I’ve had this cozy mystery series, The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter, on my TBR list for quite a while, and I’ve just now managed to check out the first book in the series from my library and read it. I thought it might be fun, and indeed this little story pushes all of the right buttons for a low-stress, delightful, homey read on a semi-winter’s day.

The point of view character is Beatrix Potter, author of a set of children’s books about little animals with human characteristics, the most famous of which is The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Our tale of Hill Top Farm shows Ms. Potter, a middle-aged spinster who has just experienced a great personal loss, trying to come to terms with her loss, stake out her independence from her controlling parents, and begin to farm on a new piece of land that she has purchased in the Lake District of northern England.

Yes, the Lake District. Charlotte Mason. Swallows and Amazons. William Wordsworth. Ambleside. Coniston. Keswick. Windermere. All of these places and some of the names are mentioned in the book, and the whole story is just full of pleasant associations. Beatrix Potter herself talks about her life and her books and drawings, and she carries her animal friends with hr as she works to find a place for herself in the village of Sawrey near the hill top farm that she wants to make her home. Unfortunately, there are some disturbing things going on in this peaceful village: a sudden death, art theft, false accusations, and gossip. And Ms. Potter is drawn into the complications and distressful events of the village as she attempts to make sense of some rather unusual occurrences.

Nothing very violent or dreadful happens in the novel, and the mystery is about as sedate and cozy as a mystery can be. Some village eccentrics and talking animals (only the other animals can understand each other) and tension over changing times make up most of the drama in the book. Then, Beatrix Potter’s personal is undergoing a mild and slow sort of revolution as she begins her quest for independence, a revolt that I assume will continue to unfold in the remainder of the series. I can’t vouch for the rest of the series since I haven’t read those books yet, but I am looking forward to doing so at the leisurely pace that the books themselves call for. I am pleased to have found a series that should be fun and undemanding for interspersing in between the “hard stuff” that I sometimes read.

Rosaria Butterfield, author of the spiritual autobiography and conversion story, Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, has also written this newer book, an exhortation and guide to Christian hospitality, subtitled Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World. Ms. Butterfield, who came to Christ as a lesbian professor of literature and eventually became a Presbyterian pastor’s wife and mother to several children, has a great deal to say and a number of stories to tell about what she calls “radical hospitality.”

She first ties the idea to of hospitality to respect and care for persons made in the image of God. “Radically ordinary hospitality–those who live it see strangers as neighbors and neighbors as family of God. They recoil at reducing a person to a category or a label.” Then, she goes on to to note the efficacy, indeed the necessity, of hospitality as a means of evangelism, in the best sense of the word. “Those who live out radically ordinary hospitality see their homes not a theirs at all but as God’s gift to use for the furtherance of his kingdom. They open doors; they seek out the underprivileged. They now that the gospel comes with a house key.”

Ms. Butterfield fills the remainder of her book, after the preface from which the above quotes are taken, with some exhortation but mostly with stories about what hospitality looks like in her own home and community. She also touches on current events and concerns: “Me-Too”, the dangers and boundaries of hospitality, loneliness, and the sad likelihood of being misunderstood. The stories are inspiring, but also daunting. I agree with her thesis, but I truly don’t know where to begin, even though the author tries to give some ideas about how to start practicing radical hospitality, or least simple hospitality, in her final chapter entitled “Conclusion: Feeding the Five Thousand.”

I’m fairly good at having a home that is open to all the many members of our large family and their friends and associates. we often, usually weekly or even more often, have a houseful. I have a private library in my home that is open to members of the public three days a week, and I try to practice “book hospitality” there. But welcoming my neighbors inside for meals and fellowship, opening my home to those who are very different from me, is not something I’ve ever practiced consistently.

This book reminds me of The Turquoise Table: Finding Community and Connection in Your Own Front Yard by Kristin Schell. These books show a way to the kind of hospitality and community I would like to foster in my own neighborhood, but I’m way too introverted and reserved to do it—so far. I think I need a turquoise table or one other concrete starting point to move toward the kind of radical hospitality that I am convinced is our calling as Christ-followers here in major suburbia and elsewhere.

Jorge Luis Borges: “Literature is one of the forms that happiness takes; perhaps no writer has given me as many happy hours as Chesterton.“

The medieval bishop Isaac of Syria described how, whenever he read to himself,

As in a dream, I enter into a state when my sense and thoughts are concentrated. Then, when with prolonging of this silence, the turmoil of memories is stilled in my heart, ceaseless wavs of joy are sent me by inner thoughts, beyond expectation suddenly arising to delight my heart.

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, p. 65

“In the long run a medium’s content matters less than the medium itself in influencing how we think and act. As our window onto the world and onto ourselves, a popular medium molds what we see and how we see it—and eventually, if we use it enough, it changes who we are, as individuals and as a society.” ~The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

“One must guard against the fault of being annoyed with one’s children for not being what one wished and hoped.” ~Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia (daughter of Queen Victoria of England)

God has made my heart faint;

The Almighty has terrified me;

Yet I am not silenced because of the darkness,

Nor because thick darkness covers my face.

Job 23:16-17

This novel is a fictionalized biography of the Elizabethan poet John Donne, one of my favorite poets. Wikipedia speaks of the “strong, sensual style” and “abrupt openings and various paradoxes, ironies and dislocations” in Donne’s poetry, and I tend to enjoy the surprises and disconcerting changes that appear in much of Donne’s poetry.

Donne himself was a courtier, trying for most of his life to find an influential and rich patron who would make his fortune and get him the appointments he needed for a diplomatic career. He rather spoiled his chances such a career when he fell in love with the niece, Anne More, of his patron and employer, Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal under Queen Elizabeth I. Donne, who was pushing thirty, and Anne, still a teenager, secretly married, and when the marriage was discovered, Donne got fired from his position with Sir Thomas and Anne’s father disowned the pari and tried to have their marriage declared invalid. Oh, and John Donne spent a short time in prison where he wrote a succinct poem about his fate:

John Donne

Anne Donne

undone.

John and Anne went on to spend most of their sixteen years of married life in financial difficulties. Donne wrote both prose and poems, sometimes for pay and sometimes to get the attention of those he hoped would advance his career. Anne gave birth to twelve children in sixteen years, two of them stillborn. The couple, as portrayed in the book and seemingly in real life, remained deeply in love despite their difficult circumstances until Anne died in 1617, five days after giving birth to a stillborn baby.

I kept waiting as I read the story of Donne’s life for John Donne to experience Christian conversion of some sort and to become an Anglican priest. I knew that he did become a minister and a believer at some point. It turns out that Donne only became a cleric finally because James I practically ordered him to do so. Donne had no other way to support his growing family, so he was ordained in 1615, only a couple of years before the death of his wife.

This novel has Donne’s actual conversion coming after Anne’s death in the very last chapter of the book. You can tell from his poetry, especially his Holy Sonnets, and from some of his sermons that he truly did trust in the Lord for forgiveness and salvation (or else he was an awfully good faker). I remember going to see a play about John Donne’s life many years ago when Engineer Husband and I were dating. I also remember watching the movie version of the Pulitzer prize winning play, Wit with Emma Thompson as the main character, an English professor who is dying of ovarian cancer and what also has a predilection for the poetry of John Donne.

Other posts about John Donne and his poetry:

• A Valediction Forbidding Mourning by John Donne, 1611
• Holy Sonnet X (Death Be Not Proud) by John Donne
• The Sunne Rising by John Donne
• Song (Go and Catch a Falling Star) by John Donne
• Hymn to God, My God, in my Sickness by John Donne
• Poetry and sermons of John Donne
• The End of the Alphabet, Wit and John Donne

Urchin of the Riding Stars (The Mistmantle Chronicles, Book 1) by M.I. McAllister.

The Goodreads blurb on this this book calls it “an epic, Shakespearian story of murder, treachery and revenge,” and I can see that. The themes and plot of Macbeth in particular are obviously present. However, I think my expectations were a little too high from all of the many recommendation I’ve seen for this series. It was decent fantasy fiction, similar to the Redwall book or S.D. Smith’s Green Ember series, but the writing and the plot development were not as good as I expected them to be. It’s not described in detail, but there is murder (of animal characters) and what I would call demon possession, although those words aren’t used in the book, and “culling” (killing) of inferior or weak newborn animals, so beware of giving this book to sensitive readers.

Urchin is a squirrel born on the Night of the Riding Stars. I’m not sure what “riding stars” are but maybe some kind of meteor shower? At any rate, the Night of the Riding Stars always portends some major event on the island of Mistmantle where squirrels, otters, moles, and hedgehogs live in harmony under the beneficent rule of their king, a hedgehog. When Urchin grows up and comes to serve in the castle, things start to go south. His mentor and master, Crispin the squirrel, takes the fall for the murder of the child prince, and when Crispin is exiled, Urchin and his new masters the otter Padra, must find out who the real murderer is and save the kingdom from an evil plot to overthrow the king. The villain of the piece is truly evil, and the good guys muddle about rather dimly trying to stop him.

I am hoping that the series improves with the second book, Urchin and the Heartstone. There are five books in this series, and I have the first three in my library. I am told that books four and five are not only out of print, but also very difficult to find as affordable, used books. The entire series is available for Kindle, however.

In 2019 Booklist published their list of the “50 Best Middle Grade Novels of the 21st Century.” Go ahead, take a look.

They left off Harry Potter, Wimpy Kid, and Percy Jackson because they figured those already had enough attention. (I would leave off two of the three for reasons of poor quality and over-exposure, and HP for the reason they state.) They also “cheated” and included series as one book, so I plan to do the same. Anyway, I do have some reading background and expertise in this particular genre, and for your reading pleasure I thought I would give you my own list of the 50 Best Middle Grade Novels of the 21st Century (so far). There is some overlap between my list and Booklist’s list, so I’ll start with those books we agree on.

Booklist and Semicolon’s Best Books (14 selections):

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill. Algonquin, 2016.

Greenglass House by Kate Milford. Illus. by Jaime Zollars. Clarion, 2014.

Last Day on Mars by Kevin Emerson. HarperCollins/Walden Pond, 2017.

Lockwood & Co. series by Jonathan Stroud. Illus. by Kate Adams. Disney/Hyperion, 2012-2017. (5 titles)

The Mysterious Benedict Society series by Trenton Lee Stewart. Illus. by Carson Ellis and Diana Sudyka. Little, Brown/Megan Tingley, 2007-2012. (4 titles)

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt. Clarion, 2011.

The Penderwicks series by Jeanne Birdsall. Knopf, 2005-2018. (5 titles)

Race to the Bottom of the Sea by Lindsay Eagar. Candlewick, 2017.

Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin. Feiwel and Friends, 2014.

The Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan. I’ve only read the first book in this series, but I do plan to read more. Recommended.

A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park. Clarion, 2001. Newbery Award winning story of an orphan boy who wants to become a potter. Tree-Ear, named for a wild mushroom that grows without seed, lives under a bridge with his friend and mentor, Crane-man. His friend’s shriveled and twisted leg and foot makes him unable to work, and the two manage to eat and hold body and soul together by foraging among the garbage heaps. Then, Tree-Ear gets a job—and a dream of leaving the fringes of 12th century Korean society to become an artisan.

The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo. Illus. by Timothy Basil Ering. Candlewick, 2003.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. Random/Wendy Lamb, 2009.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon series by Grace Lin. Little, Brown, 2009-2016. (3 titles)

Then, Betsy Bird at Fuse #8 chimed in with the substitutions and changes she would make to the list.

Fuse #8 and Semicolon’s Best Books (3 selections):

Rules by Cynthia Lord.

A Drowned Maiden’s Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz. Historical fiction about Maud, an orphan, who is adopted out-of-the-blue by two elderly sisters. Her new guardians lavish her with new clothes on their way home to their large home, but then make her hide in the attic when guests come. They have a plan for Maud to help them in their spiritualism business, but Maud may be more than the sister bargained for.

Ghost by Jason Reynolds.

And, these are my selections—33 more books that I think are outstanding and will stand the test of time:

Heart of a Shepherd by Roseanne Parry.

Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce.

The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson. (On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, North! Or Be Eaten, The Monster in the Hollows, The Warden and the Wolf King) Waterbrook/Rabbit Room Press, 2008-2014.

The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd. 2008.

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt.

Alvin Ho series by Lenore Look.

The Casson Family series by Hilary McKay. (Saffy’s Angel, Indigo’s Star, Permanent Rose, Caddie Ever After, Forever Rose) Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2002-2008.

Maggie Valley novels by Kerry Madden. (Gentle’s Holler, Louisiana’s Song, Jessie’s Mountain)

Leepike Ridge by N.D. Wilson. Random House, 2007.

A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park.

Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster by Jonathan Auxier.

The Hero’s Guide to Storming the Castle by Christopher Healy.

Boys Without Names by Kashmira Sheth. Eager to find work after his hungry family arrives in Mumbai, 11-year-old Gopal ends up locked in a one-room “factory” making beaded frames with five other boys so beaten down they don’t even talk to one another. The boys have no names because their boss manipulates them to distrust one another in the interest of keeping them in slavery. Heart-rending, but never preachy, and ultimately hopeful.

Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins. Charlesbridge, 2010.

Anything But Typical by Nora Leigh Baskin.

A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban.

Clementine books by Sara Pennypacker.

Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson.

Books of Bayern by Shannon Hale. (The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, etc.)

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo.

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander.

The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic by Jennifer Trafton.

The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen. The Ascendance Trilogy.

The Luck Uglies series by Paul Durham.

Tuesdays at the Castle series by Jessica Day George.

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo.

Chasing Vermeer series by Blue Balliet.

The Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner.

Circus Mirandus by Cassie Beasley.

Isle of Swords by Thomas Wayne Batson.

Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm.

Any Which Wall by Laurel Snyder.

Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce.

So, what do you think? What books would you add or take away from my list or Booklist‘s list? Or make your own list, and link in the comments.

Time Sight is a time travel or time-slip novel for middle graders in the tradition of Edward Eager’s Half Magic and Nesbit’s Five Children and It. The book is set in Scotland where Will and his little brother are sent to stay with relatives while Will’s father goes to find his mother who has been kidnapped while on a medical mission in a foreign country. Will discovers that in the country of his ancestors he has a special ability to see into other time periods and eventually step into the picture, so to speak, and enter those other times.

There are references to prayer and to God that are orthodox, Christian, and integrated into the plot and characterization in a way that didn’t stick out or seem awkward. The time travel was well thought out, and the rules for the time travel made sense, in a fantasy sort of way. Also, I liked that the writing itself wasn’t overdone or over-complicated. She didn’t try to be Tolkien in a book for ten and eleven year olds. (I love Tolkien’s writing, but I find a lot of middle grade authors trying to import his style and complexity of thought into middle grade novels where it doesn’t fit.) The setting was good, and I painlessly learned some things about Scottish history that I didn’t know before. I thought the historical time periods, settting and characters, were also well done with historical details and characters that seemed authentic. The notes in the back indicate that the author did her research.

Altogether, Time Sight was well written, well plotted, and absorbing. Will and his little brother Jamie and their Scottish cousin Nan are decent, thoughtful children who are coping with situations beyond their years in a way that makes sense and also gives rise to interesting questions and thoughts and growth for both readers and characters. Their adventures are fun to read about and educational to boot. Lynne Jonell tells us in the Afterword that she is related to the Scottish Menzies family that is featured in the book, and the family motto really is, being translated, “If God wills it, I shall do it.” The book is not a religious tract at all, and yet like A Wrinkle in Time and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the light of a Christian or Christian-influenced worldview shines through the pages of the story as it ends with the words, spoken by Will’s father, “That’s good to know. Light wins.”

This debut novel by Connecticut author Jeanne Ferruolo tells the story of Ruby Moon Hayes who has lost her father and whose mother has moved herself and Ruby from one place to another for over a year in search of the “forever home”. The pair finally end up in Fortin, Vermont, where almost immediately Mom is arrested for assault after standing up for her rights at her new job.

A moon motif runs throughout the story, and Ruby Moon learns to speak out and be brave as she adjusts to her new life in small town Vermont. The moon connects the story together just as it connected Ruby and her dad when they would both look at the moon when they were apart and remember each other. Ruby was a good character, with some growing and grieving issues, but because Ruby didn’t respect or obey her mom, I had trouble respecting her or rooting for her myself.

I didn’t always believe the actions of the townspeople, of Ruby’s friends Abigail and Ahmad, of Ruby’s mom, or of Ruby herself. I started out disliking the mom a lot or wondering if she had some kind of mental illness, but then the author tried to turn her into a hero and a role model for standing up for oneself. The townspeople were a bit too insular and prejudiced, stereotypical small-town hicks, to be believed. Ahmad was too good to be true, and Abigail was, as Ruby repeatedly calls her in the book, strange and weird. And still the story managed to tug at the heartstrings, so to speak. The themes of finding one’s own voice and learning to adapt and being brave are familiar, but they were worked out here in an engaging way.

I wish I could pinpoint what it was that moved me about this simple story. Ruby learns what it means to find a home. Ruby’s mom gets better, although I still thought she was awfully self-centered. Ahmad never moves beyond the stereotypical friendly Syrian refugee, but his friendship with Ruby serves the purpose of moving the story to its climax. And Ruby remains something of an enigma, even as she moves into healing and a new start in life. It’s a good story, but maybe not especially memorable?

I am not an animal lover, nor do I usually seek out animal stories in my reading life, although I’ve read my fair share of animal story classics: Old Yeller, Sounder, The Incredible Journey, Black Beauty, Rascal. Most of the classics involve people, too; most of the stories are about pets or domesticated animals.

A Wolf Called Wander is about a wolf, not a domesticated animal at all. When Wander the Wolf comes into contact with men, he is frightened and repulsed and confused by their strange actions. And most of the story is about Wander himself and his journey, not about human contacts or human concerns.

Wander is anthropomorphized somewhat in the book. He has a name as do his brothers and sisters: Pounce, Wag, Sharp, and Warm. Of course, he thinks in sentences and in English because the book is told from Wander’s point of view. Nevertheless, the story is based on the story of a real wolf, tagged OR-7 by biologists, fitted with a radio collar, and tracked on a journey from northeastern Oregon into northern California. Parry took OR-7’s migration journey and made it into a story about a wolf called Wander and his search for a home and a pack of his own.

And she did an excellent job. If you or your child is at all interested in wolves or in the lives of wild creatures in general, A Wolf Called Wander would be a great read. What other books can you think of that are told from the non-domesticated animal’s point of view, but mostly realistic and not very anthropomorphized (not a-boy-and-his-dog/cat/horse and not animals in clothing)? Here are a few that I thought of:

White Fang and Call of the Wild, both by Jack London. I have a plan to read one of London’s books, probably Call of the Wild, as well as a biography of London this month. I think these fit the category in my question, but I haven’t read them.

Bambi by Felix Salten. This classic is about the animals of the forest, especially the fawn Bambi, not about humans. However, the animals do think and “talk” to one another.

Watership Down by Richard Adams is about wild rabbits, but the rabbits do have an extensive mythology and a complicated social order and government. Their actions are mostly realistic, but their story is not.

Animal Stories: Realistic by C. Hollis Crossman at Exodus Books.

I knew of Margery Sharp as a children’s author who wrote the series of books about The Rescuers and Miss Bianca (although Wikipedia says that The Rescuers was originally meant for an adult audience?). However that may be, Ms. Sharp also wrote twenty-five other novels for adults as well as numerous short stories. Cluny Brown is one of Ms. Sharp’s adult novels, published in 1944, and not to be taken over by children. (It has a few mild expletives, and the characters are all grown up people, not mice.)

The novel takes place just before WWII in the late thirties. One of the characters says repeatedly that Europe is headed for war, but no one takes him too seriously. Instead of war or impending war, the atmosphere in the book is one of halcyon days in which there is time and mental space enough to pursue rather leisurely growing up and romance in the English countryside.

Cluny Brown is a London girl, an orphan, who is a puzzlement to her guardian plumber uncle and to all of her friends and neighbors in a working class neighborhood in London. She’s tall and plain, but on second or third glance rather striking in some undefinable way, and she has ideas “above her station”. These strange ideas of Cluny’s, such as her taking herself out to the Ritz for tea one afternoon, cause her uncle to worry, and eventually he decides to send Cluny “into service” as a maid.

Cluny ends up in Devon at Friars Carmel, the country home of Sir Henry and Lady Carmel. In an atmosphere reminiscent of Downton Abbey, although not so large or exalted, Cluny wreaks havoc by just being Cluny. She doesn’t do anything too shocking by today’s standards, but in the eyes of the English country villagers and lords and ladies and maids and butlers, Cluny is definitely an anomaly, an odd bird. She asks if she can keep a dog. (The answer is no. Maids don’t keep pets.) She talks to her employers as if she and they are all people, on common ground so to speak, not disrespectfully but as an equal.

Anyway, the book is basically a romance, and Cluny eventually does the thing that is the most shocking of all: she chooses her own husband and runs away with him. I thought this story was a nice little glimpse into British mores and changing times of the 1930’s, and it was fun to think that Cluny and her free ways were only the harbingers of a great deal of change and freedom (and license) very soon to come with the war.

A serial version of Cluny Brown appeared in the Ladies’ Home Journal, and made into a Hollywood film by Ernst Lubitsch in 1946, with Academy Award winner Jennifer Jones in the title role. Recommended for fans of Downton Abbey and Miss Reade novels and pre-WWII light English romances.