A friend on Facebook posted a link to this article from The New York Times Book Review section, Harper Lee and Her Father, the Real Atticus Finch. Take a minute to read, if you’re a fan of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, and then come back and discuss.

“This book’s closely documented conclusion is that A.C. Lee, and his devoted albeit sporadically rebellious daughter, Nelle Harper Lee, both wanted the world to have a better opinion of upper-class Southern WASPs than they deserve.”

I’m not sure what the take-away is from this article or from Crespino’s book (which I haven’t read). Is he saying that TKAM Atticus #1 is a complete fairy tale, while Watchman’s Atticus #2 is the more realistic version of most upper middle-class Alabamians, or of Harper Lee’s father? That could very well be, but I don’t know how one would know for sure. And I would prefer to read about the idealized Atticus, who is actually NOT Harper Lee’s father but rather a fictional character, and hope that Alabamians and all of the rest of us would aspire to live up to that model.

And I think the author of the article (or maybe Mr. Crespino?) is wrong when he says that “the state’s ills are always laid at the feet of lower-class whites like Bob Ewell and his troubled daughter Mayella.” TKAM actually blames the people on the jury that convicted Tom Robinson, and the (middle and upper class) people in the town who stayed silent and let it all happen. We’re not led to blame the Ewells, but rather to feel sorry for them in their ignorance and poverty. Rather than “villainizing rednecks”, TKAM shows that most, if not all, of the white people in Maycomb are complicit in the injustice done to Tom and also, to Boo Radley, and even Atticus can’t change a town’s history of racial prejudice single-handedly.

I’m not from Alabama, but why should Alabamians be round of the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird? Why shouldn’t we choose the more hopeful picture of a hero like Atticus #1, someone to aspire to become more like and reject the nasty version of Atticus who appears out of nowhere in Go Set a Watchman. Full disclosure: I haven’t read Go Set a Watchman because I didn’t think I would like it or find it thought-provoking (maybe provoking, but not of thought) or inspiring.

The New York Times Book Review, in a pull-quote on the back of my copy of this book, compares Freddy to Pooh and to The Wind in the Willows. Having just read the first book in this series about a talking, adventuresome pig and his equally anthropomorphized barnyard friends, I’m not quite ready to go there. Freddy isn’t as wise or philosophical as Pooh, nor are the friendships in this first volume of Freddy quite as iconic as that of Mole and Ratty and Toad. Nevertheless, I’m a fan, and I do want to read more.

Originally published in 1927 under the title of To and Again (glad they changed the title), Freddy Goes to Florida chronicles the adventures of Freddy the Pig, Mrs. Wiggins the cow, Charles the rooster and his wife Henrietta, Jinx the cat, and various and sundry other animals from Mr. Bean’s farm in Vermont(? or somewhere up north) as they become the first farm animals to take a cue from the birds and migrate to Florida for the winter. Unfortunately, the animals can’t fly south; they have to walk. But Freddy makes up songs to pass time as they hike along together, and sometimes the smaller animals catch a ride on the back of Mrs. Wiggins or Hank the Horse.

The animals talk to each other just as you and I would if we were on a ramble down to Florida, but they don’t really communicate in human speech with the people they meet along the way. They draw a certain amount of attention as the first farm animals to think of migrating, but not as much as you might think. They encounter kidnappers, thieves, and alligators—all of whom must be outwitted and/or defeated in their nefarious schemes. And then, in the spring, the animals return to Mr. Bean’s farm with a present for Mr. Bean and having satisfied their wanderlust for the time being.

The illustrations by Kurt Wiese are vivid and humorous in pen and ink. The story itself is gentle and funny with just enough thrill and danger to keep the plot moving, but not enough to make it at all scary or nightmare-inducing. Here’s a description of a lady’s house (sounds a lot like mine) just to give you a taste of the style:

“There were a number of things on the shelf. There was a photograph of Aunt Etta, and a photograph of her married daughter who lived in Rochester, and a spool of black darning-cotton, and an alarm clock, and a butcher’s bill, and a picture postcard of Niagara Falls, and seven beans, and a box of matches, and quite a lot of dust. The dust was there because Aunt Etta, although she was a kind-hearted woman, wasn’t a very good housekeeper. She spent too much time reading the newspaper.”

That describes me and my shelves to a T, except it’s not the newspaper I’m reading—it’s books for children like Freddy Goes to Florida.

Mr. Brooks, a journalist himself, wrote twenty-six books about Freddy and his friends. I have six of those Freddy books in my library. I think my next read in the series will be Freddy the Detective, which isn’t the next one in the series (Freddy Goes to the North Pole is the second books published), but is the next one that I own (#3).

“All books are either dreams or swords, You can cut, or you can drug, with words.” ~~Amy Lowell

Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Here’s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after you’ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book you’re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews they’re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read.

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William Gilpin, 1724-1804, “an English artist, Anglican cleric, schoolmaster and author, best known as one of the originators of the idea of the picturesque.” Gilpin defined the picturesque as “that kind of beauty which is agreeable in a picture,” and he spent much time traveling and sketching the most picturesque landscapes and nature scenes he could find.

Jane Austen was a fan of Gilpin’s books which included both sketches and descriptions of the picturesque scenes he came across in his travels. With titles such as Observations on the Mountains and Lakes of Cumberland or Observations on the Western Parts of England, the books can be imagined in the hands of an Austen heroine as she surveys the countryside in search of a picturesque view. This blogger thinks that Austen’s appreciation for Gilpin was at least somewhat tinged with mockery.

I’m not sure that Gilpin’s pursuit of the picturesque is appealing to the modern artist, but at least a study of one of his books would certainly be of benefit in provoking thought about what an artist is looking for in the composition of a picture.