Saturday Review of Books: June 16, 2018

“All books are either dreams or swords, You can cut, or you can drug, with words.” ~~Amy Lowell

Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Here’s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/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.

1. Sea Rose Lane by Irene Hannon
2. The Captured Bride by Michelle Griep
3. Sandpiper Cove by Irene Hannon
4. Barbara H. (The Mountain Between Us)
5. Barbara H. (A Long Fatal Love Chase)
6. Glynn (The Light of the Fireflies)
7. Glynn (Remembering Dresden)
8. Glynn (The Man Who Wanted to Know Everything)

9. Carol (Linnets & Valerians)
10. Michele (G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, Chapter 6)
11. Janet (Koningsburg, Sutcliff, Yancey, Hinton)
12. Michele (Eat This Book by Eugene Peterson)
13. Beckie@ByTheBook (Land of Silence)
14. Beckie@ByTheBook (The Weaver’s Daughter)
15. Sarah at SmallWorld Reads (Educated by Tara Westover)
16. Michele (A Leopard Tamed by Eleanor Vandevort)

17. Michele (Almost Entirely by Jennifer Wallace)
18. Susanne@LivingToTell (A Time to Stand)
19. Beneath a Prairie Moon by Kim Vogel Sawyer
20. Elizabeth @ Silver’s Reviews
21. Elizabeth @Silver’s Reviews (DREAMS OF FALLING)
22. Elizabeth @ Silver’s Reviews (GIVEAWAY – LITTLE BIG LOVE)

Born on This Day: June 6th

Jun6

Peter Spier, 1927-2017, was a Dutch-born American illustrator and author, creator of any number of my favorite picture books: The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night, Bored–Nothing to Do, Peter Spier’s Rain, Peter Spier’s Christmas, The Erie Canal, Noah’s Ark, The Book of Jonah, The Cow Who Fell in the Canal (by Phyllis Krasilovsky) and more, including my very favorite:

This classic story of three children left “home alone” on a beautiful Saturday may be my favorite picture book of all time. It’s certainly in my top ten.

The story begins: “It happened on a Saturday morning that Mrs. Noonan said to her husband, ‘When are you going to paint the outside of the house? You’ve been talking about it for months!'”

Then Mr. and Mrs. Noonan leave for the day to run errands, telling the children to “behave themselves” and that the babysitter would be there shortly. “But the sitter never showed up.”

” . . . there was plenty of paint in the garage.”

You may think you can imagine what happens next, but unless you’ve seen this book with Mr. Spier’s wonderful illustrations, I can assure you that your imagination falls far short of the glorious picture book reality. The details in each illustration are so much fun to study, and the overall story—and the ending–are epic.

The plot of the story is similar to my other favorite Peter Spier title, Bored–Nothing To Do, but I love this one even better. It’s so colorful!

If you can find a copy of this picture book, I highly recommend it. Unfortunately, it’s out of print, and copies of the used paperback are selling for more than $10.00 online; the hardcover is more like $20.00+. Check your library, then used bookstore, either storefront or online.

Born on This Day: June 5th

Jun5

Richard Scarry, 1919-1994, illustrated and sometimes wrote the text for more than 300 children’s books, most of them set in the imaginary metropolis of Busytown. Busytown was inhabited by various anthropomorphic animals with names such as Lowly Worm, Huckle Cat, Postman Pig, Bananas Gorilla, and my favorite, Mr. Frumble.

Scarry’s characters and stories lent themselves well to cartoons and video, and several series and individual videos were made of Busytown’s denizens. Here’s one example from Youtube; many more are available for watching:

The books are mostly a bit too busy for my tastes, but my children enjoyed them back in the day. If they are twaddle they are fairly harmless twaddle. Unfortunately, I think, some of Scarry’s stories and illustrations were edited and updated in later editions “to make them conform to changing social values.” Characters in cowboy or Indian costumes were deleted or re-clothed, gender roles were de-emphasized or switched so that girls were driving bulldozers and boys were cooking and cleaning. Such silliness.

If you want to try out a Busytown adventure, I would suggest Pig Will and Pig Won’t: A Book of Manners, Mr. Frumble’s Worst Day Ever, Be Careful, Mr Frumble, or Please and Thank You Book.

Born on This Day: June 4th

Jun4

William Gilpin, 1724-1804, “an English artist, Anglican cleric, schoolmaster and author, best known as one of the originators of the idea of the picturesque.” Gilpin defined the picturesque as “that kind of beauty which is agreeable in a picture,” and he spent much time traveling and sketching the most picturesque landscapes and nature scenes he could find.

Jane Austen was a fan of Gilpin’s books which included both sketches and descriptions of the picturesque scenes he came across in his travels. With titles such as Observations on the Mountains and Lakes of Cumberland or Observations on the Western Parts of England, the books can be imagined in the hands of an Austen heroine as she surveys the countryside in search of a picturesque view. This blogger thinks that Austen’s appreciation for Gilpin was at least somewhat tinged with mockery.

I’m not sure that Gilpin’s pursuit of the picturesque is appealing to the modern artist, but at least a study of one of his books would certainly be of benefit in provoking thought about what an artist is looking for in the composition of a picture.

Saturday Review of Books: May 26, 2018

May25

“A good book has no ending.” ~~RD Cunning

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.

Princess Arabella series by Mylo Freeman

May21

Princess Arabella Mixes Colors by Mylo Freeman.
Princess Arabella’s Birthday by Mylo Freeman.

Ms. Freeman in The Guardian, June, 2016:

I’m a black Dutch author and illustrator of picture books and I’d like to tell you something about my work. The idea for my main character Princess Arabella came from a story I heard about a little black girl who was offered the role of princess in a school play, which she declined, simply because she didn’t believe that a princess could be black. I decided then and there it was high time for a black princess to appear in a picture book!

Several months ago I received review copies of the two books listed above from the Princess Arabella series by Dutch author Mylo Freeman. It’s taken me a while to get around to reading the books and reviewing them, but now that I have read them, I am a fan. These books have been around for about ten years and there are ten books in the series. They are just now being translated into English and published in the United States by Cassava Republic Press.

In Princess Arabella Mixes Colors, Princess Arabella is bored with the white walls and white ceilings and white floors of her bedroom.

“I want lots and lots and LOTS of paint,” says Princess Arabella, waving her arms around. “Paint in every color of the rainbow.”

The princess’s footmen bring several pots of paint in white and black and all the primary colors. But Princess Arabella isn’t satisfied: she wants pink and and purple and orange and gray and green. So Princess Arabella begins to mix the colors to satisfy her desire for more and more colors. (If there’s a subtext here about diversity of skin colors and mixed racial heritage, the metaphor remains in the background while the story engages the reader in a color romp.)

In Princess Arabella’s Birthday, the question is: “what do you give a little princess who already has everything?” Princess Arabella asks for a very special gift, but she eventually finds that the gift itself has its own ideas about who’s in charge and what the princess’s gift should be.

Both books make a lovely additions to my library and add to the diversity and joy of the princess genre in my book selections. More Princess Arabella books available in English:

Princess Arabella Goes to School
Princess Arabella and the Giant Cake

Also by Mylo Freeman:
Hair, It’s a Family Affair: “A celebration of black hair, through the vibrant and varied hairstyles found in a single family.”

Flying Colors by Robin Jacobs and Robert G. Fresson

May11

Flying Colors: A Guide to Flags from Around the World by Robin Jacobs and Robert G. Fresson.

Vexillology: the study of flags.

What a beautiful and detailed guide to the design and history of flags around the world! This book is a fairly new volume, published in London in 2017, but it has the traditional attention to style, layout, and accuracy that characterizes older, vintage books for children. (Oh, I see. Amazon says that illustrator Robert Fresson is “inspired by the work of Herge and ‘Boy’s Own’ illustrations of the 1940s.”)

I can picture children poring over this book for hours. It answers many, many questions that budding vexillologists will be pleased to have illuminated:

What is the oldest national flag in the world?
Why are there 13 stripes on the flag of the USA?
Why is the French flag blue, white, and red?
Why is there a big red circle in the middle of the flag of Japan?
What is fimbriation?
What are the saltire, the triband, and the canton on a flag?
What two flags of the world’s nations do not use red, white or blue?
What country’s flag features a dragon? A lion? A parrot?
Why is the British flag known as the Union Jack?

Not all of the countries of the world have their flags pictured and the history of that flag explained, but a majority are included. The book could also unseen index for those who are looking for a particular nation’s flag or a detail of terminology. Nevertheless, I would recommend Flying Colors for any child with an interest in geography, flags, and vexillography (the art of designing flags).

Surface Tension by Mike Mullin

May9

This YA thriller came in the mail for possible review here at Semicolon. I was in the mood for something fast-paced and absorbing, so I picked it up out of my TBR pile and read it. Although it requires quite a bit of suspension of disbelief, it was high interest, and I finished the novel in one day.

“Nobody believes Jake. Except the terrorists.

After witnessing an act of domestic terrorism while training on his bike, Jake is found near death, with a serious head injury and unable to remember the plane crash or the aftermath that landed him in the hospital.

A terrorist leader’s teenage daughter, Betsy, is sent to kill Jake and eliminate him as a possible witness. When Jake’s mother blames his head injury for his tales of attempted murder, he has to rely on his girlfriend, Laurissa, to help him escape the killers and the law enforcement agents convinced that Jake himself had a role in the crash.”

I really kind of liked the book, even though I had to stretch to believe many of the things that happened to Jake. His girlfriend, Laurissa, does rescue him: at one point she carries him down a rope in her lap, rappelling from a second story hospital window. It’s the kind of thing that happens in action movies and TV shows, but I find it hard to visualize.

Betsy, the terrorist’s daughter, is part of a right-wing, anti-immigrant online group called Stormbreak, and she is also moderately unbelievable. She attempts to assassinate Jake at least twice, and both times she flakes out at the last minute. Part of the story is told from Betsy’s point of view, and I just found it difficult to understand her or sympathize with her. She and her terrorist dad attend a church called Dry Run Creek Baptist, and they somehow manage to reconcile their murdering, terrorist ways with their weekly attendance and the teaching received at that Baptist church. They used to attend Two Swords Baptist (where did that name come from?), where the pastor was sympathetic to their politics but also sort of a good guy? The church stuff was confusing and not very believable either.

At any rate, the entire book is like that, interesting but sort of hard to swallow. There’s a rogue FBI agent, also not very believable, and the things Jake manages to do, even with TBI and nails through his hand (don’t ask!) are amazing!

If you’re looking for a YA thriller, not much sex talk (but enough to make it definitely YA) and not much cursing (but enough that it was offensive and could have been left out), then this one will pass the time in the airport while you’re waiting for your flight to board. On second thought, that’s bad timing for this novel. Do not read before flying in an airplane if you have any fear of terrorists and airplanes . . .

Merlin (TV series)

May6

I’ve been watching the BBC TV series Merlin, a new take on the old Arthurian legend, for about a month now. I watch an episode or two while I cover my book jackets with Mylar plastic covers or while I process and stamp the books for my library. I’ve finished through season three and the first two epodes of season four, and I have a rather mixed review.

I wouldn’t have watched three seasons plus, 41 episodes, of the show if there weren’t something there. I have lots of questions that I would love to take up with the writers. My frequent thought is: but why don’t they just . . . ? What? Really? Why is King Uther so unreasonable, and why are many of the characters so loyal to him anyway? Why is Merlin so loyal to Arthur? And Lancelot? Oh, my goodness, what happened to Lancelot? And Morgana? How did she start out good and end up evil? The motivations for some of the characters seem highly inadequate at times. And “red shirts” and other expendable characters abound. I don’t see how Camelot has any people left; so many have died in what seems to be the end of the world, in episodes called L’Morte d’Arthur, To Kill the King, The Beginning of the End, and The Darkest Hour, among others, that annihilation can only have been avoided by a very rabbity birth rate (not shown or mentioned on screen).

Then, there are the religious/spiritual aspects of the program. The story takes place in a Camelot before Arthur becomes king. Arthur’s father, King Uther, has banned magic from the kingdom because he used it to get Arthur born (kind of like Henry VIII used the Reformation), and the results were tragic. Arthur’s mother died in childbirth to pay the price of the magic used to conceive Arthur. So, magic is bad. No, wait, Merlin has magic, and his destiny is to protect Arthur. So, magic is good, but Merlin must hide his ability to do magic because Uther is bad and will execute anyone who even has a whiff of magic. Actually, this version of the Arthurian story tries to do without any Christian symbolism or foundation and relies on good magic versus bad magic to create the conflict. The moral underpinnings of the story are a little shaky. Why shouldn’t Uther ban all magic from his kingdom: most of the magic in the show, except for Merlin’s limited attempts to fix things that go wrong, does look like a bad deal. We’ve got bad fairies and witches and goblins and unpredictable dragons and deathless, enchanted warriors and spirits that freeze people to death. Oh, and there are traitors and druids who use magic to try to overthrow Uther and kill Arthur. I’d ban all that stuff, too.

Merlin’s powers come from the “old religion” and so do the powers of other, more malevolent characters in the story. Unfortunately there is no “new religion” in this story to counter and defeat the “old religion.” And there is no God, no prayer. (Sometimes a character will accidentally say something like, “God help us!”, but it’s not meant as a real prayer.) Light holds some evil at bay. Blood sacrifice is the key to defeating other evil magical creatures. But really, there’s only bad magic, good magic, and non-magic. The “knight’s code”—which comes from who knows where—seems to be mostly concerned with who gets to be a knight and who doesn’t. Noble-born guys get to become knights; commoners don’t. Then, the writers try to stick some modern ideas and sensitivities into the mix by making some women as good at riding horses and sword-fighting as the men and by giving Arthur the idea that all men are created equal. (Except Merlin. Merlin is always and forever a servant.) Where would Arthur get that idea, other than Christianity? And where would he get the idea of sacrificing himself for the sake of the kingdom and its people?

So, why am I still watching this ridiculous and often poorly written television show? I think it’s the actors. The boy who plays Merlin, actor Colin Morgan, is adorably goofy and sincere. Each episode begins with this tagline:

In a land of myth, and a time of magic, the destiny of a great kingdom rests on the shoulders of a young boy. His name… Merlin.

And the show really is about Merlin. Arthur (Bradley James) is good-looking and brave, but it’s Merlin who captures our hearts. Merlin is committed to goodness and to protecting Arthur, and by gum, he’s going to do it, come hell or high water. Why? Because the Great Dragon told him that protecting Arthur is his destiny. So, “destiny” takes the place of God, and it’s worth sacrificing one’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

The series is fun, family-friendly (unless you hate magic and mildly scary scenes), and quite implausible if you over-think it. So, don’t think about it too much. Just enjoy the bromance between Arthur and Merlin, the slow-burning romance between Arthur and the lovely Guinevere, and the defeat of evil just in the nick of time. Oh, and the Great Dragon has a nice voice (John Hurt).

Winter Holiday by Arthur Ransome

May3

After my Little Britches binge-read, I returned to the other series that is capturing my heart, Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons adventures. In Winter Holiday, the Swallows—John, Susan, Titty, and Roger Walker—and the Amazons—Captain Nancy and First Mate Peggy—are joined by two new companions, Dick and Dorothea, aka The D’s. Dick and his sister Dot are from the big city, but they have come for a visit to the Dixon farm during the winter holidays.

The Lake District is all abuzz because it looks as if, for the first time in many years, the lake is going to freeze completely to allow for skating and winter sports all up and down the lake that is usually the site of the children’s summer sport of sailing. In spite of mumps and miscommunications and an imminent date of return to school, the children manage to have a grand adventure as they pretend to be Arctic explorers on an expedition to the North Pole.

Their role model is said to be someone name Nansen, an explorer of whom, in my ignorance, I had never heard. I looked him up, and he is a real Norwegian explorer, Fridtjof Nansen, who led an expedition across Greenland in 1888-89 and also attempted an expedition to the North Pole in 1895, reaching a farther north latitude than anyone else had done at the time. Nansen’s ship was called the Fram, and the children in Winter Holiday name their Arctic vessel, borrowed from Uncle Jim/Captain Flint and frozen in port, The Fram also.

Winter Holiday is a great adventure story, and it will make even those of us who are not acclimated to real winter weather and icy adventures wish for a little bit of ice and snow to build an igloo or mount an expedition to the Pole, either North or South. It made me think of winter fondly, for a little while anyway.

Captain Nancy really comes into her own in this book as the leader of this gang of explorers and adventurers, even though she’s somewhat sidelined for most of the book. You can’t keep a good man—or woman—down, and Captain Nancy is still bossing and pushing and imagining new exploits and adventures, even when she’s physically removed from the action in the story. I also liked being properly introduced to the D’s, even though I read the stories out of order and had already met them in Pigeon Post. Dreamy, scientific Dick and imaginative writer-to-be Dorothy make good additions to the already established cast of characters.