Mr. Mysterious & Company by Sid Fleischman. Magic, mystery and adventure in the Old West.

Mr. Mysterious & Company, aka the Hackett family, made up of Mama, Pa, Jane Paul, and Anne, is traveling west in a covered wagon. The year is 1884.

“[I]t was like no other wagon seen in those parts before. To begin with, it was the wrong color. Its canvas was bright red and could be seen for miles. The wheels were painted gold, like a circus wagon, and the horses (if seeing was believing) were as white as swans.”

“The man driving this most remarkable wagon and these white horses was himself a most remarkable man. He wore a stovepipe hat, as tall as Abe Lincoln’s and just as black, and had a smiling red beard even sharper than the letter V. If the hawks and buzzards could have read, they would have seen his name in golden letters a foot high on the sides of the wagon: MR. MYSTERIOUS & COMPANY.”

First narration project: everybody draw the wagon or Mr. Mysterious or both from that description. The writing in this 150 page Western novel is spare and easily accessible to anyone age ten or older, but it is also descriptive in a sort of caricature way. The children in the story, ages 11, 9, and 7, and their parents come across as real people. The other adults are somewhat stereotypical westerners: the sheriff, the outlaw, the cowboys, the storekeeper, the undertaker, the fresh-faced young ingenue.

The story moves along with gentle humor, as the Hacketts move from town to town entertaining the townspeople with their magic show. They are headed for California where the family plan to settle down and live on a ranch. Jane can’t wait to live in one place and make real friends. Paul has mixed feelings, depending on whether he wants to become a traveling magician like Pa or a cowboy on any given day. Anne wants to find a ballet teacher who will teach her to dance on her toes.

The story could be a Christmas read aloud, since the goal for Mr. Mysterious & Company is to reach California and their uncle and aunt’s house by Christmas Day. There are, of course, both obstacles and celebrations along the way. Warning: your children may want to plan their own Abracadabra Day* after reading this book, a celebration which could be either hazardous or humorous.

*Abracadabra Day: “It was a secret holiday that belonged to the show family. They had invented it, and no one else knew about it. The secret was this: no matter how bad you were on Abracadabra Day or no matter what pranks you pulled, you would not be spanked or punished. It was the one day in the year, in the Hackett family at least, on which you were supposed to be bad.” Sort of a once a year get out of jail free card.

I’m working with some friends and fellow librarians on a project that involves looking back 100 years ago to the children’s literature published in 1924. We’re looking for the best children’s books of 1924. Have you read any of the following books, all first published in 1924, and if so, what did you think of them? (Links are to reviews here at Semicolon or elsewhere or to Biblioguides for more information.)

The Box-car Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner.

The Boy Whaleman by George Fox Tucker.

A Boy at Gettysburg by Elsie Singmaster.

Boys and Girls of Pioneer Days: From Washington to Lincoln by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey. Stories for the time period indicated, some true, some fictional, some good, some not so good. It’s an uneven collection.

Boys Games Among the North American Indians by Edith Stowe. “A fun book for boys to learn the history and how to play Native American games from different tribes. It is cool, but would take some guidance from an adult to help a child explore it.” (~T. Shown)

Children of the Lighthouse by Nora Archibald Smith.

A Child’s History of the World by V.M. Hillyer. Possible history spine, recommended in some homeschool curricula.

The Colonial Twins of Virginia by Lucy Fitch Perkins.

Dr. Doolittle’s Circus by Hugh Lofting.

Down the Big River by Stephen Meader. Reviewed at Plumfield & Paideia.

The Dream Coach by Anne Parish. Newbery Honor.

Egyptian Tales of Magic by Eleanore Myers Jewett.

The Gift of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois. Reprinted by Purple House Press. Possible history spine, but not really a book for children. Recommended for high school and adult readers.

A Girl of the Plains Country by Alice McGowan.

Girlhood Stories of Famous Women by Katherine Dunlap Cather.

Grampa in Oz by Ruth Plumley Thompson.

Hari, the Jungle Lad by Dhan Gopal Mukerji.

The Heart of a Dog by Albert Payson Terhune.

The Island of the Mighty: Being the Hero Stories of Celtic Britain by Padraic Colum.

Little Maid of Mohawk Valley by Alice Turner Curtis.

Little Princess Nina: The Story of a Russian Girl by Lydia Charskaya.

The New Moon: The Story of Dick Martin’s Courage, His Silver Sixpence, and His Friends in the New World by Cornelia Meigs.

Nicholas: A Manhattan Christmas Story by Anne Carroll Moore. Newbery Honor.

The Pearl Lagoon by Charles Nordhoff.

Persimmon Jim: The Possum by Joseph Lipppincott.

The Poppy Seed Cakes by Margery Clarke.

Powder-Patches and Patty by Emilie and Allen Knipe.

Red Caps and Lilies by Katharine Adams.

Round the Year in Pudding Lane by Sarah Addington. Reviewed at Semicolon by Jeannette Tulis.

Ruffs and Pompons by Beulah King.

The Silver Tarn by Katharine Adams. A Story Of Mehitable Webster, A Young New England Girl And Her Life In School In The Wilds Of Yorkshire In Great Britain.

The Sprite: The Story of a Red Fox by Ernest Harold Baynes.

The Story of the Elizabeths by Grace Humphrey. Ten short biographies of famous Elizabeths in history, including Elizabeth I, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others.

Tales from Silver Lands by Charles Finger. Newbery Award.

Taxis and Toadstools by Rachel Field. Reviewed by Jeannette Tulis. “This is a very charming collection of poems by one of my favorite children’s poets. In this collection, Rachel Field describes in these short lovely poems so many features of life in the city in days long gone by. Children who have read literature from the early 20th century classics will recognize some of the things being described but other children may not. There are also poetry selections on the sea, islands, animals, plants and fairyland, all very relatable to children anywhere. Many of the poems are accompanied by equally charming small black and white illustrations. There are even a few colored illustrations. Just pick a poem, any poem. With Rachel Field, you cannot go wrong!” 

Theras and His Town by Caroline Snedeker.

The Thrings of the Dark Mountain by Morgan Taylor.

Thunder Boy by Olaf Baker.

Tony by Eliza Orne White.

The Trail Blazers: The Story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition by Mary Wade.

When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne. Semicolon review.

If you’ve read any of these and can recommend or review them, please leave us a note in the comments section. If you know of other children’s books published in 1924 that we should consider, please also leave us a note. Many of these books can be borrowed and read on Internet Archive. We hope to announce our list of the best children’s books of 1924 sometime in Spring 2024.

“Lighthouses, Ronnie, are like a helping hand reaching out from Heaven itself. And the tending of them is good work–good.“

What a great Christmas story! I’m not sure why it is not more familiar and recommended as the Christmas story that it certainly is. Perhaps it needs a subtitle, A Christmas Story.

Eleven year old Ronnie and his Aunt Martha now live together on the edge of town, but before Ronnie came to live with his aunt, she and her late husband were the lighthouse keepers of Tern Rock Lighthouse. Now the current lighthouse keeper, Mr. Flagg, wants to make a pre-Christmas visit to his family, and he asks Martha Morse and Ronnie to substitute for him at the lighthouse, just for a couple of weeks until December 15th. Ronnie is eager to go on this lighthouse adventure as long as he can get back for Christmas and the festivities at school and at home that will be coming.

I expected this story to be about a storm or a wrecked ship or some other exciting event, but Ronnie’s stay at the lighthouse is much more about what doesn’t happen than what does. Ronnie learns some lessons about joy and contentment and keeping promises. Aunt Martha guides her nephew with wise words and a quiet “masterly inactivity” in which Ronnie comes to his own conclusions about the lighthouse, and forgiveness, and the meaning of Christmas. The lighthouse itself with its steady warning beacon plays a part in showing Ronnie and Aunt Martha what is really important about celebrating Christmas, and the story points gently and subtly to Jesus and the light that He provides in this world of darkness and sin. (It’s not didactic at all.)

I’m hoping to share this story with lots of families, during the Christmas season and after. By the way, I’m not the only one who sees its worthiness. The Light at Tern Rock was a Newbery Honor book in 1951. You could pair this story with any of these other lighthouse books:

• Lightship by Brian Floca
• Gracie the Lighthouse Cat by Ruth Brown
• Birdie’s Lighthouse by Deborah Hopkinson
• Abbie Against the Storm: The True Story of a Young Heroine and a Lighthouse by Marcia K. Vaughan
• Hello, Lighthouse by Sophie Blackall (Caldecott Award winning picture book)
• Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie by Peter and Connie Roop
• Beacons of Light: Lighthouses by Gail Gibbons
• Three Boys and a Lighthouse by Nan Hayden Agle
• The Lighthouse Family (series) by Cynthia Rylant
• The Lighthouse Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner.
• A Light in the Storm: The Civil War Diary of Amelia Martin by Karen Hesse

From The Silver Tarn by Katharine Adams, c.1924. An old fashioned young adult romance, part of a series about Mehitable Webster, an American girl who is living at and attending a French boarding school. The French school has been relocated to Yorkshire in England because of the disruptions of World War I, and Mehitable falls in love with the Yorkshire moors and the silver tarn (small mountain lake) that she finds on the wild moorland.

They opened their presents early in the afternoon, before dinner, and they had a merry time, in spite of the news that Robin must leave the next day. Mehitable was delighted with the blue Russian blouse which Barbara had made for her and Robin had brought with him. She cried a few tears over Aunt Comfort’s blue scarf and Desire’s petticoat, and the three girls hailed a large jar of Desire’s peach jam with shouts of joy. Robin told them how he had received it.
“Desire came to me just before we left, when I ran in to say good-by to them. She looked awfully guilty about the jam, for she heard us say we couldn’t carry much, but I hadn’t the heart to refuse her when she said, ‘Mehitable sets such store by peach jam and I don’t believe she gets enough to eat in that outlandish school, anyway.’ ”
“Desire is perfectly right. We don’t have anywhere near enough of anything that’s good. This jam will be gone almost before the jar is open. We’ll save it for a lonely night at Outliers, when fun seems a thing of the dim past.” Una was examining critically a hockey stick which her brother, Miles, had sent her, “Good of old Miles to send it. He asked Winchy to buy it for him,” she went on.
Mr. Twilltrees and his sister, Abby, came to Christmas dinner, which was rather a solemn meal. Aunt Isobel was worried about her brother’s rehumatism and seemed inclined to take a pessimistic view of everything. She shook her head at the news of Robin’s sudden departure, I’m glad we have a fine lad like you to help in this war, but it’s a dangerous part of the service, being a motor messenger,” she said to Robin. There was a moment’s silence after she spoke and then Robin remarked that Peters had promised to send him oat cakes and brandy balls, and that he hoped they would all write him every day.

The Silver Tarn is the middle book in a trilogy of books about a Vermont teen, Mehitable, who goes to Europe to attend a French boarding school and has adventures all over the continent before, during, and after World War I. All of the characters from the first book, Mehitable, return in this second book, and more are added, making for a rather crowded cast. It’s sometimes difficult to remember who is who and keep every one straight with their individual stories and personalities, especially since I haven’t read the first book in the series. Nevertheless, if you’re looking for a clean, rather nostalgic, novel set during World War I for your teen girl to read, you could do worse than Mehitable and The Silver Tarn. The third book in the series is called Toto and the Gift and centers on Mehitable’s return to France and befriending of a French orphan with dramatic ability. You can read The Silver Tarn on Internet Archive.

Content considerations: On one page of the novel a family servant, a cook, called “Black Mandy” is introduced. The cook speaks in dialect, and she goes to “Darky Town” to visit her family. This character does not reappear in the rest of The Silver Tarn.

This sweet little Christmas story was written and illustrated by the daughter of Velveteen Rabbit author Margery Bianco. It’s about a seven year old girl named Victoria who has been saving her money to buy Christmas presents for her five little sisters. On Christmas Eve Victoria empties her savings bank and goes out to choose the presents, but of course, there are obstacles and misadventures to be overcome.

The Doll in the Window is a text-heavy picture book, a short story really, only thirty pages long. There are only a few illustrations, but those that accompany the story are lovely and colorful. The book was published in 1953, and the economics of the story make that clear. Victoria is excited to have saved a whole dollar with which to buy her five Christmas presents. In addition to the six sisters, the book has a Cub Scout in search of good deed to do and a wonderful, beautiful, surprising doll.

Pamela Bianco was something of a child or teen prodigy. She was the first one to illustrate her mother’s famous story, The Velveteen Rabbit, in England when it first came out. (Later, the familiar illustrations by William Nicholson became those most associated with the story.) Pamela was educated at home, and her paintings and drawings were first exhibited as part of a children’s show in Turin, then in London in 1919, when Pamela was only thirteen years old, and in New York City in 1921. She grew up to be a moderately well known artist, and her works were and still are exhibited in many museums and galleries.

I suppose The Doll in the Window might be considered a bit preachy by some adults, but children will enjoy the story as it is on the surface and not be too worried about the moral. The unstated moral? Greed doesn’t feel good, and generosity is its own reward.

The Christmas Rocket by Anne Molloy. Illustrated by Artur Marokvia. First published as “The Four Legs of Gian-Carlo” in The Horn Book, 1957. Republished by Purple House Press, 2023.

Dino lives with his father and his grandfather and works with them in their pottery shop in the mountains of Italy. At the time of this story, it’s the day before Christmas Eve, and Dino and his father are going down the mountainside to sell the pottery that they have been making to the villagers below. They hope to sell all of their wares in order to make enough money to have some meat for their Christmas dinner, get some shoes for barefoot Dino, buy all four legs of the donkey Gian-Carlo who can carry their pottery down the mountain, and maybe even purchase a Christmas rocket for Dino to shoot off in celebration. However, as Grandfather says, “Rockets! They go up fast with a fizz and then what do you have left? A stick if you can find it. That is all.”

Of course, things do not go quite as well as Dino had hoped they would, but a Christmas miracle is awaiting the poor hardworking family. There’s a rule about writing Christmas stories (and Hallmark Christmas movies): there always has to be a Christmas miracle. The one in this book is satisfying and generous, a good ending to a hopeful Christmas story.

Author Anne Molloy wrote many books for children in her career. A biographical sketch of her life at SeacoastNH.com tells of her writing habits:

“Anne Molloy wrote her books in longhand, her feet propped up on a sofa, her paper supported by a checkerboard. She transcribed each manuscript on her husband’s Underwood typewriter. Wherever she traveled, notebook in hand, she recorded daily details and ideas, providing the rich content that distinguished all of her books and brought her plucky heroes and heroines to life.”

That’s the kind of book The Christmas Rocket is, the kind that you can imagine being written out with a pen and then typed on an Underwood. I think my grandchildren will enjoy adding this one to their Christmas repertoire.

The Christmas Stove by Alta Halverson Seymour. Christmas Around the World Series. Republished by Purple House Press, 2021.

Two orphan children, Peter and Trudi, come to stay with their aunt Tante Maria Fingerhut in her poor little cottage in the Swiss mountains. But will the poverty-stricken Tante Maria be able to care for the children when she can barely feed herself? And how will they ever be able to celebrate Christmas?

“But though Tante was looking kindly at Trudy, she was just ready to shake her head when Peter caught her eye. Instead, she said, ‘Well, there are several weeks yet before Christmas. Who knows what may happen in that time? Come now, it is almost bedtime. We must find a comfortable place for you to sleep. I had moved my ed into the kitchen here for the winter so that one fire would do, but in the other room is the porcelain stove. Peter shall make a fire in that while Trudi helps me make up your beds.’

Trudi was so delighted with the stove that she could hardly leave it; and no wonder, for it was made of tiles, each one with its own picture. Some represented fairy tales, and there were castles and people and landscapes. The clear light from Tante Maria’s candle fell directly on the one Trudi knew she would like best of all.

‘Oh, look!’ she cried with delight. It’s the Christkindli in the manger, Peter. And the animals and His Mother. Oh, Tante, this is a real Christmas stove!'”

Peter and Trudi are young but hard working children, and they soon prove their worth to Tante Maria and to the various members of the small community in Tante Maria’s little village. It’s a lovely little book, only 94 pages long, with lots of traditional Swiss Christmas customs embedded in the story and a theme of learning to deal with difficult people and to love one’s enemies, especially at Christmas time.

I only have a few of Alta Halverson Seymour’s Christmas stories in my library, but reading this one makes me want to buy all of them. The ones I have are:

• Arne and the Christmas Star (Norway)
• A Grandma for Christmas (Norway)
• The Christmas Stove (Switzerland)

The ones I would like to have:

• The Christmas Camera (Sweden)
• The Christmas Compass (Netherlands)
• The Christmas Donkey (France)

The Lion in the Box by Marguerite de Angeli. Republished by Purple House Press.

“Sunday, the children went to Sunday school. Mama kept Sooch with her at home. Ben went into the kindergarten class under Mrs. McAlister’s care. Already, he could sing with the other little ones. The girls were in Miss Von Tipple’s class. This Sunday, she told them more about Christmas, about the shepherds on the hills of Judea, the angel choir and the coming of the three kinds with their gifts for the Baby. There was a tree decorated with bright tinsel, a shiny star at the very top and candles. Lili wished their own tree would be as bright and beautiful.”

This slightly fictionalized but true story of a family of five children who live with their widowed, working mother is dedicated to Marguerite de Angeli’s friend, Lili Galen, who is one of the children in the story. Lili’s family is poor, but as the saying goes, rich in love. Mama works two jobs to support herself and her children. Christmas is coming, but Lili knows that the doll from the department store window and the real toy train that she wishes she could buy for little brother Ben are way beyond the family’s means. Nevertheless, the children work hard, take care of one another, and appreciate what they do have–food to eat, a small Christmas tree, and homemade decorations.

When the family receive a huge surprise Christmas box, speculation is that the box contains a lion! But what it really contains and who sent it are revelations of the abundance of Christmas grace that can and often does inhabit the world. I love knowing that this is a true story and that people did and still do, I believe, give of themselves and their resources to others less fortunate than themselves.

The Brontes–Charlotte, Emily, Branwell, and Anne–are endlessly fascinating subjects for books, fiction and nonfiction. The fact that the Bronte children made little books for each other is a good focus for a book about the hunger for stories that we all have.

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen any illustrations by Briony May Smith, although as I look she has illustrated other books. I’m a fan. The children look like real children , and yet the pictures have a fairy tale, once upon a time quality to them, too. It reminds me a little bit of one of my favorite modern illustrators, Brett Helquist, but Ms. Smith has her own distinctive, original, and recognizable style.

“This is the story of the little Brontes, who lived in a house on the edge of the wild moors–and also in a world of their own imagining.” Sara O’Leary is also a new-to-me author, and she lovingly tells the story of the Bronte children with their pets and toy soldiers, miniature books and real books, and their hunger for stories. It’s a well-told tale, with added information in the back about how to make your own little book, an author’s note about books and the Brontes, and a timeline of the Brontes’ life and times.

The book could certainly be a prequel and encouragement to lots of imaginative play for the children who read it, and it also might lead to the reading of other books about the Brontes and their amazing lives and accomplishments. Some of those follow-up books:

Charlotte Bronte and Jane Eyre by Stewart Ross. A picture book biography that focuses on the writing of Charlotte’s most famous novel, Jane Eyre.

The Return of the Twelve by Pauline Clarke (British title The Twelve and the Genii). Fantasy fiction about the Bronte children and how their toy soldiers come to life and need help to get back home.

The Young Brontes: Charlotte and Emily, Branwell and Anne by Mary Louise Jarden. Historical fiction (not fantasy) about the lives of the young Bronte children.

Girl With a Pen: Charlotte Bronte by Elisabeth Kyle. A biography of just Charlotte.

The Bronte Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily and Anne by Catherine Reef. Biography for young adults about all of the Brontes and their “brief lives.”

Some picture books are almost poems, and this book is one of those. Mr. Tresselt uses alliteration and rhythm and parallelism to make the text flow, perfect for reading aloud. The story begins with a cat looking out of the window at the rain drops coming down, and it ends with all of the drips and drops gathered into waves on the ocean, and then the rain stops. The book has a simple but satisfying narrative arc to accompany the poetry of it. And if you’re counting, it can be an introduction to the science of the water cycle and weather and rain. So you get poetry, narrative, and science all wrapped up with a nice bow.

Rain Drop Splash was Alvin Tresselt’s first book for children, and it was a Caldecott Honor book in 1947. He was blessed to have experienced illustrator Leonard Weisgard who was asked by the publisher to do the pictures for Tresselt’s debut picture book, and I’m sure that gave Mr. Tresselt’s career a big boost, especially with the Caldecott recognition. The illustrations are indeed beautiful, black and white with splashes of yellow and red in each spread. Weisgard must have insisted on the color since his website biography explains, “As a schoolboy in New York, he was dissatisfied with the books supplied by the public schools he attended. He found the illustrations monotonous and thought that the world could not be all that dreary and limited to only one color.”

As for Alvin Tresselt, he says in the Afterword to my paperback copy of the book,

“RAIN DROP SPLASH started out as a mountain stream named Hyacinth, and I was going to follow her down the mountain until she eventually reached the sea. But somewhere along the journey my personified brook got hopelessly lost, and I realized that this approach would never work. I then decided to “tell it like it is,” and I traced the rain falling on a mountainside and making its way to the sea in a completely realistic manner. I accomplished this in less than five hundred words.”

Five hundred words, but such good words: dripped, splashed, trickled, splunked, tumbling, pickerel weed, barges, scows, tankers, buoy. I liked the words, and the phrases, and the full sentences, each one chosen carefully to create a whole picture of what happens when it rains. Rain Drop Splash is a good book to read aloud to preschoolers when it rains, when there are floods, or when you go on a boat ride or a visit to the ocean. (It would have been good during Hurricane Harvey days here in Houston. There is a farmer’s field and a road that floods in the book, but nothing scary.) Rain Drop Splash is also one of the many picture books listed in my preschool curriculum list, Picture Book Preschool, available for download at Biblioguides.