The Pushcart War by Jean F. Merrill

May11

My absolute favorite children’s book of 1964, and one of my favorite of all time. In my copy of the book, the Pushcart War takes place in 1976, and the story is supposedly being told to children in 1986, ten years later. Since the book was published in 1964, this event and the retelling all happen in the future. I have been told that there is a newer edition of The Pushcart War in which the war happens (happened) in 2026, and I assume is being recounted ten years later in 2036. Which means, if I’ve got all the time stuff worked out, we’re due for a new edition soon that takes place in 2056?

Anyway, aside from all the timey-wimey stuff, the story begins with The Daffodil Massacre, March 15, 1976, when a truck ran down a flower seller’s pushcart in New York City. The owner of the pushcart, Marris the Florist, was “pitched headfirst into a pickle barrel.” The war, which has been simmering for a while, breaks out from that incident and escalates with sabotage by peashooters, blockades, barricades, manifestos, a Peace March, and finally, a Master Plan by the truckers to take over the city, thwarted by the cunning and courage of the intrepid pushcart owners.

From the author’s introduction:

“I have always believed that we cannot have peace in the world until all of us understand how wars start. And so I have tried to set down the main events of the Pushcart War in such a way that readers of all ages may profit from whatever lessons it offers.”

Contrary to the title and even the opening scene, this is not a violent story. The Pushcart War is fought mostly with push pins, nonviolent resistance, and cunning. The truckers, the bad guys in the story, are a bit intimidating, threatening to run over the pushcart owners, but no one is seriously injured. The humor in the story is tongue in cheek and hilarious, and the plot is engaging and well paced.

Even though many reviewers and summarizers try to make this a story about labor relations or an uprising against powerful interests or bullying, it seems to me that it’s just a funny story about how the pushcart sellers and their allies defeated the Mammoth Trucks and truck owners that were taking over New York City. I’m not sure how Jean Merrill felt about it all, but she did say that she was inspired to write the story out of her frustration with the loud and oppressive truck traffic that she experienced when she lived in Greenwich Village.

At any rate, the world is starved for funny and witty books for children that don’t stoop to scatological or otherwise crude humor. The Pushcart War is a gem that has stood the test of time, even if the time setting has been updated several times. (See the Wikipedia article for a complete list of times that the story has been updated to.)

Wild Woolly West by Earl Schenck Miers

May10

This nonfiction book about the westward movement tries to be fair and impartial toward the cowboys, settlers, Native Americans, gunslingers, explorers, prospectors, and downright ruffians and criminals who were all a part of the opening of the West to settlers of mostly European descent. But it probably doesn’t succeed in twenty-first century terms.

Earl Schenck Miers writes about the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the mountain men who harvested the west of its furs and other treasures, the missionaries and homesteaders who came after mountain men, the forty-niners and the Gold Rush, the cowboys and sheriffs and sodbusters, and finally the Native Americans who struggled to survive the onslaught of people coming west. He tells of the extreme prejudice that the white men expressed and acted out in regard to the Indians they encountered as well as the massacres and atrocities committed by both Native American defenders and “the hordes of white invaders.”

This book was published in 1964, and Miers does use the language of his time: “red men” and “Indians and half-breeds”, as well as quoting racist rants from the nineteenth century with much worse language regarding Native Americans. And he does tell about how the settlers treated the Native Americans (abominably) as well as how the Indians retaliated. Overall, the book presents an overview of the westward movement, with some details about famous people and events. It would make a good, living spine text for the study of this period in history, but there would be many things to discuss with children along the way. I’d recommend that the book be presented as a read aloud to children 11 and up.

The Nickel-Plated Beauty by Patricia Beatty

May9

I am quite fond of Patricia Beatty’s historical fiction books, set mostly in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, sometimes in Nevada or California. The Nickel-Plated Beauty takes place in 1886 in Ocean Park, Washington Territory, “right on the beach.” And when you’re that near the ocean, rust is a problem. The Kimball family, with seven children, is a family whose income and living conditions are somewhat precarious. Pa Kimball works hard cutting wood for the railroad, but he gets paid inconsistently whenever the railroad folks manage to show up for their next load of wood. So, when their old stove begins to rust out, there’s really no money available to replace it.

The first person narrator of the story is “Hester, the one with the good head on her shoulders.” And Hester gets the idea that she and her brothers and sisters will somehow between April and December earn enough money to replace the stove with a “nickel-plated beauty” of a stove as a Christmas surprise for their mother. Unfortunately, earning the money and keeping it a secret involves some lies told and a not-so-healthy competition with the “half-breed” Native American children who are the Kimball’s neighbors. There’s some prejudice against Native American children that is resolved by the end of the story, but may create questions that you would want to talk about with young readers.

However, despite their faults, the Kimball children’s work ethic and desire to give something to their hard working mother is admirable. And the story itself is fun with the suspense of reading to find out whether the children will be able to reach their goal and buy the stove. (Of course, they do, but how they get there is a rewarding ride.)

If you’ve not read any of Patricia Beatty’s historical fiction books, I recommend that you check them out. The following are a few of my favorites:

  • At the Seven Stars by John and Patricia Beatty. Mid-eighteenth century London, with lexicographer Samuel Johnson, actor David Garrick, painter William Hogarth, Jacobites and Hanoverians, orphans, beggars, spies and even a murder are all elements in this exciting story.
  • Pirate Royal by John and Patricia Beatty. Set in the seventeenth century, 1668-1672, the book chronicles the adventures of Anthony Grey as he goes from younger son of a British draper in Bristol, to apprentice to a dishonest and cruel master, to bondservant to a Boston tavern-keeper, to clerk to the infamous Henry Morgan, buccaneer and adventurer in Jamaica and the West Indies.
  • Wait for Me, Watch for Me, Eula Bee by Patricia Beatty. During the Civil War, the Collier family in north Texas is massacred by the Comanches in a raid, except for thirteen year old Lewallen and his little sister Eula Bee. Lewallen escapes but makes it his mission to rescue his sister no matter what it takes.
  • That’s One Ornery Orphan by Patricia Beatty. In Texas in the 1870’s orphan Hallie Lee Baker tries to get herself adopted, but her plan go awry.
  • Eight Mules from Monterey by Patricia Beatty. In 1916, Fayette and her librarian mother try to bring library services by mule to the people living in and around Monterrey, California.
  • Hail Columbia! by Patricia Beatty. In 1893, Louisa’s Aunt Columbia brings her suffragette and other political ideas to the frontier in Astoria, Oregon.
  • More historical fiction for teens by Patricia Beatty and others.

These are just a few of the historical fiction novels by Ms. Beatty that feature strong, lively, and mischievous young heroes heroines who get into sometimes comical, some times serious adventure.

Gem Books from 100 Years Past: 1924

Apr23

It was indeed a different era. What was going on in 1924 when these books were being published and read? The 1924 Paris Olympics, Leopold and Loeb murders, the premiere of Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin. Vladimir Lenin died, and Mallory and Irvine disappeared while attempting to summit Mt. Everest. Robert Frost won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and crossword puzzles were all the rage after Simon snd Schuster published their first book of crosswords.

As far children’s literature was concerned, the field of books written especially for children was just coming into its own. The Horn Book Magazine, the oldest bimonthly magazine dedicated to reviewing children’s literature, was founded in Boston in 1924. The Newbery Medal for “the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children” was only a couple of years old. The medal-winning book for 1925 (published in 1924) was Tales from Silver Lands, a book of Central and South American folktales, collected and recorded by Charles Finger. Two other 1924 books were “runners-up” for the Newbery: The Dream Coach by Anne Parish and Nicholas: A Manhattan Christmas Story by New York Public Library’s head children’s librarian, Anne Carroll Moore.

Unfortunately, all three Newbery-honored books from 1924 seem to me to be not horrible, but forgettable. The South American folktales are perhaps of interest to scholars and storytellers, but I doubt the average child would glom onto them. The other two books are more the sort of books that adults think children should like than they are the kind of story that children do enjoy.

Still, 1924 was a good year for children’s books. Here’s a list, with brief annotations, of eight real gems from 1924. Several of these are not in print, but I would love to see them come back.

To see more books from 1924, with links to reviews, check out this post from the beginning of our 1924 Project.

The New Moon by Cornelia Meigs.

Apr23

The New Moon: The Story of Dick Martin’s Courage, His Silver Sixpence, and His Friends in the New World by Cornelia Meigs. First published in 1924. Guest review by Terri Shown.

An orphaned boy, struggling in an overcrowded Ireland, embarks on a trip to the New World of America.
“What is a boy to do that has no kin or friends in all of Ireland?” he asked at the end of his tale. “Have you ever thought,” said the other slowly, “of sailing away to the Americas? There is a fair green country, so people tell me who have seen only the edge of it; and it has room, as it seems, for everyone.
After selling his home to a seasoned sailor, Dick Martin sets out on a coming-of-age story with his lucky sixpence in his pocket and his new best friend, Cormac, a loyal sheepdog.
He secures passage with a mysterious Captain Thomas Garrity by agreeing to care for the sheep on the trip across the Atlantic. Dick keeps in his heart a bit of advice the seasoned sailor gave him, “There is a thing you must remember when you are setting out for strange places—wherever you go—you must take your courage with you.” And indeed, Dick Martin does take his courage with him through many challenges in his new life.
I believe what made this book stand out to me was not just the adventure but the diversity of human character the author brought into the story. She contrasted many times the struggle between good and evil that exists in all cultures and how it takes courage and work to do the right thing. The first half of the story takes place in Ireland, and then sails on the Atlantic to the American colonies, then out to the western plains beyond the Mississippi. I became uncomfortable at the first mention of Indians because of the time period this was written. I held my breath waiting for the book to take a sharp racist turn but to my surprise, what I found was that Cornelia Meigs wrote about the Native Americans, not as ignorant savages, but as a unique, hardworking, smart people group who had much to teach Dick Martin as he was growing up. Here are a few quotes that capture the tone of respect for Indians in the story:


“Down the hillside, through the trees and underbrush, without a path or trail, came a slim, black horse at a headlong gallop. Upon his back was a lithe, dark-skinned rider, a boy of about Dick’s own age, who swayed easily with the plunging motion of the horse, as though the two were one. His black hair was flying, his brown hand held a lance with a fluttering pennon of scarlet feathers, while from his arm swung a round shield of painted buffalo hide. Save for his copper skin, he might have been one of the Irish heroes out of Thomas Garrity’s tales, an enchanted vision of the dim past.”
“To a dull or unpracticed eye, all Indians may seem to be alike, although they really vary quite as much as white people.”
“I think I have learned the most of friendship from the Indians themselves!”

Dick Martin develops deep mutual friendship with the Sac-and-Fox tribe, becoming exspecially close to a brother and sister, Katequa and Mateo.They each risk their lives to save the other. What is a stronger mark of love then to lay down ones life for the sake of another. While this fictional story wasn’t the reality for most pioneer and native interaction it gives readers a seed of what could have been and how we might be when we interact with strangers in our future.
As we are immersed in a world struggling with what to do with political correctness and old stereotypes, this book is not without some of these problems but you can undoubtedly tell that the author’s intention was one of respect for all mankind. This book should be used as it was intended as a work of fiction. It was never intended to be an anthropology book of history. This book gives children a picture of strong friendships to admire, hard work to aspire towards, and courage to stand up for what is right. I believe this is a book that should be raised out of the ashes of 1924 literature and be read once again to remind us, “Wherever you go, hold up your head and that will hold up your heart”.

The New Moon is not currently in print, but you can read it on Google books.

Carolina’s Courage by Elizabeth Yates

Apr12

Carolina and her family, the Putnams, are leaving their New Hampshire farm to go west to Nebraska Territory. It’s a long way, and there are many things they must take with them in their wagon to enable their new start in the wilderness. Therefore, many, many things, everything unnecessary or replaceable, must be left behind. Carolina can only take one very precious item, her beautiful china doll, Lydia-Lou.

This book is a short and easy to read novel about going west. It clocks in at 131 pages, and every page is delightful. I’m not sure how old Carolina is as the story begins, old enough to go to school but young enough to love and talk to her doll, maybe six or seven years old. She has an older brother, Mark, and a father who’s determined to start anew in Nebraska Territory, and a mother who’s willing to follow her husband’s lead despite the sacrifices that they all must make to get there.

I loved the fact that the Putnam family have a deep faith in God that becomes a natural part of the story. “In the village there was a white church with a slender spire, and the Putnam family went every Sunday morning.”

“[In] the safest place of all the space in the wagon, the driest, and the most accessible. There the Bible was laid, wrapped in a soft woolen shawl.”

“We’ll have need to keep an edge to our minds,” he said, ” and we’ll do it best with the Bible.”

“God blessed our coming into this house fifteen years ago,” John Putnam said, and it was hard to tell whether he was praying or making a last entry in some invisible book. “He blessed us with Mark, and later on with Carolina. Now may He bless our going out as we seek another land and work for our hands.”

Those are just a few of the times that the book mentions the prayers and faith of Carolina’s family as they travel across the country. And I thought that the story was well crafted to show that the Putnam family, although they had many wonderful adventures on their way to a new land, also had to make many sacrifices to get there safely. And perhaps Carolina is called on to make the biggest sacrifice of all.

Elizabeth Yates was such a talented and faith-filled author of beautiful books for children. I haven’t read them all yet, but I have the following books by this author in my library. And I do plan to read them all. Highly recommended author.

  • Iceland Adventure. Fifteen-year-old Michael and his fourteen-year-old sister Merry accompany their adventurous Uncle Tony to Iceland, where they explore the remote mountainous countryside in search of a long-lost relative of one of their uncle’s friends.
  • Swiss Holiday. A visit to Switzerland with their adventurous Uncle Tony brings Michael and Meredith new friends and an introduction to the art of mountain climbing.
  • Hue and Cry. Jared Austin, staunch member of the mutual protection society that defends his 1830s New Hampshire community against thieves, tries to temper justice with mercy when his deaf daughter Melody befriends a young Irish immigrant who has stolen a horse.
  • A Place for Peter. Thirteen-year-old Peter gets a chance to earn his doubting father’s trust when he successfully handles the important task of tapping the sugar maples to make syrup for their mountain farm.
  • Sarah Whitcher’s Story. The community searches for a young girl lost in a New Hampshire forest in the pioneer days. Based on a true story.
  • The Journeyman. One day a journeyman painter visits a quiet New Hampshire farm, and his unexpected offer sets Jared aglow with excitement. He starts off on an adventure that takes him miles from home and into experiences that bring him to manhood and deepen his faith.
  • Mountain Born. A boy in a family of sheep farmers raises a black lamb to be the leader of the flock. 1944 Newbery Honor book.
  • Amos Fortune, Free Man. The life of an eighteenth-century African prince who, after being captured by slave traders, was brought to Massachusetts where he was enslaved until he was able to buy his freedom at the age of sixty. 1951 Newbery Medal winner.

Yugoslav Mystery by Arthur Catherall

Apr11

This novel is the second or third of Mr. Catherall’s young adult novels I’ve read, and I’m beginning to get a feel for his style and genre. He reminds me of the adult spy novelists Nevill Shute or Alistair MacLean, or even Helen MacInnes, but a bit more tame with teen protagonists. I would guess that boys ages 13 to 16 would find Catherall’s novels quite intriguing.

This mystery takes place on an impoverished island off the southern coast of the former Yugoslavia. It’s several years post-World War 2, but the people who live on this island are still trying to recover from the war and all of its many depredations and consequences. One of those consequences of war is that our protagonist, Josef Piri, fourteen years old, lives with his grandfather and his mother, all of them believing that Josef’s father died in the war before Josef was born.

One day while Josef and his grandfather are out fishing, a police boat comes alongside to ask if they have seen an escaped fugitive on or near the island. Josef, in fact has and does see the escapee clinging to a rope alongside the police launch, out of sight and desperate to remain so. What is the right thing to do? Remain silent and help the man escape or give him up to the authorities?

The choice Josef makes leads him and his entire island village into quite an adventure. There are guns and hidden treasure and narrow escapes and various people who are not what they seem to be. Josef must draw again and again on his courage and his innovative ideas to protect his family and the other villagers and to understand his heritage as his father’s son.

The story takes place in Communist Yugoslavia in about 1960, and it was published in 1964. The Communist government is far away in this story, and is neither praised nor criticized. The villagers, including Josef and his family, live far from the day to day reach of the government, and their lives continue with very little government interference or help. There are a couple of mentions of government aid to the villagers, but it’s not significant. And the adventure that Josef’s encounter with the police boat and the escaped fugitive brings has little or nothing to do with Communism or Marshal Tito.

Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt

Apr10

Across Five Aprils is a U.S. Civil War novel and another coming of age story.. When the story begins, Jethro Creighton is a nine year old farm boy, the youngest of a large family, in southern Illinois. It’s 1861, the war is about to begin, and any reader who knows anything about that war knows that Jethro is going to have to grow up fast. As Jethro’s three older brothers and his cousin leave to go to war, the burden of the farm falls on Jethro’s shoulders. His father becomes disabled, and even more pressure is put upon Jethro to act like a man.

I really like this photo realistic cover picture on the paperback reprint edition of this book, by the way. Jethro looks like a nine, ten, eleven year boy who is looking out into the future and becoming a man, with the war in the background pushing him forward.

Through letters to home from Jethro’s older brothers and newspaper accounts that Jethro follows assiduously, readers see the battles and the politics of the Civil War from the public perspective as well as from the point of view of a boy trying to understand the war and all of its ramifications. For Jethro it’s mostly a story of battles won and lost and generals who are one day heroes and the next, failures. And president himself, “Old Abe” or Mr. Lincoln in more polite terms, is first thought to be too slow and too careful and later not careful enough, until the book finally ends with the greatest tragedy of the war, Lincoln’s assassination.

The “five Aprils” of the title are the five Aprils of the war, 1861-1865, and Jethro does become a man over those five years, even though he’s only fourteen years old as the book comes to a close. The language might be somewhat challenging for some young readers. The characters speak in a southern dialect that feels authentic to me and adds to the atmosphere of rural farm people looking on and trying to fathom a war that was and still is in some ways beyond understanding. This book would be high on my list of recommendations for children studying the Civil War to get an overview of the war in a fictional format. Not graphically violent, but somewhat tragic, with hope underlying.

Edge of Manhood by Thomas Fall

Apr9

“Thomas Fall was born in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas in a community with many Cherokee Indians. and grew up in western Oklahoma among many families of Plains Indians.”  The author may have had some Native American ancestry himself. Edge of Manhood tells the story of See-a-way, a Shawnee boy growing up in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) at the end of the nineteenth century.

“This story of a Shawnee Indian boy’s view of the end of the age of the American Indian does not depict the life of any person living or dead. All the episodes and characters are imaginary.

Such a story might actually have happened in the 1870’s. It was during this period that wester expansion overran the Indian Territory (now the state of Oklahoma) where dozens of Indian tribes from the South, East and North of the United States had already been pushed by the white man. It was here that railroads, and consequently commerce, finally caught up with the American frontier.”

~Author’s Note, Thomas Fall
Version 1.0.0

Cultural assimilation, the violent clash of cultures, colonization, war, peace, revenge, forgiveness—we are still discussing and debating these very issues in our own day and time. Edge of Manhood places these ideas and controversies within a specific place, the Indian Territory, and with an individual, See-a-way, in a specific culture, the Shawnee tribe of Native Americans. But the themes are universal.

See-a-way must decide, first of all, whether to cling to his own culture and traditions, to the exclusion of the new ways of the white man. At first, it seems to be an easy decision. See-a-way is determined to never go to the white man’s (Quaker) school or learn their ways. In fact, See-a-way’s burning desire is to shoot a white man, even though he has never met any white people. Even his frenemy from the Pottawatomie tribe, Blue Eagle, tells him: “See-a-way, you are still more stupid even than the sheep and the cow. You should have been born a naked Indian of the plains, so you could run around in a breechclout and do war dances and raid the white people all your life. The poor Plains Indians will be wiped out completely if they do not realize that they must learn the white man’s way.” But See-a-way is “furious” at this reprimand and becomes even more so when his family experiences even more tragedy and injustice at the hands of the white men.

Now See-a-way has another choice to make: revenge or surrender and forgiveness. Again, See-a-way chooses to act as most of us would act, at the behest of his anger and desire for retribution. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but suffice it to say, See-a-way does creep toward the edge of manhood with some help from his own people and from his people’s enemies, the Pottawatomie and even the white men.

This coming of age story is short, only eighty-eight pages long, but it is full of wisdom and excellent storytelling. Students who are studying the U.S. western expansion and the defeat and the near destruction of the Native American tribes who lived in the Great Plains would do well to be introduced to See-a-way and his growth into manhood. The book would be especially good for boys, and as I said before, it could apply to current day clashes and issues, although no situation in history is exactly analogous to another or reenacted in exactly the same way again. Bethlehem Books’ In Review, Winter 1996, The Move West–Exploration and Frontier Life in North America lists this book and recommends it as “of interest for grades 5-8.”

The House of Sixty Fathers by Meindert DeJong

Apr8

Even though all ends well, this novel, based on the author’s own experiences in China during World War II, is darker and more scary than any of the other books by DeJong that I have read.

“The House of Sixty Fathers is based on Meindert DeJong’s actual experience. During World War II Mr. DeJong was official historian for the Chinese-American Composite Wing which was part of Chennault’s famous Fourteenth Air Force. A young Chinese war orphan, the Tien Pao of this story, was adopted by DeJong’s outfit. The boy chose DeJong as his special “father,” and the two were devoted to one another. Mr. DeJong wanted to bring the boy back to the United States with him, but because of legal complications, he was unable to do so. However, the men in the outfit left the youngster well provided for when they returned to America. The Communists then took over that section of China, and DeJong has never heard what happened to the boy.”

I read that note after I finished reading the novel about Tien Pao, a young Chinese boy who becomes separated from his family during the Japaneses invasion of China with only his pet pig to keep him company. Tien Pao’s story is harrowing. He becomes lost behind the Japanese lines, almost starves to death, is shot at, nearly captured, and pursued for rescuing an American flyer. Tien Pao is a very small boy lost in a sea of soldiers and refugees and casualties of war. Nevertheless, there are friends and helpers along the way: the Chinese guerrilla leader who carries Tien Pao across enemy lines, the man who pulls Tien Pao onto a train at the last minute and hides him in a tall basket, and the American airmen (Flying Tigers) who become his “sixty fathers” when Tien Pao cannot find his own parents.

It’s a war story and people are killed, but the descriptions of the war itself are not too graphic. It’s the effects of the war on the civilian population that are the focus of the story, and that part is difficult to imagine and to read about. The children, who are starving, eat grass and mud to fill their stomachs. People target Tien Pao for the sake of his pig companion, Glory-of-the-Republic, and Tien Pao struggles to keep Glory-of-the-Republic from being eaten. Refugees flee the city of Hengyang when it is taken by the Japanese, and Tien Pao is caught up in the flight of the people from the dreaded Japanese army.

If a child is looking for a war story about heroes and daring deeds, The House of Sixty Fathers might be an appropriate recommendation, even though the heroes in this story are quiet, understated heroes, and the daring deeds are ones of persistence, patience, and continued, careful resistance. Tien Pao’s story is one small slice of life in the midst of a complicated war, but it does satisfy the desire for a story of what might happen to a child caught in a war that is beyond his comprehension or control.

What can a lost boy do, other than keep trying to find his home and his parents? I do really wonder, though, what happened to the Chinese boy that Meindert DeJong and his fellow soldiers befriended in China during the war.