Hannah’s Children by Catherine Ruth Pakaluk

Aug5

Pakaluk, Catherine Ruth. Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth. Regency, 2024.

This book wasn’t what I was expecting when I first heard about it. Written by a Catholic mother of eight children who is also a business school professor with a doctorate in economics, the book begins with what you would expect from a research professor: an academic recital of the facts surrounding the declining birth rates, both in the U.S. and globally. Ms. Pakaluk writes about how the birth rate is very rapidly declining to below replacement level in almost all parts of the world and about the effects of those declining birth rates on the global economy and on political stability. Then, she tells us why she decided to do a “qualitative study” of women who are bucking the trend toward families with fewer and fewer children. She interjects some personal anecdotes and observations, but the first 60 or so pages of the book are mostly academic and statistical facts given as background and justification for what becomes a fascinating story of women who have purposefully chosen to have more than four children.

” In summer 2019, I and my colleague Emily Reynolds traveled to ten American regions and interviewed fifty-five women with five or more children to find out why they do what they do and what they think it means–for themselves, for their families, and for the nation. . . .[T]he heart of the project of this book is conversations with a small number of women about the nature of their childbearing decisions. . . The narratives that make up my data do not yield descriptive statistics or causal inferences.

So a book about motives for having children would be incomplete without the meanings that women attach to the choices they have made–the reasons they wanted kids and the reasons they kept wanting them. To that end, I asked the women in my study to tell me how it started and how it’s going. I have presented their stories in as raw and unedited a form as possible. It was an unqualified privilege to hear the reasons of the heart I am about to share with you.”

I have eight children, so obviously I identify with the women who are profiled in this book. However, I don’t think you have to be a member of the MOMS (Mothers of Many Siblings) club to appreciate the stories and ideas presented in Ms. Pakaluk’s book. You don’t even need to be a mom at all. To be human is surely to think about what we as a society and culture and generation of people are leaving to our posterity, what kind of world we are making and what we as individuals and as family members are contributing to the future. What do our choices mean, and what are the good choices, the best choices not only for ourselves but also for the other humans with whom we share this planet and for those in the future who will inherit it? Whether we’re talking about climate change or expressive individualism or the birth dearth, these things matter immensely.

Unless you are especially sensitive about the subject, this book should not be offensive to those who have made differing choices about family size and number of children. No one is called names like “single cat-lady” in the stories and the recorded words of the women who were interviewed for the study. The women do question their own ideas and motives before and after their decision to have many children, and some of that self examination could be appropriated to offend readers who have made other choices or who have not been given the choices these women have. But for the most part the women in the book are simply telling their own stories of why they believe that giving birth to many children was the right choice for them and for their families. If the shoe fits . . .

I believe Hannah’s Children is an Important Book. It’s one of those books I want to push everyone I know to read and think about. You may not agree with all of the women in the book and their various ideas about family and family size. I don’t myself. However, I do agree with the women in this book who see a culture that has ceased to value motherhood and the raising of children as a vocation. We give mothers lip service on Mother’s Day, but when we see a mother making the daily sacrifices that it takes to raise a family, of whatever size, many turn away and ask, “why would anyone do such a thing?” I won’t give away the answers to that question that are found in Hannah’s Children, partly because the answers are complicated and varied. However, there are good reasons to give birth to children, and very good reasons to have a houseful of them if you can. Let the questioner read and consider.

The Giant Jam Sandwich by John Vernon Lord

Aug1

Lord, John Vernon. The Giant Jam Sandwich. With verses by Janet Burroway. Houghton Mifflin, 1972, 2000.

The setting is the English village of Itching Down. The characters are a full cast of English villagers: Mayor Muddlenut, Baker Bap, Farmer Seed, and more. The problem is wasps, millions of wasps.

They drove the picnickers away,
They chased the farmers from their hay,
They stung Lord Swell on his fat bald pate,
They dived and hummed and buzzed and ate,
And the noisy, nasty nuisance grew
Till the villagers cried, “What can we do?”

Tis’ a puzzlement . . . until Bap the Baker proposes a giant strawberry jam trap. Funny and clever at the same time, this tall tale in rhyme plays out with grace and humor and ties up all the loose ends on the final page.

John Vernon Lord is an award-winning illustrator and a professor of illustration at the University of Brighton in England. Janet Burroway is an American author who collaborated on The Giant Jam Sandwich by taking Lord’s story and putting it into verse. The illustration style is not exactly my favorite: it’s very busy with lots of activity and caricature characters. The pictures feel British somehow, maybe because the architecture of the village and the look of the countryside is very British or European. Nevertheless, perusing those illustrations would give readers, and listeners, a lot of details to explore as they absorb the rollicking story of how the villagers of Itching Down disposed of four million wasps, give or take a few.

This one is in print, but only in paperback. It’s been popular enough that it’s been in print since 1972. And composer Philip Wharton wrote a narrated orchestral work based on the book. Watch out Peter and the Wolf–here comes The Giant Jam Sandwich! Maybe readers and fans could make up their own tunes for Burroway’s verses and sing the story.

The Great Jam Sandwich has been added to the new edition of Picture Book Preschool. This book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

The Letter on the Tree by Natalie Savage Carlson

Jul31

Carlson, Natalie. The Letter on the Tree. Illustrated by John Kaufmann. Harper & Row, 1964. Read for The 1964 Project.

“Albert Caron is really my name but everybody calls me Bébert . . . . ‘It rhymes with gray bear,’ I taught them. Then they liked to say, ‘Hey, there, Bébert, the gray bear.'”

Bébert is a ten year old French Canadian boy who lives with his family on a small dairy farm in Quebec. The family is poor, and although Bébert longs for an accordion like the one he has heard played on the family’s radio, his Papa says that they are too poor to buy one from Pére Noel (Father Christmas). Mamie says that it is God’s will that they are so poor, but perhaps if they work hard, it won’t always be God’s will to keep them in poverty. Bébert tries to think of ways to make the cows that they have give more milk or ways for Papa to earn more money, but none of his ideas work out—until the day that Bébert goes with his Papa to cut Christmas trees to sell. Bébert gets the wonderful idea of writing a letter to whoever gets one of the trees, asking for an accordion for the poor little French boy in Canada whose family is too poor to provide a Christmas gift. Of course, the poor little French boy is Bébert himself.

So, the rest of the story is a lesson, clothed in story, about contentment and hard work and creative problem solving and honesty, but it’s not a preachy or didactic lesson. The book also gives readers a glimpse into a year in the life of a French Canadian farm boy of the mid-twentieth century, with church holy days to celebrate, friends to play with, and always, every day, twice a day, the cows to milk. Bébert is a stolid little boy with ideas that carry him into difficulties sometimes, but also other ideas that truly are a help and support to his family. Bébert learns gratitude for what he has and not to make snap judgements about people over the course of the year, and in the end Bébert has made new friends and grown to love the life that he has instead of longing for what he does not.

The Letter on the Tree is only 116 pages long, and the reading level is about third grade. Boys and girls will enjoy the story of Bébert and his life on the dairy farm, and the book would make a good read aloud bedtime story any time of the year, but maybe especially around Christmas or birthday time when it is easy for children (and adults) to become discontented and greedy and anxious about the gifts that are given and received.

Natalie Savage Carlson wrote several books set in Canada, among the French Canadian people, perhaps because although she was American, born in Virginia, she was of French Canadian descent. Her first published book was The Talking Cat and other stories of French Canada, a collection of folk tales and family stories. She also wrote Jean-Claude’s Island, about a French Canadian boy, living on a small island in the St. Lawrence River, and Chalou, the adventures of a lost farm dog in French Canada. Some of Ms. Carlson’s other stories are set in France, including the Newbery Honor winning book, The Family Under the Bridge and the series about a group of French orphans, The Orphelines.

This book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Secret Castle by Anne Colver

Jul30

Colver, Anne. Secret Castle. Illustrated by Vaike Low. Knopf, 1969.

My copy is a paperback published by American Education Publications. It’s marked on the front cover with a price of 75 cents. The cheapest copy I could find online was $25 for the paperback. The original hardcover is much more expensive. But maybe you can find a copy at your library, if you have a good old-fashioned public library or a private lending library near you.

In this mystery adventure story Molly-O Moore and her good friend Pip Parker go on vacation with Molly’s family to the St. Lawrence Seaway, Alexandria Bay, NY in the Thousand Islands. According to a note at the beginning of the book, “the town of Alexandria Bay, N.Y., Devil’s Oven Island, and the fascinating Boldt Castle itself, landmark of the Thousand Islands, are true settings for this imaginary story.”

Molly-O and Pip are horse-loving, pet owning, ice cream eating, giggly, and adventurous girls (about ten years old, although the book never tells their exact ages) who “set off to solve the mystery of a lost legacy.” Actually, the girls spend most of their time in the first half to three-quarters of the book looking for a mystery to solve and learning to row a boat and fish. They get to know a young man named Christie who takes the girls and Molly’s father out on his boat to learn to catch fish. Soon the girls also learn that Christie has a rather sad secret, and they are impelled to solve a mystery and help Christie find a fortune.

I would have enjoyed this mystery story if I had read it as a child right along with my Trixie Belden mysteries and the Lookout Mountain series by Emmy West and Christine Noble Govan. It’s not very challenging for an adult reader, but perfect for seven to ten year old readers who love mystery and adventure stories. If I had a library in New York or Canada or anywhere near the St. Lawrence River or Seaway, I would certainly be on the lookout for an inexpensive copy of Secret Castle for local color and a good story to boot.

Anne Colver is the author of quite a few children’s books from the sixties and seventies, including Bread-and Butter Indian and Bread-and-Butter Journey, historical fiction books that are highly recommended by those who have read them. (Pricy, too!) She also wrote another Molly-O and Pip book before this one, called Borrowed Treasure, as well as many more beloved children’s fiction books and biographies. Her husband, Stewart Graff, was also a children’s book author. Any one of the couple’s many books is worth a look if you find it in the library or at the thrift store.

This book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews

Jul25

Crews, Donald. Ten Black Dots. Greenwillow, 1968, Redesigned and revised 1986.

What can you do with ten black dots? Donald Crews, the Caldecott Honor illustrator and the creator of the books Harbor and Freight Train, both Picture Book Preschool books, wrote and illustrated this fun introduction to basic math concepts. The author-illustrator uses ten black dots to form basic elements of many pictures–one dot can make a sun, two can be a fox’s eyes, and nine can be pennies in a piggy bank. The text is plain, rhyming and rhythmic.

This little counting book is simple yet clever. Paired with Tana Hoban’s Shapes, Shapes, Shapes or another concept book about circles or shapes or even standing alone, Ten Black Dots would be a child’s invitation to explore shapes, counting and art all at the same time.

Read the book aloud. Then for an extension activity, give yourself and your child ten or more colored dot stickers. (I don’t think they come in black? If you want black dots, you could just draw them.) Make your own pictures with the dot stickers and some crayons or markers or colored pencils. What can the dots become? Eyes, wheels, balls, heads, balloons, or something else? Where can you see circles or spheres around you in your home or outside?

I have a very simple brain, and for me, preschool math consists of counting things and observing the mathematics that is woven into all creation around us. So, a simple book like Ten Black Dots is a lot more likely to spark some creativity and mathematical thinking in me than would a more complex math book with an intricate storyline. Picture Book Preschool, my picture book list for reading aloud, contains several counting books and math concept books, but this one stands out in its appeal to all ages. Even older children could get into the dot picture art project with more elaborate creations of their own.

This book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

The Pink Refrigerator by Tim Egan

Jul22
Version 1.0.0

This picture book came to my attention via Tanya Arnold of Biblioguides, but I already knew and loved Dodsworth the rat. (I thought he was a mole, but he’s actually a rat.) Dodsworth and the duck are the main characters in one of my favorite easy reader series, Dodsworth in New York, Dodsworth in London, Dodsworth in Paris, etc. I had no idea that Dodsworth made his first appearance in print in The Pink Refrigerator.

Dodsworth “loved to do nothing.” “[H]is motto was basically ‘Try to do as little as possible.'” The Pink Refrigerator is the story of how Dodsworth got up, got moving, and became an adventurer, and it’s a perfect prequel of sorts to the Dodsworth and the duck books. The awakening of Dodsworth is all because of the inspiration he received from messages he found at the dump on a mysterious and rusty pink refrigerator.

I don’t want to spoil the story by telling too much more, but this one should be a classic. “Dodsworth suddenly felt a great sense of wonder about everything.” Isn’t that sense of wonder and adventure what we all want for ourselves and our children, for all of those we love? If they can learn it from a rat (mole?) named Dodsworth and a pink refrigerator, then more power to him!

“Tim Egan lives in California, where he makes a living as an illustrator and author of children’s books. Sometimes he visits the refrigerator for ideas, too. Except his refrigerator is blue.”

Read more about Dodsworth and his adventures in:

  • Dodsworth in New York
  • Dodsworth in London
  • Dodsworth in Paris
  • Dodsworth in Rome
  • Dodsworth in Tokyo

Read more about the duck in Friday Night at Hodges Cafe.

Sinclair Lewis also wrote a book called Dodsworth. Not the same Dodsworth.

I still prefer to think that Dodsworth is a mole.

This Picture Book Preschool book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Lola Loves Stories by Anna McQuinn

Jul18

McQuinn, Anna. Lola Loves Stories. Illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw. Alanna Books, 2009. Charlesbridge, 2010.

This picture book is the second in a series of nine books about Lola and her family and their love affair with books and libraries and reading. The first book, Lola at the Library, is more informational, showing how Lola goes to the library with her mommy and checks out books and listens to the librarian tell stories during story time. In Lola Loves Stories, we get to read about and see how the books Lola borrows from the library work themselves into her imagination and her playtime.

Every Saturday Lola and her daddy go to the library where Lola finds some “excellent books.” When they come home, they read the books together, one book each evening. And every day as she plays with friends and alone, Lola acts out the many themes and characters in the stories she has read. She becomes a fairy princess, an adventurer, a tiger, and one day just a girl with sparkly shoes. There’s even a not-so-subtle nod to Max and his imagination in Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

I love that this picture book is so simple, with brief, large print sentences, and yet so stimulating to the imagination for even the youngest (and oldest) readers. I like that Daddy takes Lola to the library in this book, and that Lola and her friend Ben have a play tea party with their baby dolls in strollers beside them.

The Lola Reads series is originally from a British author, written for a British audience, but either it’s been Americanized or the concepts and vocabulary are simple enough to reach across the ocean. The original British title is Lulu Loves Stories. I didn’t catch any Anglicisms that would need to be explained to an American child. Just a simple story about a child reading with her parents and acting out what she hears and reads.

Other books about Lola include:

  • Lola at the LIbrary
  • Lola Plants a Garden
  • Lola Gets a Cat
  • Lola Reads to Leo
  • Lola Meets the Bees
  • Lola Goes to School
  • Lola Sleeps Over
  • Lola’s Nana-Bibi Comes to Visit

This Picture Book Preschool book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Knight Owl by Christopher Denise

Jul11

Denise, Christopher. Knight Owl. Christy Ottaviano Books, 2022.

“Since the day he hatched, Owl had one wish. To be a knight.”

At first Owl is just a child playing dress up. But eventually he is accepted into Knight School where he learns to be a real knight, and upon his graduation he is assigned to the Knight Night Watch on the castle walls. Then, one night Owl confronts a real, live dragon. Can he act with bravery and cleverness like a real knight? Can he find a way to keep the dragon from eating him as a snack?

For the legions of children who are enamored of knights and castles and fire-breathing dragons, this picture book would be a real treat. Or it might be an introduction to the world of knights and dragons, a tame and rather peaceful introduction. Owl does indeed make peace with the dragon, and no owls are harmed in the course of this story. The illustrations are somewhat dark, because most of the story takes place during the night, but the stars and the fire and brave little Owl himself inject light into the pictures and make the illustrations and the story shine.

“Christopher Denise spent much of his childhood in Shannon, Ireland, exploring castles and dreaming of great adventures.” Denise is both the author and the illustrator of Knight Owl, and he also illustrated many of Brian Jacques’s Redwall animal fantasy books.

I think my grandson would like this one, and probably my granddaughter as well. I plan to add this 2023 Caldecott Honor book to my booklists in Picture Book Preschool, too, so that lots of other knight-loving and dragon-loving children can find it and enjoy it.

This Picture Book Preschool book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Flame Over Tara by Madeleine Polland

Jul7

“The year was A.D. 432, and Patrick, for Bishop from Rome to Ireland, arrived in a pagan land whose spiritual life was completely in the power of the Druid Priests and their ‘magic.’ A mild, warm-hearted, humorous man, Patrick, with his handful of followers, began what seemed an impossible task.

For all her training by the Druids, Macha found herself strangely drawn by Patrick’s words. Torn between the new ideas and the bright, safe life planned for her, Macha struggled to find a way to resolve her future.”

Macha is the daughter of the Chief Judge of the High King Leary, fourteen years old, and soon to be wed. So in our culture, Macha would be a child, and in the book she acts like a child, but in her era and culture she is expected to be ready to take on the responsibilities of an adult wife and homemaker. It’s a coming of age novel as Macha grows from an impetuous fourteen year old with divided loyalties into a woman who has learned to follow the God that Patrick preaches and to depend on Him to work out her other debts and responsibilities.

Flame Over Tara is also a novel about a time of change and about how to work through the taking off of the old and putting on of the new. There are several exciting and dramatic scenes in the novel: Patrick does not try to challenge the Druids immediately, but the clash between the Christian God and the magic of the Druids is inevitable. Patrick lives under threat of assassination from the High King and from his Druid priests. Many of the IrIsh people expect Patrick to use his God’s “magic” to counter that of the Druid priests, but Patrick relies on simple prayers and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to preserve his life and to ensure the spread of the gospel of Christ. (One of Patrick’s disciples does die as a martyr, and his death is mourned in a Christian fashion–with the hope of the resurrection to come.)

This 1964 novel was assigned in the Sonlight homeschool curriculum that we used a long time ago. I don’t know if it still is a part of that curriculum, but it would indeed be a good introduction to a discussion of the spread of Christianity during the early Middle Ages. It might be best enjoyed as a read aloud book so that some of the issues and scenes could be discussed and digested together. Middle school and high school students could certainly read and appreciate the book for themselves, however. Either way, it’s a good fictional treatment for older children of the life and times of St. Patrick.

This book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr

Jul4

Kerr, Judith. The Tiger Who Came to Tea. W. Collins (London), 1968.

This picture book is quite well known and popular in Britain, practically a classic, but not so well known in the U.S. As one can tell from the title, it’s a very British sort of story. Nevertheless, American children as well as those from other countries should be able to appreciate this whimsical tale of an unexpected tiger who comes to visit and eats up all the food and drink in the house. Words such as “tap” and “tins” and “biscuits” and “packets” and even “tea” may need to be redefined for those same American children, but that’s part of the fun.

The illustrations are bold and simple, perfect for preschoolers. And the Tiger is big but not scary. Even though the Tiger does look rather ravenous throughout, there’s no hint that the little girl in the story is afraid or worried that the Tiger will finish off his meal with her. In fact, she snuggles up to him and plays with his tail in the pictures. The girl and her parents do have to come up with a solution for the lack of food and drink in the house after the Tiger leaves. And they also make a plan just in case the Tiger makes a return visit: a big box of Tiger Food to keep on hand.

Sometimes British humor is, well, somewhat foreign to my American understanding, but this book is spot on. It’s short and sweet, also memorable and imaginative, and I can see why it has been a children’s literature staple in Britain since its publication in 1968. It reminds me a little bit of Where The Wild Things Are, published in 1964, or The Cat in the Hat from 1957. But it’s more precious, in a good way, and more British. This book is another one that I will definitely be adding to Picture Book Preschool in the new edition.

This Picture Book Preschool book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.