Lincoln is the child prodigy, hard worker, and studious young man that Sarah Lincoln is proud to encourage and support.
It all makes for a very readable and interesting introduction to the life of Abraham Lincoln, and the book shows the importance of the influence of a good parent on the lives of the children. Although Abe Lincoln is the focus of Sarah’s attention and love in the book, the other Lincoln children also grow to be capable adults under the tutelage of their hard-working mother and despite the example of their rolling stone of a father. Well, mostly they grow up to be responsible adults. The book indicates that the youngest of Sarah’s three children from a previous marriage, John Johnston, is not very dependable as an adult. I looked up John on the internet and found this letter that Abraham Lincoln wrote to his step-brother in 1851, about nine years before Lincoln became president. So, I’m guessing that the author of this biography of John’s mother got John’s character pegged just about right.
I also read the Wikipedia article about Abe’s father, Thomas Lincoln, and from I can glean there, Ms. Bailey’s portrait of Thomas rings fair and true. At any rate, this biography, at a little more than 200 pages, gives a brief but tantalizing view of Lincoln’s childhood and early adulthood, of his relationship with his family, especially Sarah Bush Lincoln, and of his rise to prominence. The book would be inspiring to mothers and to children as they read of the obstacles that Sarah Lincoln overcame to provide a loving home and decent provision for a husband and five children. And the book also shows the persistence and loving-kindness of Lincoln himself as he cared for his step-mother at home and even after he left home until the end of his life.
These Messner biographies are quite well written and fascinating. So far I have read and reviewed five of these biographies, including this one about Sarah Lincoln, and I read two more that I didn’t manage to review. So, I’ve read seven in all. And I recommend all seven of those I’ve read in this series.
Margaret Wise Brown, author of The Runaway Bunny and Goodnight Moon as well as more than a hundred other picture books for children, led a troubled and flamboyant life, although she sometimes described herself as a quiet person. I read Marcus’s biography of Ms. Brown, not for the details of her personal life which are rather sad, but rather for the insights into the history of children’s literature in general and the picture book in particular and for the revelations about and appreciation of the educational philosophies that shaped our teaching of small children and our literature for them.
To sweep the personal stuff out of the way: Ms. Brown was almost married on two separate occasions to two different men, had a long affair with an older married man, and entered into a long term romantic (sexual?) relationship with a twenty years older woman, the divorced wife of actor John Barrymore, who called herself Michael Strange (birth name: Blanche Oelrichs). Margaret Wise Brown was prone to depression, excessive guilt, and angst, but she was also quite generous and mentored many writers and illustrators who later became published and famous in their own right.
The really fascinating material in this book, however, concerns the history and direction of children’s literature in the mid-twentieth century. If I understand the issues correctly, Margaret Wise Brown began her writing for children out of the Bank Street Experimental School, where she was mentored by the school’s founder, Lucy Sprague Mitchell. The school taught two things about writing for children: that books should be centered in the “here and now” (no nostalgic fairy-tale type stories of the idyllic past) and that books before being published should be tested and retested on their intended audience, children.
The rivals to this school of children’s literature were the Librarians.The librarians were epitomized by New York Public Library’s head of children’s services, Anne Carroll Moore. Ms. Moore was the recognized authority on children’s books in the years before World War II. “Her stamp of approval or disapproval was often widely accepted as final judgment on a book.” Anne Carroll Moore did not appreciate the “here and now” school of thought and at one point in the book she dismisses a group of pre-publication books brought to her for prior approval by one of Brown’s publishers as “truck”.
The controversy between the here and now school of writers and illustrators—Ruth Krauss, Esphyr Slobodkina, Clement and Edith Thacher Hurd, Leonard Weisgard, and Margaret herself as well as others who followed in their footsteps—and the Librarians and their followers was one of esthetics versus practicality. The Librarians preferred books with the best literary content, the most refined forms of traditional art, and inspiring characters and plot. The Here-and-Now-ers believed in accessible, straightforward prose that was also somewhat poetic in its images that a child could understand and appreciate and contemporary, realistic settings. Even the animal characters in the here-and-now books were not magical or fantastical but rather stand-ins for human characters with here-and-now speech and actions and concerns. Anne Carroll Moore and her librarian coterie championed books such as Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, Marcia Brown’s folk tales such as Cinderella and Stone Soup, and Claire Huchet Bishop’s The Five Chinese Brothers. They liked books set in exotic places and times and books that challenged the literary muscles of children who read them.
Of course, now we look back and say, “Why can’t we have both?” Fantasy and reality, here and now but also there and then, poetry and prose and all things in between. Pictures that are abstract and fantastical and illustrations that are realistic and simple and accessible, all kinds of artistic expression can be found in the picture books of the last century, all beginning with the controversy that eventually resolved into a smorgasbord of picture books for all tastes.
I recommend this biography of Margaret Wise Brown to all those who have an interest in children’s literature and the publishing industry and the educational movements and philosophies of the the twentieth century. There’s much more to read about in the book. I haven’t even talked about the influence of Gertrude Stein on Ms. Brown’s books, an influence I would never have known about if I hadn’t read this book. And just the details of how different books were conceived and brought to fruition was enlightening and thought-provoking. Maybe I should write a picture book, although I’m told, in this biography and in many other things I’ve read, that it’s harder than it looks to write a good children’s picture book.
Well, folks, I thought we had learned. I thought people in the church no longer compared sinful people to broken, damaged roses—or dirty silverware. Yet, my seventeen year old daughter attended a youth retreat this past weekend with a friend from an evangelical church in our area. And the speaker talked about sex and sexual ethics. He (of course, it was a man, speaking to a mixed group of boys and girls, middle school and high school ages) told these precious, beloved young people that if they failed to meet God’s standard in the area of sexual behavior, they would be like dirty silverware. And no one wants to eat with used, dirty silverware! In fact, said the pastor, God can’t and won’t use dirty silverware.
Brothers and sisters, this ought not to be. This preacher was affirming the self-righteousness of those who had not failed in the area of sexual sin (maybe because of lack of opportunity?). Some of the young people cheered him on. What a dangerous thing it is to imply that if you have never expressed your sexuality outside of marriage you are clean before God, and He can thereafter use you to His glory. And he was condemning those who had sinned, in using others for their own sexual pleasure or allowing their bodies to be used for the sexual pleasure of another, to possibly a lifetime of feeling dirty and unwanted. What a dangerous message to preach to a room full of sexual people who are just beginning to learn how to express that sexuality in healthy, God-honoring ways!
Did this preacher mention that every single one of us, whether we have engaged in sexual acts outside of marriage or not, is dirty and sinful before God? In fact, the Bible makes a worse comparison than the dirty silverware analogy; Scripture says that our best works, the things we are most proud of, our good deeds and our righteousness, are all just like filthy, nasty rags in the light of God’s holiness (Isaiah 54:6). Isaiah wasn’t talking about sexual immorality, but rather about the idolatry that God’s people were practicing, that we all practice. In Ephesians 2:1-5, the Bible says that we are not just dirty; we are all dead and buried in sin. We all have sinned, and we all fall short of the glory of God. We try to convince ourselves that we are good people. We keep some rules, maybe the “sex rules” or the “no stealing” rule or the “don’t murder” rule, maybe even all three, and we tell ourselves that we are good people, really, well mostly. But we know deep down inside that we are guilty of being less than the image-bearer of God that we were created to be, that we are not the completely and truly obedient children of a loving and patient God. This doctrine of “total depravity” is not a popular message. But it’s true, and we all stand guilty before a holy God.
However, did this pastor even get to the good news? (I don’t think so, according to my daughter. I wasn’t there, so I can only say that if he did, she didn’t hear it.) We are made to be God’s people in Christ! Jesus cleanses and uses us. While we were still dead and lost and sin-filled and unclean, Jesus died for us! God doesn’t look at us and see dirty silverware or a damaged, irreparable rose, no matter what we have done or failed to do. No, He looks at us, and He sees Jesus. We are clothed in Christ. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. God sees those who come to him in repentance and humility as new creations, the people we were meant to be all along. We are people, made in the image of God, given God’s grace through the cross of Jesus, and called to be the temple of the Holy Spirit living in us. That’s why we respect and care for our own bodies as well as the bodies of others. Jesus’s love for us, body and soul, is why we flee sexual immorality. “Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.” (I Corinthians 6:18, NLT) God loves us just as we are, and He enables us to be clean and forgiven and useful, no matter what we have done to ourselves or to others.
We can use our bodies to serve the One who loves us so much that He died for us! We are alive in Christ, not dead anymore! If we are pure, it is because He purifies us, not because we keep some set of rules. So, love God with your heart and soul and mind and strength. Serve Christ joyfully with your body. And when you mess up, in any way, come to Him for forgiveness and renewal of life. You are not a dirty fork or a broken unwanted rose—you are a child of God.
Ferdinand Magellan, the man who led the first expedition to circumnavigate the globe, was born on February 3, 1480. So, happy belated birthday to Captain Magellan!
I read this *Landmark history book in honor of Magellan’s birthday. It was a somewhat hagiographic volume on the life and work of this Portuguese explorer who took a fleet of Spanish ships and pushed, prodded, and bullied the sailors and officers under his command until they reached the Pacific Ocean, through what are now called the Straits of Magellan. In fact, what most people know about Magellan, that he was the first to sail around the world, is wrong. Magellan only made it to the south Pacific island of Mactan where he was killed in a battle to invade the island, subjugate it to the King of Spain, and convert the natives, by force, to Christianity.
Magellan, at least the way Mr. Pond presents him, was a very forceful and stubborn man. Pond uses adjectives such as “resolute”, “heroic”, “bold”, “brave”, and “perhaps overzealous” to describe Magellan and his actions. In his impatient and overbearing desire to see the islanders convert to Christianity and bow to the sovereign power of Spain, Magellan rushed in to land on the island of Mactan, where the people were hostile to his overtures, and he invaded with only forty-nine armed sailors to support him. The islanders numbered in the thousands, again according to Pond, and Magellan was killed almost immediately. But one of his five ships made it back to Spain with nineteen survivors, out of two hundred sixty seven seamen who set set sail with Magellan three years before.
So, Magellan gets the credit as the first to circumnavigate the globe in 1519-1522. And more than four hundred years later Mr. Seymour Gates Pond writes a book about Magellan and his “heroic courage, the ideal to serve unselfishly a great cause for mankind.” I read recently that courage is the median virtue between cowardice and recklessness, and I would tend to think that Magellan, courageous to a fault, erred on the side of recklessness. Nevertheless, his story was a fascinating look at the perils of exploration in the sixteenth century and the values of a biographer in the mmid-twentieth century. In this time of deconstruction of all heroes, I’m not sure anyone could write such an adulatory biography of Ferdinand Magellan, but I’m glad it exists. The biography is certainly informative and well-written, and as a history read-aloud it could certainly provoke an interesting discussion on leadership and courage and the value of wisdom to temper reckless bravery.
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I read this tome long before there was a musical version, and I devoured it. I stayed up until I fell asleep after 2:00 AM, reading Les Miserables in my dorm room bed, exploring the convents, battlefields, and sewers of Paris and of France, even though I had an 8:00 class to attend that same morning. I recommend plunging headfirst into an unabridged version and enjoying every single minute detail of Victor Hugo’s masterpiece.
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Such a good story. I wish I could find time to re-read it.
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. The Chronicles of Narnia may be my favorite C.S. Lewis books, but The Great Divorce is the one that I would recommend that everyone read. Just remember that it is fiction, not theology, a supposing, not a prophecy.
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton.
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. I also read these books as a teen, long before Peter Jackson made them even more famous than the books already were.
No Graven Image by Elizabeth Elliott. A young missionary finds that God is trustworthy, but not necessarily fathomable. I find the same to be true in my Christian life. This novel and the book of Job are my mainstays in the time of suffering and difficulty.
Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott.
Kristin Lavransdattar by Sigrid Undset. So surprising and so right. Actions and decisions have consequences, and living out the aftermath of good decisions and bad ones is how we learn and grow.
Well, actually the final two books that everyone should read are nonfiction:
The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. Such a good autobiographical story of a family that followed Christ into hard places, step by step, in World War II Holland.
Joni by Joni Eareckson (Tada). Joni was also led into some very hard places, but she found the Lord already there.
I first heard of Margaret Knight as a minor character in Christopher Healy’s book A Dastardly Plot, the first in his new series Perilous Journey of Danger & Mayhem about a late nineteenth century girl and her mother, both of whom are inventors. The girl, Molly Pepper, is a fictional character, but the characters and events that swirl around her madcap adventures are not all fictional: Edison, Tesla, Alexander Graham Bell, and of course, Margaret E. Knight.
