Theras and His Town by Caroline Dale Snedeker

Jan10

This fiction book recommended for children grades 5+ begins with the author very obviously teaching her child readers about Ancient Greece and Ancient Greek culture, Athens in particular. We get short sections about how seven year old Theras of Athens goes to school, goes to the marketplace, worships Athena on the Acropolis, etc. Finally, something actually happens, and Theras is in danger. But that episode ends quickly and happily, and we are back to Theras’ daily life: Theras and his mother, Theras and his father, Theras wants to become a soldier, etc.

The book is written in three parts, and the second part is about how Theras goes to live in Sparta, obviously written to contrast life in Athens with life in Sparta. Athens is much better. Theras, and we along with him, get to experience what it’s like to be a Spartan boy. Then in part three we get a travelogue, an exciting journey but a travelogue nonetheless, through Ancient Greece with stops in Orestium, Mantinea, Corinth, the Bay of Salamis, and Eleusis before Theras and his friend Abas finally return to Athens. This third part of the book is actually the best with rather stirring adventures and mishaps and near escapes, but it still feels like a teaching book rather than a storybook.

I can see why this book is recommended in many homeschool curricula. There is a dearth of good historical fiction set in Ancient Greece. And I did enjoy learning about and being reminded of the way of life in the Greek cities of Athens and Sparta around the time of Pericles and Herodotus, who both make an appearance in the book. But to say that this book is a “living book” with excellent writing and living ideas would be a stretch. Educational, yes. Enjoyable, maybe. Life-giving, not really.

There are some ideas that parents may want to discuss with their children who are reading about Theras and Athens and Sparta and the rest. For instance, when Theras and his father visit the temple of Athena, the author tells us that the Athenians believed that Athena frequently visited and blessed her favored city of Athens and its citizens:

“All this Theras believed. But you must not think him foolish for so believing. Athena was his goddess. The wise, grown-up men in Athens believed in her, respected her, and loved her. And often they prayed to Athena so truly and thought her so good and kind that their prayers reached to the true God after all.”

I didn’t care for the pedantic style of the writing in this book, a style that I didn’t find so prominent in the other (later published) books that I have read by the same author. Theras is written for a younger audience than either The White Isle or The Forgotten Daughter, both books by Snedeker that I read and reviewed. I think Ms. Snedeker either improved in her writing skills or was just better at writing for an older audience. Theras and His Town is OK, but just not excellent or very memorable.

When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne

Jan8

Just as I was making my way through this collection of poems by Winnie-the-Pooh creator, A.A. Milne, I saw someone fretting about reading these very poems as a part of her homeschool curriculum (Ambleside Online). She says they have been reading the poems aloud, and “Honestly I don’t get it. The kids ask me what it was about and I honestly have no clue.”

I sympathize. A lot of poetry used to make no sense to me. Then I learned to just enjoy the rhyme and the rhythm and the language and the word pictures for what they are: just fun, although sometimes serious or thoughtful, turning things round and upside down, and looking at the world from a different perspective. It doesn’t need to all make sense. The poems in When We Were Very Young look at life from a child’s point of view, a British child of the early twentieth century, and that can be disorienting. But it can also be fun.

Have you ever thought about the clouds looking up at the green sky? What about a mother who gets lost because she won’t obey her son with a ridiculously long name? What’s the one thing you think you would remember from a trip to the zoo? (“But I gave buns to elephant when I went down to the zoo!“) And what is the matter with Mary Jane? And what would you do if you were king (or queen)?

These poems aren’t meant to be got (understood). They are just intended to be enjoyed. I recommend When Were Very Young and the other Milne collection of poems, Now We Are Six, for family read aloud to all ages. A poem a day keeps the doctor away. Just read the poem out loud in your very best rhythmic and ridiculous voice. No commentary or explanation. If they ask, ask them what they think. Just read and move along. Think of them as nursery rhymes, for that is what they are, and jolly good ones, too.

When We Were Very Young was first published in 1924, and I read it as part of our 1924 project. 100 years after its first appearance, this book of silly little poems is still a living book.

Round the Year in Pudding Lane by Sarah Addington

Jan6

A Guest Review from Jeannette Tulis of Green Door Children’s Heritage Library in Soddy Daisy, TN. Round the Year in Pudding Lane by Sarah Addington

This book was so clever, it made me laugh out loud. It’s an especially good book to read aloud if your children know a lot of nursery rhymes because there are so many references to classic Mother Goose rhymes, and they are worked into the story in such a charming fashion.

This is a story of one year in Pudding Lane where Santa Claus, a young boy, lives with his family: Mr. and Mrs. Claus, and the twins, plus a new baby. On Pudding Lane are also the Woman who lived in a Shoe with all her children, Old Mother Hubbard, The Candlestick Maker and, well, you get the idea.

Round the Year in Pudding Lane is a book full of kindness and generosity. Each chapter deals with a different holiday or season of the year. I especially enjoyed the last chapter of Christmas surprises. This book was published 100 years ago (1924), and I read the e-book free on Internet Archive. I had recently read another book by this author, The Boy Who Lived in Pudding Lane, which was about the boyhood of Santa Claus and how he grew up to be the famous personage of Christmas. It is available as a reprint. 

Three and One to Carry by Barbara Willard

Jan5

“Prue and Tiger were accustomed to the stray animals their older sister, Rosanna, was always bringing home to care for on the family’s small farm in the south of England. They knew that Rosanna, who had been looking after them since their mother’s death, was soft-hearted, but it was too much when she thrust on the household her newest stray–an impossible and difficult boy named Arthur.

When Arthur broke his leg and was put in a cast, he became doubly burdensome. And because Prue and Tiger felt responsible for having caused the accident, the need to amuse him during his many weeks in the cast weighed on them even more heavily than did his sullen demands. Unhappily, the problem of Arthur coincided with a more serious concern–a challenge to their ownership of a portion of their beloved farm.”

Can Prue, Tiger, and Albert work together to save Bethwines, their favorite part of the farm called Winterpicks? And what is to be done with Albert, whose father seems to have deserted him? This middle grade/young adult story, published in 1964 before those categories existed in publishing parlance, features Tiger (Simon), age 10, Prue, age 14, and Rosanna, age 18–and of course, Albert, age 9. The children do end up working together to solve the problem of Bethwines in addition to a host of other issues, and their eventual ability to do so becomes the salvation of Albert as well contributing to the growth and maturation of Prue and Tiger.

It’s growing up story and a family story, with a little innocent romance for Rosanna thrown into the mix. Prue and Tiger are normal, everyday children who get tired of waiting on and entertaining Albert but learn to care for him in the end. There’s a mystery about Bethwines to solve, and a good time is had by one and all.

Barbara Willard wrote one of my favorite series of historical fiction, the Mantlemass Chronicles, as well as several stand-alone historical fiction titles, but this book is only historical in the sense that it was written and published over fifty years ago. The setting is that now far-away time, the 1960’s. Ms. Willard has a knack for portraying children, and adults, as real people who make mistakes and have character flaws, but nothing too serious or shocking. Except for the opening scene when Albert breaks his leg by falling from a ladder, nothing too dramatic happens in the story, but it is absorbing and humanely interesting, nevertheless. I recommend the book to those who like quiet British village children’s fiction.

Flambards by K.M. Peyton

Jan4

Flambards is the first book in a trilogy of books about a horse loving family in rural England before, and in later books, during World War I. Christina Parsons, a twelve year old orphan, is sent to live with her uncle Russell’s family in the country, forty miles outside London, where the main pastime for the gentry seems to be fox-hunting. Christina is immediately taught to ride and hunt, and her disabled and abusive Uncle Russell expects her to become an expert horsewoman and love the hunt as much as he and her Cousin Mark do. Mark’s young brother Will, however, introduces Christina to his passion, airplanes. Will fears and hates horses and hunting, even as Christina grow to enjoy the sport. But Christina also grows increasingly fond of Will, and she has mixed feelings about Mark, whom she is expected to marry when she grows up.

This trilogy is for older teens and adults. Uncle Russell beats his two sons and exercises autocratic control over the entire household. He is a cruel tyrant. There are also incidents of sexual immorality, greed, self-harm, and violence, not described in detail, but definitely implied or stated plainly. The information about English country life and horse riding and fox hunting and early flight experimentation embedded in the story are interesting, but the heart of the story is Christina’s inner life and growth and how she comes to understand the family and her place in it.

It’s also a classic story of a man with two sons, one of whom shares his interests and the other whom the father doesn’t understand or even like very much. I read this book and its two sequels fifty years ago when I was a teen and remembered it as a good story without remembering much about the plot or the characters. I was right: it is a good story, but darker than I remembered. Still, there is hope at the end of volume one of this three-parter, and I am anxious to read the other two books in the series to see if they hold up as well.

The Great Riverboat Race by Manly Wade Wellman

Jan2

The Great Riverboat Race: The Story of the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee by Manly Wade Wellman

In the summer of 1870, Robert E. Lee won a famed steamboat race against Natchez, going from New Orleans to St. Louis, Missouri, a distance of 1,154 miles (1,857 km), in 3 days, 18 hours and 14 minutes. John W. Cannon, the captain of Robert E. Lee, ensured victory by removing excess weight, carrying only a few passengers, and using prearranged barges to increase the speed of refueling.  Natchez finished the race several hours later, but had been delayed by fog for six hours, and had numerous passengers to weigh it down.

~Wikipedia

The Great Riverboat Race is historical fiction that fleshes out this famous-at-the-time, but now forgotten, race. The main point of view character is Matt Parham, a young aspiring engineer who is actually more interested in the new transportation revolution of trains and railroads than he is in old-fashioned steamboats. One of the themes of the book is change. It’s 1870, the beginning of the Gilded Age and the Age of Railroads and Industry. The transcontinental railroad was finished in 1869. Things are about to change, with steamboats going the way of oil lamps and horses pulling wagons. At such a time, Matt Parham, whose “talent and taste were for machinery,” is invited aboard the Robert E. Lee just as the boat is off to the race. The chief engineer of the Robert E. Lee says to Matt, “I want two extra assistant engineers, besides Andy Berry and the strikers. I’ve got John Weist, now I want you. I know some of the things you’ve been studying. It’s good pay, fast trip—come on, come on!”

And off he goes. The trip from New Orleans to St. Louis is an exciting one, fraught with dangers and obstacles, and Matt gets more than one chance to prove his mettle and save the day—and the race for the Robert E. Lee. At the end of the race, Matt has a decision to make: will he make his career with the old steamboats or with the new railroads?

Non-engineer that I am, I nevertheless found it fascinating to learn about the intricacies of steamboat engines and steamboat travel as I read this story, but even more, what has lingered in my thoughts is the thread of the story that is about rapid change and what we gain and what we lose and how inevitable it all seems. The old steamboat captain can’t bear to always be hearing about trains and railroads and how much better and faster they are than steamboats. But as soon as he enters into a race with the Natchez, doesn’t the Robert E. Lee‘s captain become a part of that rush to change and become faster and better and stronger than the next guy?

Philosophical questions abound in response to this little book, but that’s not the main thrust of the story itself. It’s really a story about how Matt gets roped into the race between two steamboats, how that race progresses, and how Matt responds to the call to work hard and think creatively as an engineer. He responds well, and this book would be a great one to give to aspiring engineers and to young men who long for a challenge. It might well stick with teen readers as it has with me.

Red Caps and Lilies by Katharine Adams

Dec29

Another book first published in 1924, Red Caps and Lilies is historical fiction set during the first days of the French Revolution. An aristocrat family attempts to come to terms with the rapid descent into chaos and revolution that begins in Paris, 1789. Soon it is obvious that thirteen year old Marie Josephine, her older brother Lisle, and their beloved maman, along with servants and relatives and friends and other various and sundry folk, must flee Paris and even France to ensure their own safety. But who will help them? Whom can they trust? And will they be betrayed by their own pride and disbelief that their lives could possibly be in danger in the first place?

I could quibble with this historical novel from another generation. The plot is a little creaky at times, with lots of unexpected meetings and paths crossing at just the right time. The events of the family’s escape are told and then retold and retold again as the family gathers and each one recounts his adventures to the others. Some character growth is evident in Lisle, the proud aristocratic teen, who is humbled by his experiences, and in Grigge, the peasant who has good reason to hate the aristocratic family but finds reason to help them anyway, All in all, though it’s a harmless little story with a fairly happy ending.

I guess I’ve become accustomed, for better or for worse, to something a little more ambiguous and and a little more unpredictable. I knew from the beginning, or at least near the beginning, that the family would escape and that all would turn out well. There was just no real suspense in the story, even though I think the author tried to create some. Still, if you want a historical novel that give a young adult reader some introduction to the time of the French Revolution with good and noble characters and a few daring escapes, you could do worse than reading about these French “lilies” cast out to fend for themselves among the “red caps” of the mobs of Paris.

You can read this “oldie but goodie” on Internet Archive if your library doesn’t give you access to a copy.

Urchin and the Rage Tide by M.I. McAllister

Dec29

In 2020 when I first read Urchin of the Riding Stars, the first book in the Mistmantle Chronicles, I was not too impressed. It took a while for me to get around to reading the next three books in the series, and somewhere along the way, I became a fan. But I failed to review those three middle books in the five part series, and I couldn’t finish the chronicles until Purple House Press published the fifth book, Urchin and the Rage Tide. So, here I am, finally, to say that I thoroughly enjoyed all five Mistmantle books, and I think you should read them all if you are a fantasy lover.

The heroes of this last book are all of the islanders–Urchin, King Crispin, Sepia, Queen Cedar, Juniper, Corr, and more. (There’s a list of all of the characters in the front of the Purple House Press edition of the book, and it’s a great help in keeping everyone straight.) The villain this time around is a new squirrel character, Mossberry, who reminds me of certain current politicians (who shall remain unnamed). To quote Ms. McAllister in the preface, “Mossberry uses deceitful and dishonest ways to turn vulnerable animals to himself. He doesn’t want what’s best for them. He wants to be obeyed and adored.” Enough said, except that this book was first published in 2010. In a prophetic note, Ms. McAllister writes, “Sadly there will always be those who follow someone like Mossberry, and believe me, it never ends well. Look out for the Mossberrys!”

So the challenges and threats in the book are real: a tidal wave from the ocean out beyond Mistmantle and an internal enemy, Mossberry, the charismatic megalomaniacal squirrel who causes even more damage and heartache than the storm. But the Heart is with the animals of Mistmantle, and Hope remains in the end. I would say that although beloved characters do die in this final installment of the Mistmantle story, it is ultimately a hopeful sort of story. Good wins, with some sacrifice required. Evil is defeated.

Recommended for fans of: Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga, S.D. Smith’s Green Ember books, and the Redwall series by Brian Jacques.

The Strange Intruder by Arthur Catherall

Dec28

I’ve heard of Arthur Catherall as an author of children’s or young adult fiction, but I’ve always thought of him, without having read any of his books, as a sort of minor, second rate, potboiler fiction writer. Sorry, Mr. Catherall. If The Strange Intruder is a good example of the rest of Catherall’s work, he’s actually a first rate adventure writer. Maybe I had that potboiler idea because Catherall was so prolific: he wrote dozens of books using his own name and dozens more using seven different pseudonyms. Busy man.

Anyway, The Strange Intruder is a coming of age story about a sixteen year old boy, Sven Klakk, who lives on the island of Mykines in the Faroe Islands. You might need a map to locate that island exactly in your mind (I did), but it’s generally northwest of Scotland and the Shetland Islands and west of Norway, southeast of Iceland in the North Sea. In my 50 cent Archway paperback copy of the book there is a handy-dandy map, so there probably will be one in yours, too, whatever copy you end up reading.

Catherall “voyaged to the Faroe Islands, the locale of this story, and spent some time there, getting to know the islanders and their way of life.” This familiarity with the setting shows in the descriptions of not only the flora and fauna of the island, but also the way the people talk, and work, and make decisions, and form their community life. Of course, I was reminded of the TV series Shetland, with the Shetland Islands nearby, but this island Mykines in the 1960’s, is its own place with its own remote and closely bound culture and way of life.

“A reign of terror grips a storm-lashed island.” There is storm and shipwreck and peril and a big surprise that leads to even more danger and peril, and I can’t say much more for fear of spoiling the story. But just know that you won’t encounter any political agendas or preaching or morals to the story—just pure adventure and suspense and character growth and wildness. I recommend this book, and on the strength of this one, you might want to at least check out Catherall’s many other stories, too.

The Christmas Camera by Alta Halverson Seymour

Dec19

Another entry in the Christmas Around the World Series from Purple House Press, The Christmas Camera (originally Erik’s Christmas Camera) is the story of the twelve year old Swedish boy Erik Dahlquist and his cousin Bertil and the reclusive old fisherman Gunnar Eklund. It’s a gentle story, as is the rule with Ms. Halverson Seymour’s fiction. Bertil comes from the big city of Stockholm and is at first a bit haughty and inclined to look down on his country cousins. But all is well in the end. Gunnar Eklund is a somewhat secretive and scary character at first, but it soon becomes apparent that he is also good at heart.

The art of photography and Erik’s interest in it tie the story together much more than the actual plot does. And Erik’s pursuit of excellent and artistic photos gives the author an opportunity to work into the story a number of Swedish customs, celebrations, and folkways that make the book appealing in a different way. The children with their families celebrate Midsummer’s Eve, a bicycle trip, crayfish parties in August, St. Lucia Day, and finally Julafton (Christmas Eve). Anyone who wants to know more about traditional Swedish holidays and pastimes would enjoy reading about Erik and his photographic adventures.

The other books in the Christmas Around the World Series by Alta Halverson Seymour are:

And a few other books that fit a Christmas Around the World theme are: