Out of a Far Country: A Gay Son’s Journey to God by Christopher Yuan

Jun3

I’ve wanted to read Christopher Yuan’s conversion story for a while, but just recently managed to get hold of a copy. I think it was a bit anticlimactic for me because I already heard most of the outlines and some of the details of Mr. Yuan’s story. But for someone coming to the story with fresh eyes, this book would be a very powerful testimony to the saving power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for both wayward sons and their unredeemed parents.

Christopher Yuan is the younger of two sons in a traditional Chinese American family. His parents were immigrants to the United States from Taiwan who struggled but made good in a new country with lots of hard work and determination–the familiar American immigrant success story. Christopher’s father earned a doctorate and a DDS in dentistry and with his wife, Christopher’s mother, Angela’s help, established a thriving dental practice in Chicago. Their two boys grew up in a strict but loving Chinese American family with a somewhat distant father and a proud and deeply attached mother. The book begins with Christopher’s “coming out” story: he tells his parents about his homosexuality, which has been the center of his life for several years before this confession. “It’s not something I can choose. I was born this way. . . I am gay.” The remainder of the book tells how Christopher’s life became more and more chaotic and dysfunctional, with drugs, sex, and illicit money featured prominently until Christopher finally ends up in prison.

In the meantime, Angela goes from suicidal and irreligious to persevering prayer warrior after she relinquishes control of her life and of Christopher’s life to God and begins to know Him as her ever present help in a years long vigil and prayer for the salvation of her son. Both Angela and Christopher eventually learn that their only hope is found in Christ.

“Years of heartbreak, confusion, and prayer followed before the Yuans found a place of complete surrender, which is God’s desire for all families. Their amazing story, told from the perspectives of both mother and son, offers hope for anyone affected by homosexuality. God calls all who are lost to come home to him. Casting a compelling vision for holy sexuality, Out of a Far Country speaks to prodigals, parents of prodigals, and those wanting to minister to the gay community.”

The Mystery of the Pilgrim Trading Post by Anne Molloy

Jun1

This mystery tale of smugglers and Native American artifacts and a fight against bridges and roads being built on top of someone’s home is fairly standard and quite readable. It reminds me of my beloved Trixie Belden mysteries and of the many mysteries by Helen Fuller Orton and the Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner. This one is not part of a series, but if you like any of Ms. Molloy’s many mystery adventure stories, you will probably enjoy this one.

Thirteen year old twins, Will and Lettie Dennis, and their cousin Jonas Wingate are invited to spend the summer at the old TIbbets homestead with Cousin Mary Peter, whose home is set to be demolished soon so that a bridge can be built from the Maine coast out to Eden Island and Smuggler’s Cove. None of the three really wants to sped their summer in Maine with a cousin they never met, but their parents have asked them to give it a week’s trial. Cousin Mary Peter, a pharmacist, storekeeper, and somewhat eccentric caregiver, assumes that the children are staying for the summer. And as it turns out, Will, Lettie, and Jo find more to pique their interest than they thought they would, including a plan to save the old homestead by having it declared a historical site. The family have always “firmly believed that it [the house] was the very place where the Pilgrims set up a post to trade with the Indians when they came from Plymouth to this bay.” If the children can prove it, the house will be protected.

Published in 1964, the mystery adventure story features free-range children exploring and sometimes doing rather foolish things like stowing away on a smuggler’s boat or taking a leaky boat out into the bay, but all’s well that ends well. (Just don’t try these exploits at home.) Even one of the “villains” of the story is redeemed in the end. It all makes for a satisfying middle grade summer novel. And as I said, it’s a stand alone book, for those who prefer their books free of series entanglements.

Basil and the Lost Colony by Eve Titus

May31

What a great little book, full of jokes and literary and historical allusions! Basil of Baker Street, the Sherlock Holmes of the mouse world, sets out to Switzerland to find the lost colony of the Tellmice of 1291, who fled to the mountains to escape their own tyrannical version of Gessler, William Tell’s famous oppressor. How refreshing to read a humorous mystery adventure for primary and middle grade readers that does not condescend to slapstick and potty humor but respects its readers while remaining accessible to them. In this story, readers will encounter Flora and Fauna, the Faversham sisters; the Tellmice of Switzerland; Inspector Antoine Cherbou of the Paris policemice; Dr. David Q. Dawson, Basil’s narrator and assistant; Elmo the St. Bernard; the Adorable Snowmouse; and of course, the evil Ratigan, Basil’s arch-enemy (“I smell a rat again–Ratigan!”) —as well as many more characters whose names and personalities and talents are allusions to various literary and cultural icons, people, and events. Some I recognized, and others were lost on me. (Tillary Quinn, who writes crime stories = Ellery Queen, but for some reason she’s a New Zealander?)

The jokes embedded in the story are old; at the ripe old age of 66, I’ve heard most of them before. But they will be funny and fresh to a new generation of readers. The illustrations by Paul Galdone are endearing. Such an intrepid mouse detective! And the book and the series are perfect for hooking beginning chapter book readers into the joy of reading. Basil and the Lost Colony is only 88 pages long, short but sweet.

The book is part of a series by the well known author of the Anatole picture books as well as other books for children. These Sherlockian stories include:

  • Basil of Baker Street
  • Basil and the Cave of Cats (aka Basil and the Pygmy Cats)
  • Basil in Mexico
  • Basil in the Wild West
  • Basil and the Lost Colony

Basil of Baker Street, the first book in the series, was also made into a Disney movie in 1986, The Great Mouse Detective.

The Piper by Eden Vale Stevens

May30

This Dickensian Christmas tale could have come straight out of Victorian England, but instead it’s a story from an American writer. Set in Oliver Cromwell’s England of the 1600’s, this 128-page quest story tells of a young orphan boy, Ned, and his search for food and a mother and a home. As he navigates his way through the threatening city of London, avoiding the officers who want to take him to the poorhouse, and the others who want to imprison him for thieving bread, Ned searches for the Mother and Babe that the bells of the cathedral are said to herald.

The illustrations for this story by Fermin Rocker are beautiful, and they help to bring the tale down to earth and make it more accessible. I have to admit, though, that the story itself struck me as a bit odd. Ned lives with a group of street children, but he leaves them to go and find his family. We never know what happens to his street urchin “family”. Eventually, the poet Robert Herrick (1591-1674) finds him and feeds him, but Ned leaves Herrick’s warm hospitality in a tavern to continue on his quest to find either his own mother or the Holy Mother proclaimed by the bells of the cathedral. Then, he finds a family, father, mother and three children, who decide to take him in, maybe because he reminds them of the Christ Child?

The best idea I have is to try this story out as a read aloud at Christmas time and see if your children are taken by the small piper, Ned, and his search for a mother and a family. The poem in the very back of the book is this one by Herrick, which I suppose is the inspiration for the story:

Go prettie child, and beare this Flower
Unto thy little Saviour;
And tell Him, by that Bud now blown,
He is the Rose of Sharon known:
When thou has said so, stick it there
Upon his Bibb or Stomacher:
And tell Him (for good handsell too)
That thou has brought a Whistle new,
Made of a clean strait oaten reed,
To charm his cries (at times of need):
Tell Him, for Corall, thou hast none;
But if thou hadst, He sho’d have one;
But poore thou art, and knowne to be
Even as monilesse as He.
Lastly, if thou canst win a kisse
From those mellifluous lips of his;
Then never take a second on,
To spoile the first impression.

The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander

May27

In his Author’s Note at the beginning of The Black Cauldron, Lloyd Alexander notes that “a darker thread runs through the high spirits” of this second novel in the Prydain series as compared to the first book, The Book of Three. The first book sent Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper, on a quest to find the lost Hen-Wen and brought him to face the evil Horned King, servant of the Lord of Annuvin. This book involves another quest, darker indeed, to capture and destroy the Black Cauldron, birthplace of the deathless Cauldron-born warriors who also fight for Arawn, Lord of Annuvin. This journey is harder and longer and more perilous than the search for Hen-Wen, and Taran must face sacrifice, hardship and even death itself in his quest to end the power of the Black Cauldron.

But still there is Gurgi with his “smitings and bitings” and Fflewddur Fflam with his harp and Eilonwy, the girl with the sharp tongue and the golden bauble. And “good old Doli” joins the quest, reluctantly, to lend a bit of invisible help. New friends, or perhaps enemies, are Ellidyr, Prince of Pen-Larcau, and Adaon, Son of Taliesin. This second book in the Prydain series really picks up the pace of the story, and readers gain more insight into the characters of Taran and his companions and friends. The Black Cauldron is better than The Book of Three, which is a good book in its own right. That’s as it should be: in a series the books should get better, or else what’s a series for? Alexander writes in the Author’s Note, “[W]hile extending the story, I have also tried to deepen it.”

You can read The Black Cauldron as a stand alone book, but the books in this five book series are better read in chronological and publication sequence. The Prydain books, in order, are:

  • The Book of Three
  • The Black Cauldron
  • The Castle of Llyr
  • Taran Wanderer
  • The High King

The stories are inspired by Celtic and Welsh mythology, but they don’t follow any one folk tale or myth closely. Prydain is an imaginary realm, not Wales, and the characters in the book may remind one of Celtic heroes, but they are filtered through and created by Mr. Alexander’s imagination, illuminated by Celtic heroes. It’s a lovely set of stories.

The Orphelines in the Enchanted Castle by Natalie Savage Carlson

May27

The Orphelines in the Enchanted Castle is the fourth book in a five book series about a group of French orphans, “orphelines”, who live together with their guardian, Madame Flattot and her caretaker assistant, Genevieve. This volume begins:

“Once upon a time there were twenty beautiful French princesses who were going to live in an enchanted castle with their fairy godmother and their thirty knights. . . The noble knights were the boy orphans who would share the castle with them. And the castle was to be their new orphanage. It was in the forest of Fontainebleau, south of Paris, waiting for them to bring it to life again–as the prince had done in THE SLEEPING BEAUTY OF THE WOODS.”

Of course, the real orphan girls don’t always act like princesses, and the orphan boys who come to live in the castle with them are not the most noble of knights. The story tells how the girls learn to temper their imaginations with good sense and to behave themselves even when the boys can’t or won’t. And the boys, some of whom come from the streets of Paris and are quite uncivilized, are introduced to a French version of Lord Baden-Powell’s Boy Scouts and to Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, and thereby with some help from the girls and from Genevieve, become quite chivalrous wolf cubs and doers of good deeds.

These books about the orphelines are short, about a hundred pages each with large print and lovely illustrations in this particular volume by Adriana Saviozzi. Both the story and the reading level are appropriate for beginning chapter book readers, ages six to ten or so. The children in the book are quite mischievous and sometimes naughty, but they learn and grow. If children were about to join a scouting-type group such as Trail Life or American Heritage Girls, this book would be a good introduction to the concept of scouting.

Other books in the series about the Orphelines include:

  • The Happy Orpheline
  • A Brother for the Orphelines
  • A Pet for the Orphelines
  • A Grandmother for the Orphelines

The Orphelines in the Enchanted Castle is Book 4 in the Orphelines series of five books total. The other volumes in the series are similar to this in terms of reading level and interest level, but they have various other illustrators, such as Garth Williams, Fermin Rocker, and David White. I like the simple and vivid drawings in Enchanted Castle best, I think, although Garth Williams is always good. This book is another entry in the Books of 1964 Project.

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.