On the First Day of Christmas, Aunt Hill, Boston, 1875

Nov29

From Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott:

The elders would have sat and talked all the evening, but the young folks were bent on having their usual Christmas frolic; so, after an hour of pleasant chat, they began to get restless, and having consulted together in dumb show, they devised a way to very effectually break up the family council.

Steve vanished, and, sooner than the boys imagined Dandy could get himself up, the skirl of the bag-pipe was heard in the hall, and the bonny piper came to lead the Clan Campbell in the revel.

“Draw it mild, Stenie, my man; ye play unco weel, but ye mak a most infernal din,” cried Uncle Jem, with his hands over his ears, for this accomplishment was new to him, and “took him all aback,” as he expressed it.

So Steve droned out a Highland reel as softly as he could, and the boys danced it to a circle of admiring relations. Captain Jem was a true sailor, however, and could not stand idle while any thing lively was going on; so, when the piper’s breath gave out, he cut a splendid pigeon-wing into the middle of the hall, saying, “Who can dance a Fore and After?” and, waiting for no reply, began to whistle the air so invitingly that Mrs. Jessie “set” to him laughing like a girl; Rose and Charlie took their places behind, and away went the four with a spirit and skill that inspired all the rest to “cut in” as fast as they could.

Today’s Gifts
A song: Nothing says “Thanksgiving” like a chorus of “Jingle Bells,” Mark Steyn on Jingle Bells
A book (or two): My Friend Amy lists Christmas mysteries for 2010.
A birthday: A Meme and a Celebration, C.S. Lewis, Louisa May Alcott, and Madeleine L’Engle.
A poem: Indwelling by T.E. Brown

Clementine, Friend of the Week by Sara Pennypacker

Nov28

Have I told you lately that I love, love, love Sara Pennypacker’s Clementine? She’s Ramona Quimby, Shirley Temple, and Anne of Green Gables all mixed together and placed in an apartment building in Boston with a super dad and an artist mom and a little brother named Broccoli.

Well, okay, fine. His name isn’t really Broccoli or String Bean or Squash or any of the other names that Clementine has for him, but she figures since she got named for a fruit, her brother should be a vegetable name. And that’s the way Clementine thinks.

In this fourth installment of the Clementine saga, Clementine is chosen to be Friend of the Week in her third grade class. The Friend of the Week gets to “tell my autobiography,be line leader, collect the milk money, feed the fish” and have a booklet in which every other child in the class writes about why the Friend of the Week is a good friend. But soon the wonderfulness of being Friend of the Week is eclipsed by tragedy when Clementine loses her kitten, Moisturizer. What can she do? Where can Moistuizer be? How can they find him? And will the saying that Clementine is remembering come true: curiosity killed the cat?

I think every second or third grade girl in the U.S. ought to get a copy of at least one of the Clementine books in her stocking for Christmas, and half the boys should, too. Clementine just gets better with each book.


The Clementine books:
Clementine.
The Talented Clementine.
Clementine’s Letter.
Clementine, Friend of the Week.
Coming in Summer, 2011: Clementine and the Family Meeting

Travels With Gannon and Wyatt: Botswana by Patti Wheeler and Keith Hemstreet

Nov27

Travels With Gannon and Wyatt is something different in the world of children’s books. At least, I’ve never seen a book or a series quite like it. Travels With Gannon and Wyatt: Botswana is the first book in a prospective series of fictional travel adventures featuring homeschooled twin brothers, Gannon and Wyatt Wheeler, sons of the co-author Patti Wheeler. The idea, as I understand it, is to take the adventures of real brothers, Gannon and Wyatt, and cast them into a story that will hold kids’ interest and at the same time teach them something about the world and its inhabitants, both animals and people. In this first book the brothers go to Botswana where they see and photograph all kinds of wildlife on safari and encounter the most dangerous animals of all, human poachers.

So how successful is this first book in the series? Well, great literature it’s not, but Ms. Wheeler and Mr. Hemstreet do tell an engrossing adventure story featuring a couple of intrepid young explorers. The story unfolds in the form of journal entries, alternating between Gannon’s voice and Wyatt’s. Each boy tells the story of their African adventure from his unique point of view: Gannon, the philosophical people person and Wyatt, the scientific fact gatherer. The boys have a LOT of adventures for one book: seeing all of the Big Five (lions, cafe buffalo, rhinos, leopards, and elephants) and also several more dangerous and fascinating animals, visiting a Bushmen village, rescuing a wounded lioness, and foiling poachers, among other events. Wyatt gets sick at one point in the story with an unknown African illness, and he almost dies. Gannon is charged by an aggressive lion, and then when they run out of food on safari, the boys get a taste of roasted black mamba.

By the way, mambas seem to be popular in kidlit this year. Trendspotter that I am, I’ve noticed the prominence of the nasty poisonous buggers in three of the books I’ve read so far for the Cybils Middle Grade Fiction: Mamba Point by Kurtis Scaletta, Belly Up by Sturart GIbbs, and now Travels With Gannon and Wyatt: Botswana. I also learned a lot about hippos from this book and from Belly Up!. Did you know that hippos are among the most dangerous animals in the African bush and that they have a penchant for overturning boats? Both books agreed on this fact, so it must be true.

I think boys in particular who have a yen for travel and adventure will get a kick out of these books. The first book comes with a DVD with video footage of the real Gannon and Wyatt on their trek through Botswana. And if kids are really into the whole travel/adventure/series thing, they can go the Travels With Gannon and Wyatt website where they can join the Youth Exploration Society, read the boys’ blog, or purchase Gannon and Wyatt merchandise. Future books in the series will feature Gannon and Wyatt in The Great Bear Rainforest, Egypt, and the Serengeti.

Other takes:
Carrie at 5 Minutes for Books: “I found Travels with Gannon and Wyatt: Botswana to be imaginative and engaging. It reads like a positive adventure story with lots of geographical facts thrown in so the reader is picking up information on the country or continent in focus.”

Roberta at Wrapped in Foil: “It becomes apparent the adventures in the book are fictionalized. The boys would have to be pretty unlucky to encounter all the things that befall them. Starting out with a close call with a mother white rhino that knocks their own mother out of the vehicle they are riding in, the boys run up against everything from frightening giant crocodiles to being held hostage by an angry poacher.”

Travels With Gannon and Wyatt: Botswana has been nominated for the 2010 Cybils Awards in the Middle Grade Fiction category.

If you could travel anywhere, where would you go first? Civilized or wild? Culture and history or wildlife and roughing it? You probably already know I’m in the first category. I’d head straight for London and Oxford and Stratford-on-the-Avon if I could. But I did enjoy reading about Gannon’s and Wyatt’s exploits in the African bush.

Saturday Review of Books: November 27, 2010

Nov26

“I believe in the absolute and unlimited liberty of reading. I believe in wandering through the stacks and picking out the first thing that strikes me. I believe in choosing books based on the dust jacket. I believe in reading books because others dislike them or find them dangerous. I believe in choosing the hardest book imaginable. I believe in reading up on what others have to say about this difficult book, and then making up my own mind.”~Rick Moody

SatReviewbuttonIf you’re not familiar with and linking to and perusing the Saturday Review of Books here at Semicolon, you’re missing out. Here’s how it usually works. Find a review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week of a book you were reading or a book you’ve read. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can just write your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after you’ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book you’re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews they’re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.

1. Ruth (Mockingjay)
2. JHS @ Colloquium (Everything I Never Wanted to Be)
3. Donovan @ Where Pen Meets Paper
4. Alice@Supratentorial (My Name Is Red)
5. Melody @ Fingers & Prose (The Handmaid’s Tale)
6. Reading to Know (First Dog’s White House Christmas))
7. Reading to Know (Little Star)
8. Reading to Know (Advent Books for Families)
9. Collateral Bloggage (The Mad Scientist Hall of Fame)
10. the Ink Slinger (The Life of Dr. John Donne)
11. Florinda @ The 3 R’s Blog (Unstoppable in Stilettos)
12. Florinda @ The 3 R’s Blog (Looking for Alaska)
13. Violet (Make Love, Make War)
14. Lucybird’s Book Blog (Emotional Geology))
15. Lucybird’s Book Blog (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society)
16. Lucybird’s Book Blog (Proust and the Squid)
17. Lucybird’s Book Blog (The Chocolate Run))
18. Lucybird’s Book Blog (Double Vision)
19. Janet (Three Cups of Tea (Young Readers’) and Listen to the Wind)
20. By The Book (Cozy in Kansas)		 21. Janie (The Wedding: An Encounter with Jan van Eyck))
22. melydia (The Hound of the Baskervilles)
23. melydia (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants)
24. Yvonne@Fiction Books
25. melydia (A Place to Die)
26. SmallWorld Reads (Olive Kitteridge)
27. Word Lily (Resurrection in May)
28. Bluestocking
29. Nicola (Nola’s Worlds: Changing Moon)
30. Nicola (Harry the Poisonous Centipede by Lynne Reid Banks)
31. Nicola (The Adventures of Daniel Boom aka Loud Boy vol. 1-4)
32. Nicola (The Witch’s Tears by Jenny Nimmo)
33. Nicola (Lila & Ecco’s Do-It-Yourself Comics Club)
34. Nicola (The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan)
35. Nicola (Guinea Pig: Pet Shop Private Eye Vol. 1 & 2)
36. Lazygal (Room)
37. Lazygal (Under the Banner of Heaven)
38. Lazygal (The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise)
39. Lazygal (You)
40. Carina @ Reading Through Life (Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde)		 41. Amber Stults (Katie Up and Down the Hall)
42. Carina @ Reading Through Life (The Book of Trees)
43. Darren @ Bart’s Bookshelf (Piper)
44. Carina @ Reading Through Life (Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix))
45. Darren @ Bart’s Bookshelf (Her Fearful Symmetry)
46. Darren @ Bart’s Bookshelf (The Last Dragonslayer)
47. Carina @ Reading Through Life (Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince)
48. Carina @ Reading Through Life (Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows)
49. Carina @ Reading Through Life (After Tehran: A Life Reclaimed)
50. Carina @ Reading Through Life (V for Vendetta)
51. Carina @ Reading Through Life (Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who …)
52. Melissa @ The Betty and Boo Chronicles (Scroogenomics)
53. Girl Detective (Far from the Madding Crowd)
54. Girl Detective (Far Arden GN)
55. SuziQoregon @ Whimpulsive (Free Fall)
56. Carol in Oregon (Island of the World, Best Book of 2010, GIVEAWAY!)
57. Diary of an Eccentric (Art & Max)
58. Diary of an Eccentric (Carney’s House Party)
59. Diary of an Eccentric (Winona’s Pony Cart)

Powered by… Mister Linky’s Magical Widgets.

You are all invited back to Semicolon daily from Monday November 29, 2010 through January 6, 2011, where I’ll be celebrating the 38 Days of Christmas. (I can have as many as I want, can’t I?) I’ll be posting a new literary quotation celebration each day with links to a poem, a birthday, a song, and a book (list or review) every day, too. I hope you’ll enjoy my Christmas gift to you.

The Healing Spell by Kimberley Griffiths Little

Nov24

The Healing Spell is set in Cajun country in the swamps and bayous of Louisiana, and it’s a book about repentance, confession, courage, forgiveness, and of course healing. Incorporating all of those themes is a tall order for one book, and Ms. Little almost pulls it off.

Livie’s mama is in a coma, victim of the sleeping sickness as Livie calls it, and no one knows whether Mama will ever awaken from her unnatural sleep. What’s even worse is that only Livie knows that Mama’s accident was Livie’s fault. And since Livie’s fairly sure that entire family, including Mama, hates her, Livie is not about to tell anyone what really happened the day that Mama fell and hit her head and went into a coma.

The book begins rather slowly, and I would have given up had I not been intrigued enough to want to know Livie’s secret. I loved the parts of the book about finding good memories and getting rid of the bad ones and the reconciliation between Livie and her older sister Faye. The descriptions of life in southern Louisiana were vivid and lovely. And the relationship between Livie and her mama was real and convincing. Livie is daddy’s girl, and she and her mama find it difficult to understand and tolerate each other’s differences, even though the love that underlies their relationship is as palpable as it is complicated.

Livie herself is a lot like Charlie Anne in The Wonder of Charlie Anne. Livie is convinced that her mama doesn’t like her because Livie prefers fishing and frogging and paddling her pirogue on the bayou to dressing up and parties and painting pictures like her mama does. Livie’s a bit sassy, often in trouble, and something of a loner. I liked her character and her determination to help her mama in spite of their mutual misunderstanding of one another.

Unfortunately, the ending of the story was not as satisfying as the first three-fourths of the book. I couldn’t figure out if the final scenes in the story were Livie’s imagination or premonitions or supposed reality. If it was the latter, I didn’t believe it. I’m not sure what would have made a better ending for this story in which the entire plot, and even the title, lead readers to hope for complete healing for Livie’s mama, but I didn’t like the ending I got. Just sayin’.

Other takes:
Sandra Stiles: “This story was wonderful and all about forgiveness. I believe it will touch your heart the way it touched mine.”

The Wonder of Charlie Anne by Kimberly Newton Fusco

Nov23

This novel takes place during the Great Depression, and Charlie Anne’s family is desperately poor. They’re so poor that Papa has to leave home to get work on the roads in one of President Roosevelt’s WPA projects. Charlie Anne’s mama is dead, and Cousin Mirabel has come to help Papa take care of Ivy, Chalrie Anne, Pete and Birdie. Mirabel is determined to teach Charlie Anne to work hard and to use good manners and to act like a lady. To teach Charlie Anne to behave properly, Mirabel reads aloud maxims from The Charm of Fine Manners by Helen Ekin Starrett. Charlie Anne, of course, hates the advice and the admonitions of The Charm of Fine Manners.

Charlie Anne’s favorite phrase and response to unwanted events in her life is, “Well, we’ll just see about that!” Ms. Fusco does a good job of telling the story from Charlie Anne’s point of view. As far as Charlie Anne is concerned, Cousin Mirabel is a cruel tyrant who makes Charlie Anne work too hard and do all of the nasty, strenuous, and horrid jobs. And Charlie Anne’s older sister, Ivy, is a lazy, vain, and deceitful teenager. The reader suspects that Charlie Anne may not be quite fair in her assessments of Mirabel and Ivy, but this story is Charlie Anne’s story, and it’s her voice we hear as we read.

And Charlie has a fine voice, feisty and determined and full of spitfire. When Rosalyn and her adopted daughter, Phoebe, move in next door, Charlie Anne is excited to have a new friend. But Phoebe is “colored,” and some people, including Mirabel, can’t get used to the idea of associating on equal terms with a colored girl. As the story continues, questions are raised and answered. Will Charlie Anne’s mama continue to give her advice and counsel from her grave down by the river? Will Mirabel break Charlie Anne’s spirit with her book of rules and her seemingly endless chores? Will Rosalyn and Phoebe be accepted in the small Massachusetts where Charlie Anne lives? Will there be a school where Charlie Anne can finally learn to read?

Well, we’ll just see about that!

Other takes:
Bookish Blather: “Charlie Anne has a wonderfully earnest voice. She’s young enough to still believe in magic in the world, but the rapid succession of her mother’s death, her father leaving to build roads, and the ugly face of racism in her family and community, are forcing her to grow up.”
The Fourth Musketeer: “Charlie Anne’s charismatic voice narrates not only scenes of every day drama, such as bee stings, falls off swings, peeling potatoes, harvesting tomatoes, Christmas pageants, and kittens born in the barn, but also more profound problems, such as broken families and racism.”

Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine

Nov22

I’ve been trying to figure out why it’s so satisfying, even illuminating, to read about people who approach life and relationships from a place outside our normal expectations. In this book, Caitlin’s world is drawn in black and white, very literal, no shades of colors, no confusing faces, and no conflicting emotions. Caitlin can read quite well, even though she’s only ten years old, and she likes definitions, words pinned down in a dictionary with definite, specific meanings.

Caitlin’s brother, Devon, used to explain the messy stuff to her–the colors and the feelings and the rules for right behavior in different situations. But now Devon is gone, killed in a school shooting, and Caitlin has to Work At It all by herself and try to find Closure for not only herself but also her father and her classmates and maybe her entire community. That’s a big job for a girl with Asperger’s who has trouble even Looking At the Person who’s speaking to her.

Caitlin is an engaging character. Her brother’s nickname for Caitlin was “Scout” from the movie/book To Kill a Mockingbird. He likened Caitlin’s direct, no nonsense approach to life to Scout’s disingenuous approach to members of the lynch mob in this scene from To Kill a Mockingbird:

“I’m back in Devon’s room staring up at SCOUT carved into the wood and seeing my special name makes me feel good. Devon said his favorite part in To Kill a Mockingbird is where Scout talks to the crowd of angry men and makes them go away. All she says is hi and that she knows their kids from school. Then all the angry men leave. I don’t Get It. But Devon says that’s exactly what I’m like because I say stuff that’s obvious and people go, Oh, and it makes them think.”

Scout looks into the forest of men who have come to lynch Tom Robbins, and she sees individuals, men from her community with names and families and the ability to feel ashamed of themselves. Caitlin must Work At It, but she, too, has the ability to approach individual children in the mob scene that is her school’s playground and begin to make friends and bring healing to those around her.

I liked this book so much, just as I enjoyed reading Marcelo in the Real World and Anything But Typical and The Speed of Dark and other books featuring autistic and Aspergers children and young adults. Autistic people, at least in literature, have a way of cutting through the bull to the heart of the matter and showing me ideas and relationships between things that I am unable to see by myself. “Simplify, simplify,” said Henry David Thoreau. Through these books and others, I’m learning to simplify a complex world and still enjoy all the colors.

Ooooh, I just learned that Mockingbird won the 2010 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. I am delighted because I think the book deserves lots of praise and attention, although Ms. Betsy at Fuse #8 (and apparently others) holds a contrary opinion. To each his own, but I’ll take Mockingbird and books like it any day.

Moral Opposition Is Not the Same as Bullying or Hating

Nov22

. . . there is a profound difference between moral objection to the behavior of homosexuality and the physical intimidation or abuse of those tempted by same-sex attraction. Warning against and opposing the societal embrace of certain sexual behaviors is not bullying.

If it is, Ms. Behar, I look forward to your upcoming show in which you will chastise First Lady Michelle Obama for being a willing accomplice of the brutal bullying of obese children. After all, the most bullied group of young people in our country remains the overweight children. Mrs. Obama’s warning against the societal embrace of unhealthy eating habits is only ostracizing and stigmatizing the fat kids, thus inviting more bullying. And her opposition to overeating couldn’t be born out of love and concern for those kids’ well being, could it, Ms. Behar?

‘The View’ of Incoherence by Peter Heck

Great analogy. I am so tired of people being called “haters” (and worse) whenever they say anything in opposition to homosexual behavior. I believe that homosexual behavior is harmful to society, to the family, and to the person who chooses, yes, chooses, to engage in such behavior. I don’t believe that being attracted to a person of your same sex is a sin or is morally repugnant. I do believe that acting on that attraction is wrong and harmful. I am no more hateful for expressing that opinion than I am for saying that overeating is wrong and harmful whenever I engage in that behavior, a choice I make too often and repent of frequently.

‘

Saturday Review of Books: November 20, 2010

Nov19

“Whatever sanity I had was thanks to writers, to books that either helped me forget my troubles or helped me understand them.”~Susan Richards, Chosen by a Horse

If you’re not familiar with and linking to and perusing the Saturday Review of Books here at Semicolon, you’re missing out. Here’s how it usually works. Find a review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week of a book you were reading or a book you’ve read. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can just write your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after you’ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book you’re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews they’re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.