The Mysterious Giant of Barletta by Tomie dePaola, 1984.
This story is adapted from an Italian folktale. There is a note in the beginning about the town of Barletta and the statue that stands in front of the San Sepolcro Church. According to the note, nobody knows who the statue is supposed to represent, which is why there are stories about it. This one takes place during the Middle Ages, the 11th century.
Because no one knows who the statue is supposed to be, the people of Barletta call it, “The Mysterious Giant.” No one even knows for sure how long it has been there. It has been there for as long as anyone can remember, including Zia Concetta, the oldest person in Barletta. People are accustomed to gathering around the statue to meet each other, and many of them will give the statue a friendly greeting or wish it good night.
However, one day, the town is threatened by an invading army. The people of Barletta are unprepared for invaders, and many of them prepare to flee, not knowing what else to do. Zia Concetta appeals to the statue to save their town.
The statue hears Zia Concetta’s request, and it comes to life, climbing down from its pedestal. Together, he and Zia Concetta come up with a plan to discourage the invaders.
When the invaders arrive, they see the statue, sitting by itself outside the city, crying. When they ask the giant statue why it’s crying, it says that the other boys at school are mean to him because he’s smaller than everyone else. When the invaders hear that everyone else in Barletta is bigger than the giant statue, they decide that they don’t want to meet the rest of the townspeople and leave!
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
I always like books that reference folklore! The theme of someone who is large pretending like they’re much smaller than other people to scare off an attacker is one found in other folktales. For example, in Fin M’Coul (a version of which was also written and illustrated by Tomie dePaola), Fin M’Coul, who is a giant, pretends to be his own baby to make an enemy think that his father must be larger and more fierce than he actually is.
I particularly liked this story because, unlike other folktales, it has a real setting and a definite landmark, the statue that is sometimes called the Colossus of Barletta. The way it is drawn in the book isn’t exactly as it appears in real life. In real life, it holds a cross in the hand that is raised, although the cross was not part of the statue originally. It probably originally held a spear or a flag standard. It is about three times the size of an adult human, which isn’t as large as it is shown the book. As in the book, it isn’t certain exactly who the statue is supposed to be, although it appears to be the statue of an emperor. He appears to be a middle-aged man wearing a jeweled diadem. The reason why nobody knows exactly who it was supposed to be is that it wasn’t originally made or displayed in Barletta. It was probably originally looted from Constantinople by the Venetians. There is a story from Barletta that it was once lost in a shipwreck on the way from Constantinople and washed up on the shores of Barletta in 1309, where some of its bronze was used for casting bells for a monastery. Then, in the 15th century, the statue was restored and displayed in front of the church. That, by itself is a fascinating story, although it isn’t explained in the book.
Princess Hyacinth by Florence Parry Heide, illustrated by Lane Smith, 2009.
For reasons nobody understands, Princess Hyacinth is not affected by gravity, and she floats upward anytime she is not restrained or weighted down.
It’s a real problem because, while it’s difficult enough when she floats up to the ceiling of the palace, if she were allowed out of the palace without something weighing her down, she would simply float away.
Princess Hyacinth’s parents go to great lengths to make sure that she is always secured to something or weighed down with special weighted clothes and a very heavy crown.
Of course, being weighted down all of the time makes life difficult for Princess Hyacinth, too. She wishes that she could go outside and play and swim with the other children, but she can’t because she can’t be outside without the weights. There is one boy in particular who comes by her window with a kite with a crown on it and says hello to her, but it would be difficult for her to go out and play with him.
Then, one day, when Princess Hyacinth is particularly bored and tired of being weighted down, she persuades a balloon man to tie a string to her and let her float among his balloons. At first, it’s fun, floating along as the balloon man walks through the park, but then, the balloon man is startled by a dog and accidentally lets go of her!
As Princess Hyacinth floats upward into the sky, she is thrilled because she has never felt so free in her life, but where will it end? How high can she go, and is there any way for her to get back? Fortunately, there is a way for her to get home, with the help of a friend!
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
This story reminded me of a much-older story from the 19th century, The Light Princess, but this picture book is much, much less serious than that book. In The Light Princess, the princess is cursed, and the story is about breaking this curse that has afflicted her all of life. In this book, there is never any explanation about why Princess Hyacinth isn’t affected by gravity, and she is never cured. Instead, she makes a friend who helps her find a way to live with her condition and enjoy it.
I liked the art style in this book. I found it amusing that the king, queen, and palace guards are drawn in the style of the face cards in a deck of playing cards. Princess Hyacinth is a cute little girl, and when she’s wearing her heavy princess gear, you can almost feel the weight of it on her. In the end, there are still times when she has to be tied down, but she seems more normal, less weighted down, because she has found someone to help her deal with her condition.
The Shoemaker’s Boy by Joan Aiken, illustrated by Victor G. Ambrus, 1991, 1994.
Jem’s father is a shoemaker, and Jem is learning his trade. However, things take a bad turn when his mother suddenly becomes ill. It’s a strange kind of illness. She sleeps all the time, can’t eat, and is hardly breathing. The doctors can’t seem to help her, so Jem’s father decides to go on a pilgrimmage to St. James in Spain and pray for his wife to get better.
While he’s gone, Jem has to mind the family business and look after his mother. Jem’s father has a reputation as a incredible shoemaker, with people coming to see him even from other kingdoms, and Jem is worried that he won’t be able to maintain the business on his own because he’s still learning the trade. However, since nothing else seems to help his mother, it seems like his father’s holy pilgrimage is their last hope.
While his father is away, Jem tries his best, but he finds it difficult to keep up with the orders that come in for shoes. He falls behind on his work, and money is running short. Then, one day, he has a strange encounter with three little men, who are only the size of young children. They are all dressed in green, and they ask Jem for the three silver keys. Jem doesn’t know what they’re talking about, but the men say that they were sent to ask him for them because someone was supposed to leave the keys with him. Jem says that nobody has left any keys with him, and suddenly, the little men vanish! At first, Jem thinks that maybe he imagined the whole thing, but this is just the beginning of a series of strange happenings.
Late that night, there is a knock on the door, and when Jem answers it, he is confronted by a knight wearing black. The knight says that he wants Jem to make him a pair of boots because he’s heard that the boots from this shop are the best. Jem doesn’t want the knight to be disappointed, so he explains to him about his father being away and that he is not as good as his father at making boots. The knight appreciates his honesty and says that he will try Jem’s work anyway. He promises Jem an excellent fee for his services if the boots are ready by morning, and to Jem’s surprise, he also asks Jem if someone has left three silver keys for him. Jem tells him that nobody has left any keys with him, and the knight says that someone may leave them by the time the boots are ready, and he asks Jem to take good care of them.
Jem works on the boots through the night, and he’s making good progress when, in the middle of the night, a second knight arrives. The second knight is dressed in white. This knight doesn’t want any boots or shoes. Instead, he asks Jem to take care of a little packet for him while he runs an errand. He says that he has heard that Jem is very trustworthy, and he says that if he doesn’t return by morning, Jem can keep the packet. Jem agrees that he will take care of the packet and make sure no one else touches it.
The rest of the night is very strange. While Jem works hard on finishing the last boot, he hears strange sounds outside, and he thinks that he can hear the little men and the black knight calling out for the mysterious keys. What does it all mean? Are the keys in the packet left by the white knight, and if so, what are they for?
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
This is a short, easy beginning chapter book, and it’s a nice story with a Medieval setting, written in the style of an old fairy tale. The story leaves a few questions unanswered at the end. We never really find out who the two knights are or who the little men are, although there are implications that they are supernatural. I think that they also have religious significance, tying them to Jem’s father’s pilgrimage. The contents of the white knight’s packet are not obvious, but it is the solution to Jem’s main problem. When Jem’s father returns home, he also has some information about Jem’s mysterious visitors, although he doesn’t have all the answers, either. Readers know enough at the end to appreciate that Jem made the right decision when he handled the packet and that his experiences were partly a test of his character.
The book mentions Jem’s father putting a scallop shell on his cap when he’s about to begin his pilgrimage. The scallop shell is a symbol of St. James, one of the original Twelve Apostles. The place where Jem’s father was going on his pilgrimage, the shrine of St. James at Santiago de Compostela in Spain is a real place that has been a popular site of religious pilgrimages for centuries. After Jesus was crucified, His disciples traveled to other places to spread the word about Jesus and gain new converts to the new religion of Christianity. St. James went to what is now Spain, and after teaching there, he eventually returned to Jerusalem. It isn’t entirely clear what happened to his body after he died, but one of the stories is that his followers brought his body back to Spain and buried it at the site now known as Santiago de Compostela. St. James is now the patron saint of Spain, and pilgrims who visit Santiago de Compostela often collect a scallop shell as a souvenir of their journey. Actually, that is the one complaint that I have about this book. In the story, Jem’s father puts on a scallop shell as he begins his journey, but in real life, Medieval pilgrims usually used the shell as a sign of completion of their journey.
The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame, illustrated by Michael Hague, 1983.
This picture book, with its illustrations, is from the 1980s, but the story by Kenneth Grahame is much older, from 1898. It was always a short story, originally published in a collection called Dream Days. In the original version, there’s an opening part that isn’t included in this picture book, where a girl name Charlotte finds large footprints from a reptile, and a man tells her the story of the dragon.
There is a shepherd whose son loves to read, borrowing books from a friendly member of the gentry who lives nearby. Not all parents from their class value book learning, but the boy’s parents appreciate it and support their son for spending time reading. One day, the shepherd comes home and tells his wife and son that he’s had a terrifying experience. While he was out with his flock, he heard a strange snoring nose, and when he went to investigate, he found a frightening-looking creature with scales, with its head sticking out from the cave.
The shepherd’s son isn’t as alarmed as the shepherd. He merely identifies the creature his father saw as a dragon. He knows about dragons because he’s read about them, and he’s thought for some time that the cave was probably a dragon’s cave. Rather than being surprised or alarmed about the dragon, his father’s discovery merely confirms what the boy already suspected, that a dragon might have lived in the cave once and that it would be a suitable dragon’s home. Furthermore, the boy says that dragons are quite sensitive creatures, so he might look in on this one at some point.
When the boy goes to visit the dragon, the dragon tells him he won’t put up with any rough stuff, like hitting or throwing stones. The boy says he wasn’t going to do any of that, and the two of them start to talk. The dragon hasn’t been staying in the cave for very long, and he’s not sure if he’s going to stay or not. It’s a nice place, but he’s not sure if he’s ready to settle down or not. He admits that he’s lazy, compared to other dragons. Other dragons do things like rampaging, chasing knights, and eating damsels, but this dragon would just prefer a quiet life with regular meals and time to snooze and make up poetry. The boy and the dragon talk about poetry and how it seems like nobody else around them appreciates it the way they do or understands why they like it.
However, the boy can see that there would be problems with the dragon settling in this area. Dragons and humans just don’t mix, even though this dragon isn’t interested in rampaging or doing the other things that would be likely to make enemies of the local population. Once word has gotten around that there’s dragon here, there are bound to be people who will try to hunt it with spears and swords because they’ll only see the dragon as a monster. The dragon has trouble grasping the idea that he could even potentially pose a risk to the human population or that anybody might see him as a danger.
Eventually, word does get around that there’s a dragon living in the cave. The people in the village are both thrilled at this exciting thing happening to their village and plotting to rid their land from this supposed scourge, although the dragon has spent the entire time with his poetry and hasn’t been scourging anything. The village attracts the attention of St. George, the famous dragon slayer, and he comes to deal with the apparent problem.
The boy goes to the dragon and warns him that St. George is in town and that he’s got to prepare to face him and fight. Everyone in town is expecting him to, and they’re all excited about it because it’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened there. However, the dragon says that he doesn’t like violence, and he doesn’t want anything to do with St. George. The boy worries that, if the dragon won’t take the threat seriously and fight, St. George will simply kill him, but he can’t seem to impress on the dragon just how much danger he’s in.
The boy tries to go to St. George and explain the truth about the dragon, but St. George doesn’t take him seriously at first. Everyone else in the village has been telling him tales of horror about the terrible things the dragon has been supposedly doing. The boy explains that the people in the village aren’t telling the truth because the truth is that they only want a fight. This is a quiet, boring little village, the villagers want excitement, and fights are a primary source of excitement for them. They don’t care at all that the dragon doesn’t like fighting and doesn’t want to be involved; they just want to stir things up with their stories and give St. George a reason to go over the dragon so they can watch the entertainment. When the boy explains that, right now, the villagers are taking bets on the upcoming fight, and so far, they’re favoring the dragon to win, St. George begins to think that maybe he’s been too quick to believe the villagers. He agrees to go with the boy to meet the dragon and talk things over.
Both St. George and the boy think the best thing might be to have a fight and get it over with because that’s how things typically go with dragons, and it’s what everyone is expecting. St. George even says that he wouldn’t have to hurt the dragon much in the course of the fight, as long as it looks good to the spectators. The dragon isn’t thrilled with the plan because he still doesn’t like violence, and he doesn’t want to be hurt or even kind of hurt. The boy realizes that the dragon won’t be getting out of the experience, either. St. George would get the glory for the fight, but what’s in it for dragon? Fortunately, the dragon knows what he wants – to be the guest of honor at the victory banquet!
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive. The original story of The Reluctant Dragon was made into a cartoon film (with some slight changes to the story) by Walt Disney in 1941, and it was used as a vehicle for a film tour of the new Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California.
My Reaction and Spoilers
This story is fun because it’s sort of a parody on folktales, especially St. George and the Dragon, subverting everyone’s expectations. The dragon in this story isn’t particularly fearsome and just likes poetry and a peaceful life, and the villagers, who are supposedly being terrorized, are actually the bloodthirsty ones. St. George is rather disappointed when he realizes that the villagers have been duping him with their stories, but he also realizes that they have to find a way to give the people what they want while sparing the dragon and making it so the dragon won’t be victimized later. Although the boy feels like they have to have a fight of some kind to appease the villagers, he also doesn’t want his dragon friend hurt, and he realizes that they have to consider what the dragon really wants.
The three of them work out a way to give the villagers a good show during their “fight” without the dragon getting really hurt. Then, St. George declares that the dragon has been defeated, and there is no need to cut off his head as the villagers have asked because the dragon has seen the error of its ways and repented, so there is no further need for vengeance. St. George’s victory speech also makes it clear to the villagers that he won’t put up with any more stories about the dragon’s terror because he knows that they can’t be true, that they should drop their prejudices because it’s pretty clear that they don’t know everything even if they act like they do, and that it’s wrong to make up stories about things that haven’t actually happened just for the excitement of doing so. I particularly like that last part of his speech/lecture: “And he warned them against the sin of romancing [in the sense of dramatizing and romanticizing things], and making up stories and fancying other people would believe them just because they were plausible and highly coloured.”
I feel like this is a lesson that more people could stand to remember this modern era of conspiracy theories, social media, and Internet rumors. Yeah, I’m particularly thinking of the stories about immigrants eating animals in Ohio. I’m never going to let that one go because everyone who fell for that and helped spread it was acting like the villagers in this story. They were irresponsible and attention-seeking, causing trouble and danger for people who did nothing to deserve it just for their own excitement and hysteria. It doesn’t help if people based some of their belief on old stories about other groups of immigrants eating pets. That actually makes it much worse because I know those stories were debunked decades ago, so they have even less of an excuse to fall for that now.
If you’re thinking at this point that the matter of rumors of pet-eating immigrants is unrelated to the story, I would argue that it fits in very well because, in both the story and in the real-life rumors, social acceptance is a major issue. The dragon wants to be socially accepted so he and stay in the cave that he now considers his home. He wants to be left in peace to compose his poetry but at the same time have the ability to have company and join in local festivities so he won’t feel too lonely. The problem is that the village people have their own expectations and plans to use the dragon as their personal source of excitement, uncaring about whether that costs the dragon his life or if it costs the knight his life while attempting to kill the dragon. They honestly don’t care who gets hurt or even killed as long as they get to see it, knowing that the stories they invent to tell St. George are necessary to make it all happen. Immigrants also want social acceptance and to be allowed to live their lives peacefully and go about their business in their new homes. People sometimes tell wild stories about them, things they made up themselves, knowing that they’re untrue and uncaring about the consequences for other people, for their own purposes.
The very first time I heard of the Springfield pet-eating hoax, I immediately thought of Janie’s Private Eyes, which I reviewed here years ago and contained references to similar accusations about immigrants. I read Janie’s Private Eyes when I was a kid, and since it dealt with the dangers of rumors and prejudice, specifically rumors about immigrants eating pets, I grew up figuring that these were things that adults should just understand and that only had to be explained to kids, who hadn’t heard about them yet. I don’t suppose everyone has read Janie’s Private Eyes, but I always thought, surely, by adulthood, they would have read something or had somebody clue them in at some point.
There was just no chance of me ever being impressed about humors of Haitian immigrants supposedly eating pets as an adult after hearing about long-debunked rumors about Chinese immigrants supposedly eating pets and Vietnamese immigrants supposedly eating pets and Mexican immigrants supposedly eating pets (I live in a border state, so other parts of the US may or may not have gotten around to that one). After all, how many sets of immigrants can you hear this about before it just becomes eye-rolling routine, like those dumb chain emails that used to be popular in the early 2000s or those supposedly shocking but highly improbable kidnapping stories you’re supposed to warn every young woman in your life about but which are almost direct rip-offs of badly-misspelled fan fiction from Wattpad that was written by teens around that same time period? In all those cases, they’re the some wild stories, just retold with a few minor details and the names of the characters changed.
Stories do matter. The ones we hear when we’re young live in our heads and influence the way we look at things when we’re older and how we respond to some of the questionable things that other people are bound to tell us later in life. In a way, I think it really helps to hear some of this bunk when you’re young, under circumstances where you can tell it’s bunk or with someone cluing you in, so you can get some of these ideas out of your head earlier in life and be better able to tell what’s old-fashioned, sensationalist bunk from someone playing up for attention when you’re an adult. I think that The Reluctant Dragon, although it can be taken in a lighter fashion as parody or satire by people who know the type of stories that are being parodied, also offers the opportunity to talk about the power of stories, how they change people’s views and motivate people to action, and the serious consequences of rumors.
Maybe some of the people spreading the Internet rumors really were ignorant and gullible, easily alarmed and manipulated by a wild story, and maybe some of them just wanted in on the excitement to get attention for themselves and never cared whether it was true or not as long as they could latch on to the attention the story was getting and make themselves part of it. I’m pretty sure that the people starting them and passed them on wanted excitement and attention. There is a certain thrill to passing on rumors, feeling special because you “know” something other people don’t know yet and maybe even wanting praise as well as attention for passing the story along. Maybe some of those people also wanted to get some kind of petty revenge on the immigrant population by saying something bad about them, they expected that people would believe them if they made the stories seem dramatic and plausible (like St. George said in the story), and like the villagers in the story, they did not think or care about what would happen to the people who were the subjects of their libel.
It’s the same sort of thing with most social media rumors, which often contain little truth and can do a lot of harm by people believing them and continuing to spread them, which is why I’m against them all in principle. I urge everybody, when you hear any sensational story through Facebook or any form of social media, to pause and do a little fact-checking before you send that story to anyone else. If you can’t verify it or if you find evidence against it, make no other comment on it other than a link to the evidence against the story (if possible) and a message saying that you don’t want to see any more rumors or conspiracy theories. (At least, I sincerely hope you don’t. I’m telling you, they’re only trouble, and real people get hurt because of fake news.)
In real life, I doubt most people, being told off, even in a nice way, for making up stories and getting caught in lies, would behave with as much grace as the villagers in the story. In real life, people get defensive when they know they’ve been caught and “fight back”, but the villagers just accept it as part of the excitement they wanted and focus on getting to the party they know they’re going to have. During his speech, along with his other admonishments, St. George lets the villagers know, subtly, that he’s discovered that they’ve also been staging animal fights and that this practice is going to have to end, and the villagers all know that he’ll personally be checking on that. At the end of St. George’s speech, there is “much repentant cheering”, and they all go to enjoy the banquet. If people are feeling a little awkward about their behavior or the situation, they’re still determined to enjoy themselves and this remarkable event as much as possible. Everyone relaxes at the banquet because the major event is over, everybody has had a taste of excitement and the spectacle they were craving, and St. George’s speech is over, so there’s nothing left for anybody to plan or worry about. Everybody has a good time at the party, and the dragon is pleased that he’s been accepted into society, so he will be allowed to stay in this peaceful place and even have some company, which was what he really wanted.
The Red Cross Knight, who carries a shield decorated with a red cross, does not know his own name or even where he came from. He only knows that the Queen of the Fairies has sent him to face a terrible dragon. He is accompanied on his journey by a princess with a little white lamb and a dwarf. The Princess’s name is Una, and her kingdom is being attacked by the dragon.
On their journey, they meet a hermit, who shows the knight a distant palace on a mountaintop, where angels travel between the palace and heaven. It’s so beautiful that the knight wants to go there immediately, but the hermit says that this palace is in another world and that he cannot go there until he faces the dragon. The hermit also reveals the knight’s past to him. He is not one of the fairy folk, although the fairy folk are the ones who sent him. The hermit knows that he was kidnapped by the fairies as a baby and hidden in a farm field, where he was discovered by a plowman who named him George. His true destiny is to become Saint George, the patron saint of England.
Una takes George to her parents’ fortress. As they approach, they see the dragon for the first time. George sends Una away from danger, and he and the dragon battle for the first time. The dragon picks up George, horse and all, and throws them to the ground. George manages to drive the dragon away, but he is also injured. At first, he and his friends think he is going to die, but he lies down in an ancient spring that cools and heals him. By morning, he is able to rise and fight again.
The second time George fights the dragon, he is able to cut off part of the dragon’s tail and one of its paws. The dragon’s fire finally drives George away, and once again, George seems too wounded to survive. However, he rests under an apple tree that drops healing dew, and George survives.
The third time George and the dragon fight, George manages to kill the dragon. Everyone celebrates, and Una’s parents thank George. The king gives George rich rewards, but George passes them on to the poor people. George is bound to the service of the Fairy Queen for six years, but the king allows George to marry Una and promises him that he will become the next king when his service is finished.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
I love the colorful illustrations in this story, although some of them seemed a bit brutal for an audience of young children, showing George badly injured and the dragon spurting blood. Because I love folklore, I know that the legend of St. George and the Dragon is a Christian allegory, although it has some basis in earlier folktales and historical figures. I’ve heard different interpretations of what the dragon is supposed to represent. It can be a symbol of evil, the devil, or sin, and I think I’ve heard that it could represent paganism, which was replaced by Christianity (represented by St. George in the story), although I can’t remember where. In a way, I think this is one of those picture book that might mean more to adults because they would understand more of the symbolism, history, and folklore references in the story. On the other hand, who doesn’t love a story that ends with a gallant knight marrying a beautiful princess?
As another odd piece of literary trivia, the legend of St. George has a connection to another story that I’ve on this blog, Phoebe the Spy. The connection isn’t an obvious one because Phoebe the Spy was set in New York during the American Revolution, which seems far removed from Medieval England. However, on April 23, 1770 (St. George’s Day), the St. George Society (originally called the Sons of St. George) was founded at the Fraunces Tavern in New York, just six years before the story of Phoebe the Spy begins at the same tavern. The St. George Society was and still is a charitable organization that helps immigrants from Britain, using the patron saint of England as its namesake.
Eleanor and Edward Hall are orphans who live with their Aunt Lily and Uncle Frederick in their family’s big but somewhat shabby old house in Concord, Massachusetts. The family has lived there for generations, and they are intellectuals with a particular interest in the literary history of Concord. Uncle Freddy is obsessed with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau, although he doesn’t share Eleanor’s love of Louisa May Alcott. When a couple of the town leaders threaten to take the family’s house because of unpaid back taxes and to destroy it because they think it’s an eyesore, the children come to learn that their house holds more secrets and history than anyone knows.
As Eleanor and Edward look at the house from the outside, they suddenly realize that there’s an window at the top of the house that’s shaped like a key and made of colored glass. They’ve never seen that window from the inside of the house, so there must be a secret room! The children search the attic and find a trap door that they never realized was there before. When they look into the hidden room, they find a pair of children’s beds and toys.
The children ask Aunt Lily about the room, and she sadly admits that she hadn’t wanted to tell them about it. Then, she begins to explain more about the family’s history and the aunt and uncle the children never knew. Aunt Lily is their father’s sister, and Uncle Freddy is their brother, but there were once two more children in the family, called Ned and Nora. Eleanor and Edward were named after them, but Ned and Nora mysteriously disappeared years ago. Aunt Lily still believes and hopes that, somehow, they will return someday, so she has always kept their room ready for them.
When she shows the children pictures of Ned and Nora in the family’s album, they also see a picture of a young man in a turban and ask about him. Aunt Lily says that the man is Prince Krishna, son of the Maharajah of Mandracore. Their Uncle Freddy has written books about Emerson and Thoreau and was once considered an expert on the Transcendentalists. People who were interested in Transcendentalism, like Prince Krishna, used to come and study with him. Aunt Lily wasn’t really interested in Transcendentalism, but she explains, “I think he said that the Transcendentalists believed that men’s minds were very wonderful, and that they could know all kinds of important things without being taught about them through their eyes and ears –because they were part of something called an Over-Soul.” Eddy approves of this concept because it sounds like it’s about learning without school, and he approves of anything that involves no school.
Everyone was fond of Prince Krishna while he lived and studied with the family, and Aunt Lily said that he used to make up fun games for Ned and Nora, like treasure hunts with real jewels as prizes because the prince was very rich. The children get the sense that Aunt Lily was in love with Prince Krishna, but he also vanished shortly after Ned and Nora did. When they discovered that Ned and Nora were missing from their beds one morning, Prince Krishna dashed around, looking for them, but suddenly, he was also gone, and no one knew where or how.
Eleanor and Eddy return to Ned and Nora’s room upstairs to have another look at it, and they find a mysterious poem called “Transcendentalist Treasure.” From the handwriting, which matches a note that Prince Krishna wrote to Ned and Nora with a present he gave them, Eleanor and Eddy realize that Prince Krishna also wrote the poem. Since the poem seems to be some kind of treasure hunt, the children think that it was probably part of the treasure hunts that Prince Krishna used to make for Ned and Nora. They try to figure out what the clues in the poem mean and what it might lead to, hoping that it might be the jewels that Aunt Lily told them about and which haven’t been seen in the house since Ned, Nora, and Prince Krishna vanished. If they could find those jewels, they could pay the back taxes and save their house!
However, they don’t really begin to grasp the full importance of the poem until they ask Aunt Lily if they can spend the night in Ned and Nora’s room. During the night, they have a bizarre dream, in which they’re climbing an elm tree with Ned and Nora and find a harp, which is something that was mentioned in the poem. A dangerous wind blows them out of the tree, and they wake up. They could have believed that it was only a dream except that they realize that they both dreamed the same thing, Eleanor has bruises and a scratch on her leg that she got from falling out of the dream tree, and Eddy has located the harp in Ned and Nora’s bedroom.
They show the harp to Aunt Lily, and she says that Prince Krishna had given it to Ned and Nora years ago, hanging it in a tree so that they would hear the wind blowing across it. The poem and the dreams that Eleanor and Eddy have seem to be hinting at the treasure hunts that Prince Krishna had with Ned and Nora. Eleanor and Eddy begin to think that solving the riddles in the poem may not only lead them to the jewels but to the truth about what happened to Ned, Nora, and Prince Krishna.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction and Some Spoilers
The book introduces the concept of Transcendentalism. I remember my English and history teachers discussing the Transcendentalists when I was in high school, but for some reason, they didn’t appeal to me back then, even though I went through a kind of phase where I was interested in metaphysical topics. I think my teachers put a lot of emphasize on their interest in nature, and I wasn’t an outdoorsy person. The background information in this story revived old memories of my high school classes and actually clarified a couple of points for me. The kids visit real places in Concord, Massachusetts, including the house where Louisa May Alcott once lived, and the book is full of discussions of literary figures and their lives and quotations from their works.
The children’s surrealist dreams connect to real objects in their lives and in the history of the family and their house. The dreams follow the poem that Prince Krishna left behind, and in each of their dreams, they see Ned and Nora up ahead of them, so the Eleanor and Edward realize that they’re following their path. The poem and the dream reference pieces of Transcendental literature and thought, and the children’s uncle explains the references throughout the story.
Many of the dreams also show the children’s personal and mental growth. In one dream, the children examine different images of their future selves, seeing how different choices they make can lead their lives in different directions, and they make up their minds which version of themselves they want to aim to be. In another dream, the children are trapped in a nautilus shell, and they discover that they have to think their way out of it. The thoughts they have help them work their way through each chamber of the nautilus, but they have to use thoughts with increasing depth and complexity to make progress. At first, remembering nursery rhymes is enough to help them move forward, but as they go further, they have to concentrate on more complex poems and higher-level moral and philosophical thoughts.
Although the dreams the children have are very surreal, and readers have no idea where they might be leading, the children do find Prince Krishna and their missing aunt and uncle. When the three of them return, Prince Krishna does explain where they were the entire time they were missing. He doesn’t offer a detailed explanation because they were trapped in a sort of magical/metaphysical prison, but he does explain who trapped them and why. There is a villain in the story, but it takes a while to grasp who and what the villain is because readers don’t really see it/him in his true form and don’t understand who he is and what his motives are until Prince Krishna explains. Eleanor and Eddy end up understanding more than Aunt Lily and Uncle Freddy do in the end, but finding Ned and Nora, Prince Krishna, and Prince Krishna’s treasure changes everyone’s lives for the better. Throughout the book, Uncle Freddy is mentally unbalanced, eccentric at the best of times and outright crazy at others. Local people want to see him committed to an asylum, but his mind was unbalanced by Ned and Nora’s disappearance. Once they’re back, he regains his senses.
The author wanted to write realistic children as her protagonists to appeal to real children. Eleanor and Eddy have their own insecurities and dreams which play into their characters all through the book and appear in the visions of the futures and choices they have to make in their dreams.
This is the second book in the Aviary Hall Trilogy. Each of the books in the series could be read independently of each other, but this book in particular makes more sense if you have read both the first book, which is The Summer Birds, and the third book, Charlotte Sometimes before reading this one. People in this book directly reference events in The Summer Birds, something with Charlotte Sometimes does not. Although Charlotte Sometimes was written and published after this book, it actually takes place during the autumn before this story and it does inadvertently contain a spoiler for Charlotte Sometimes because Charlotte appears at the beginning of the book. It’s just my own preference that it’s better to read this book after Charlotte Sometimes because it makes Charlotte Sometimes more suspenseful. Like Charlotte Sometimes, this book also involves time travel, and the characters do some research on the subject of time and how it works.
At the beginning of the story, Emma Makepeace is upset because her older sister, Charlotte, will be leaving early for the new term at her boarding school after Christmas. At this point, Charlotte has already had her first term at boarding school (which is where and when Charlotte Sometimes takes place, although there are no references to the events of that story here), and she has been invited to visit one of her new friends from boarding school before they return to the school together. All through Charlotte’s first term at boarding school, Emma has been lonely without her and has been finding life at their home, Aviary Hall, increasingly difficult.
The girls are orphans (although the books never explain what happened to their parents) who live with their grandfather and his housekeeper. Between the two of them, Charlotte is the more serious and responsible and Emma is the more mischievous and thoughtless. Up to this point in their lives, Charlotte has acted the part of the caring older sister, trying to teach Emma to behave herself and covering for her when she doesn’t. Charlotte has realized that their grandfather has little patience for misbehaving children and that Emma pushes the limits, so she has frequently intervened and smoothed things over when Emma tries his patience.
Emma has often thought of Charlotte as a kind of spoilsport for trying to act grown-up and mature, but during Charlotte’s absence at boarding school during the previous term, Emma has suddenly come to see how much Charlotte has been helping her and saving her from the consequences of her own actions and the realities of their home life. Without Charlotte there to be the motherly big sister, providing some warmth and affection and acting as a buffer between Emma and the adults, the grandfather has become more impatient with Emma’s immaturity. Both he and the housekeeper have been more direct with Emma about her behavior and bad habits, and there’s no one there to shield Emma from it. Emma is lonely for Charlotte’s company and feels picked on by the adults, so when Charlotte cuts her time with Emma short after her first visit home to go visit one of her school friends, Emma is angry and resentful. Charlotte is tempted to back out of her friend’s invitation for Emma’s sake, but she feels like she can’t, and their grandfather tells her that she must go ahead with the visit.
Emma is in a state of emotional turmoil through most of the story, adjusting to Charlotte’s absence, the new expectations of the adults in her life for her to mature and improve her behavior, and her own resentment about these things. While all this is happening, something else strange happens. Emma begins having strange dreams about flying. They remind her of the children’s flying adventures from two years previously, as described in The Summer Birds. It has been so long since she last flew that she struggles to remember how in her dreams, and when she wakes up, her muscles feel sore from the effort. However, at first, she can’t remember what happened in her dreams.
At school, when the new term begins, Emma is made head girl because she is the eldest girl in the class. A boy called Bobby Fumpkins is made head boy because he is the eldest boy. Emma is embarrassed and uncomfortable about being the head of the class in partnership with Bobby. She hates Bobby because he is fat, awkward, and spoiled. Before his mother gave birth to Bobby’s younger sister, who is still a baby, she babied Bobby more than she really should have at this age. Their family also has their own tv set, something most of the other children’s families don’t have at this time, and which Bobby bragged about when they got it. For these reasons, most of the other children in the class don’t like Bobby, either, and they’ve teased him mercilessly for years. They think he’s a sissy and a baby because of his mother’s attention and because he’s milder-mannered than they are and never stands up to them. Because of his awkwardness, they like to call him Jemima Puddle-Duck after a character from a children’s book by Beatrix Potter. Bobby tells himself that his classmates mean all this teasing good-naturedly, but they don’t really. Emma is particularly adamant within herself that she genuinely hates Bobby.
However, like it or not, Emma’s life has become intertwined with Bobby’s. Their teacher expects the two of them to work together at school during the day, and at night, she gradually begins to realize that he is sharing in her same dream of flying. Other children at school tease Emma about being friends with Bobby, particularly one girl who really wants to cause trouble for Emma because, as the next eldest, she would be next in line for the head girl position herself. Emma denies being Bobby’s friend, partly because he still gets on her nerves and partly because she’s still lonely without Charlotte and is worried by being shunned by the other children at school. However, she gradually begins to feel guilty about the way she and others have been treating Bobby, and she begins to feel the impulse to try to be nicer to him.
As her relationship with Bobby improves, Emma begins remembering more of their shared dream, and the two of them talk about the dream together. Bobby was one of the children at school who shared in their flying adventures two years before, and the two of them discuss their past adventures with each other and how they compare to the dream they’re now having. There are a few things that they begin to notice that are different from their past flying adventures. One is that they both have the feeling that someone is watching them. It seems to be a stern or hostile presence, a pair of eyes that belong to some unknown person, but they don’t know who it is. They also begin to notice that it looks like plants are growing backward as they fly over the countryside. That is, grown plants seem to be returning to small plants and seeds. They gradually notice that the land seems to be going back in time. Eventually, they start seeing dinosaurs in their dreams, and it looks like they might be going back to the beginning of the world. What will happen to Emma and Bobby in their dream when they eventually reach the beginning of everything?
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction and Spoilers
I’ve already explained my reasoning about the reading order of the books. The Summer Birds is the first book in the trilogy, and you really have to read it before you read this book because the characters directly reference events from that story. Actually, I thought that was a really interesting choice, to have Emma and Bobby talking openly with each other about the summer when they learned to fly. They just accept that event as a common event in their lives that they shared and that everyone who shared it with them openly acknowledges. Sometimes, in children’s fantasy stories, the characters later downplay magical events, feeling like they were dreams they had or games of pretend they played because they seem too strange to have really happened, but no, in this book, the characters all know what happened to them and just accept it as a part of their lives. I thought it was interesting that this book acts as a bridge between the theme of flying and the themed of time travel in Charlotte Sometimes, although I still think that Charlotte Sometimes keeps more of its suspense if you don’t know that Charlotte safely returns to her own time before you read it.
I still think that Charlotte Sometimes is the best book in the trilogy. It is the best known, and unlike this book, it can be read independently of the others in the trilogy. It doesn’t reference either of the other two books at all. There are no references to Charlotte having participated in any previous magical adventures in that story. That may be partly because she is among strangers at her new boarding school who wouldn’t know anything about her flying adventures, but even her private thoughts don’t give any hint to that. What I think that The Summer Birds and Emma in Winter add to Charlotte Sometimes are some further insights into Charlotte and Emma’s personalities and the relationship between them. I still think that Charlotte Sometimes is the best book in the trilogy. It is the best known, and unlike this book, it can be read independently of the others in the trilogy. It doesn’t reference either of the other two books at all. There are no references to Charlotte having participated in any previous magical adventures in that story. That may be partly because she is among strangers at her new boarding school who wouldn’t know anything about her flying adventures, but even her private thoughts don’t give any hint to that earlier adventure. What I think that The Summer Birds and Emma in Winter add to Charlotte Sometimes are some further insights into Charlotte and Emma’s personalities and the relationship between them. Emma in Winter also adds some thoughts about the nature of time and time travel, which add some further insights into Charlotte’s time travel experiences.
Emma and Bobby do some research about time in her grandfather’s study, a room where Emma is usually forbidden to go. One of the theories they find is that time moves in a coiled pattern, like a spring, and that the coils of the spring can be pushed together so different points on the coils can touch each other. This theory really relates better to Charlotte Sometimes than to Emma in Winter, but what is more relevant to this story is the idea that human thought can be the force that pushes the coils together and makes them touch. This is also a part of Charlotte Sometimes, and I explain in my review of that story about how Charlotte and Clare having many similarities and being in a similar state of mind as well as sharing the same physical space at different times allowed them to switch places with each other. However, the emphasis in Emma in Winter is Emma and Bobby realizing that their own thoughts and feelings influence their dreams and, therefore, their time travel.
This story is rather metaphysical and a little difficult to follow during the dream phases. I noticed that some other reviewers seemed confused about the point of the time traveling. I found it a little confusing, too, but it seems like this is a coming-of-age story, like the other books in the trilogy. The Summer Birds focused on Charlotte and how her more mature outlook helped the other children make an important decision that would alter their lives forever. Charlotte Sometimes raises the question about what defines a person’s identity and how a person’s identity can be tied to someone else’s even when they’re separate people. Emma in Winter focuses on emotional understanding.
Both Emma and Bobby are going through major changes in their lives, particularly ones that require them to become more mature than they once were. Bobby has been somewhat spoiled and coddled by his mother, but he’s no longer the center of attention at home, now that he has a little sister. At first, Bobby finds it hard to cope with his mother no longer giving him the attention she used to give him, but it does give him the opportunity to become more independent and mature. Emma despises Bobby for being babyish because he was spoiled and overprotected by his mother when he was younger, but the truth is that Emma is also babyish. She’s not accustomed to being accountable for her own behavior and bad habits because Charlotte usually takes responsibility for her and shields her from some of the reactions of the adults and other people.
When Charlotte goes away to boarding school, Emma is left on her own for the first time to deal with the consequences of her actions and other people’s reactions to them. It’s a bit of a shock for her at first, and she realizes that she hasn’t fully appreciated what Charlotte was doing for her for the whole time. She also comes to the disquieting realization that, even thought she feels like the adults are picking on her over her behavior, she doesn’t like the way she behaves, either. She comes to feel guilty about the way she treats Bobby, and when she draws some nasty pictures of her teacher, she is startled to realize how much she has hurt her teacher’s feelings and how badly she feels about doing that. For the first time in her life, Emma has to face her own behavior and see how her behavior truly affects other people. She is shocked and troubled when she realizes that she doesn’t like what she sees and it’s her own fault. Only Emma can decide how nice or how mean she is and who she really wants to be.
The children’s time traveling adventures that they have while dreaming lead them to explore their relationship with each other. Emma realizes that she has to be nice to Bobby and learn to get along with him for them to be able to function with each other in the dream. Their final dream together is confusing and rather surreal, but it also involves the two of them confronting aspects of themselves, their lives with other people, and their own behavior.
When they move all the way back in time as far as they can go, they’re confronted by a vision of their teacher, not as she actually is, but as Emma drew her in a mean drawing. Emma has to remind herself and tell the figure that it’s only a drawing she made; it’s not reality. They also see visions of other people in their lives and even of themselves at their worst and most frightening, but they have to hold on to the reality of themselves, as they are now, the people they’re becoming, not who they used to be or how other people see them. I took it to mean that neither of them can go backward in their lives anymore, to their old habits and who they were or how they were as younger children, but they have to accept the changes taking place in their lives and in themselves to return to the real world, their own time, and the lives they have ahead of them. They discover that the key to traveling through time is thinking, so they have to think themselves out of their time travel dreams, focusing on their real selves and the real lives, accepting and even loving themselves as they are. Change has been coming for both of them, but they have to make the decision to face it and embrace it and to let go of their past selves to move on in time and in their lives.
Somewhere in the World Right Now by Stacey Schuett, 1995.
This picture book explains time zones by showing what people and animals all over the world are doing at the same time, reminding children that, somewhere in the world right now, it’s a different time of day.
The book begins with A Note to the Reader, explaining that it takes 24 hours for the Earth to make one full rotation on its axis and that the Earth is constantly turning. This rotation is what makes the sun seem to move across the sky and creates our periods of day and night. Then, it explains how, in 1884, our formal system of time zones was established to standardize how times of day are expressed around the world. There are 24 time zones, roughly equal in size, with a few adjustments for geographical boundaries. Within each time zone, it is the same time, and it is one hour different from the time zones on either side of it. It also explains that the international date line is an imaginary boundary drawn through the middle of the Pacific Ocean that marks the point at which new days begin. There is a map in the book that illustrates all the time zones we will be traveling through and the International Date Line. The places we see in the rest of the book are also labeled on the map.
The main part of the book shows what people and animals around the world are doing “right now”, compared to a child in the United States. We don’t see the child in the United States until the very end of the book, but everything else is based around her “right now.” The text doesn’t specify where each of the places are, but each picture has a map in the background with labels that indicate the location to readers.
The first place we see is London, England. It’s the middle of the night (or possibly very early in the morning, after midnight but the sun isn’t up – according to the map at the beginning of the book, it’s 1 am), but a baker is preparing fresh bread to sell in the morning. Meanwhile, there are elephants sleeping in Uganda, whales swimming in the sea, penguins protecting their chicks in Antarctica, and a little girl sleeping in Madagascar.
It’s dawn in India, and people there are waking up. People are eating breakfast in Bhutan, and people are on their way to work in the morning in China. At the same time, it’s lunch time in Siberia, and there are kangaroos and koalas eating their own lunch in Australia.
Meanwhile, it’s afternoon on the western coast of the United States. There’s a fishing boat returning to port in Alaska, and a girl on a farm in California. As we move further east, it gets later and later. When we reach Chicago, it’s evening, and people are heading home. In Guatemala and Honduras, children who have been playing outside head for home, and families are having supper.
Eventually, we reach Boston, Massachusetts, where someone is reading a story book to a little girl before bed. It’s 8 pm, according to the time on the map at the beginning and the clock next to the little girl’s bed. All the things that we’ve seen in the book are happening, somewhere in the world, right now, as she is going to bed.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
This book is educational, showing children how time and time zones work around the world, but it’s also a good, gentle bedtime story. Although we don’t really know it until the very end, it’s framed around a girl who is going to bed and is hearing a bedtime story. It is relaxing to think about how different things are happening in different places, to people and animals around the world, almost counting them off like counting sheep. No matter when it is or where you are, there’s someone, somewhere in the world, going through a different point in their day.
I found the human parts of the story more interesting than the animal portions, but I think children would enjoy hearing about the animals and seeing the animal pictures. It’s also relaxing to think about animals just going about their routines, like people go about theirs. There’s nothing stressful happening to any of the people or animals in the story.
I remember, when I was younger, I sometimes pictured things happening around the world when I had trouble sleeping. I can’t remember why I started doing this, if it was because I read this book or one like it. Somehow, though, I found it reassuring to think that, somewhere, it was daytime for someone else and that there were always people awake somewhere. It might be just me, but somehow, I found that idea reassuring because it meant that there were other people taking care of things, and it was their turn to be awake and do things, so I could have my turn to relax and rest.
All in a Day is a picture book on a similar theme, but instead of just showing what’s happening around the world at one particular moment, All in a Day follows children in various countries through the course of an entire day.
The format of this book is a little unusual. The book was a cooperative project among authors and illustrators from different countries to show children what is happening around the world at the same moment in different time zones.
Mitsumasa Anno, the primary author of the book, is from Japan, but he writes as a boy called Sailor Oliver Smith, or “SOS”, who has been shipwrecked with his dog on an uninhabited island near the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean at noon on January 1 (which is also midnight on New Year’s Eve, Greenwich Mean Time). He is on the island for a full day before he is rescued, sending out appeals for help and thinking about what other children around the world are doing at every hour of the day as they celebrate the New Year.
As you read through the book, the small pictures of the children in different countries tell a complete story for each child in each country. The little mini-stories within the main story are presented almost comic book style. They contain no text themselves, but the boy on the island offers commentary on what’s happening with the children in other countries. During the time when SOS is asleep on his island, his dog, Matey, takes over the narration.
Children in Brazil are making and flying kites with their family and going swimming at the beach. People in Australia also go to the beach because it’s summer there in January, and they camp out overnight. A boy in the US sneaks out of bed to get a look at the party his parents are having at midnight, and is woken by his cat the next morning. The boy in England wakes up his too parents early in the morning by playing his trumpet. People in Kenya go a busy market and have dinner as a family. Children in China set off firecrackers, watch fireworks, and eat special foods. The story in Japan is about a little girl whose toy is stolen by a dog, and her cat chases after the dog to get it back. At first, they worry because the cat doesn’t return home for dinner, but the cat eventually comes in late with the toy, eats its fish, and goes to bed. Because this book was written in the 1980s, the book refers to Russia as the Soviet Union. The boy in the Soviet Union goes sledding with his friends and tries to ride his bike in the snow, which doesn’t work well. Children in various countries watch tv and read books during the day, and readers get to see their dreams when they sleep. At the end of the book, SOS sees a ship coming to pick him up at 9 am on January 2.
There is a message at the beginning of the book from all of the authors and illustrators who participated about children around the world, encouraging children to think about children in other places and what they might be doing throughout their day. Because it’s a different time of day in different places, some children are asleep in bed while others are awake and playing. However, it reminds readers that, no matter who we are, where we live on Earth, or what we look like, we’re all human beings on the same planet with the same sun and moon looking down on our days and nights. It’s a call for empathy and unity among nations and the people who live everywhere on Earth. In the back of the book, there is more scientific information about the movement of the Earth around the sun and the rotation of the planet and what makes different time zones. There is also information about the different authors and illustrators around the world who contributed to the project.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
I have a vague memory of reading this book when I was young, but I can’t remember exactly when I read it. I think I was an older child because I already understood the concept of different time zones. I do think that kids who are a little older would get more out of the story and the concept of different time zones than very young children.
Older children would also probably find it easier to follow the different story lines of the children in each country. The format of the story may be a little difficult for very young children to follow because it does feel a little disjointed, getting just a snippet of each child’s day and night per page. However, the book is interesting to reread multiple times, following each child’s day, and I remember being fascinated by the notion of what everyone around the world was doing at different times.
The call for people to think about other people in other places and the call for international understanding is a nice, peaceful message for the New Year. As an adult, I was interested in seeing which authors and illustrators contributed to the book. Each set of illustrations for different countries has a different style. The illustrator for the boy in the US is Eric Carle, known for The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Not all of the illustrators are actually from the countries they illustrated, but more are. The two exceptions were for Brazil and Kenya, but the illustrator who did the pictures for Brazil did live there for a time, and the the couple who did the pictures for Kenya wrote and illustrated other books about Africa.
Somewhere in the World Right Now is a picture book on a similar theme, but instead of following children around the world through an entire day, it just shows what’s happening around the world at one particular moment. I think that makes Somewhere in the World Right Now a little easier to follow for younger children.
Hanukkah at Valley Forge by Stephen Krensky, illustrated by Greg Harlin, 2006.
It’s a cruel winter at Valley Forge, during the American Revolution, and George Washington is worried about the welfare and morale of his soldiers.
As Washington walks through the camp, he sees a young soldier lighting a candle and reciting something softly to himself.
Curious about what he’s doing, Washington stops to talk to him, casually remarking on how cold the night is. The young soldier says that he saw colder nights when he was young in Poland, and he is lighting candles for Hanukkah. Washington asks him what that means, and the soldier explains the meaning of the holiday.
The soldier recounts the story of how Israel was conquered by the Ancient Greeks, who forced Jewish people to worship Greek gods and tried to replace Jewish customs with Greek ones. Washington also says that he understands what it’s like to feel like you’re under the thumb of a king who lives far away and the desire for liberty. The Jewish soldier says his family left Poland for similar reasons, because they were not being allowed to practice their beliefs there.
Returning to the story of the ancient Israelites, the soldier explains that a priest named Mattathias refused the Greeks’ orders to bow to idols, and he fought back against the Greeks. Mattathias and his five sons, who were called the Maccabees, led a rebellion against the Greeks. They were a small group, and the odds were against them, but they were determined to continue the fight against their oppressors. Washington says that he understands the feeling because his army is in a similar position.
Continuing the story, the soldier recounts how Mattathias’s son, Judah, inspired their troops by reminding them that God was on their side, leading them to victory. When they finally managed to overthrow their Greek rulers, they took back their Temple and lit the Temple menorah. The menorah was supposed to be kept lit constantly, and they were worried because there was very little oil left. They only had enough to keep it burning for one day, and they weren’t sure when they could get more oil. However, they lit the menorah anyway, trusting that God would somehow provide them with more soon. It took them eight days to find more oil for the menorah, but to their surprise, the menorah continued to stay lit all the time they were searching, lasting eight times longer than they thought it would with the amount of oil they had. Hanukkah became the commemoration of this miracle.
George Washington contemplates the story that the soldier told him, and he finds it inspiring. It reminds him that, even though their current situation in Valley Forge may seem bleak, there have been others before them who have also faced steep odds in their struggles and who still managed to succeed. He begins to think that, if they persevere, they may also be gifted with a miracle of their own.
There is an author’s note at the end of the book that explains the inspiration behind the story. As the characters in the story do, the author draws parallels between the American Revolutionary War and the historical battle that began the tradition of Hanukkah. The author learned that George Washington may have learn about Hanukkah during the Revolutionary War, although there are no entries in his diary to confirm it, so he used excerpts from George Washington’s other writings to explain his sentiments. The author also offers commentary on bullies and the importance of standing up to oppressors, both in the context of war and in daily life.
This book won the Sydney Taylor award from the Association of Jewish Libraries.
My Reaction
I love books that include little-known or lesser-known events. Whether this one happened or happened in the way the author tells it is difficult to verify, and it seems likely that it’s more of a folk tale than an historical account. George Washington was a real, historical person, but so many legends have grown up around his life that it’s sometimes difficult to tell whether certain stories about him actually happened. As the author says, Washington’s own diary doesn’t offer any verification about this particular incident. Other reviewers of this book, including J. L. Bell, who specializes in Revolutionary War history in the Boston area, have attempted to trace the origins of this particular story about Washington learning about Hanukkah during the Revolutionary War. In his blog, J. L. Bell explains the known sources for this story, which vary in their description of exactly when the encounter between Washington and the Jewish soldier took place and what the soldier’s name was. The soldiers who have been credited with having this encounter with George Washington were real people, but there’s nothing that definitively proves that the discussion about Hanukkah actually happened with any of them. The story is probably more folklore than history, and Bell believes that it started to circulate during the 20th century, when there were more immigrants arriving from Poland with stories and experiences like the one the Polish soldier in the story tells about not being allowed to practice their religion openly. Even so, the parallels the story draws between the ancient rebellion of the Maccabees and the American Revolution are fascinating.
There are certain feelings that are universal among humans, and the author’s point that nobody likes being oppressed by a bully, whether that bully is another person or a government or an army, is true. No matter what you’re up against in life, perseverance in the face of hardship is important, and miracles can come to those who continue to stand up for themselves and what they believe in. It is also true that people who come from different sets of circumstances can help to inspire each other by sharing common feelings about their struggles.
Jestress's Forgotten Books and Stories 