The Penderwicks at Last by Jeanne Birdsall

Jul5

This final installment in the Penderwick saga ends with a wedding, another wedding, and a hint at future wedding possibilities. The Penderwick clan gather back where it all started at Arundell from far and wide, Skye flying in from California, the others driving in from closer points east, west, north, and south. Jeffery is coming from Germany to manage the music for the wedding, and Cagney and his wife live on the premises at Arundell as caretakers. So all the old crew is back for this last hoorah—as well as some new characters.

Ten year old Lydia Penderwick, in the Penderwick tradition of the first four books about this family, is both innocent and precocious at the same time. Lydia, who loves to dance and who almost likes everybody she meets (with only a few exceptions), is a joy and a delight as she dances through the chaos of wedding preparations and a new friendship with Cagney’s daughter, Alice. The girls encounter spiders, ghosts, and the fearsome Mrs. Tifton—all with the same courage and adventurous spirit that made the other Penderwick children so much fun to read about in the other books in the series.

I must say that there were a couple of jarring notes to the whole book, which is mostly a paean to love and marriage and and family and friendship. Lydia’s friend, Alice, has a brother who spends most of the book in Canada, visiting relatives. Alice, however, is jealous of her brother’s trip to Canada and spends a great deal of time texting him competitive photos and challenges as to who is having the best summer vacation. I guess it’s realistic, but not as much fun as the feisty but good-natured family teasing and joking and encouraging that goes on between the Penderwick siblings. Then, Skye’s and Jane’s attitudes about marriage are aired, and I just wanted to tell them to grow up. Skye insists that “marriage is an outmoded social contract,” but her actions seem to belie her words. And Jane says she’s too busy becoming a novelist to think about marriage or boyfriends, as if one precludes the other. It all feels so twenty-first century and so-so feminist and liberated and pretentious. In a book that’s celebrating marriage, it’s out of place.

However, those are minor false notes in a book that’s mostly a lovely finale to the Penderwick symphony. If you haven’t read the first four books in the series, I would suggest that you begin at the beginning. You’ll appreciate it more that way. And if you enjoy the first book, do read through to the end of The Penderwicks at Last.

The other Penderwick books:
The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy
The Penderwicks on Gardam Street
The Penderwicks at Point Mouette
The Penderwicks in Spring

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.
This book may be nominated for a Cybils Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

The Man Without a Country by Edward Everett Hale

Jul4

Despite the trite and oft-repeated slogan of “Make America Great Again” and the hoopla that attends our national political life every four years or so, it seems to me that there is a distinct lack of true patriotism (as opposed to jingoism) among a great Americans today. In fact, I find that many people in my generation and especially in my children’s generation are disdainful of and cynical about the United States of America. Love of one’s native country is something to be ashamed of, something to suppress if it is present in oneself, and something to criticize if it is found in others.

I wonder how many people have ever read Edward Everett Hale’s short story, The Man Without a Country. The version I re-read recently, a “first book edition” with illustrations by Leonard Fisher, is a reminder to those who are open to its message that love of country does not have to manifest as rabid nationalism, but rather, rightly ordered, a a deep but subordinate love of home, community, and family.

In the story Philip Nolan, a callow young army officer, is seduced into traitorous activities by none other than Alexander Hamilton’s famous nemesis, Aaron Burr. Burr comes to an Army post out west where young Philip is stationed and dazzles Nolan with his fascinating talk of a western Empire. Hale calls Burr a “gay deceiver” and his plans “the grand catastrophe.” Philip Nolan is caught up in the aftermath of that catastrophe and tried for treason. When asked at the end of his trial whether he wishes to say anything to show his loyalty to the United States, Philip Nolan makes the rash and fateful statement: “D–n the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!”

The premise of the entire story is that the judge then sentences Philip Nolan to have his wish fulfilled. Nolan is made a prisoner to travel the world on U.S. Navy vessels, in comfort, but never to see or hear of the United States again. He becomes “The Man Without a Country.”

Of course, Nolan comes to regret his rash and thoughtless disavowal of his native land. And over the many years that Nolan spends on one ship after another, forgotten by his own country, but held in a sort of ongoing limbo, his caretakers come to pity Philip Nolan. He is treated kindly, lives a comfortable life, but the sentence of never having a home, never even hearing news of his former country, is a cruel and unusual punishment.

Surely our love of country is an intimation of the joy prepared for us in heaven someday. And as such, that love is to be cherished while never made into an idol. Philip Nolan on his deathbed tells a friend that he has a prayer marked in the Presbyterian prayer book, a prayer that he has prayed every day for the fifty-five years that he served his country-less sentence:

“For ourselves and our country, O gracious God, we thank Thee, that notwithstanding our manifest transgressions of Thy holy laws, Thous hast continued to us Thy marvelous kindness. . . Most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favor to behold and bless Thy servant, the President of the United States, and all others in authority.”

And may God give us all a proper and appropriate love for our nation and for our community, and may we remember to pray a similar prayer to that of the fictional Man Without a Country, on this Independence Day and every day.

Saturday Review of Books: June 30, 2018

Jun30

“To desire to have many books, and never use them, is like a child that will have a candle burning by him all the while he is sleeping.” ~~Henry Peacham

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.

1. Barbara H. (A Small Book About a Big Problem)
2. Barbara H. (Invincible Louisa)
3. Barbara H. (Heaven Without Her)
4. Barbara H. (The Highly Sensitive Person)
5. Barbara H. (Gospel Meditations for Mothers)
6. Brenda (The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery)

7. Glynn (The Red House)
8. Glynn (Are People Basically Good?)
9. Glynn (A Whiff of Cyanide)
10. Susanne@LivingToTell (Where Hope Begins)
11. Susanne@LivingToTell (Summer of Joy)
12. Beckie@ByTheBook (The Love Letter)

13. Beckie@ByTheBook (Just Let Go)
14. Beckie@ByTheBook (A Rebel Heart)
15. Elizabeth (THE TASTE OF AIR)
16. Elizabeth (BEFORE AND AGAIN)
17. Elizabeth (THREE DAYS MISSING)

7 Joyful Tidings; or, Stuff to Be Glad About

Jun20

“[I]f God took the trouble to tell us eight hundred times to be glad and rejoice, He must want us to do it—–SOME.” ~Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter.

1) How Sunday School Sparked Revival in Egypt’s Oldest Church, from Christianity Today.

“We have been blown away by their care for the next generation. It takes two years of training to even teach a kindergartener.”

2) Even the writer of Ecclesiastes knew that not everything is meaningless:

3) The Things That Count by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Now, dear, it isn’t the bold things,
Great deeds of valour and might,
That count the most in the summing up of life at the end of the day.
But it is the doing of old things,
Small acts that are just and right;
And doing them over and over again, no matter what others say;
In smiling at fate, when you want to cry, and in keeping at work when you want to play—
Dear, those are the things that count.
And, dear, it isn’t the new ways
Where the wonder-seekers crowd
That lead us into the land of content, or help us to find our own.
But it is keeping to true ways,
Though the music is not so loud,
And there may be many a shadowed spot where we journey along alone;
In flinging a prayer at the face of fear, and in changing into a song a groan—
Dear, these are the things that count.
My dear, it isn’t the loud part
Of creeds that are pleasing to God,
Not the chant of a prayer, or the hum of a hymn, or a jubilant shout or song.
But it is the beautiful proud part
Of walking with feet faith-shod;
And in loving, loving, loving through all, no matter how things go wrong;
In trusting ever, though dark the day, and in keeping your hope when the way seems long—
Dear, these are the things that count.

4) Texas Builder Dan Phillips Turns Trash into Treasure

5) Some lovely old (new-to-me) books in my library:

6) Some relatively new books look as if they might be good news:

The Penderwicks at Last by Jeanne Birdsall (Knopf, May 2018) is said to be the fifth and final book in the Penderwicks series, and I have it in my reading queue. I’ve read good things about the finale, and I’m looking forward to reuniting with the Penderwicks and friends.

“Golden Hill by Francis Spufford (Scribner, 2017) is set in 1746 New York, pop. 7,000. When a young, handsome man hops off a boat from London with a promissory note for 1,000 pounds—a fortune in those days—locals whisper and conspire: Who’s he? A spy? Royalty? Con man? What results is a well-researched, comical, lyrical, action-packed story of wit-sparring lovers, local politics, Shakespeare, and mysteries.” —World magazine reporter Sophia Lee

The Lola Quartet by Emily St. John Mandel. Recommended by Ann Bogel at Modern Mrs. Darcy.

The Black Widow (Gabriel Allon Series Book 16) by Daniel Silva is recommended by both Marvin Olasky and Ann Bogel, so maybe I should read the first fifteen books in this series of spy novels, or should I just jump into this latest and greatest one?

7) Today I want to tell those that I love: be careful what stories you tell yourself. Be kind to yourself. Expect kindness from others. Give other people the benefit of the doubt. Don’t assume evil motives or hidden hostility.
Above all, TRUST in God’s love and concern for the person He created and sustains in you. You truly are His, redeemed, bought with a price, forgiven, renewed, the apple of His eye.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

The Journey of Little Charlie by Christopher Paul Curtis

Jun19

This new historical fiction novel by Newbery Award-winning writer Christopher Paul Curtis started out to be another story about the lives of the fugitives who settled in Buxton, Canada, a haven for people who had escaped slavery in the southern United States just before the Civil War. As Mr. Curtis tells it, the genesis of the story was a newspaper cutting about the attempted kidnapping of a young African American boy from his home in Canada. The book was supposed to be about this boy and about a poor white boy named Charlie Bobo. Curtis writes: “I’d hoped to explore how much each was a product of his own environment and times, as well as try and analyze what goes into making a human being do something courageous.”

“But once I started pinning Little Charlie to the page, once I got to know his voice and personality, I knew this was his book. Sylvanus was going to have to wait.”

First of all, the negatives about this middle grade fiction book:

~The book is written in Little Charlie’s voice, and Charlie speaks Southern cracker: “Cap’n” instead of Captain, “com-fitting” instead of comfort, “scairt” instead of scared. The dialect helps give Charlie a personality and a distinctive point of view, but it could be distracting and difficult for younger readers. It was a bit distracting for me, until I got used to it.

~There is some mild cursing (he– and da–, mostly). It’s entirely in character for the people who do so to curse, and in fact there are very few curse words in the book, probably much fewer than would realistically be called for in these characters. However, they are there.

~The slave-catcher, Cap’n Buck, is an evil and violent man. And some of that evil and violence makes it into the book in fairly graphic descriptions of gun violence, mob violence, something called “cat-hauling”, and just general violent capture and mistreatment of people who have escaped from enslavement. It’s not gratuitous, nor is it described as graphically as it could have been, but it’s ugly.

The positives:

~The plot moves along well, and the story kept me absorbed. Although I rather expected everything to turn out well in the end, I wasn’t entirely sure if or how that would happen. The events in the story were believable to me, and Charlie was a

~Mr. Curtis is a good writer, and I did manage to get used to the dialect and the misspelled words used to indicate that dialect (turrible and chirren and rep-a-tation). It all sounded authentic in my head, and eventually it helped me to stay in the story and understand the characters.

~The evolution of Charlie’s character and attitudes was realistic as well as hopeful. Charlie doesn’t become a raging abolitionist, but he does begin to see that black people are people, too, just like him—or at least kind of like him. The book portrays the evils and the violence of the slave economy, but it also shows the “points of light” that eventually shone out to eradicate that evil.

Read this novel along with Curtis’s other Buxton novels, Elijah of Buxton and The Madman of Piney Woods, to get a rounded picture of the lives of ante-bellum African Americans, both enslaved and escaped from slavery. And in this third book about Buxton, get a snapshot of where the prejudiced and hateful attitudes and actions that sustained slavery for so long may have originated and how they were perpetuated.

Atticus #1 or Atticus #2?

Jun18

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.

Freddy Goes to Florida by Walter R. Brooks

Jun17

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).

Saturday Review of Books: June 16, 2018

Jun15

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

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.

1. Sea Rose Lane by Irene Hannon
2. The Captured Bride by Michelle Griep
3. Sandpiper Cove by Irene Hannon
4. Barbara H. (The Mountain Between Us)
5. Barbara H. (A Long Fatal Love Chase)
6. Glynn (The Light of the Fireflies)
7. Glynn (Remembering Dresden)
8. Glynn (The Man Who Wanted to Know Everything)

9. Carol (Linnets & Valerians)
10. Michele (G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, Chapter 6)
11. Janet (Koningsburg, Sutcliff, Yancey, Hinton)
12. Michele (Eat This Book by Eugene Peterson)
13. Beckie@ByTheBook (Land of Silence)
14. Beckie@ByTheBook (The Weaver’s Daughter)
15. Sarah at SmallWorld Reads (Educated by Tara Westover)
16. Michele (A Leopard Tamed by Eleanor Vandevort)

17. Michele (Almost Entirely by Jennifer Wallace)
18. Susanne@LivingToTell (A Time to Stand)
19. Beneath a Prairie Moon by Kim Vogel Sawyer
20. Elizabeth @ Silver’s Reviews
21. Elizabeth @Silver’s Reviews (DREAMS OF FALLING)
22. Elizabeth @ Silver’s Reviews (GIVEAWAY – LITTLE BIG LOVE)

Born on This Day: June 6th

Jun6

Peter Spier, 1927-2017, was a Dutch-born American illustrator and author, creator of any number of my favorite picture books: The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night, Bored–Nothing to Do, Peter Spier’s Rain, Peter Spier’s Christmas, The Erie Canal, Noah’s Ark, The Book of Jonah, The Cow Who Fell in the Canal (by Phyllis Krasilovsky) and more, including my very favorite:

This classic story of three children left “home alone” on a beautiful Saturday may be my favorite picture book of all time. It’s certainly in my top ten.

The story begins: “It happened on a Saturday morning that Mrs. Noonan said to her husband, ‘When are you going to paint the outside of the house? You’ve been talking about it for months!'”

Then Mr. and Mrs. Noonan leave for the day to run errands, telling the children to “behave themselves” and that the babysitter would be there shortly. “But the sitter never showed up.”

” . . . there was plenty of paint in the garage.”

You may think you can imagine what happens next, but unless you’ve seen this book with Mr. Spier’s wonderful illustrations, I can assure you that your imagination falls far short of the glorious picture book reality. The details in each illustration are so much fun to study, and the overall story—and the ending–are epic.

The plot of the story is similar to my other favorite Peter Spier title, Bored–Nothing To Do, but I love this one even better. It’s so colorful!

If you can find a copy of this picture book, I highly recommend it. Unfortunately, it’s out of print, and copies of the used paperback are selling for more than $10.00 online; the hardcover is more like $20.00+. Check your library, then used bookstore, either storefront or online.

Born on This Day: June 5th

Jun5

Richard Scarry, 1919-1994, illustrated and sometimes wrote the text for more than 300 children’s books, most of them set in the imaginary metropolis of Busytown. Busytown was inhabited by various anthropomorphic animals with names such as Lowly Worm, Huckle Cat, Postman Pig, Bananas Gorilla, and my favorite, Mr. Frumble.

Scarry’s characters and stories lent themselves well to cartoons and video, and several series and individual videos were made of Busytown’s denizens. Here’s one example from Youtube; many more are available for watching:

The books are mostly a bit too busy for my tastes, but my children enjoyed them back in the day. If they are twaddle they are fairly harmless twaddle. Unfortunately, I think, some of Scarry’s stories and illustrations were edited and updated in later editions “to make them conform to changing social values.” Characters in cowboy or Indian costumes were deleted or re-clothed, gender roles were de-emphasized or switched so that girls were driving bulldozers and boys were cooking and cleaning. Such silliness.

If you want to try out a Busytown adventure, I would suggest Pig Will and Pig Won’t: A Book of Manners, Mr. Frumble’s Worst Day Ever, Be Careful, Mr Frumble, or Please and Thank You Book.