“In the midst of the next room was the biggest and most glorious Christmas tree that had ever been seen in Tatchester. It stood in a monstrous half-barrel full of what looked like real snow stuck about with holly and mistletoe. At the top of this great green fir tree was a globe of green light set about with fiery white rays for the Christmas Star.

The boughs were laden with the most exquisite gifts: whistles, drums, tops of different kinds, whips, trumpets, swords, pop-guns, pistols that fired caps and other which fired corks and many dolls and teddy bears for the little ones. For the older boys there were railways with signals and switches and passenger trains and goods trains, some of which went by steam and others by clockwork. There were airplanes which you could wind up so that they would fly about the room. There were farmyards with cocks and hens which really pecked and cows which waggled their heads. There were zoos with all sorts of animals and aquariums with all sorts of fish. Then there were mechanical toys, men boxing or wrestling and boxes of soldiers with cavalry and cannons, bricks and Meccano and all sorts of adventure books and fairy books. For the girls there were needle-boxes with silver thimbles and cases of needles, necklaces, bangles and brooches. There were boxes of chocolates, candied fruits and great glass bottles of barley sugar, raspberry drops, peppermint drops and acid drops. Then for both boys and girls there were toy boats, some with sails and some with clockwork engines. Hanging from the boughs here and there were white and scarlet stockings, all bulging with chocolate creams dome up in silver paper.

~The Box of Delights by John Masefield, p. 60-61

Poet John Masefield’s The Box of Delights is an odd sort of Christmas story. It reminds me a bit of the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis, except not as coherent and well-organized. Masefield was primarily a poet, but he wrote fiction, biography, history, and literary criticism as well as poetry. He was appointed Poet Laureate of England in 1930, and The Box of Delights was published in 1935

The edition I am reading was abridged*, and I am quite curious as to what the editor left out of the book and whether the additional parts that Masefield wrote would make the story more or less confusing. Magical things happen in the midst of ordinary days, but there are also what seem to be dream sequences in the middle of the night. Or maybe it’s all magic. Kay, the main character, has a small box entrusted to him by a traveling Punch and Judy man, and the box has magical powers to teleport Kay to other places and times and to shrink him and his friends down to mouse-size as well as to return them to their proper sizes.

There’s a gang of thieves and kidnappers who go around stealing things and “scrobbling” (abducting) people. The gang are really after the Box of Delights that Kay keeps in his pocket most of the time, but they’re in league with rats and wolves and all sort of evil creatures. Oh, and the villains have silent aeroplanes that they use to scrobble those that they think might have the Box.

The quote above comes from a description of the children’s Christmas party at the Bishop’s Palace, and it is quite a party, as you can tell. The entire book is worth reading, if only for the taste of children’s life and imagination in pre-World War II England. I’m not quite finished with the book, but I can truly say that I have no idea what will happen next in this very unpredictable Christmas holiday fantasy. If you like E. Nesbit, Lewis, or Joan Aiken’s Wolves of Willoughby Chase, you might want to give Masefield a try. It’s strangely compelling.

*My edition of Box of Delights, in case you’re looking for something that’s only 167 pages long, was published by Macmillan, abridged by Patricia Crampton, and illustrated by Faith Jaques.

Becky’s Christmas by Tasha Tudor.

Well, I suppose Becky’s Christmas takes place in New Hampshire or somewhere nearby, since Tasha Tudor lived in New Hampshire and in Vermont with her four children. The story of Becky’s Christmas seems to be based on the Christmas traditions and customs that Tasha Tudor and her family tried to maintain on their rural family homestead.

In the afternoon Father hitched up Brown Dobbin to the sledge, and they all drove over to the Christmas Woods to get the tree. It was a beautifully bright afternoon; the shadows on the snow were as blue as the far hills, and the Christmas Woods looked like an enchanted forest with the snow-covered spruce trees shining in the sun. There were patterns in the snow where rabbits and birds had left their tracks. Becky noticed where a little mouse had run in and out, ‘looking for fir-cone seeds for his Christmas dinner,’ Kitty said.

It was always hard to decide which tree to take; one was too tall, another too slim, but Dan found a perfect one by the wall, and he and Father cut it down and put it on the sledge. The others brought along the leftover branches for decorations, and they returned to the house, Mother and Kitty on the sledge, Becky astride Brown Dobbin, and Father and the boys walking alongside.

Becky spread out old sheets beneath the tree to catch the wax drips, and Father and the boys braced it in a tub with sand and with strands of wire from the corners of the room. Then Becky braved the prickly needles and poured water in the tub to keep the tree fresh.

How splendid it looked, even without its balls and candles, and how good it smelled!Becky just stood and looked at it with shivers of pure joy tickling the back of her neck. Oh, Christmas was lovely!

p. 26-27

Becky’s Christmas by Tasha Tudor

Becky’s Christmas is a simple story, only 46 pages long, not quite a picture book, but not a novel either. The book just chronicles the events leading up to Christmas at Becky’s rural home and then the events of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Becky has a ‘lovely” Christmas, featuring homemade gifts, Christmas cakes, a handmade Advent calendar, good food lovingly prepared, and a very special gift from Father and Mother.

Tasha Tudor loved writing and illustrating books about Christmas and other holidays and did so in numerous stories including Corgiville Christmas, Snow Before Christmas, The Dolls’ Christmas, The Night Before Christmas, and A Time to Keep. This last one tells how Tudor’s family celebrated each of the months of the year in a delightful, old-fashioned style and homespun traditions. If she is a bit too precious to live up to in real life, Tasha Tudor is at least fun to read, and it’s great to imagine such a Christmas as Becky’s.

The book Becky’s Christmas, however, is about as difficult to obtain as that old-fashioned Christmas is to reproduce. It’s no longer in print, and copies of Becky’s Christmas start at seventy some-odd dollars on Amazon. If you are a member of my library, however, you can borrow my copy and read this delightful story for yourself.

Tizz Plays Santa Claus by Elisa Bialk.

Next to Christmas itself, Tracy thought that Christmas Eve was the nicest day of the year. The holly wreath was on the door, the kitchen was full of delicious smells of good things cooking and baking, and in the living-room, her father was putting up the Christmas tree.

When they came back from the Candlelight Service at church in the afternoon, Tracy and Don helped trim it. It took a long time, but when it was finished and the lights were on, it was so beautiful that it took Tracy’s breath away.

Tracy got into her coat and boots and went out-of-doors to the corral. She led the pony to the bay window where the tree had been placed, so that Tizz too might enjoy the lovely sight. Tizz watched as if fascinated by the red and green and blue lights, then followed Tracy back to the corral to get her evening meal.

It was time for the Hills to eat, too. Mrs. Hill set out the food in buffet fashion and they all helped themselves, then carried their trays into the living-room. They ate while sitting around the tree, watching its beauty with wonder.

Elisa Bialk wrote an entire series of books about Tracy and Don Hill and their family and their pony named Tizz. The first book, simply called Tizz was published in 1955, and Tizz Plays Santa Claus is the third book in a fourteen book series. In this third book the children take care of Tizz, even when she runs away one day, and Tizz returns the children’s love and care by helping out with Don’s paper route and with the church Christmas play. It’s a very 1950’s “Leave It to Beaver”sort of story, and the flavor and setting and characters reminded me of Carolyn Haywood’s Betsy and Eddie books, except with the added interest of a horse of course.

I remember when half of my friends were obsessed with horses. They all wanted a horse of their own; they all wanted to ride horses. I wasn’t a member of the horse lovers crew, but I do think that the Tizz books would scratch an itch that some girls and boys still have today.

Combine a pony and Christmas and learning to care for others as Tracy and Don do in this story, and you have a winning story for the holidays. The children and Tizzy’s befriend an elderly neighbor and a girl their age who is recovering from polio. The reading level is in line with what are called “early chapter books’ nowadays. The story itself is old-fashioned and sweet.

We’re Not From Here by Geoff Rodkey, author of The Chronicles of Egg trilogy, including Blue Sea Burning and Deadweather and Sunrise.

Earth is no longer inhabitable. The situation on the Mars Station is precarious and near-disaster. So some of the Mars refugees decide to take a chance on the planet Choom, where four species of intelligent beings live and have invited the desperate humans to come. The only issue is that the decision is irrevocable; if living on Choom doesn’t work out, the humans have nowhere else to go and no more fuel to get there. So even though the Zhuri, the most numerous of the species on Choom, look like giant mosquitoes, the plan is to assume the best about their intentions and the ability of humankind to assimilate and live on Choom.

However, when the humans arrive in Choom orbit, there are more problems. The government has changed, and the Zhuri don’t want to humans to land or to stay or even to talk to them. Can Lan (our narrator) and his mom and dad and his older sister Ila, as The First Human Family to Go to Choom, convince the Zhuri and the other Choom inhabitants to accept them?

Author Geoff Rodkey manages to treat a serious subject—apocalypse and the possible extinction of the human race, not to mention unwanted refugees—with humor and grace and practical sense. The humans really do have no other choice than to stay and live on Choom, and the alien species on Choom really do have valid concerns. Inter-species understanding is complicated and difficult. And Ila’s music and Lan’s comedy might save the day or might make everything much, much worse.

I can see how this book could create a lot of good discussion about refugees, about emotions and their expression, and about communication through the arts, particularly song dance, and comedy. Geoff Rodkey has written a winning science fiction story with an engaging and believable middle grade narrator. The tale does include some violence, not gratuitous, and some rather dangerous and suspenseful moments, so I’d suggest it for maybe age ten and up.

The Wicked Enchantment by Margot Benary-Isbert. Translated from the German by Richard and Clara Winston.

“The name of our town is Vogelsang, which means Birdsong. It has that pretty name because for hundreds of years the singing birds have come in great flocks to make their nests in our orchards and have sung more sweetly than anywhere else.”

But “odd and spooky things are apt to happen in Vogelsang.” And things are going quite in the wrong direction all over town. Anemone’s father has a new housekeeper who is admittedly a good cook, but Ilsebill (the cook-housekeeper) and especially her rascal of a son Erwin have it in for Anemone, and Anemone can’t take any more of their “nasty tricks.” And Anemone’s uncles have been accused of stealing a statue from the town’s cathedral. And the mayor is making laws that no one likes or understands. And Mr. FLorus, Anemone’s father, seems oblivious—or just completely enchanted by Ilsebill’s dumplings.

This tale of enchantments and disguises and a town in danger is not a Christmas story, but rather an Easter story. All of the action takes place during the week or two just before Easter Sunday. Anemone runs away from home, but she doesn’t go too far away. Aunt Gundula works hard to make her very special Easter eggs for the entire village even as she is working to make everything come right in Vogelsang before the Easter chimes ring out on Sunday. And there’s a circus, and a cute little dog, a very Germanic puzzle to solve and lots of pure nonsense and magic interspersed throughout.

You may be able to find this book, first published in English in 1955, in your local library, but if not, you’ll have to pay a pretty penny or luck out as I did. I saw the copy I now own in the local library used bookstore for $1.00, recognized the author’s name, and snapped it up. I’m very glad I did, and if you’re a member of my library, you can check out my copy.

Margot Benary-Isbert, by the way, is a German children’s author who wrote The Ark and Rowan Farm, realistic fiction about children living in post-war Germany. It was fun to see her try her hand at fantasy, and the attempt was very successful indeed. The translation was well-done, too, retaining the Germanic flavor but readily understandable in English. The main character, Anemone, reminded me somewhat of Pippi Longstocking, and I think fans of Pippi and of Grimm’s fairy tale-ish stories will enjoy TheWicked Enchantment.

Cork, Ireland. I’ve been there, and nineteenth century hymn writer George Wade Robinson (1838-1876) was born and grew up there. He later went to college in Dublin and became a pastor poet in Ireland and in England (Dublin, Dudley, Brighton, and Southampton). In addition to hymn lyrics, he also wrote sonnets and other poems and published some sermons in a book called The Philosophy of the Atonement and Other Sermons.

I don’t know if his poems were any good, nor have I read his sermons to see if they are helpful or even orthodox. But I have always loved the hymn, Loved With Everlasting Love, aka I Am His, and He Is Mine. I especially like the idea in the second stanza that our union with Christ gives us eyes to see the beauty of His creation in a new way. And Robinson pictures the rest we have in Christ in stanza three in a beautiful and immediate way. (Some might criticize the lyrics as sentimental, “Jesus is my boyfriend” words and thoughts, but I think there is plenty of precedent in Scripture for picturing the Lord, not as a boyfriend, but as the Eternal Lover of our souls.)

Then, the last verse which reminds us of the soaring words of Romans 8:38-39: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a video to embed that presented all four verses of the hymn and that used the lovely tune that was written for this hymn by James Mountain, also a nineteenth century pastor and evangelist. (There’s a more modern tune setting that I thought was . . . forgettable.) This version was well done even though he left out the second stanza, my favorite.

We were singing hymns at a small group meeting last night, and I requested this one. I had no idea that it would be unknown to everyone there other than me and Engineer Husband. We managed to sing it, and I think everyone enjoyed the “new” hymn. I certainly did.

The theme for this week at Nonfiction November is Fiction/nonfiction pairings. I thought I’d do a variation on the theme and pair nonfiction books with movies and TV series. After all, cinema is story, too.

First up, is the Landmark title, The World’s Greatest Showman: The Life of P.T. Barnum by J. Bryan which is the book I read after watching The Greatest Showman, of course. The real story of P.T. Barnum’s life is quite a bit different from the movie version, but the movie has its own charm.

I watched the first few episodes of the series, TURN: Washington’s Spies, but the whole thing was a bit too slow-moving (too many interlocking parts) and violent for me (I know, war is violent, but screen violence gets to me whereas I can usually manage to read about it without bailing.). The series is based on a nonfiction book, Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring by Alexander Rose, that I may pick up at some point. But in the meantime, I suggest Spies of the Revolution by Katherine and John Bakeless, a children’s/young adult book, but a good introduction to the subject nevertheless.

Endeavor, a British police drama set in Oxford, is one of my favorites right now, and it even had an episode featuring Lewis and Tolkien and the Inklings. For nonfiction with an Oxford flair, I’ve read several biographies of individual Inklings and of the group, but the books I’m looking forward to reading are Bandersnatch: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings by Diana Glyer and Tolkien and the Great War by John Garth. Of course, the latter book also pairs nicely with the 2019 movie Tolkien, which I’ve not seen yet.

I’m looking forward to seeing the Tom Hanks movie about Mister Rogers, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. I watched the documentary, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, also about Fred Rogers’ life, a few months ago. For books to pair with these, The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King looks like a good read, and there’s a lovely looking picture book biography, Hello, Neighbor! The Kind and Caring World of Mr. Rogers by Matthew Cordell. I’d really like to read both books, and I’d be interested to hear your thoughts if you’ve read either of them.

American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road by Nick Bilton.

Criminal, yes. Mastermind, not so much. I won’t spoil the story by telling you all about the man at the center of it, twenty something drug proponent and libertarian, Ross Ulbricht. Suffice it to say, he was able to elude identification and capture by multiple law enforcement agencies for a long time, not because he was such genius and master criminal, but rather because he was operating on the cutting edges of technology and the internet (the so-called dark web), and the afore-mentioned law enforcement agencies didn’t have the expertise to understand what he was doing exactly and how to catch him for a good while.

He called himself The Dread Pirate Roberts, Princess Bride allusion intended. He hoped to escape detection by pretending that he had turned his entire operation over to a new “Dread Pirate” long before the law caught up with him. It makes one wonder how many more cyber-criminals are out there justifying their grubby crimes by spouting idealistic juvenile propaganda about freedom and libertarian poppycock.

There’s also an episode in the book in which an associate of Ullbricht is invited to an evangelical church and “gets saved.” Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to been taught about sin and repentance and actually following Christ in obedience because she continues to engage in illicit sex and the production of pornography. It’s this kind of cheap conversion and Christianity that gives conversion itself a bad name and makes people think they can accept the love of Christ without acknowledging His Lordship over all of life. Another character in the book is an alleged follower of Christ who also becomes a corrupt cop and a thief. The book doesn’t have much good to say about the power of Christ to change lives.

Albricht himself grew up in Austin, Texas in a normal, middle-class home. Why did his path lead to his becoming the ultimate free-trading criminal of the Dark Web, creating a website called Silk Road where people could buy and sell not only drugs but also guns, hacking software, forgeries, counterfeit cash, and poisons freely and without limits? Again, it seems to have been the power even more than the money he was making that went to Ulbricht’s head. Why? I’m not sure.

American Kingpin is a fascinating look at the career and downfall of a man with more ambition than sense as well as telling the story of the law enforcement officers who found and captured Ulbricht and put an end to his overweening pride and plan to “change the world.” The idea that anyone should be free to put anything one wants into one’s own body, regardless of the consequences, is flawed, and as this story, shows, complete individual liberty leads to license and to chaos and even to death.

Painter, writer, naturalist, and founder of the Boy Scouts of America, Ernest Thompson Seton was self-taught as a boy both in art and in biology before he was able to get a solid education in both subjects later in young adulthood. His father wanted him him to be an artist because he saw more future in that profession than in Ernest’s chosen vocation of naturalist. Eventually, Mr. Seton combined the two talents he had for art and scientific study of nature to paint and write about the animals he studied in the wild.

Ernest Thompson Seton’s father seems to have been rather a tyrant and an unhappy man. When Ernest turned twenty-one, his father presented Ernest with a bill for the cost of his upbringing–room, board, education, even the cost for the family doctor who attended his birth–and told him that he had a duty to repay his parents every cent that they had spent on him. Ernest eventually repaid the “debt”, and he also changed his surname to Seton, that of his grandfather, because of his desire to distance himself from his tyrannical father. He sent checks home when he could, but made them payable to his mother, whom Ernest adored.

As an adult, Ernest became first a student of nature, and then a writer and artist who chronicled his stories and studies for others. He took thousands of photographs of animals and their habitats, collected specimens of birds and animal skins, and drew detailed pictures of the animals he observed. He then wrote a number of books about birds, animals, woodcraft, and other natural history topics. His Book of Woodcraft and Indian Lore became the basis for what was called the Woodcraft movement, whose aim was to “develop manhood through the proper direction of play, emphasizing the essential aspects of body and mind as well as spirit.” He influenced and gave his materials to Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts in England, and when that movement came to America Seton was invited to become Chief Scout and his Woodcrafters were incorporated into the Boy Scouts of America. (Unfortunately, there was a disagreement between Seton and the Boy Scouts leadership, and Seton was basically disinvited to be a part of the Boy Scout organization.)

This biography by Shannon and Warren Garst is an excellent introduction to the life and work of Ernest Thompson Seton. I would recommend it to boys who are involved in Boy Scouts as well as Trail Life participants and others who are interested in nature study and the history of popular biology and nature writing. I really had no idea what an influential man Ernest Thompson Seton was, and any Boy Scout or Trail Life USA member would do well to know more about the roots of their organization and its heritage.