Christmas in Antartica, 1911

On December 14, 1911, a party led by Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen became the first to reach the South Pole.

Picture Books:
Benson, Patrick. Little Penguin. Philomel, 1990.
Wood, Audrey. Little Penguin’s Tale. HBJ, 1989.
McMillan, Bruce. Puffins Climb, Penguins Rhyme. Harcourt, 1995, 2001.
Spinelli, Eileen. Something to Tell the Grandcows. Eerdmans, 2004, 2006.
Hooper, Meredith. Tom’s Rabbit: A Surprise on the Way to Antarctica. National Geographic, 1998.
Fromental, Jean-Luc and Joelle Jolivet. 365 Penguins. Abrams Books, 2006.
Chester, Jonathan. A for Antarctica. Tricycle Press, 1995.
Gibbons, Gail. Penguins! Holiday House, 1998.

Young adult fiction and nonfiction:
Surviving Antartica: Reality TV 2083 by Andrea White. A surprisingly good story, set in a future dystopia in which the politicians are the bad guys, and TV is the opiate of the people. Five kids travel to Antarctica to re-enact Scot’s expedition to discover the South Pole. Unfortunately the kids are set up to re-enact everything about Scott’s journey, including the calamities that caused him and all his crew to perish in the Antarctic snows.

Troubling a Star by Madeleine L’Engle. Vicky Austin receives a birthday present of a month-long trip to Antartica.

The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean. I read this one several years ago, and I remember it as rather dark and disturbing with mature themes.

Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World by Jennifer Armstrong. A nonfiction account of the survival of Ernest Shackleton and his crew of 27 men who set out in August 1914 to be the first to cross the Antarctic continent from sea to sea, via the pole.

Adult Nonfiction:
Terra Incognita by Sara Wheeler. Sara Wheeler was the first woman selected by the American government to be the “Writer in Residence at the US South Pole Station”. She spent six weeks at the pole. In this book she reveals how people live on the bases and how the landscape affects them.

Marcus Sedgwick’s Top Ten Tales of Cold Climes.

Christmas in Florida, 1950

Dec12

From the book, The Seminole Indians by Sonia Bleeker:

Seminole woman reading at Big Cypress Reservaton from Flickr via Wylio

“Florida, of course, does not have a white Christmas. Usually Christmas Day is bright and warm. Everywhere among the Seminole settlements Christmas trees stand gaily next to the open chickees, their bulbs glittering in the warm sun. Everyone rises early, even though men, women, and children have been up late on Christmas Eve enjoying family reunions and gossip.

Before the holiday, the little sewing machine on the floor of each chickee throughout the settlements and reservations has been going full blast. The mother, or a little girl by her side, cranks the handle of the machine hour after hour, stitching yards and yards of bright-colored strips of cotton cloth. The Seminole have an excellent eye for arranging colors. They combine red and blue with yellow green, orange, deep red, rose, purple, and white. The colors are not thrown together at random. They follow a set pattern, and the Seminole women are extremely clever in designing artistic color combinations. Each strip has a different design; in some, the bright colors make a zigzag pattern. The mother sews and fits these strips into skirts for herself and her daughter and shirts for husband and son. Now gay new clothes are ready for the holidays. By Christmas Eve the sewing machines are all covered and will remain idle until after the New Year. Everyone is dressed in his best clothes.”

Saturday Review of Books: December 12, 2015

Dec12

“Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.” ~Samuel Butler

Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Hereâ€™s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesnâ€™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 youâ€™ve written your book review. Donâ€™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 youâ€™ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book youâ€™re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews theyâ€™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.

Saturday, January 1, 2016 will be a special edition of the Saturday Review of Books, reserved especially for book lists. Link to your end of the year favorites list or your planning to read in 2016 list or any other book list that you want to share. All book list posts are welcome to ring in the new year.

Christmas in Crawford Falls, Oregon, 1963

Dec11

Today’s Christmas vignette is from the verse novel, Crazy by Linda Vigen Phillips, about a teenager named Laura who must cope with her mother’s bipolar disorder in an era when mental illness was a taboo subject. I’m not sure how far we’ve moved toward openness and understanding of mental illness and mentally ill people in the interim, but the book portrays the issues and the possible approaches to healing and resolution quite well.

Before everyone gets here, Mother and Daddy
will have her traditional oyster stew
while I stick to peanut butter and jelly.
Daddy will tell us again
how they had lutefisk and lefse on the farm
in Bemidji when he was a boy.

When everybody arrives we’ll gather in the small
living room, glowing with Christmas lights and candles.
I’ll get down on the floor and play with the kids
crowded around the tree.
Each of them will find a present with their name on it,
little junky toys from Woolworth’s I wrapped myself.
The adults will get louder and merrier
with each round of Christmas cheer,
and I will take pictures
with my Brownie Starfish camera.

I wonder
if nervous breakdowns
money worries
alcoholic tendencies
or stormy relations
will bleed through the negatives.

But for this moment
Christmas Eve is aglow
as it should be.

Christmas in Montana, 1960

Dec10

The Loner by Ester Wier is the story of a boy without a name, without a home, without a family, who travels with the migrant farm workers, picking crops and living hand to mouth, until he comes to rest, by accident, with a lady everyone calls Boss on a Montana sheep ranch. Boss gives the boy the name David, and like his Biblical namesake, David becomes a man while guarding and caring for the sheep.

“It was the first real Christmas the boy had ever known. He sat on the bench and watched as Tex put a tiny fir tree on the table and Angie decorated it with small ornaments. Boss unwrapped the cold, carved turkey and dressing and heated the gravy on the stove. She set the pies to warm and put some coffee on to boil.
After they had eaten, Angie gave David his presents—a warm sweater she had knitted for him, a pair of long woolen socks, and two books. ‘You’ll be reading them soon,’ she promised.
Tex gave him a flashlight of his own, with a box of extra batteries. Boss motioned to Tex and he went back to his horse and returned, carrying a rifle. Boss held it in her hands a while before holding ti out to the boy. ‘It’s a .375 Magnum,’ she said, ‘Ben’s gun. I figured one of these days I’d teach you how to shoot it.’ The boy and Tex exchanged glances. ‘But it’s to be kept up there on that shelf and you’re never to touch it unless I tell you to. Do you understand? I’ll skin you alive if you do.'”

The gun turns out to be significant in David’s maturation, and the two books have a part to play, too. The Loner is a great story, for boys and girls, but especially for young men who are struggling with what it means to grow up and become a good, responsible person. Highly recommended.

Christmas in Appleton, England, 1957

Dec9

The Story of Holly & Ivy by Rumer Godden.

“This is a story about wishing. It is also about a doll and a little girl. It begins with the doll.

Her name, of course, was Holly.
It could not have been anything else, for she was dressed for Christmas in a red dress, and red shoes, though her petticoat and socks were green.
She was 12 inches high; she had real gold hair, brown glass eyes that could open and shut, and teeth like tiny china pearls.”

Such a sweet Christmas story, reminiscent of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl, but much more hopeful, The Story of Holly & Ivy is one of Rumer Godden’s doll stories. And it’s illustrated by the talented Caldecott-award winning author and illustrator, Barbara Cooney. I would recommend this picture book for girls, or boys, who love dolls and who enjoy gentle stories about wishes coming true.

Some other doll stories by Rumer Godden and other authors that you and your doll-loving children might enjoy:
Mouse House by Rumer Godden. A mouse who hasn’t enough room in her crowded flower pot home goes looking for another house.
Little Plum by Rumor Godden. Nona and Belinda don’t like Gem their new next door neighbor, but they love the little Japanese doll in her window, whom they name Little Plum.
The Doll’s House by Rumor Godden. Emily and Charlotte long for a proper home for their doll family, but there’s trouble in the new dollhouse.
Miss Flora McFlimsey books by Mariana.
The Doll People series by Ann M. Martin.
William’s Doll by Charlotte Zolotow. William wants a doll so that he can learn to be a daddy.
The Mennyms by Sylvia Waugh. For middle grade and above readers, a family of dolls live secretive lives in an old house in London.

Christmas in South Africa, 1902

Dec8

From Cowboys and Cattle Drives by Edith McCall:

“He worked there until December. Then he was asked to drive a bunch of mules to the town of Ladysmith. On the way, he saw posters for Texas Jack’s Wild West Show. Such shows had becomes popular all over the world, beginning with Buffalo Bill’s show of the 1880’s and 1890’s, for all the world loved the riding, shooting, roping American cowboy.
Will could hardly wait to go to see Texas Jack and find out if he was really from Texas and above all, a true cowboy.
‘Sure am,’ said Texas Jack. ‘And who are you?’
‘My name is Will Rogers, and I’m a cowboy from Indian Territory,’ he said.
‘Is that so? Are you pretty good at riding and roping?’
‘Just fair as a rider, but I can handle a rope pretty well,’ said Will. He showed Texas Jack a little of what he could do, including the Big Crinoline, one of the most difficult tricks.
Then came the words that started Will Rogers on his career.
‘How would you like a job in my show?'”

To read more about Will Rogers and other famous cowboys, check out Cowboys and Cattle Drives or any of the following excellent children’s books, available in my library, Meriadoc Homeschool Library, and I hope in yours:

In the Days of the Vaqueros: America’s First True Cowboys by Russell Freedman.
Cowboys of the Wild West by Russell Freedman.
Cattle Trails: Git Along Little Dogies by Kathy Pelta.
Cowhand: The Story of a Working Cowboy by Fred Gipson.
Will Rogers: Young Cowboy by Guernsey Van Riper, Jr.
Will Rogers: His Life and Times by Richard M. Ketchum.

Christmas in Holland, c.1910

Dec7

Kit and Kat flattened their noses against all the shop windows, and looked at the toys and cakes.

“I wish St. Nicholas would bring me that,” said Kit, pointing to a very large St. Nicholas cake.

“And I want some of those,” Kat said, pointing to some cakes made in the shapes of birds and fish.

Vrouw Vedder had gone with her basket on an errand. Father Vedder and Kit and Kat walked slowly along, waiting for her. Soon there was a noise up the street. There were shouts, and the clatter of wooden shoes.

“Look! Look!” cried Kit.

There, in the midst of the crowd, was a great white horse; and riding on it was the good St. Nicholas himself! He had a long white beard and red cheeks, and long robes, with a mitre on his head; and he smiled at the children, who crowded around him and followed him in a noisy procession down the street.

Behind St. Nicholas came a cart, filled with packages of all sizes. The children were all shouting at once, “Give me a cake, good St. Nicholas!” or, “Give me a new pair of shoes!” or whatever each one wanted most.

“Where is he going?” asked Kit and Kat.

“He’s carrying presents to houses where there are good girls and boys,” Father Vedder said. “For bad children, there is only a rod in the shoe.”

“I’m glad we’re so good,” said Kit.

“When will he come to our house?” asked Kat.

“Not until to-morrow,” said Father Vedder. “But you must fill your wooden shoes with beans or hay for his good horse, to-night; and then perhaps he will come down the chimney and leave something in them. It’s worth trying.”

The Dutch Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins

Christmas in Oregon, 1843

Dec6

From the book, Westward Ho! Eleven Explorers of the West by Charlotte Folz Jones, “Mapping the Path for Manifest Destiny, John C. Fremont.”

“A week later, on Christmas morning of 1843, they camped beside another lake, which Fremont named Christmas Lake. It is either present-day Hart Lake or Crump Lake. By this time, they were in the desert. Fremont described it as ‘a remote, desolate land.’ Having to spend Christmas in such isolated, barren, and forbidding land, the men’s spirits were low, so Fremont poured everyone a drink of brandy to toast the day. Louis Zindel fired the cannon and the rest of the men fired their pistols. They had coffee with sugar, then continued their journey.”

The eleven explorers in this rather lovely book are: Robert Gray, George Vancouver, Alexander Mackenzie, John Colter, Zebulon Montgomery, Stephen Harriman Long, James Bridger, Jedidiah Strong Smith, Joseph Reddeford Walker, John Fremont, and John Wesley Powell. I would imagine between the eleven of them there were many, many Christmases spent in “remote desolate lands.”

I’m feeling as if my Christmas is shaping up to be rather remote and desolate, too, in spite of all the loving people around me and all the many blessings I have to be thankful for. The problem is not my surroundings or my circumstances. I just feel remote and not ready to celebrate Christmas. If you’re feeling the same way, maybe this post from singer and songwriter Audrey Assad will speak to you as it did to me.

Christmas in Morocco, c.1950

Dec5

The Secret of the Fourth Candle by Patricia St. John.

Aisha looked awestruck at the candles and then back at the presents . . . She knew at last why the little girl lit one more candle every week. It was in honor of a Baby called Jesus who was coming next week, and then all the candles would burn and the whole room would be white and radiant and the Baby would laugh and crow. She had never heard of Jesus before, for she was a Muslim girl, but she felt sure He must be a very important Baby to have the candles lit especially for His coming. And all those presents, too! She supposed they were all for Him and she wondered what was inside them—lovely little garments perhaps, and toys and colored shoes. She wanted to see Him more than she had ever wanted to see anything else in the world.

Patricia St. John spent over twenty-five years in North Africa and the Middle East as a missionary teacher and nurse. She wrote several books for children, both fiction and nonfiction, as well as an autobiography that Jan Bloom recommends in her book, Who Then Should We Read? I would absolutely love to have a copy of Ms. St. John’s autobiography, AN Ordinary Woman’s Extraordinary Faith. However, I will content myself with the children’s novels and stories that I do have in my library, including The Secret of the Fourth Candle, a Christmas story about a Muslim girl who discovers the true, true meaning of Christmas.

Other books by Patricia St. John in my library:

The Secret at Pheasant Cottage
Rainbow Garden
Star of Light
Tanglewoods’ Secret
Three Go Searching
Treasures of the Snow