Winston Churchill on T.E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia: “I deem him one of the greatest beings alive in our time. I do not see his like elsewhere. I fear whatever our need we shall never see his like again.”

Indeed, Lawrence seems to have been a extraordinary man and military leader. This book by the best-selling author of espionage novels and thrillers, Alistair MacLean, portrays Lawrence as almost superhuman. In the course of his adventures through the Arabian desert over the course of the four years of World War I, Lawrence is shot, beaten, tortured, injured by shrapnel, starved, dehydrated, burned, frozen, sun struck, and ill—all several times and in many places. He survives sleepless nights, days without food and with very little water, capture by the enemy, and journeys of hundreds of miles through the desert on a camel, all for the sake of helping his friends, the Bedouin Arabs, to realize the dream of throwing off the rule of the Turkish Empire and forming a free and unified Arab nation.

The book was filled with details of military strategy and maneuvers, and the numerous battles and explosions and other acts of sabotage and war blurred together in my mind into a conglomeration of violent desert warfare. I would have liked to have learned more about the man, T.E. Lawrence, and less about the battles he fought. The politics of the Middle East before and during World War I were also complicated and sometimes a bit cloudy in my mind, but I was more interested in the political battles than I was the actual battles.

So, as I reached the end of the book, I realized that it was a good introduction to the era of the Turkish Empire, the British assault on that empire, the Great Arab Revolt, World War I in the Middle East, and Lawrence of Arabia. But it was just an introduction to all of these topics, and I was left with many questions. What were the British doing in Arabia in the first place? Did they come there just to fight the Turks? What made Lawrence care so much about the Arabs and Arab independence? Were there really enough Jews in Palestine during and immediately after World War I to make it a battleground between Jews and Arabs? How did Lawrence survive all that he did? We know what Churchill thought about Lawrence. What did Lawrence think of Churchill? Lawrence was a secretive man. He never married. What happened to him after 1920 (when the book ends)? Why was he so secretive? What did he care about other than war and Arab independence?

As I said, a good introduction, after all it’s a Landmark book written for children and young adults, but I would like to know more. I may try a biography written for adults, Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Scott Anderson.

Read more about Lawrence of Arabia.

The Slave Who Freed Haiti: The Story of Toussaint Louverture by Katharine Scherman.

There’s always a danger in writing nonfiction: new events and information may prove you wrong at some time in the future. In The Slave Who Freed Haiti, author Katharine Scherman calls Haiti “a beautiful and fertile land,” spoiled only by the “lazy and shiftless” Spaniards and the “brutal, indolent, lawless, and cruel” French slavemasters and their Creole assistants. Toussaint Louverture, a black enslaved man, born into slavery, like Mary Poppins is practically perfect in every way, in Ms. Scherman’s portrait of his life. She calls him a good man, a moral example, and a devout Christian. All of those assessments may very well be true, and indeed in reading the book and an article on Wikipedia, I could find very little fault in the man or the country.

However, Ms. Scherman ends her books with these words:

“To this day the little country stands as a monument to great-hearted Toussaint. There, in one of the few free black republics in the world, Negroes can walk with their heads high, without fear or shame, and the are the equals of anyone on earth.”

Another true statement, as far as it goes. But I think Toussaint Louverture, that good man, would weep to see the state of his free republic in 2023, and even in 1957, just three years after The Slave Who Freed Haiti was published, “Papa Doc” Duvalier took over the Haitian republic and made it into a “reign of terror” state.

Still The Slave Who Freed Haiti was a good introduction to the life and work of Toussaint Louverture and to the history of the nation of Haiti. I would like to share this book with the Haitian family who are members of my library and see what they think about it. Yes, it’s somewhat dated and maybe a bit hagiographic, but it has its place in the multitude of opinions about and portrayals of the Haitian revolution. And I am content to have it in my library as an introduction to Haiti and its history.

Content considerations: Slavery was cruel and evil everywhere it was practiced, but slavery in the Caribbean in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries rose to a level of brutality and torture that was unequalled, perhaps, in the history of slavery. Ms. Scherman describes the cruelty of the slave ships and the sugar plantations on the island of Haiti in plain language. One example:

“For the smallest offenses slaves were flogged to death with heavy whips made of plaited cowhide. Clever and hideous tortures were devised to kill rebellious slaves painfully. They were burned to death, blown up with gunpowder, partly buried in the ground with their bodies covered with molasses to attract ants, maimed by having an ear or even a hand cut off.”

Also the war for independence and freedom from slavery was violent and full of atrocities on both sides. So there’s a lot of very ugly content in this story. Do not read or assign this book to sensitive readers.

I knew very little about Toussaint Louverture before I read this book, and now I know more and more about Haiti and more about man’s cruelty to man and more about the courage and resilience of the Haitian people. And that makes the book a worthwhile read.

Read more about Haiti:

Picture Books:

• Selavi, That Is Life: A Haitian Story of Hope by Youme Landowne.
• Tap-Tap by Karen Lynn Williams
• Painted Dreams by Karen Lynn Williams
• Monsieur Jolicoeur’s Umbrella by Anico Surany.
• Circles of Hope by Karen Lynn Williams.
• Please Malese! A Trickster Tale from Haiti by Amy MacDonald.
• The Happy Sound by Ruth Morris Graham.
• Aunt Luce’s Talking Paintings by Francie Latour

Black Patriot and Martyr, Toussaint Louverture by Ann Griffiths is a Messner biography written for an older audience (middle school and high school).

Haiti’s Untold History of Missions by Andy Olson in Christianity Today, February 28, 2023.

“In World War II, Wyatt Blassingame was an intelligence officer with the Naval Air Corps on the islands of Tinian and Okinawa. He witnessed the work of army and navy nurses when he visited sick and wounded comrades in hospitals on Hawaii, Saipan, and Okinawa.”

“Here is the story of the courageous young women who served at Pearl Harbor, Corregidor, Anzio, Battle of the Bulge, Iwo Jima, and other fighting fronts of the Second World War.”

Courageous young women indeed. Amazing young women. And they were all volunteers. These young women (Blassingame often calls them “girls” in his narrative) may very well not have realized what they were volunteering for, or what dangers and harrowing experiences they were going to be called on to endure, but they knew it was war, or imminent war, and they knew that nurses were likely to come into contact with blood, gore, injury and death. I certainly would be hesitant to take on a nursing career in a peacetime hospital, much less in a war zone.

In the Author’s Note at the end of the book, Mr. Blassingame writes, “Not very much has been written about the American nurses who served with such courage and endurance and devotion to duty in World War II. Consequently in researching this book I often had to rely on personal contact with nurses who could tell me about their experiences.” This reliance on interviews with World War II nurses makes the book even more valuable and compelling.

I searched online for the names of many of the nurses that Mr. Blassingame writes about in his book, but I found very little information on most of them. Combat Nurses of World War II may be the only record left of the contributions made by many of these heroic, yet ordinary, nurses. I did find a few books, written for adults, about some of of the nurses in this book:

• And If I Perish: Frontline U.S. Army Nurses in World War II by Evelyn Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee.
• The Secret Rescue: The Untold Story of American Nurses and Medics Behind Nazi Lines by Cate LIneberry.
• Albanian Escape: The True Story of U.S. Army Nurses Behind Enemy Lines by Agnes Jensen Mangerich
• Savage Will: The Daring Escape of Americans Trapped Behind Nazi Lines by Timothy M. Gay.

And a couple of articles about some of the World War II nurses:

• Aboard the USS Comfort, 1943 by Doris Gardner
• Four Women Earned Silver Stars in the Same WWII Battle

I did find the story about the nurses and medics who accidentally crash-landed behind enemy lines in Albania (told in three of the above books) to be the most exciting story in the book It would make a good movie, I think. Some of the other nurses’ stories are probably retold in other books about World War II in general, or about specific ships or battles. But a lot of the nurses’ words and stories are most likely preserved only in Combat Nurses.

Even though it’s a story about war, the book is not gratuitously gory or shocking. People, nurses and others, do get injured and even die, but their stories are told in a way that honors the nurses’ sacrifice and preserves their memory. I would give this book, and probably its companion book Medical Corps Heroes of World War II, to any middle grade or older young person who was studying or interested in World War II. “The Greatest Generation” was blessed in its heroes and its heroines.

This Landmark book, once a rare find, out of print, has been reprinted by Purple House Press, and it’s now available at a very reasonable price with updated maps and photographs which were not in the original book. I have a copy of the old, original edition in my library, Meriadoc Homeschool Library, but I may need to purchase a copy of the updated reprint from Purple House Press. And if you want even more information, check out the podcast episode from Plumfield Moms, Combat Nurses.

The Warden is the first of Victorian author Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire Chronicles, set in the fictional cathedral town of Barchester and in the surrounding county of Barsetshire. “Let us presume that Barchester is a quiet town in the West of England, more remarkable for the beauty of its cathedral and the antiquity of its monuments than for any commercial prosperity; that the west end of Barchester is the cathedral close, and that the aristocracy of Barchester are the bishop, dean, and canons, with their respective wives and daughters.”

Mr. Harding is the warden of a small hospital, or charitable nursing home, housing twelve indigent old men and he is also the precentor (song leader) at the cathedral. The Warden’s good friend is the Bishop of Barchester, and the Warden’s son-in-law is the bishop’s son, Dr. Theophilus Grantly, archdeacon of Barchester. There are a few other major characters in this saga of the rise and fall Warden Harding: the warden’s two daughters, Susan and Eleanor, and Dr. John Bold, Eleanor’s would-be suitor.

I won’t go into the intricacies of the plot of the novel, but it is reminiscent of the politics surrounding the cost and color of the church carpet or the salary of the assistant pastor in a Baptist church. Being Baptist myself, not Anglican, those are the analogies that came to mind. All sorts of comings and goings and arguments and resolutions take place, all revolving around the Warden and his income arising from the wardenship of the hospital. Some think he is entitled to his eight hundred pounds per annum, and others emphatically think not.

And so the novel goes. It does seem to be a rather petty question upon which to hang an entire novel, but it shows the great consequences of what often amount to petty controversies. These little questions and disagreements do indeed change the course of a person’s life, sometimes of many people’s lives. And Mr. Trollope excels at showing just how complicated and consequential a small controversy can become.

Along the way, Trollope takes the time to insert both humor and social commentary into a sharply drawn portrait of a quiet cathedral town and its inhabitants. Archdeacon Grantly is the most influential and respected man in the cathedral close, who “strikes awe into the young hearts of Barchester, and absolutely cows the whole parish.” Nevertheless, he becomes “an ordinary man” when his wife tells him what’s what in the confines of their episcopal bedroom. Parliament is considering a law, a law that will never be passed, to order “the bodily searching of nuns for jesuitical symbols by aged clergymen. The bill is taken up solely for the underhanded purpose of setting the Irish Protestants and the Irish Catholics in Parliament at odds with one another. Journalist Tom Towers writes scurrilous gossip in the newspaper called The Jupiter, and he thinks himself the king of the world, with more secret power than the politicians, the clergy, and royalty all combined.The humor is somewhat subtle, but so well written that I couldn’t help but laugh and shake my head in agreement with Trollope’s insightful portraits of human foibles.

I recommend The Warden, and Trollope’s 46 other books, to slow you down and give you opportunity to look carefully at the follies and endearing qualities of our fellow humans. Other than Jane Austen, no one shows the difficulties and the comedy of the human condition in miniature, so to speak, as well as Trollope.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted information about my book list for children, Picture Book Preschool. It has the word “preschool’ in the title, but it’s appropriate for children from ages two to six, or really any child who still enjoys picture books. (Don’t we all enjoy picture books?)

Picture Book Preschool is a preschool curriculum based on picture books I have been reading to my children, and now grandchildren, for the past twenty years. Each week of the year is built around a theme, and includes a suggested character trait to work on, a Bible verse, a supporting activity, and seven suggested picture books to read to your children. Now you can find all of the Picture Book Preschool recommendations on Biblioguidesand purchase a PDF of the curriculum which includes all of the supporting resources and schedule.And while you’re at it, check out Biblioguides, a great resource for finding books and book information to enrich your own education and that of your children. 

If you would prefer a print copy of Picture Book Preschool, you can email me at sherryDOTpray4youATgmailDOTcom.

If you would like to learn more about Picture Book Preschool and my love of classic picture books, you can listen to this podcast interview with me on Plumfield Moms.

I heard about this book from the ladies at Biblioguides long before I found it last year at a used bookshop for only $5.00. It turned out to be bargain, despite the broken binding in the back of the book, which I fixed with book tape. Anyway, the story itself is well worth the $5.00.

Six French children were sitting on the ground in the little garden back of the old church of St. Julien le Pauvre, in Paris. It was February, at four thirty in the afternoon, just after school. There was a light touch of spring in the air. Zezette, who was only five, had kicked off her wooden shoes.

It’s appropriate that the story begins in the garden of “St. Julien le Pauvre” because these children are indeed poor. And it’s appropriate that there is a “light touch of spring in the air” because there is indeed springtime hope and joy to be found in the midst of their poverty. Charles, the main character in the story, is ten years old and is Zezette’s older brother. Their mother works in a factory all day, and their father died immediately after the war. The children have a discussion in the beginning of the book of how it was BEFORE, but some of them can’t even remember a BEFORE and doubt that it ever existed. This is post-World War 2 Paris, and things are difficult—no fuel, little food, no money–but hopeful. After all, it’s almost Lent, and some of the children remember having crepes (pancakes) on the Tuesday before Lent—BEFORE.

The story goes on to illustrate the friendship between the French and their American liberators and the impact of a simple gesture of kindness. In fact, respect and kindness characterize the relationships throughout the book. (There are some Black Americans mentioned as minor characters, and they are called “Negro”, which would have been the correct and respectful term for the time.) This story would be great to read aloud on Pancake Tuesday or Mardi Gras or really anytime during the Lenten season. It would also be a fitting end to study of World War 2, with hope for the future after all the horrors of that war.

Claire Huchet Bishop grew up in Le Havre, France. She became a librarian and a storyteller, first in France, and then at the New York Public Library after she married an American and moved to the U.S. Her books, mostly set in France, paint a lovely picture of the French people and of French culture, especially among the children of post-war France.

John Ruskin was an interesting character. He pops up in all kinds of stories and biographies that I have read of other men and women: everyone from Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti to Lewis Carroll to Lillias Trotter. Several biographical pages on the internet call him a “polymath, a person of wide-ranging knowledge or learning.” He was a noted art critic who encouraged many of the finest artists of the late Victorian era, including Rossetti and his Pre-Raphaelites. He wrote and published essays, poetry, literary and art criticism, travel guides, biography, and one simple fairy tale, The King of the Golden River.

Ruskin wrote his only work of fiction in response to a challenge that had been put to him by twelve year old Effie Gray. (Ruskin later married Miss Effie, but that’s another story.) She asked him to write a fairy tale, and in 1840, the twenty-one year old Ruskin wrote The King of the Golden River. The story is that of three brothers, the older two, Swartz and Hans, mean and greedy and the youngest brother, Gluck, “as completely opposed, in both appearance and character, to his seniors as could possibly be imagined or desired.” The Black Brothers, as they are called by the people living nearby, live in a marvelously fruitful valley called Treasure Valley. The story tells how Treasure Valley becomes a wasteland because of the curse of the King of the Golden River, and how it is redeemed by the kindness and gentle love of Gluck.

“And thus the Treasure Valley became a garden again, and the inheritance, which had been lost by cruelty, was regained by love.”

Episode #70 of the Literary Life podcast, Why Read Fairy Tales?, would be an excellent one to listen to in juxtaposition to the reading of this literary fairy tale by John Ruskin. Maybe read Ruskin’s tale, then listen to Why Read Fairy Tales?, and then read Ruskin’s little story again, as I plan to do. It’s a short story that will well repay a second reading.

The King’s Book is a fictionalized story about the translation and publication of the 1611 King James English Bible. The main character is a boy, Nat Culver, whose father is one of the fifty-four men who is helping to translate and revise the English Bible at the behest of King James I. The plot involves secret Catholic priests and recusants (English Catholics who refuse to convert to the Anglican church), quarreling Bible scholars, and Nat’s own quest to decide who and what to believe in a London full of gossip and wild tales.

Vernon’s book contains a lot of interesting anecdotes about the men who produced the King James Bible: Lancelot Andrewes, John Bois, Sir Henry Savile, Dutch Thomson, Andrew Downes, and others. Sir Francis Bacon makes a sort of cameo appearance as a secret polisher and finisher of the text. And the stories Vernon inserts into her book are interesting, taken individually. However, the little vignettes about the circumstances and the men are just that: inserted into the overall story in an odd and jerky way that makes the book feel as if it is nonfiction masquerading as a fiction story. Nat finds out that one of the translators is an alcoholic, that Francis Bacon, not the king, is the man who actually chose the committee of translators, that the translators haven’t been paid for their work and some are living in poverty, and so on. All these things come to light while Nat is desperately trying to prove that his father is not a Catholic recusant and while Nat himself is being accused of thievery.

I think I read one of Ms. Vernon’s other books and found it better than this one. The King’s Book might be the only introduction for children readily available for the story of how the King James Bible came to be, but it would have been much improved if it had just been written as a nonfiction narrative. I could have done with a great deal more biographical information about the translators and historical information about the setting and the events of the times and a lot less about Nat running around spying and carrying messages all over London.