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) 

Just Harriet by Elana K. Arnold

Dec27

Harriet begins narrating her book by telling the readers a few things about herself:

  • She just finished third grade.
  • She has a perfect cat named Matzo Ball.
  • She sometimes has nightmares.
  • She doesn’t always tell the truth.
  • And sometimes, when she’s embarrassed or mad or gets caught in a lie, Harriet becomes (what her Mom calls) “out of hand.”

Harriet really is a bit of (what I call) a pill. She frequently and impulsively tells little lies and obviously transparent lies either to get what she wants or to escape the consequences of her behavior. I don’t really have much of a tolerance for lying, so I had trouble sympathizing with Harriet at first. But . . . she kind of, sort of won me over in spite of myself. The author does a good job of telling this story from Harriet’s immature and emotionally unregulated point of view. I could have done a better job as a parent in understanding my own children’s immaturity and lack of impulse control. And maybe this story would be helpful to parents as well as comforting to children in that respect.

Anyway, Harriet has a lot on her plate. Her mother is pregnant, expecting a little brother for Harriet, even though Harriet thinks a family of three is just the right size. What’s more Mom’s been put on bed rest, and Harriet is being sent to spend the summer with her Nanu, who runs a bed and breakfast inn on Marble Island off the coast of California. Harriet refuses to go. But Mom and Dad don’t take no for an answer.

The story involves a mysterious key, a look into Harriet’s dad’s boyhood, and a “gingerbread house” full of treasure. Harriet continues to be a handful throughout the story, but most of her lies and misadventures are good-natured misunderstandings, the result of confusion and inability to express her feelings properly. Harriet’s parents and grandmother don’t condone the lying, but they don’t really confront it either. I would probably be a bit more strict with a child like Harriet, but God didn’t give me a Harriet. Like all of the children, even the fictional ones, she’s one of a kind.

The book is 196 pages long with fairly large print, so about a second or third grade reading level. I’d recommend it, not as bibliotherapy for children who tell lies, but just as a good story.

Happy Little Family by Rebecca Caudill

Dec26

Happy Little Family by Rebecca Caudill, illustrated by Decie Merwin. Holt, RInehart, and Winston, 1947.

“It was January, and the morning was very cold. Icicles hung from the porch roof in a stiff ruffle. Sparrows sat hunched in the bare branches of the cherry tree, saying nothing. Only the wind made a noise. It howled down the mountain and whistled through the valley. It moaned in the pine trees and roared at the kitchen door. And everywhere it blew, it swept snowflakes before it and left them in deep white drifts.”

p.1

Happy Little Family is the first in a series of books about a rural Kentucky family–Father, Mother, and five children–and their tame, but engaging adventures in growing up on a farm in the mountains. I’ve heard about these books for a long time, but I’ve never read them. I love Ms. Caudill’s writing style which uses repetition and simple but rich descriptors to set a tone for a story featuring Bonnie, the youngest child in the happy little family, and her quest to go from being little to being big. Bonnie is four years old at the beginning of the book, almost five at the end, and she is determined to be big enough to do all the things that her older brother and sisters do.

It’s a short book, only five chapters or stories, each one posing a question related to Bonnie’s growth over the course of the year. Is Bonnie really old enough to go ice skating with the older children? Which is better, a new straw hat with white streamers down the back or a pretty and practical pink sunbonnet? Who can win the special arrowhead that Father found by doing something very brave and very wise? What is to be done when one suddenly loses a special red toboggan? And what makes a journey complete?

This book would make a lovely January read aloud book for a group of four or five year olds over the course of a week (a chapter a day) or even five weeks (a chapter a week). And older children would enjoy it, too. I think the books get a little older in content and in vocabulary as the series progresses, but not too much. It’s probably a good series for ages four to about nine or ten.

The four books in the Fairchild Family series are:

  1. Happy Little Family
  2. Schoolhouse in the Woods
  3. Up and Down a River
  4. Schoolroom in the Parlor

My library copy of Happy Little Family has a note and signature from the author. James Ayars was Rebecca Caudill’s husband. I’m not sure why he signed the book with her, nor am I able to make out the inscription: “[something] your family happy too,” maybe?

The Christmas Crocodile by Bonny Becker

Dec21

“The Christmas Crocodile didn’t mean to be bad, not really.”

When Alice and Jayne and her family find a crocodile under the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, they really don’t know what to do. “He was eating up Christmas and no one knew what to do with him.” What would you do with a crocodile on Christmas?

This book is a hilarious, ridiculous romp about a compassionate family with a crocodile problem. The illustrations by David Small are cartoonish, which is not usually my preference, but for this humorous story, the pictures are appropriate and add to the silliness. This one is a must-add to the holiday picture book shelf. I’m wrapping up my copy for this year’s box of “12 Books of Christmas” for my three year old grandson and his little sister, and I really think Teddy will find it laugh out loud funny. However, older children will also enjoy the fun and will perhaps understand the ending which will probably elude the understanding of the three year old.

The Christmas Crocodile is in print, available wherever you buy books, and also available for checkout from my library (after Mr. Teddy returns it). It would probably be just as good an after-Christmas read as before, especially since you will be discussing what might happen after the ending page.

Santa Mouse Stories by Michael Brown

Dec7

My compilation of these stories about Santa’s mouse helper, includes three stories: Santa Mouse; Santa Mouse, Where Are You?; and Santa Mouse Meets Montague. In the first story we meet a humble little mouse with no name. When this little mouse does something kind and actually meets Santa himself, he gets a name and a mission. In Santa Mouse, Where Are You?, Santa’s little mouse helper, now called Santa Mouse, becomes lost in the cold and the snow and experiences a sort of miracle when a light leads him to warmth and safety. “Montague Mouse was a mean little thing who often behaved like a rat.” The third story begins with these words, but over the course of the story Montague is taught a lesson. And he learns to believe in Santa Claus and Santa Mouse.

These are simple stories with the moral: behave yourself, and leave a piece of cheese for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. These books are all about Santa, so if you don’t have that tradition as part of your Christmas, these won’t be for you. But if you’re a Santa believer–or even as we were a Santa pretender–these little stories will hit just the right note of wonder and fun and imagination for preschoolers. I think I could manage to read these repeatedly over the Christmas season without becoming a babbling idiot–an important quality in a book for two to four year olds.

And there are dozens of Santa Mouse and Santa Mouse spin-off books and even merchandise, coloring books, board books, etc. You can read a more critical review at Kirkus Reviews. But I suggest you add it to your Christmas repertoire, if you run across a copy.

The Christmas Anna Angel by Ruth Sawyer

Dec6

The Christmas Anna Angel by Ruth Sawyer, illustrated by Kate Seredy. Viking Press, 1944. (Christmas in Hungary, c.1918)

“Here is one of those heart-warming tales that never grow old but take their place on the Christmas shelf to become year after year a part of the family Christmas. Ruth Sawyer heard the story from a friend named Anna, whose little girlhood was spent on a Hungarian farm where her own Christmas Anna Angel came to her. Miss Sawyer’s text and Kate Seredy’s lovely drawings retell the tale with a feather-light touch that would not brush away the loveliness of a dream or of a little child’s belief in Christmas.

~New York TImes

This book is absolutely beautiful. The story is great, but the text combined with the illustrations make the book a children’s masterpiece. Miklos and his older sister Anna are growing up on a farm during the later years of World War I. The book begins on St. Nicholas Eve, “the day that begins the Christmas time,” and ends on Christmas Day. In between, Anna tells Miklos about Christmases past, before the war, when there was plenty of flour and honey and eggs and fuel for the baking of Christmas cakes to hang on the Christmas tree. And as the children welcome St. Nicholas on his day, celebrate St. Lucy’s Day, and wonder at the marvels of the Christmas Eve celebration, Anna maintains her faith that the angels in heaven, especially her own Christmas Anna Angel, will see to the baking of Christmas cakes in spite of the war conditions and privations.

This story is Hungarian Catholic in its culture and setting; Protestant readers may have to explain about talking and praying to saints and going to Mass on Christmas Eve. However, it’s also a very Christian book, with an emphasis on the true wonder and meaning of Christmas and the coming of the Christ Child while holding onto a child’s ability to imagine and embroider even in wartime. I wish I could send a copy of this story to every child in Ukraine this Christmas, along with a copy of the gospel of Luke, to give them hope and imagination and joy in their time of war.

Whatever war or harshness is in your life this Christmas, I wish for you, too, some hope and joy and Christmas cakes. If you get a chance to read The Christmas Anna Angel this Christmas and you like it, I recommend Kate Seredy’s books, The Good Master and The Singing Tree, both also set before and during World War I in Hungary and quite reminiscent of Ruth Sawyer’s Christmas story.

The Christmas Pony by Helen McCully and Dorothy Crayder

Dec3

The Christmas Pony by Helen McCully and Dorothy Crayder, illustrated by Robert J. Lee. Bobbs-Merrill, 1967. (Christmas in Nova Scotia, Canada, 1912)

Catching the apple, Helen had been tempted to smile, but since the best way to enjoy the marsh was to be unhappy, she was determined to remain so.

The McCullys and the cats coexisted with the understanding that people were people and cats were cats and it was neither possible nor desirable for it to be otherwise. This understanding made for mutual enjoyment.

Mrs. McCully did not believe in her children’s being sick and consequently they very rarely were. And when they were, they were never allowed to be very sick. Being sick was for people who had nothing better to do.

Every year, two days before Christmas the doors to the Big Rooms and the dining room were closed tight and were not to be opened until Christmas morning. To the children, it was always as if a stage were being set behind those closed doors and when at last they were opened, the play would begin.

The children now began a two-day siege compounded of excitement, fidgets, and the need to be on their best behavior or Santa Claus might have some second thoughts. Deep down in their hearts, the children believed that Santa Claus was a loyal, generous friend who accepted the good with the bad, but they were leery of making a test case of it.

Helen McCully, one of the authors of this brief Christmas novelette (101 pages), is also one of the three children who celebrate a Christmas to remember in this story set in Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada. The tone and writing of the story, which is sampled in the quotes above, reminded me of old-fashioned magazine story writing from the 1950’s and 60’s, and indeed Ms. McCully and Ms. Crayder both had experience writing for women’s magazines as well as radio plays and television. The Christmas Pony tells about Helen, her brother Robert, and her little sister Nora and the surprise gift that they received one Christmas.

This book would make a wonderful read aloud story sometime during the Christmas season, but there is a rather big risk. The book begins with the statement, “Every child should have a pony.” If you think you can read the story and remain indifferent to the desire for a real, live pony of your own, or if you think your children can contain themselves, then this book is a delight.

The First Noel by Alice and Martin Provensen

Dec2

The First Noel, The Birth of Christ from the Gospel according to Saint Luke. Illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen. Golden Press, 1959. (Christmas in Israel, c.4 BC)

The text for this book is simply taken from scripture, Luke 2:1-20, King James Version. The end papers consist of just the words from Isaiah 9:6-7, “For unto us a child’s born . . .” But the typeface is beautiful, and along with the illustrations, it looks a little bit like an illuminated medieval manuscript. Just a beautiful book, telling a beautiful story.

Interestingly enough for 1959, almost all of the people in the book are varying shades of dark-skinned–brown, tan, black . . . The angels’ faces, however, are white/colorless??? I don’t know what’s up with that, but I did think it was intriguing—and uncharistically accurate. The book has a bit of an Orthodox or Middle Eastern feel to it with round halos around the heads of Mary and Joseph and the angels and Jesus and onion domes and arches on many of the buildings.

Anyway, this book would be lovely introduction to the story of Jesus’ birth for preschoolers and primary aged children, or even older. And it’s long and sort of tall, 9″ x 5″, just the right size to tuck into a Christmas stocking. Unfortunately, it’s a unicorn, out of print, selling for over a hundred dollars a copy on Amazon. If you see a copy at a used book sale or thrift shop, grab it.

If you’re interested in this book or in the work of Alice and Martin Provensen, there’s a new book, published just this year (2022), called The Art of Alice and Martin Provensen. It’s a book showcasing the Provensens’ artwork, with some tributes contributed by their daughter Karen Provensen Mitchell, publisher Robert Gottleib, and children’s literature expert Leonard S. Marcus. (It’s still in print, and much less expensive than The First Noel.)

The Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink

Dec1

The Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink. Illustrated by Sheila Greenwald. (Christmas in Florida, c. 1959)

People in Minnesota do not paint their buildings pink. So when the Mellen family–Father, Mother, Kirby, and his little sister Bitsy—head for Florida to claim the motel that their mother’s great-uncle Hiram has left to them in his will, they are surprised by the unusual color of the seven little cottages that make up Uncle Hiram’s legacy, The Pink Motel. “The inheritance was really like a Christmas present, for it arrived just before the beginning of Christmas vacation.” The plan is for the Mellens to use the children’s Christmas vacation to “fly down to Florida, put the motel in running order, and sell it before time for the children to go back to school.”

Kirby and Bitsy wear their pinkest accessories to go to Florida, but even they are astounded at just how pink the The Pink Motel really is. “It was pinker than Kirby’s necktie or Bitsy’s hair ribbon. It was pink, pink, PINK. On the small square of lawn in front of the motel two life-sized plaster flamingos were standing, and they were pink, too.” And more than just very pink, the motel turns out to be a locus for mystery and adventure. The guests are eccentric. The weather vanes on top of each cottage are all different and artistically rendered. The office is pleasantly untidy, like a pack rat’s hoard. The palm trees sway, and the coconuts are abundant.

There really isn’t much reference to Christmas in this story, but it does all take place during the Christmas season. Bitsy and Kirby make two new friends, and the four children along with various adult motel guests have adventures involving a live alligator, a magician, two gangsters, an abstract modern artist, coconuts, and all of the secrets Uncle Hiram has left behind. It’s a slightly unbelievable, even wacky, story about resolving differences, leaning into adventure, and creating community in unlikely spaces. I was at first intrigued and then delighted by Kirby and Bitsy and Big and Sandra Brown and all the adventures they have together and the mysteries they solve as they explore the Pink Motel and its surroundings.

This book, first published in 1959, has been out of print for quite some time, but it was recently republished by Echo Point Books and Media in Battleboro, Vermont. I am so grateful that I was able to purchase and read this classic story of Floridian adventures. If you’re from Florida, you should certainly grab a copy, and if you’re not, you’ll still enjoy the humor and the joie de vivre of this pink Christmas book.

Content considerations: Big, the children’s first friend in Florida, is described as “a little colored boy” who helps out at the motel, running errands, sweeping, and carrying bags. The children and the adults treat Big just as they treat each other, with no reference to race or racial tension or differences. “Colored” would have been one of the preferred terms in Florida at the time for a black child, and I don’t see that it’s that different from “person of color”, the term that some people use nowadays. Just FYI.