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Magic by the Lake

MagicByLake

Magic by the Lake by Edward Eager, 1957.

Jane, Mark, Katharine, and Martha are finally going to spend the summer at a lake with their mother and their new stepfather! The children were never able to do that before because their widowed mother always had to work during the summer. When they arrive at the cottage by the lake that their stepfather, Mr. Smith, has rented, there is a sign that says, “Magic by the Lake.” The children think that it could just be the name of the cottage because sometimes cottages are giving interesting or amusing names, but having had experience with magic before (this being the second book in the series), they consider the idea that they could be headed for more adventures. Of course, they are correct, but it turns out to be the lake that’s really magical, not the cottage.

MagicByLakeTurtle

The children are playing by the lake when they wish for more magic, and a talking turtle comes up to tell them that, because of their wish, the entire lake is magic. That sounds amazing, but too much magic all at once can be overwhelming. Fortunately, the turtle is also magical, and he has some ability to influence magic in the lake. The children make a deal with him that he can arrange for them to have adventures with magic in the lake, but only one at a time, because that’s what they feel that they can handle. Also, the adventures won’t happen every day, so they can have a chance to rest in between. The grown-ups around them won’t notice any of the magical happenings, and little Martha insists that nothing truly scary will happen to them. Jane protests at that request because she thinks that it will make their adventures as boring as overly-tame children’s books, but the turtle says not to worry because what he thinks of as “not scary” isn’t necessarily what Martha would think of as “not scary.” The turtle tells the children that when they’re ready for adventure, they should think about what they wish for and then touch the lake, and if the time is right for it to happen, it will.

That sounds simple enough, but what they consider the right time and what the lake considers the right time aren’t always the same thing, and just as before, their wishes and adventures don’t go quite as planned. In their first adventure, a mermaid takes them to an island of pirates, the stuff of high adventure. The children are delighted when they discover that the pirates, being adults, can’t really see them, as per their earlier wish for adults not to see their magical activities. It opens the potential for playing dirty tricks on rotten pirates, who seem to perceive them as some sort of ghosts. It’s all fun and games until the pirate captain decides to see if he can make ghosts walk the plank. Their turtle friend saves them by turning them into turtles, which, while magical, makes the rest of the day rather difficult for them because they have to go home and on errands with their mother. Walking on land can be difficult for turtles, and their mother has no idea that they’ve changed at all, still seeing them as children. Whatever magic the children get during the day seems to last until the sun sets, even when they wish it would end sooner.

MagicByLakeGrownUp

Then, while watching their mother and Mr. Smith at a dance, Jane and Katharine wish that they were old enough to join in, about age sixteen. Suddenly, the two of them are teenagers in evening dresses, getting attention from some teenage boys. The girls seem to enjoy the romance of it, but Mark and Martha follow them around, trying to convince the boys that the girls are really younger than they seem to be and dreading the moment when they will inevitably change back to themselves.

The children discover that they don’t even need to be at the lake in order to make the magic happen as long as they’re touching water from the lake. On a rainy date, when the roof of their cottage is leaking, the children realize that the rain water is also lake water. By making a wish on that, they end up at the South Pole in time to save a lost explorer and help him make an important discovery.

MagicByLakeDisappearance

The children enjoy their adventures, but they become worried about Mr. Smith, who has been making the commute back and forth from the lake to his bookshop, and it seems that business hasn’t been good at his bookshop this summer. They consider the idea of using the magic of the lake to solve Mr. Smith’s problems, perhaps by going back to the island where they saw the pirates bury a treasure chest. They figure that if they could bring Mr. Smith an entire chest of pirate treasure, he wouldn’t have to worry about money anymore.

But, of course, that idea doesn’t go as planned. When Martha argues with the others and goes to the island by herself to get the treasure, she breaks all the rules associated with the magic.   Because the rules that previous protected her and her siblings are gone, there is nothing to prevent her from being captured by the cannibals that live on the island. When her brother and sisters try to save her, they are also captured. It’s only the sudden appearance of Martha’s future children and Katharine’s future daughter (although they don’t know it yet), who are on a magical adventure of their own, in a cross-over from another book in the series, The Time Garden.

MagicByLakeTreasure

The children make one more attempt to get treasure for Mr. Smith in a kind of Arabian Knights adventure, but that doesn’t work, either. However, although the children seem to have used up their wishes on the lake, they have the feeling that the magic might allow them one last opportunity to get what Mr. Smith needs. It does in a way that may or might not be magical, although the buried treasure that they find and get Mr. Smith to dig up may be a representation of the pirates’ treasure and not of the old miser (now deceased) who was said to have lived at the old, abandoned cottage by the lake that the children decide to explore. It does seem like quite a coincidence that the old miser’s initials would match those of the pirate captain, and they are carved on the stone over the buried treasure, just like the marker the pirate captain left.

In the scene with the cannibals on the island, the cannibals are stereotypical “savage natives” (or “native savages”, or something generic of that sort, since the terms are used pretty interchangeably in the story). You find things like this pretty commonly in old children’s books, especially prior to the 1960s. But, what made this more palatable for me was that the entire scene is written as a joke on the usual stereotypical books that children of the era would have read. The cannibals speak kind of like American Indians in cheesy old Westerns, using words like “heap” for “very” and randomly adding “-um” to end of words. You know that it’s not really how anybody, even cannibals living on some remote island in an indeterminate ocean, would talk, but it might be how children raised on adventure stories and movies from the 1920s might imagine they would (adding to my earlier theory from the last book that at least some of the children’s adventures might actually take place in their own minds, not in their “real world”).  It may also be a reference to things in tv shows from the 1950s, the time period when the story was written. The best part for me is when the children try to remember what shipwrecked explorers do when confronted with cannibals in some of the stories they’ve read. They start throwing out random words that are meant to sound impressive combined with some gobbledy-gook in an effort to communicate/impress the cannibals. Then, Mark tries to convince them that he’s a powerful god with the ability to control fire. The cannibal chief is unimpressed, telling him that he recognizes what Mark has as an ordinary safety match, which he blows out. So much for the old adventure stories.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

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Half Magic

HalfMagicHalf Magic by Edward Eager, 1954, 1982.

Jane, Mark, Katharine, and Martha are siblings living in the 1920s. Their father is dead, and their mother works for a newspaper. While their mother is at work, Miss Bick takes care of the house and the children, although she isn’t really good with children. The children are often free to amuse themselves on their own during the summer, and they like to pick out books from the library for entertainment. They particularly enjoy the fantasy books by E. Nesbit (a real author, and they reference her real books during the story), and they wish that exciting, magical things like the ones that happen in her stories would happen to them.

They get their wish (and a great many others) when Jane finds a strange coin on the sidewalk that they mistake for a nickel at first. By accident, they discover that this coin grants wishes, but it has a peculiar habit of only granting half of what a person wishes for (and the coin seems to interpret the idea of “half” pretty liberally, depending on the type of wish, so results can be pretty unpredictable).

Jane is so bored after she finds the coin that she wishes that there would be a fire for some excitement. Suddenly, the children hear a fire engine and discover that a child’s playhouse had caught fire. It could have been coincidence, except that their mother borrows some change from Jane, getting the magical coin by accident. While she is visiting the children’s aunt and uncle and finds their conversation boring, she wishes that she were at home, but finds herself unexpectedly by the side of the road halfway home. She is confused but thinks that she must just be very tired or something and forgot that she was walking home. She ends up accepting a ride from a very nice man who happened to be passing her on the road and thought that she looked lost and confused.

HalfMagicChildrenThese early experiences and a series of odd wishes Mark makes when he doesn’t realize that he has the coin demonstrate to the children not only that the coin is magical but that they have to be extremely careful what they wish for when they have it. They have to word their requests very carefully, asking for twice as much of anything they want in order to counteract the half magic of the coin. Even so, they can’t help but make mistakes and get themselves into trouble.

When Katharine uses her turn with the coin to take them back to the days of King Arthur, she ends up causing trouble and disrupting history by defeating Lancelot in a tournament. Fortunately, Merlin realizes what the children have done and forces them to explain themselves and show him the magic coin. After inspecting it, Merlin gives the children a stern lecture about interfering with the natural course of history. He uses the coin’s magic to undo what the children have done and further uses it to restrict the children’s wishes to affecting only their own time period. He warns them to be more careful about what they wish for, keeping their wishes smaller and more personal, adding that the coin’s magic will eventually be exhausted, so they should save their wishes for what is important.

HalfMagicTheaterThere is one more disastrous experience when the children go to the movies (a silent film because this is 1920s), and Martha accidentally wishes that she wasn’t there while touching Jane’s purse, which holds the coin. Martha, of course, ends up being only halfway “not there,” almost like a living ghost, which terrifies onlookers. Straightening out that mess brings them into contact with Mr. Smith, the nice man who gave their mother a ride home. He owns a bookstore, and he enjoys fantasy stories as much as the children do. He becomes the only adult who knows that the children have been using magic, and he’s fascinated by it, enjoying witnessing their adventures.

When the children’s mother comes to pick them up, Mr. Smith is pleased to meet her again and invites the family to join him for dinner. Mr. Smith is obviously fond of the children’s mother, and most of the children like him, too. However, Jane is uneasy. It’s partly that she worries that Mr. Smith will interfere with their use of the magic coin and partly that she worries about his new relationship with their mother. Of the four children, only Jane, as the oldest, really remembers their father, and she can’t stand the thought that Mr. Smith might become their stepfather and take his place.

HalfMagicSmithWhen Jane argues with the other children about Mr. Smith and rashly wishes that she belonged to another family, the other children call upon Mr. Smith to help them rescue Jane from her foolish wish, her unsuitable new family, and from herself.

In the end, Mr. Smith does marry the children’s mother, and even Jane is happy with the arrangement, having come to appreciate Mr. Smith much better.  Once their mother and Mr. Smith each have what they wished for most — each other and a happy family with the children — they forget about the magic coin.  Although none of the children realize it, the coin also grants Jane one final half-wish in which her father comes to her in a dream-like form, letting her know that he approves of her mother’s remarriage and the children’s new stepfather because he wants them all to be happy.  This gives Jane the reassurance she needs to fully accept Mr. Smith.  The children, deciding that the coin has given them all the wishes it’s going to, leave it in a convenient place for a new owner to find.

You don’t find out what happens with the coin’s new owner apart from when the children see a young girl pick it up and realize that it’s magic when she makes her first wish. However, there is a cross-over scene in another book in the series, Seven-Day Magic, which explains a little more about what happens next.  Books in this series frequently reference and sometimes parody other children’s books that were popular at the time they written, and individual books in the series even sometimes reference each other, even when the main characters have changed.

Speaking of literary references and parodies in this series, sometimes it’s a little difficult to tell for certain which scenes are really meant as parodies and which aren’t.  Knowing a bit about vintage children’s fiction helps, but there may be some scenes in the stories which can make modern readers a little uneasy.  One scene in the book that bothered me was near the beginning, when Mark wishes to be on a desert island.  This was before the children fully realize that the coin only grants half of a wish, so the children just end up in a desert, but not on an island.  The part that bothers me is that they are briefly kidnapped by a kind of wandering Arab man who seems to be planning to ransom or sell them.  This scene is like an old stereotype out of the sort of silent movies that the children would have been watching, and because of that, it was a little painful to read.  The man’s name is Achmed (still in keeping with the stereotype), and they keep referring to him as “Achmed the Arab,” in case you need reminding that that’s what he is.  They get out of their predicament with him by wishing for something that would make him really happy so that he’ll forget about them.  By then, they realize that they need to double their request in order to make the coin work properly, so their wish works.  The coin ends up giving Achmed a beautiful wife and “six plump Arab children” (in case you forgot that Achmed’s children would be Arab as well) and generally improves what Achmed owns, so Achmed becomes a happy family man and gives up his earlier, shady ways.  It’s eye-rollingly stereotypical and cliche, so I think it’s worth telling potential readers that this scene is there.

The cliches and stereotypes (not to mention the constant, unnecessary repetition of the word “Arab” just to remind you that that’s what everyone is, in case you were confused) in that scene were annoying, but unfortunately, things like that crop up pretty regularly in children’s literature from the 1950s and earlier when there are scenes that take place just about anywhere outside of the United States, Canada, or Europe.  That being said, there are a couple of things that make this scene easier to bear.  One is that Mark, realizing that the magic coin can get them out of this situation and that they have the power to put Achmed at their mercy, decides not to do it because it occurs to him that Achmed is probably a desperate man because he is poor.  Mark decides that Achmed would be a better person if he had whatever would make him feel the most fulfilled in life, so he wishes for that for him.  It’s nice that Mark sees him as being a person whose well-being needs to be considered, not just an enemy to be defeated.  Also, it occurs to me that it’s not completely certain that the desert they’re in is a real-life one, even in the children’s fictional world.  I think the assumption is that it is, like we’re supposed to assume that the world of Camelot that they visit is a real part of history, but it may not be.  In fact, the children in different books in this series in general sometimes get philosophical about their magical adventures, wondering about how their magical adventures fit into the real world around them or if they really do, and they never fully get all the answers.   Perhaps the coin took the children to their idea of what a desert or what Camelot would be like, not to those real places.  In 1921, there was a famous silent movie called The Sheik in which Rudolph Valentino played an Arab sheik named Ahmed (Achmed’s name could be a joke on that).  It’s not a movie for children, but it was very popular in the 1920s, and it inspired other movies with Arabian themes, at least a couple of songs, and probably a number of the stereotypes about Arabs of the time.  So, if the kids in the story were imagining an Arabian desert, it would probably be something resembling what they’d seen in movies like that.  This little adventure may have only taken place in the imaginary world, even from the children’s perspective, and the author may be poking fun at the notions children get from popular culture.  Even in the end, the children admit that there are many things they don’t understand about the coin and how it works, like where the other half of Martha went when she was only half there.   In a world where magic works, pretty much anything is possible.  Then again, since the entire book is fictional, it may be best not to worry too much about it.  Still, I just plain didn’t like this scene.  The rest of the book wasn’t so bad.

Overall, it’s a fun story.  Part of the fun for book lovers is in spotting the various literary references in the story because the children talk about the books they like and read and compare their adventures to ones they’ve read about.  The concept of the half-wishes also makes you think.  It’s worth pointing out that, although the children enjoy the general adventure of the coin, most of the children’s wishes, no matter how carefully they word them, don’t turn out the way that they expected, even when they get exactly what they asked for.  Mr. Smith marrying their mother is actually the best wish that comes true in the whole book.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

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The Practical Princess

PracticalPrincess

The Practical Princess and Other Liberating Fairy Tales By Jay Williams, 1978.

PracticalPrincessSilverWhistleThe modern fairy tales in this book (these are not traditional stories or folktales, although they are written in the style of old fairy tales) feature brave and clever girls. These are not just damsels in distress who need to be rescued, but girls who play heroic parts in their own stories. However, I don’t want you to think that the stories get too preachy about girl power. Some of the men in the stories may seem less than heroic at, but each of them is clever in their own way, and they are sometimes the main characters in the stories as well. The stories don’t lecture you about how “girls are just as good as guys and maybe even better“ or try to make the girls look smarter by making everyone else look dumb or things like that (in spite of the name, “Stupid Marco”, Marco really isn’t all that bad). They’re just fun stories in a fairy tale style with interesting heroines. The best part is that the stories also have a sense of humor.

There is only one full-color illustration in the book. The other pictures are done as silhouettes.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

The stories in the book:

The Practical Princess

When Princess Bedelia is born, she goes through the typical fairy tale ritual of having fairies give her gifts. One of them gives her common sense. When she grows up, she uses it to devise a clever plan to free her kingdom from a fearsome dragon. Unfortunately, she attracts the attention of the evil Lord Garp, who tries to force Bedelia to marry him. When Lord Garp tries to cheat at the tasks she sets for him to prove his worthiness and she catches him doing it, he imprisons her in a tower, and she must use her wits and the help of his other captive to escape.

PracticalPrincessMarcoStupid Marco

People think that Prince Marco isn’t terribly bright because, instead of applying himself seriously to his studies as his brothers do, he has a habit of spending his time daydreaming and writing poetry, and he can never remember how to tell left from right. However, he has three major accomplishments: he is an extremely likeable person, he can whistle very loudly, and he can cure even the worst case of hiccups. In his kingdom, it’s a tradition for princes to win their future brides by going out and rescuing a princess from something (how do all these princesses get into that much trouble anyway?). To make this task easier for Marco, his father tells him about a princess he can rescue and gives him a set of simple instructions to follow. Of course, Marco loses his way and the instructions. He meets a nice young woman named Sylvia who offers to help him, but still, nothing goes as planned. However, there’s more than one princess in the world and more than one type of rescuing, so things turn out well in the end.

The Silver Whistle

When Prudence comes of age, she sets out in the world to seek her fortune. Before she leaves home, her mother, the Wise Woman of the West, gives her a magical silver whistle. If she blows it once, birds will come to her. If she blows it twice, insects will come. If she blows it three times, animals will talk to her. However, she cannot blow it four times because it will break. Prudence finds employment with an old witch who has a plan to make herself beautiful so that the prince of her kingdom will want to marry her. Although Prudence has doubts about her plan, she uses her magical whistle to help her, but only to a point. Besides, people have different ideas about what beauty is.

Forgetful Fred

Fred works as kind of an odd job man for a very wealthy man named Bumberdumble Pott. However, he tends to be somewhat absent-minded because his real love in life is music, and he’s often thinking about that when he should be focusing on what he’s doing. Bumberdumble Pott continues to employ him because he’s pleasant, kind, and likable. In spite of his wealth, there is something that Bumberdumble Pott wants that he can’t buy: the Bitter Fruit of Satisfaction. It’s a rare fruit found a long way away, across mountains and deserts and is guarded by a dragon-like create, the Fire Drake. Bumberdumble Pott knows that he’s too old to undertake the quest for the fruit, so he asks among his servants if someone else will go on his behalf. The only person willing to try is Fred, and Bumberdumble Pott promises him half his gold if he succeeds. It’s a long journey, and Fred has a map to keep him focused on his task. In the end, it’s no fault of his when he isn’t able to bring the fruit to his employer for his reward, but Fred attains his own kind of satisfaction when he is able to live the kind of life he likes with the nice girl who tried to help him and is able to play his music as often as he wants.

PracticalPrincessPetronellaPetronella

For generations, the royal family of Skyclear Mountain has always had three princes, who are always given the names Michael, George, and Peter. When the princes come of age, they all go on a quest. The two eldest princes go out and seek their fortunes elsewhere, never returning to their kingdom, but the youngest always comes back with a bride to continue the royal line. When the current king and queen have a daughter instead of a son for their third child, they’re not sure what to do. They name her Petronella instead of Peter, but what’s the point of sending her out to seek a bride when she’s older?  As a princess, she should wait for a prince to seek her as a bride. However, when the time comes, Petronella insists that she wants to continue the tradition by going out to seek her fortune and find a prince for herself. Even though it seems oddly backwards from how things are supposed to go, her family agrees. When she and her brothers come to a road that divides three ways, they ask the old man sitting nearby where the roads go. He answers their questions, but Petronella asks him the correct one to release him from the spell that had kept him there. In return, he tells her that if she’s looking for a prince, she should try the house of Albion the enchanter, and he gives her advice about completing tasks that he will set for her and the rewards she should ask for, which will allow her to escape from the enchanter when she decides to flee with the prince. Petronella follows his advice, but the situation isn’t quite what Petronella thinks it is.  Like Petronella’s own situation, circumstances at the enchanter’s house are . . . oddly backwards. In the end, she ends up saving an enchanter from a prince.

Philbert the Fearful

Most knights can’t wait to charge into battle or undertake a dangerous quest, but Sir Philbert is different. He prefers to stay home, read good books, and look after his health. However, his doctor recommends that he undertake a quest because he needs the fresh air and exercise. Whether he really wants to or not, Philbert finds himself going on a quest with three other knights to save the emperor’s daughter from the fearsome enchanter, Brasilgore. The journey is dangerous, and two of the knights are killed, but Sir Philbert does return with the emperor’s daughter. When the other surviving knight complains that Philbert used more trickery than true bravery to defeat his enemies, the emperor explains the value of prudence. Philbert uses his wits to take care of himself and the princess, and there are benefits to staying alive rather than losing your life in a foolhardy stunt.

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Liars

LiarsLiars by P.J. Petersen, 1992.

Sam lives in the small town of Alder Creek in California. The town is so small that they only have a one-room school (well, two rooms, if you count the library/storage room). Sam’s friend, Marty, describes most of what happens there as SOT (Same Old Thing) or MOTSOT (More of the Same Old Thing). However, their town contains some disturbing secrets, which they are about to learn.

Uncle Gene, an old man in town, has a reputation for being a “water witch.” He has the ability to find good sources of water when they need to dig a new well. He lets the local kids watch him when he’s using his dowsing stick and even lets Sam and Marty have a try. Sam has never really believed that Uncle Gene has any special abilities, even kidding Marty for believing in it. However, when Sam takes hold of the dowsing stick, he finds it drawn toward sources of water, like a magnet. Uncle Gene says that Sam has the gift and is a water witch, too. Sam is still somewhat skeptical, thinking that there’s probably something more scientific behind what he experienced, but from that time on, he finds himself sensing other odd things from the people around him.

In particular, Sam can sense when people around him are lying. It sounds like it would be a handy gift to have, but it has some drawbacks. Even when he can tell that someone isn’t telling the truth, he can’t tell exactly what they’re lying about. Some lies are obvious, like those of classmates bragging about things or Mr. Lopez saying that he enjoys living in the small town when, apparently, he really doesn’t. However, Sam can’t always distinguish between small lies or serious ones. Some lies seem to affect him more than others, possibly because the liars themselves feel more guilty about those, but by itself, that doesn’t tell him whether the lie is serious or not. He knows about Mr. Lawlor poaching animals in the forest, so that lie is also obvious to Sam, and he later realizes that his wife is lying about her teaching credentials. When he exposes Mrs. Lawlor’s lies, everyone becomes aware of Sam’s gift.

This ability becomes disturbing for Sam because it seems like everyone around him is lying about something. It’s also somewhat unsettling for some of his friends, like Carmen, who worries about what he’ll think of her if he catches her in a lie. Even Sam lies somewhat himself, saying that he knows that Carmen wouldn’t lie to him when he’s already caught her. But, Carmen sees right through his reassurance, even without sharing Sam’s gift. She’s the one who points out to him that the problem with his gift is that, even though he can tell when someone lies, he can’t tell exactly what they’re lying about or why they’re doing it. She mentions the little white lies people tell to spare someone’s feelings, like saying that they like a person’s clothes when they really don’t, but also how people sometimes lie when the truth is none of someone else’s business. The lie that Carmen told Sam earlier was about why the two of them couldn’t hang out together one day. She said that her parents were expecting company that evening, but the truth was that her parents have been fighting a lot, and she didn’t want Sam to see it because their personal problems are no business of his. This incident, along with a time when Sam has suspicions about an innocent person because the person falsely thought that she might actually be guilty of a crime lead Sam to worry even more about his gift.

However, there are real crimes being committed in his town, and Sam’s gift might be the only way to find who is behind it all. First, someone tries to break into Uncle Gene’s house. Uncle Gene thinks he knows why. Supposedly, there’s a hidden mine in the area, and he’s been looking for it for a long time. He thinks that he’s getting close and that someone was after his maps. Later, his house is set on fire.

But, is the lost mine the real reason why someone is after Uncle Gene? He’s been poking around in some out-of-the-way places during his search, and the kids know that he’s reported someone for growing illegal marijuana. Is the grower out for revenge? With Sam’s own father lying to him about his whereabouts, Sam worries that he may have something to do with what’s going on. It’s only a pity that his gift can’t tell him what his father, or anyone else, is lying about. It only tells him that they’re liars.

With more places making marijuana legally these days, this part of the story might not seem so serious as it did back in the 1990s, when schools were emphasizing that kids should “just say no” to drugs. Marijuana was viewed as being as bad as any other drug, and in this book, the grower doesn’t seem concerned about the possible medical uses.

Sam’s father is not the villain of the story, although he is engaged in something that he doesn’t want to reveal to his son or the rest of the town immediately. There is also a subplot about the death of Sam’s mother. She is already dead when the story begins, but Sam and his father haven’t completely healed. At the urging of Marty’s mother, who also helps Sam to explore his gift, the two of them begin talking about her more, when they had been avoiding discussing her for some time because talking about her was too sad for them.

In the end, Sam thinks that he’s found a way to stop sensing people’s lies (the less he pays attention to what he senses, the less he feels it, so he thinks that ignoring his gift will cause it to fade over time), which is a relief to him because he didn’t like always wondering what people were really lying about, and as Carmen said, some lies are for the best and should be none of his business. I think that’s true, especially the part about lying about things that should be no one else’s business. Some people can be rather pushy in wanting to know the details of other people’s lives, and if they won’t accept “I don’t feel like talking about it” or “I don’t want to tell you” for an answer, a lie of some sort might be a person’s only recourse. Depending on the circumstances, a lie might be harmful or it might protect. Like with Sam’s gift, it may not be immediately obvious which it is, either. Not that people should make a habit of lying, but there are times when it might be the best course of action for all concerned.

I’d like to add that there are many different ways of being truthful as well as lying.  If there are partial lies, and there are partial truths as well.  Some people think that politeness is a kind of lying, like in Carmen’s example of pretending that you like someone’s clothes when you really don’t, but that’s not necessarily so.  Being polite doesn’t mean that you’re pretending but perhaps you’re just choosing which of your thoughts are the most important to mention. Many, perhaps most of us, don’t just think one thing when someone asks us what we think about something.  For example, when someone asks your opinion of their clothes, you might think something like, “Well, I like the color, but I don’t like the style.  At least, I don’t like the way that style looks on you.  But, maybe that’s just because I’m not used to seeing you wear things like that.  I might change my mind later.  Actually, later on, I’ll probably forget that you ever wore that because I don’t care that much about clothes anyway.  Still a nice color, though.”  At least, that’s what goes on in my mind frequently.  There’s no point in telling anyone those random, meandering thoughts, so I just pick the most important part and tell them that I like the color.  Why bother being critical in an effort to sound truthful when the real truth of the matter is that clothes in general aren’t that important to me and I’ll probably just change my mind later, if it sticks in my mind long enough for me give it a second thought?

Then, there are the lies that some people label as the truth for their own purposes. I’ve seen plenty of people say harmful and insulting things to others and then hide behind the defense that they are “just telling it like it is,” when they actually aren’t. Usually, when people say that, they’re actually telling it like it isn’t: lies, exaggerations, or just plain insults disguised as truth. In those cases, their intentions were not to point out some important truth for the benefit of anyone.  Often, they were just trying to hurt someone’s feelings and then further hurt them by accusing them of not being able to handle the truth.  My rule of thumb for distinguishing between people who are really “telling it like it is” and liars who are just pretending is the same as the one I use with assessing advertisements: If a company has to shell out lots of money to tell you something about their product, it’s because what they’re saying isn’t something that you’d ever notice by actually using it.  If it were obviously true, there would be no need to put so much effort into telling you because you’d just know.  I think it’s the same with people who “tell it like it is.”  If someone has to actually say that they’re “telling it like it is,” it’s a strong hint that they’re probably not.  Similarly, anyone who brags about being truthful and trustworthy is probably doing it because they know that no one else would ever think to associate those qualities with them without being told.

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Huggins and Kisses

HugginsKisses

Huggins and Kisses by Susan Creighton, illustrated by Ron C Lipking, 1985.

Mary has been wanting a dog for some time. She admires her neighbor’s dog, Sugar, who is so well behaved.

When her parents finally give her the puppy she’s been wanting, Mary is thrilled, and names the puppy Kisses. However, taking care of a dog and training it turns out to be a lot more work than Mary expected! Kisses doesn’t know how to walk on a leash, and he sometimes chews things he shouldn’t.

One day, Mary gets angry with Kisses for ripping the arm off of her favorite doll and yells at him. While Kisses is hiding under Mary’s bed, and Mary is crying, one of the Hugga Bunch, Huggins, appears to comfort them. Mary is surprised to see Huggins, and she explains to Mary that she is from Huggaland, which can be reached through her bedroom mirror. She invites Mary to see it for herself, and Kisses follows them.

HugginsKissesDoll

In Huggaland, Huggins repairs Mary’s doll, which makes her feel better. Then Kisses knocks over the birdbath at Huggins’s house, and Mary gets angry again. Huggins points out to Mary that Kisses hasn’t actually broken anything and that he was probably looking for water because he was thirsty. Huggins gives Kisses more water and a hug.

Mary asks Huggins how she can hug Kisses when he’s been bad, and Huggins explains the importance of gentle discipline. Dogs may be naughty sometimes, but what they really need is love and training. Mary just hasn’t been patient with Kisses and given him the time he needs to learn how to behave.

Mary remembers how much that she really loves Kisses and resolves to give him the time and attention he needs to learn to be a good dog.

It’s a cute picture book, and a nice story about learning to care for pets, giving them the training they need and the time to learn.

Posted on by TracyC · 2 Comments

Zathura

Zathura

Zathura by Chris Van Allsburg, 2002.

This book begins where Jumanji ends. It’s not completely a sequel because it has a different set of children and a new game, but it’s connected because the two children from Jumanji left the board game in the park again after they finished it, and they saw two boys that they know pick it up and take it home.

ZathuraBrothersWrestling

However, the two boys, Danny and Walter, don’t end up playing the same jungle board game, Jumanji, that was in the previous book. They find a second board game in the Jumanji box called Zathura and decide to try it instead. Zathura is a space-themed game where players travel a path from Earth to the planet Zathura. Like in Jumanji, elements from the board game come to life as the boys play, and someone must reach the end in order to end the game.

ZathuraStartingGame

Danny and Walter, a pair of brothers, fight a lot. Walter hates doing things with Danny. However, when Danny starts playing the game, sending their house into outer space, Walter must join in and play with his brother in order to bring the game to an end so they can go home. The two of them learn teamwork as they help each other face the dangers of the game while trying to reach Zathura.

ZathuraOuterSpace

There is a movie version of this book, but there are major differences between the original book and the movie. The conflicts between the two boys are similar in the book and the movie, but the movie added a subplot about the boys’ parents being divorced (they weren’t in the original book), an older sister for the boys (it was just the two of them originally), and a kind of alternate reality where the older boy was trapped in the game by himself for years because he wished his brother away before finishing the game until his alternate self realized that he cared about his brother and wanted to cooperate with him.  In the original book, nobody was trapped in the game.

ZathuraAlienRobot

Chris Van Allsburg illustrations are always good, although I have to admit that I preferred the illustrations in Jumanji to the ones in Zathura.  It just seems to me that the pictures in Jumanji were more detailed and realistic.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

ZathuraGoingHome

Posted on by TracyC · 2 Comments

Jumanji

Jumanji

Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg, 1981.

Judy and Peter, a brother and sister, are left home alone while their parents go to an opera. In spite of their parents’ warning not to make a mess because they’ll be bringing guests by later, the kids scatter all of their toys around while playing. Then, the kids go to the park to play for awhile, and they find a board game labeled Jumanji with a note that the game is free to anyone who wants to play it. Judy and Peter decide to give the game a try and take it home.

JumanjiPark

Jumanji turns out to be a kind of race game. Players are supposed to make their way down a path through a jungle, facing all kinds of dangers, until someone reaches the golden city of Jumanji. The instructions warn them that once a game has begun, it will not be over until one of the players reaches Jumanji.

JumanjiGameStart

At first, Peter thinks that the game is boring and easy, but it soon becomes apparent that things that happen in the board game are starting to happen in real life when a live lion suddenly appears after an encounter with one on the game board.  Peter is scared and wants to stop playing, but Judy reminds him that they can’t stop because the game won’t end until one of them reaches the end of the path on the game board. Until the game ends, they’re stuck with the lion and anything else that happens to appear because of the game. They have no choice but to keep playing, facing each danger as wild animals rampage through their house.

JumanjiLion

Chris Van Allsburg books always have amazing illustrations, and the pictures in this book are especially good!  At the end of the book, the children see two other children find the game, which leads to the sequel, Zathura.

JumanjiRhino

There is a movie version of this book, but the movie differs greatly from the original story. In the movie, the two kids were friends, not brother and sister, and the boy ends up trapped in the game for a period of years until, finally, a new set of kids starts playing and helps the original players to finish their game.  When their game ends, the original children are returned to their own time, and no one but them knows that they were ever gone.  Things turn out better for the future children as well because the older players make things better for everyone in their own time.  There were no players stuck in the game in the original book, and everything takes place during a single day.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

JumanjiParents

Posted on by TracyC

The Bassumtyte Treasure

BassumtyteTreasureThe Bassumtyte Treasure by Jane Louise Curry, 1978.

When young Tommy Bassumtyte’s parents died, he went to live with his grandfather. However, his grandfather is now dead, and he is living with his 92-year-old great-aunt, who is in a wheelchair, and her 72-year-old daughter, who has recently had her driver’s license revoked due to her poor eyesight. Although the pair of them have taken good care of Tommy, neighbors have become concerned that they will not be able to do so for much longer because of their age and failing health. Rather than see Tommy sent to a foster home, they decide that he must go to the man who Tommy learns should really be his legal guardian, a distant cousin also named Thomas who lives in the family’s ancestral home, Boxleton House, in England.

The elder Thomas Bassumtyte, who should have taken Tommy when his grandfather passed away, has also since died, but his son, also named Thomas, agrees to take him. Tommy is quickly shipped off to England before there can be a custody hearing in the United States about him because the relatives fear that some official might try to prevent Tommy from being sent out of the country. Tommy is eager to go because he remembers fantastic stories that his grandfather told him about Boxleton House. The current Thomas Bassumtyte also lives there, although the place has become rather run-down, and he fears that he will not be able to keep the place much longer. Thomas was a mountain climber, but he was injured in a fall and hasn’t been able to work much since. He tells Tommy that the two of them might have to move when he is fully recovered and can do more work for the Foreign Office, but Tommy loves Boxleton House from the first moment he sees it and wants to stay.

According to the lore of Boxleton House, a distant ancestor of theirs hid a treasure there, but no one has been able to find it. If young Tommy and Thomas can find it, it would solve many of their problems, and they would be able to keep the house and restore it. All young Tommy has is the mysterious rhyme that his grandfather told him and the strange medallion that his great-grandfather brought with him when he went to the United States in the late 1800s. Thomas tells him that the treasure was supposedly hidden by a distant ancestor of theirs who was fond of riddles, called Old Thomas.

The Bassumtytes were secretly Catholic during the reign of Elizabeth I. Old Thomas was alive then and had a son called Tall Thomas. Tall Thomas traveled frequently and was mysterious about the places he went. One night, he returned to Boxleton House with a young baby, who he said was his son. He had married in secret, and his young wife had died shortly after giving birth. Tall Thomas also brought her body back to Boxleton for burial. However, that wasn’t Tall Thomas’s only secret. Although he remarried, giving his son a stepmother, and lived on for a number of years, he was eventually executed for smuggling messages for the captive Catholic queen, Mary, Queen of Scots. The family was stripped of its noble title and only barely managed to hang onto their house and land. If there was a treasure hidden during this time, it was probably something that the Bassumtytes were afraid would be confiscated by the queen’s soldiers as punishment for the family’s disloyalty or something that Mary had given to Tall Thomas to hide for her.

As Thomas tells Tommy more about the house and the family’s history, he points out Tommy’s uncanny resemblance to Small Thomas, Tall Thomas’s son, as shown in an old painting. Tommy feels a strange connection to Small Thomas, and begins seeing and hearing strange things. An older woman comforts him in the middle of the night, having him recite the same rhyme that his grandfather taught him. A small painting later reveals that this woman was Small Thomas’s grandmother. She appears to Tommy other times, giving him a glimpse back in time and clues to solve the puzzles of Boxleton House.

It is only when Thomas accepts the advice of a family friend who works for a museum that they come to understand the full significance of their family’s heirlooms and the hidden treasure. The treasure may not be quite what the Bassumtytes have always believed it was, but then, the Bassumtytes themselves aren’t quite who they always thought they were, either.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 2 Comments

The Root Cellar

RootCellarThe Root Cellar by Janet Lunn, 1981.

Rose Larkin is an orphan, living with her grandmother, a stern businesswoman.  Her grandmother travels frequently on business, so from the time Rose came to her when she was three years old, she just took Rose with her wherever she traveled, tutoring her in school subjects in the evening after work.  Rose’s early life is largely one of travel to strange places and isolation.  When her grandmother is working, Rose is pretty much left to her own devices, often either reading alone in their hotel rooms or exploring strange cities by herself.  Not going to school, she has no friends her own age and doesn’t really know how to behave around other children or live as part of a normal family.

When her grandmother dies suddenly of a heart attack in Paris when Rose is twelve years old, her remaining relatives have to decide what to do with her.  She temporarily stays with aunts who are into fashion and high living before goes to live with another aunt and uncle and their boys on an old farm.  Aunt Nan (Rose’s father’s sister) and her husband are better suited to caring for Rose and can give her a more settled family life, but Rose’s other relatives don’t seem to think much of Aunt Nan, who is an author of children’s books.  Rose has heard that Aunt Nan has no sense and that the family has just moved to a shabby little farm house in Canada.  Rose is prepared not to be happy there, on a dumpy little farm, miles from anywhere, with a bunch of strange people.

Her new life gets off to a bad start when there is no one to meet her at the house when she arrives.  As she waits for her aunt and uncle to return, a strange old woman appears who seems to know her.  She calls herself Mrs. Morrisay and acts like she belongs to the house.  But, when Rose’s relatives arrive home, Mrs. Morrisay suddenly disappears, and none of them seem to know anything about her.  Later, Rose sees a girl making a bed upstairs, but her relatives just laugh when Rose asks them about the maid, which is who Rose thought the girl was.  There is no maid in this house, and Rose is the only girl.  To Rose’s annoyance, her relatives think she imagined the whole thing.

Actually, life in her aunt and uncle’s house in the country isn’t as bad as her other aunt has lead her to believe, but becoming part of their household isn’t easy because Rose is used to a very different kind of life.  The house is definitely old and in bad need of repair, and her relatives are noisy and disorganized, at least more so than Rose is accustomed to.  Rose isn’t used to the chaotic life of a family with a lot of children, and Aunt Nan has another on the way.  Also, tourists who are fans of Aunt Nan’s books sometimes stop by the house, and Rose doesn’t like dealing with their scrutiny and questions.  Sam, one of the older boys in the family, seems to resent Rose’s presence in the house, and Rose overhears him saying a lot of bad things about her to her aunt, calling her snobby and criticizing her appearance.  Rose takes his attitude as further evidence that she doesn’t really belong in their house and that she’ll never fit in.  If they think badly of her, why should she think any better of them?

Rose also becomes increasingly aware that there is something not quite normal about her relatives’ house, especially the old root cellar, and the people she saw on her first day in the house are part of it.  Sam thought that he might have seen a ghost in the house one day, an old woman, and Rose recognizes his description as that of the Mrs. Morrisay she saw on her first day there.  She sees Mrs. Morrisay in her bedroom later, suddenly walking through a wall.  Rose thinks Mrs. Morrisay is a ghost, but Mrs. Morrisay tells her that she’s not dead, just “shifting” through time and that she wants Rose to stay in the house and help restore it to its former glory.  Rose doesn’t know why or how she can possibly help Mrs. Morrisay.

Rose learns that her aunt’s house was once an old farm house that belonged to the Morrisay family, and there is still an old root cellar on the property, a relic from the time when people had to store certain kinds of food underground to keep them cool and prevent them from spoiling.  One day, Rose goes down into the root cellar and meets a mysterious girl dressed in old-fashioned clothes, the same girl she saw earlier, making beds.  Although Rose and the other girl don’t realize it immediately, Rose has gone back in time.  The girl was someone who lived on the farm in the past, during the 1800s.

Rose and the girl in the past, Susan Anderson, become friends, and Rose is grateful for another girl to talk to.  Susan is an orphan herself, living with the Morrisay family as a servant girl.  She and Will Morrisay, old Mrs. Morrisay’s son, are friends, and both of them are sympathetic to Rose when she tells them about her new life with her relatives and the problems she has. Rose finds herself wishing that she could stay in the past with them forever.  However, once they realize that Rose is traveling through time when she goes in the root cellar, they also discover that it isn’t reliable about exactly when Rose will reappear in the past.  Although at first there are only days between Rose’s visits from her perspective, months or years pass in her friends’ lives between her visits.  They eventually manage to solve this problem through a friendship pact where they exchange favorite objects.  It’s at a good time, too, because soon Rose’s friends need her help as much as Rose needs them.

After a terrible fight with her relatives in which her aunt slips and falls and Rose worries that her aunt and the baby might die, Rose runs away to the root cellar and goes to see her friends, discovering that in their time, Will has gone away to fight in the American Civil War alongside his favorite cousin and has not returned.  It’s been awhile since Susan has heard from him, and she fears the worst.  Rose suggests that they go to look for Will at his last known location, but it’s a difficult, perilous journey. At first, they’re not sure whether they’ll find Will alive or not.

When they finally find Will, he is a changed man from the war, and Rose and Susan have to help him to remember who he really is and where he really belongs.  In helping Will to remember where he comes from, his life before the war, and how much Susan needs him, Rose comes to realize some important things about herself and where she really belongs.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction and Spoilers

As difficult as the choice is, Rose realizes that she must return to her own time, face the consequences of her earlier actions, and do what she can to become a real member of her new family.  After she returns home and the root cellar is destroyed in a storm, it seems as though she might never see her friends from the past again, but friendship can transcend many boundaries, including time.

I didn’t realize this the first time I read the book, but it’s actually part of a loose trilogy.  I say loose because none of the main characters from each story appear in the others (except, perhaps, for one who is in both the second and third books), which also take place in different time periods.  What binds the stories together is the location where the stories take place and also some distant family relations, particularly focusing on the Anderson and Morrisay families.

It is something of a spoiler, but it seems that the time travel in this story may not be so much a matter of the house being special or magical, but because Susan is special.  It is revealed in one of the other books, Shadow in Hawthorn Bay, that her grandmother was psychic.  Will and Susan briefly refer to Susan’s grandmother and her stories about ghosts when talking to Rose.  Susan seems to have little control, especially later in life, over her ability to shift through time, but it may be her special attachment to the Morrisay house and her need for Rose’s friendship and help that makes Rose’s time travel possible.  It’s never explicitly stated that Susan inherited her abilities from her grandmother, but I think that it is implied during the course of the books.

Posted on by TracyC · 4 Comments

Magic Elizabeth

MagicElizabeth

Magic Elizabeth by Norma Kassirer, 1966.

Young Sally’s parents are away on a business trip, so she’s been staying with Mrs. Chipley, but now Mrs. Chipley has a family emergency to tend to. Mrs. Chipley’s daughter is ill, and Mrs. Chipley needs to go and help her with her children. While Mrs. Chipley is gone, there is only one other person for Sally to stay with: her Aunt Sarah, an elderly woman who Sally doesn’t really know. Aunt Sarah moved to California when Sally was just a baby, and the only reason why she has returned is that she has decided to sell her old house.

MagicElizabethArrival

Sally is a rather shy girl. She’s uneasy around Aunt Sarah, who is obviously unaccustomed to spending time with children, and Aunt Sarah’s creepy cat, Shadow. The house is old, chilly, and filled with strange things. However, Sally is enchanted with the bedroom that Aunt Sarah gives her and the portrait of a girl and her doll that hangs on the wall. The girl looks very much like Sally herself, and Aunt Sarah tells her that the girl was also called Sally and lived in that bedroom as a child, many years ago.

MagicElizabethKitchen

Fascinated by this earlier Sally and her beautiful doll, modern Sally decides to try to find the doll. Although her aunt tells her that she shouldn’t go poking around in the attic, Sally can’t help herself. She finds a trunk with Sally’s name on it full of girls’ clothes, just the right size for modern Sally to wear. There is a doll in the trunk also, but it’s not the same doll as the one in the portrait. When Sally reads the diary in the old trunk she learns the reason why. The doll in the picture, Elizabeth, was lost many years ago, when the earlier Sally was still young. As modern Sally plays dress up with the earlier Sally’s old clothes and studies herself in the mirror, she finds herself taken back in time, seeing the house through earlier Sally’s eyes. In the past, it was a busy and happy household with parents, an elderly aunt, earlier Sally, Sally’s little brother, and Sally’s pet cats.

A short time later, Aunt Sarah wakes modern Sally on the floor of the attic, and they assume that it was all a dream, but this look into the past changes Sally’s feelings about the house and her aunt’s cat, who suddenly seems friendlier and reminds her of the mother cat she saw in the past. Aunt Sarah also seems a little less stern as they discuss earlier Sally and her lost doll. Aunt Sarah says that no one ever saw the doll again after it disappeared on Christmas Eve all those years ago.  Earlier Sally had put the doll on top of the Christmas tree, like an angel, and after the family finished singing Christmas carols, the doll was gone.  They could never figure out what happened to her.  Modern Sally thinks that sounds very sad and wants to investigate the mystery of the missing doll, although Aunt Sarah isn’t very enthusiastic. She says that if the doll could be found, it would have been found long ago, and the earlier Sally has long since grown up and no longer needs it. Although, oddly, Aunt Sarah remarks that the earlier Sally had always thought that Elizabeth was “a little bit magic.”

Modern Sally continues to look for the doll anyway and also continues having moments when she sees the past as the earlier Sally did many years ago, especially when she looks into the mirror in the attic. One day, she invites a neighbor girl named Emily over, and while the two of them are looking around the attic, Emily finds Elizabeth’s old doll bonnet. The girls are excited because they now know for certain that Elizabeth is still in the house, waiting to be found. The girls are running out of time to find her. If Aunt Sarah agrees to sell the house, it will be torn down to build apartments. But, Sally falls ill with the flu, and it isn’t until Shadow gives her an important clue that Sally realizes where Elizabeth must be.

This book is currently out of print, but it’s one that I’d dearly love to see in print once more!  It is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction and Spoilers

Adults reading this story will probably realize before the children do (spoiler) that Aunt Sarah herself was the earlier Sally, the one who lost her favorite doll many years ago. “Sally” is a nickname for Sarah, like “Molly” can be for Mary and “Peggy” can be for Margaret, although any of those names can also be used by itself.  (In the Middle Ages, it was common for popular names to get different variations of nicknames by changing one sound in the original name and then changing one more sound in the first nickname to get another one, and sometimes even moving on to change one more sound to get yet another nickname that was very changed from the first. Those nicknames that look significantly different from their original names are a holdover from that practice, having lasted even into modern times.  John/Jack works on the same principle.  Fun fact!)  When Aunt Sarah grew up, she stopped using her childhood nickname, but the name was passed on to modern Sally.

At first, modern Sally sees her stern aunt as being witch-like, all dressed in black and fussy, but gradually, the memories of the past, her new relationship with young Sally, and the finding of her slightly-magical doll soften her. There are hints of Aunt Sarah’s youth in the attic, although Sally at first dismisses thoughts that some of the lovely things there could have belonged to her cranky old aunt because she has trouble thinking of her aunt as once having been young, pretty, and sweet. However, part of the theme of the story is that everyone was young once. Aunt Sarah is is bent and achy from arthritis, giving her the witch-like appearance and making her short-tempered at times. She also hasn’t been around children much for years, and part of her fussiness comes from forgetting what it was like to be young herself. Modern Sally, with her resemblance to her elderly aunt, and Elizabeth the doll both work their magic on her, reminding her what it was like to be a young girl and helping to revive a more youthful spirit in her.

I was happy that (further spoiler) Aunt Sarah decides not to sell the house after all, not just because she and Sally will get to spend more time together, but because old houses like that are rare these days. I like the idea that the old family heirlooms in the house will now be preserved, like the sleigh out in the old barn and the melodeon, a type of small organ.  I liked the way the book described the melodeon making musical sounds as people walk past it because of the way the floor boards move.  I also loved the description of the gas plant that Sally sees in earlier Sally’s memories.  If you’d like to see what a gas plant looks like when it’s lit, have a look at this video on YouTube.MagicElizabethMelodeon