All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook by Leslie Connor

Jan27

Eleven year old Perry T. Cook has lived all of his life at the Blue River Co-ed Correctional Facility in Surprise, Nebraska—in other words, in prison. His mom is the one who committed a crime, however. She lives on Cell Block C. And Warden Daugherty, Perry’s foster mom, is the one who makes it possible for Perry to live in prison with his birth mom, sort of. The warden and the guards and the prisoners and Perry and his mom are all just fine with Perry living at Blue River, but when the new District Attorney gets a bee in his bonnet about the inappropriateness of Perry’s living situation, Perry’s life is turned upside down.

OK, the premise is a little improbable, but it does shine a light on the issue of children whose parent(s) are incarcerated. And All Rise is not just an issue-driven novel; it’s a good story about an extremely patient and compliant boy (Perry) who finally, through persistence and a little luck, manages to get the adults to look at the spirit rather than the letter of the law. Gary Schmidt calls the book “a deeply moving, even inspiring novel”, and the plot and characters remind me of Mr. Schmidt’s books. An innocent boy is caught up in the problems of the adults around him and finds a way to navigate those problems with kindness and perseverance.

There are a couple of problems with the book. First, Perry is a little too innocent and patient, never complaining even when his new foster father is manifestly blind and unfair. But the point of the story is that Perry has been trained to be compliant in his life growing up in a prison, just as incarcerated criminals are trained to be compliant and not necessarily to think for themselves or stand up for their own convictions. There are also a few instances of cursing (God’s name taken in vain) that may add to verisimilitude of a prison setting, but don’t add much to a middle grade novel. However, those instances were only a handful.

I found Perry’s story inspiring and moving myself, and it has a lot to say about the work of forgiveness and about rehabilitation and even our justice system and our foster care system. Children need and long for their own parents; when they are unable to be with their parents because a parent is in jail or prison, the child is serving a sentence along with the parent. And that’s sad. All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook is a hopeful story, however, and one that might help children to understand some things about prisoners and the justice system and children in foster care jut a little bit better.

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Demelza by Winston Graham

Jan26

I’m spending my Thursdays here on the blog in the eighteenth century, 1700’s.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this second book in Mr. Graham’s Poldark series, even though I knew what was going to happen since I have already watched seasons one and two of the TV series, Poldark. These are such good stories. I think I will enjoy them even more when I get to the books for which I haven’t seen the television adaptation. I’m not sure exactly when that will be because season one was based on the first two books. Does season two cover books three and four?

At any rate, I find the books excellent reading. Mr. Graham seems to have done his research, and he knew how to tell a story. I’ll just use the rest of this post as my “commonplace book” and write down some memorable notes and observations on the text.

Ross Poldark, back in 1789, seems to be in a political pickle similar to the one that many of us are in nowadays:

“I’m neither Whig nor Tory,” Ross said.
“Well, drot it, you must be something. Who d’you vote for?”
Ross was silent again for some time and bent and patted the hound. He seldom thought these things out.
“I’m not a Whig,” he said, “nor ever could belong to a party that was was for ever running down its own country and praising up the virtues of some other. The very thought of it sticks in my crop.”
“Hear, hear!” said Sir John, picking his teeth.
“But neither could I belong to a party which looks with complacency on the state of England as it is. So you’ll see the difficulty I’m in.”

“You must be something.” Well, I see the difficulty, but I still choose to be neither fish nor fowl, neither Trumpista nor “progressive” in the absolute wrong direction. If that makes me a misfit, like Mr. Poldark, so be it.

This second book in the series ends with death, destruction, and loss. I won’t be specific, for those of you reading who haven’t seen the TV series or read the books; however, from its hope filled beginning with the birth of a child for Ross and Demelza Poldark to the end when all is dark with only a hint of light in the last line of the novel (“I am quite warm, Ross. Let me stay a little longer in the sun.”), it’s quite a ride.

In the Afterword, written by American author Liz Fenwick, she says that Graham “presents something of a feminist view” in this novel which was written and published in 1946, just after World War II. I think the story has more to say about the beginning of the end of classism in Britain, which only accelerated over a century after the setting of the book as World War I began and World War II continued the move toward a more egalitarian society. Demelza is from the lowest of the lower class, and the idea that a girl of her background could become something of a sensation in society within a few short years of being married to Ross Poldark is a bit fanciful and unlikely in the eighteenth century, but romantic and appealing to those of us who don’t believe in “classes” in the first place.

I love the history embedded in the pages of Demelza. The characters discuss the “troubles” in France, but it all feels very far away and foreign and extraneous to local concerns. Even the affairs of Parliament and mad King George and his ambitious son, the Prince of Wales, all seem far away in London, of no immediate concern to the people, both great and small, of Sawle and Truro and Wheal Leisure and Nampara. An eighteenth century antiquarian, Richard Gough, wrote that “Cornwall seems to be another Kingdom.” Indeed, and it’s a fascinating Kingdom to visit in Mr. Graham’s many iterations.

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Aim by Joyce Moyer Hostetter

Jan25

Aim is a prequel to Ms. Hostetter’s two books about Ann Fay Honeycutt, Blue and Comfort. Aim is about Junior Bledsoe, a secondary, but beloved, character in those other two books. (Ann Fay is the minor character in this one.)

The story takes place in 1941-1942. Fourteen year old Junior Bledsoe of Hickory, North Carolina has a troubled life. His father is a drunk. Junior doesn’t like school and can’t really see the point of it. His cantankerous and sometimes cruel granddaddy has moved in and taken over Junior’s bedroom. And World War II is about to involve the United States of America, except according to Granddaddy, “That yellow-bellied president is too chicken to take us to war. He ain’t half the man the Colonel was.” (The Colonel, in Grandaddy’s jargon, refers to Teddy Roosevelt.)

While Junior worries about school and the draft and impending war and that fact that his father seems distant and stern most of the time, Junior’s dad manages to go on a drinking binge and get killed in a accident. Or was it an accident? How can Junior go back to school when he’s not sure what really happened to his Pop? And what are they going to do about Grandaddy who’s becoming more verbally abusive and demanding every day? Should Junior drop out of school and get a job? Or join the army? Or investigate the moonshiners who may have been involved in Pop’s death?

This story is really all about a boy who’s trying to find his way to adulthood without the guidance of a father. However, the wonderful thing is that the community steps in to work together and separately to help Junior find his “aim” in life. Even when Junior Bledsoe makes some really poor choices and gets himself into what could become serious trouble, members of his extended community help his now-single mother guide Junior back to the path of good sense and responsible moral judgement. Junior is a good kid, but he’s looking for a way to deal with his father’s death and a way to earn the respect of his family and his friends. It’s not easy for a fourteen year old boy to lose his father, especially not the way Junior Pop dies. It was inspiring to read about how ordinary, ind neighbors, teachers, and friends help Junior to process his father’s death and to decide which parts of his father’s legacy he wants to continue and which parts he wants to leave in the grave.

Aim is an excellent coming-of-age novel, and I would also recommend Blue, about Ann Fay and her encounter with the dreaded disease of polio about a year after the events in Aim have taken place. I have yet to read Comfort, the sequel to Blue, but it is definitely on my TBR list.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.

Texas Yankee by Nina Brown Baker

Jan24

Texas Tuesday: Texas Yankee; The Story of Gail Borden by Nina Brown Baker.

Benito Juarez, Peter the Great, Simon Bolivar, F.W. Woolworth, America Vespucci, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Nellie Bly are a few of the other celebrities and historical figures that Nina Brown Baker wrote about in her prolific career as a children’s biographer. Texas Yankee, about the inventor of condensed milk and sweetened condensed milk, is a biography in Ms. Brown’s short, slightly fictionalized, and highly readable style. The story begins with twelve year old Gail Borden and his family moving from New York to Kentucky and ends 129 pages later with Gail Borden’s death at his ranch near Columbus, Texas in 1874 at the age of 72. Borden’s life in-between these two events took him from New York to Kentucky to Ohio to Mississippi to Texas and back again up north to Connecticut and New York to try to sell his inventions and ideas to an Eastern seaboard audience.

Then, came the disruption of the Civil War, and Gail Borden found himself on the opposite side of the slavery and Union issues from most of his fellow Texans and therefore in exile so to speak from his beloved Texas. But after the war and the bitterness from the war had died down, Gail Borden was able to return to Texas a successful man who gave travelers and immigrants and settlers of the West a way to transport good, healthy milk over long distances without having it go bad and without having to purchase milk for their children from questionable sources along the way.

I once met a restaurant owner who read a book about Gail Borden when she was in fifth grade and was so inspired by her reading that she looked to him as an example for her business dealings and also made a lifelong study of the history of Texas. Nina Brown Baker’s book about Gail Borden may have been the book she read as a fifth grader, for all I know. At any rate, I can see how this book and Gail Borden’s life would be inspirational. Mr. Borden’s commitment to Christ is a thread throughout the biography, not over-emphasized but definitely acknowledged. The only problem in recommending this biography to your fifth grader is that it was published in 1955 and is now out of print. I do find one other biography of Borden, Milk, Meat Biscuits, and the Terraqueous Machine by Mary Dodson, but it’s from 1987 and also out of print. And there’s a Childhood of Famous Americans series volume, Gail Borden: Resourceful Boy by Adrian Paradis, also out of print.

It seems as if the subject of Gail Borden, supporter of the Texas revolution and persistent inventor, might be ripe for a new biography by some up-and-coming adult or children’s biographer.

FNFC: Alfred Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man

Jan23

This Hitchcock film from 1956 comes with introductory remarks by Hitchcock himself; he tells us that this film is different from his other movies because it is a true story. The false arrest and imprisonment of Mr. Christopher Emmanuel Ballestrero (aka Manny) actually took place in New York City in 1953. He was accused by several eyewitnesses of having committed armed robbery. The police took Mr. Ballestrero into custody on the word of these witnesses and subjected him to a rather primitive and inconclusive form of a police line-up and then charged him with the armed robbery.

In addition to asking why the movie was in black and white instead of color, my daughters were amazed at the lack of due process and proper police procedure that led to the wrongful arrest and indictment of Manny Ballestero. No Miranda warning (Miranda vs. Arizona, 1966), no lawyer provided (Gideon vs. Wainright, 1963), and police questioning and investigation that was unfair and rather perfunctory—it certainly didn’t look anything like a current day police drama or criminal investigation. We don’t realize what protections we have now that weren’t there a little over fifty years ago. Perhaps the choice of a black and white film emphasizes the antiquated and unjust investigation and trial. And yet, my daughters and I were quick to note that the same kind of false imprisonment can and does happen today, especially for minority suspects who are more likely to be victims of false identification and false arrest.

I kept thinking that Mr. Ballestrero needed to call Perry Mason. Mr. Mason would have had that case resolved and thrown out of court within an hour of television. As it was it took a little longer that that in the movie version, and the defendant and his wife had to do all of their own investigative work to come up with an alibi for Mr. Ballestrero. Perry Mason would have had Paul Drake to help with the detective work.

The next thing we noticed about the movie was the rather dated and hokey psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. Manny’s wife has what would have been called at the time “a nervous breakdown” because of the stress of the arrest and impending trial. However, her break with reality is almost complete; she barely speaks coherently to Manny or to anyone else after she becomes mentally ill. Stress might trigger a mental illness like that of Mrs. Ballestrero, but she’s practically catatonic and obviously suffering from something (clinical depression? schizophrenia?) more serious than stress. Vera Miles plays the wife, and she’s good in an eerie sort of way. Henry Fonda as Manny is mostly stoical and poker-faced, a little bewildered, a man who perseveres through all of the injustice of being prosecuted for a crime he didn’t commit with a certain dignity and humility.

The most interesting scene in the movie has Manny finally breaking down into near-despair over his situation, with his mother exhorting him to pray to God. “My son, I beg you to pray! Pray for strength!” she says. He does pray in his bedroom, while looking at a picture of Jesus, and the movie’s viewers see the real robber walking out of the darkness, then his face superimposed on Fonda/Ballestrero’s face. The police catch the real robber in the act of holding up a store, notice the similarity between Manny and the robber, and the case is solved. Manny is delivered. It’s a very obvious answer to prayer, and yet the ending to the movie shows that Manny still needs God’s strength to get through the continuing aftermath of the storm that has upended his life and marriage.

Manny Ballestrero: “Be careful of accusing anyone. Before you accuse anyone, you should think, because you can destroy a family, physically and mentally, like mine could have been destroyed.”

More analysis and review of The Wrong Man:

At the Alfred-Hitch Blog.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Two Most Catholic Films at decent films.

Roger Ebert on Hitchcock’s Least Fun Movie Is Also One of His Greatest.

This Friday the Friday Film Club feature will be Judgment at Nuremberg, a 1961 American courtroom drama, directed by Stanley Kramer, written by Abby Mann and starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Maximilian Schell, Werner Klemperer, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, William Shatner, and Montgomery Clift.

Sunday’s Hymn: Thy Mercy, My God

Jan22

We sang this hymn this morning in church. The words were written by John Stocker and appeared in The Gospel Magazine in 1776 and then were later published by Daniel Sedgwick, a great British collector of hymns and a bookseller in the mid-nineteenth century. Sandra McCracken tells the story of how she discovered these old lyrics and wrote new music for them here.

Without Thy sweet mercy I could not live here;
Sin would reduce me to utter despair . . .

Dissolved by Thy goodness, I fall to the ground,
And weep to the praise of the mercy IÂ’’ve found.

The Lost Property Office by James R. Hannibal

Jan22

The Lost Property Office, Baker Street Branch, in London is just a front for the secret Ministry of Trackers. And our hero, thirteen year old American boy Jack Buckles, finds out, by accident, that he is a Tracker, as was his father before him. Can Jack use his newfound tracking skills to find his father, who disappeared in London a few weeks ago without leaving a trace behind?

This fantasy adventure was exciting, but sometimes hard to follow. I almost wished for the movie version so that I could see the action, instead of trying to picture it myself from the descriptions in the book. If you’ve read this book I’d be curious to know whether you had the same problem. Maybe I just wasn’t a very good reader.

Jack teams up with a junior apprentice clerk named Gwen, and the two of them go off to save the world —and find Jack’s dad. The Macguffin is something called the Ember that may or may not have started the Great Fire of London back in 1666. So Gwen and Jack end up investigating the fire as well as looking for the Ember as well as attempting to rescue Jack’s dad. It’s all a little frustrating since Gwen is evasive and withholding of information. And Jack has just discovered his tracker abilities, which include being able to “spark” or see visions of the past by touching an object and channeling his thoughts into the history of that object. Jack is just learning to use his tracker talents, and Gwen is supposed to be helping him, but there’s a lot of stuff she’s not telling him.

I found Gwen’s “we’ll talk about that later” and “change the subject” when asked a direct question just as annoying as Jack did in the book. I wanted her to sit down and explain all about underground ministries and trackers and the number 13 and sparking all in one clear, concise speech, but I suppose that would have shortened the story considerably. At 387 pages, it could have afforded some cutting. I did like the historical aspects about the Great Fire and how it started.

Nevertheless, I recommend this book for fans of Trenton Lee Stewart’s The Mysterious Benedict Society or Jonathan Auxier’s Peter Nimble. It’s a good romp, and as I said, some of my issues may have been due to inattentive reading.

Oh, Were They Ever Happy by Peter Spier

Jan21

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.

Saturday Review of Books: January 21, 2017

Jan20

“Like Scout and her father in To Kill a Mockingbird, my father would pull me onto his lap each night in our four-room apartment and read aloud.” ~Jim Trelease

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.

1. Sea Reads (Heir of Fire)
2. journey & destination (The Keys of the Kingdom)
3. GretchenJoanna (Four Seasons in Rome)
4. Barbara H. (The Magnolia Story)
5. Barbara H. (The Silent Songbird)
6. Katie @ Read-at-Home Mom (The Windy Hill by Cornelia Meigs)
7. Katie @ Read-at-Home Mom (The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton)
8. Becky (A Moonbow Night)
9. Katie @ Read-at-Home Mom (Ghost by Jason Reynolds)
10. Becky (Out of the Silent Planet)
11. Becky (1 and 2 Samuel J. Vernon McGee)
12. Becky (Roderick Hudson)
13. Becky (Carry On, Mr. Bowditch)
14. Becky (Hippopotamister)
15. Becky (Utopia Drive)

16. Becky (My Kite is Stuck)
17. Becky (The Kellys and the O’Kellys)
18. Becky (Another Brooklyn)
19. Becky (The Time Machine)
20. Becky (Rain)
21. Hope (The Laws of Murder by Charles Finch)
22. Linda aka Crafty Gardener
23. Glynn (The Doom Murders)
24. Glynn (David Copperfield)
25. Glynn (The Fashion in Shrouds)
26. Beckie @ByTheBook (The Kill Fee)
27. Beckie @ByTheBook (4 mini-reviews)
28. Beckie @ByTheBook (What Happened on Beale Street)
29. Janet at Across the Page (Life Reimagined)
30. Colletta (LFYI Sunset Beach Hawaii)

31. Tarissa @ In the Bookcase (Jane of Lantern Hill)
32. Becky (Abel’s Island)
33. Becky (Thunder Boy, Jr.)
34. Becky @ Christian Chick’s Thoughts (The Kill Fee)
35. Becky @ Christian Chick’s Thoughts (Beyond Belief)
36. Christina at Stuck on a Story (Many, but mostly The Key to Extraordinary)
37. Reading World (An Irish Country Girl)
38. Reading World (Truly Madly Guilty)
39. Susanne@LivingToTell (Black Ice)
40. Gabby
41. Amanda (Secret Lives of Superheroes)
42. Darren @ Bart’s Bookshelf (Mind the Gap by Phil Earle)
43. Marina @ Bardic Impulses (Crooked Kingdom)

New York Herald Tribune Spring Book Festival Awards

Jan20

In 1937 two awards of $250 each were established by the New York Herald-Tribune for the best books for younger children and for older children published between January and June. In 1941 the system of awards was revised. Three awards, of $200.00 each, were given to the best books in the following three classes: young children, middle-age children, and other children. Each year a jury, composed of distinguished experts in the field of juvenile literature, was chosen to make the selections.

1937 Seven Simeons, by Boris Artzybasheff. For younger children. Illustrated by the author. (Viking.)

The Smuggler’s Sloop, by Robb White III. For older children. Illustrated by Andrew Wyeth. (Little.)

1938 The Hobbit, by J. R. Tolkien. For younger children. Illustrated by the author. (Houghton.)

The Iron Duke, by John R. Tunis. For older children. Illustrated by Johari Bull. (Harcourt)

1939 The Story of Horace, by Alice M. Coats. For younger children. Illustrated by the author. (Coward.)

The Hired Man’s Elephant, by Phil Stong. For older children. Illustrated by Doris Lee. (Dodd.)

1940 That Mario, by Lucy Herndon Crockett. For younger children. Illustrated by the author. (Holt)

Cap’n Ezra, Privateer, by James D. Adams. For older children. Illustrated by I. B. Hazelton. (Harcourt.)

1941 In My Mother’s House, by Ann Nolan Clark. For younger children. Illustrated by Velino Herrera. (Viking.)

Pete by Tom Robinson. For middle-age children. Illustrated by Morgan Dennis. (Viking.)

Clara Barton, by Mildren Mastin Pace. For older children. (Scribner.)

1942 Mr. Tootwhistle’s Invention, by Peter Wells. For younger children.
Illustrated by the author. (Winston.)

I Have Just Begun to Fight: The Story of John Paul Jones, by
Commander Edward Ellsberg. For middle-age children. Illustrated
by Gerald Foster. (Dodd.)

None But the Brave, by Rosamond Van der Zee Marshall. For
older children. Illustrated by Gregor Duncan. (Houghton.)

1943 Five Golden Wrens, by Hugh Troy. For younger children. Illus-
trated by the author. (Oxford.)

These Happy Golden Years, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. For middle-
age children. Illustrated by Helen Sewell and Mildred Boyle.
(Harper-.)

Patterns on the Wall, by Elizabeth Yates. For older children.
(Knopf.)

1944 A Ring and a Riddle, by M. Ilm and E. Segal. For younger children.
Illustrated by Vera Bock. (Lippincott)

They Put Out to Sea, by Roger Duvoisln. For middle-age children.
Illustrated by the author. (Knopf.)

Storm Canvas, by Armstrong Sperry, For older children. Illustrated
by the author. (Winston.)

1945 Little People in a Big Country, by Norma Cohn. For younger children. Illustrated by Tashkent Children’s Art Training Center in Soviet Uzbekistan. (Oxford.)

Gulf Stream by Ruth Brindze. Illustrated by Helene Carter. For middle-age children., (Vanguard.)

Sandy, by Elizabeth Janet Gray. For older children. (Viking.)

1946 Farm Stories. Award divided between Gustaf Tenggren, illustrator, and Kathryn and Byron Jackson, authors. For younger children. (Simon & Schuster.)

The Thirteenth Stone, by Jean Bothwell, illustrated by Margaret Ayer. For middle-age children. (Harcourt)

The Quest of the Golden Condor, by Clayton Knight. Illustrated by the author. For older children. (Knopf.)

Other than The Hobbit and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s These Happy Golden Years, has anyone read or reviewed any of these prize-winning books? I know of the authors Jean Bothwell, Elizabeth Janet Grey, Armstrong Sperry, Roger Duvoisin, Elizabeth Yates, John Tunis, and Ann Nolan Clark, but not these particular books of theirs.