More Than Anything Else by Marie Bradby, pictures by Chris K. Soentpiet, 1995.
Young Booker lives with his family in a little cabin, and every morning, before the sun is up, he goes to work with his father and brother. They work at the saltworks, shoveling salt into barrels, and it’s hard, tiring work.
There is something on young Booker’s mind, though. More than anything else, he wants to learn how to read. One evening, he sees a black man reading aloud from a newspaper to a group of listeners, and he wishes that he could read like that himself. It inspires him that the man is black, like himself, showing that reading isn’t just something for white people.
Booker tells his mother how badly he wants to learn to read. His mother can’t read herself, but somehow, she manages to find a book for him to study. Booker tries to figure out how to read by studying the letters in the book, but he just can’t figure out it by himself.
Then, Booker thinks of someone who could help him: the man who was reading the newspaper. Before Booker can learn to read, he needs some help from someone who already knows.
My Reaction
The boy in the story is a young Booker T. Washington. The book doesn’t refer to him by his full name in the story because it’s told from his perspective and because, when he was young, he was never referred to by a surname and was only known as Booker. We only get his first name, but the book summary makes it clear that it is Booker T. Washington, the famous African American educator, who lived from 1856 to 1915 and was the first principal of the Tuskegee Normal School, which later became Tuskegee University. He was born into slavery, but he was freed as a child during the Civil War.
I’m not sure whether the description of how he learned to read from this story actually happened in real life. From what I’ve read, he learned to read at a school managed by the Freedmen’s Bureau. Another account that I read said that he wanted to learn to read after seeing white children going to school and that his mother got him a book that taught him basic reading and writing. I don’t know whether he was ever inspired by seeing a black man reading a newspaper, but I couldn’t find anything about it. Because I’ve read some differing accounts, I think that either Booker’s exact inspiration for learning to read is unknown or that there were multiple influences in his early education, with different people putting emphasis on different aspects.
I liked the story, although it doesn’t explain more about Booker T. Washington’s life. I think it would have been more educational if it explained to readers what he did when he grew up, showing how he became a teacher and influenced others’ lives and education. It’s a little disappointing that kids can read the story as it is without really understanding who Booker T. Washington was and what he did. A section of historical information in the back of the book would have helped add context to the story. The story in the book simply ends at the point where Booker learns to write his own name, but I think that showing how this simple accomplishment in basic reading and writing started him on a path to greater accomplishments.
Light in the Darkness by Lesa Cline-Ransome, illustrated by James E. Ransome, 2013.
As the subtitle of the book says, this is “A Story About How Slaves Learned in Secret.” During the history of slavery in the United States, slaves were often forbidden to learn to read, and there were punishments for people who taught slaves to read. These anti-literacy laws were the norm for most people prior to the Civil War. However, there were some slaves who managed to acquire some basic reading and writing skills in secret, in spite of the anti-literacy laws, and that is what this story is about.
The story is told from the point of view of a young slave, Rosa. Rosa’s mother wakes her in the middle of the night, and they sneak out to go to the secret reading and writing lessons. They have to be careful because there are patrollers out, looking for runaways and slaves who are doing what they’re doing.
The risks are serious because slaves are whipped for learning how to read. Rosa and the other slaves were once forced to watch a girl being given a lash for each letter she learned. The slaves who go to this secret school know that the same thing will happen to them if the patrollers catch them and turn them in to their master.
The man teaching the secret school, Morris, was taught to read Bible stories by his master’s wife when he was young, although nobody expected him to teach other slaves. Morris’s “school” is an improvised pit hut, a pit dug in the ground and covered over with branches. He uses sticks to show his students the shapes of the letters by the light of a lantern.
During the day, the slaves who go to this secret school have to proceed with their usual chores and pretend like they don’t know anything about reading and writing at all. By night, they help each other learn their letters. It’s a slow process, and sometimes, they can’t hold the school because they know that patrollers are traveling the area, and it’s too dangerous. However, they keep coming back when they can because this is important to them. They are doing something that their masters don’t think they’re bright enough to do, and they know that this secret knowledge will be an important tool in their eventual quest for freedom.
My Reaction
I thought that this was a good book, focusing on a particular area of history that isn’t always explored in detail in other sources. I’ve read other books that refer to slaves, both real and fictional, as having found ways to read in secret, but this book focuses solely on that process, how they managed it, how they organized others to participate, what the risks were, and what it meant to them. There is an Author’s Note in the back of the book, which explains that the author was doing research for a book about Frederick Douglass when she found a reference to “pit schools”, like the one in the story, where slaves would meet in secret for lessons from each other. I had never heard about pit schools before, and I found the concept fascinating.
The subject of education and literature is a particular sore point for me when it comes to the Confederacy, and I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before. Slavery apologists sometimes talked about how slave owners treated slaves like “family” and taught them to read and gave them Bible lessons, etc. These claims have been made since the 19th century, and you can see it in plantation or “anti-Tom” literature, including some 19th century and early 20th century books for children. (I discussed this earlier in my list of Books from the 1850s, the decade when Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published. “Anti-Tom” literature was a direct response to that book.) However, such lessons were actually forbidden by law in most slave-owning areas. There were exceptions to this rule, like Phillis Wheatley in the 18th century and Frederick Douglass in the 19th century, but the reason why these people became famous was because they were the relatively rare exceptions. Only a small percentage of slaves ever achieved any level of literacy, and of those who did, few received any help from their masters or their masters’ family because the practice was discouraged more than encouraged, with laws and punishments in place against it. In real life, Frederick Douglass received some basic lessons in reading and letter recognition from the wife of one of his masters, but that ended when his master found out about it and made his wife stop.
I never believe those stories about slaves and masters being just one big, happy family or the assertion that it was common for masters to benevolently educate their slaves to better their lives because I already know that was not at all the case for the vast majority, by design, with intention, and enforced by law. The “history” books produced by the United Daughters of the Confederacy particularly try to create this impression of slavery as a benevolent institution, but actual benevolent institutions do not have laws that specifically restrict both the personal development and freedom of movement of the people they serve with harsh physical punishments for violations. I resent the mere existence of these history books and the organization that produced them because I resent anyone who lies to me (whether directly or indirectly or even by omission or implication) about anything important, and it is personally insulting to me that they would think I would ever be dumb enough buy that bunk. I’m sure they didn’t mean it as a personal insult to me because they’ve been doing it since long before I was born. I’m sure they have no idea who I am and couldn’t care less about me as a person, but at the same time, the fact that they did it at all carries an implied insult to anyone who may potentially believe them or is pressured to read and believe them. They must either think very little of other people’s intelligence or simply never think about other people outside of their own family lineage at all except as resources to be used or manipulated for social aggrandizement. I don’t blame people for merely having ancestors who owned slaves, but when someone works hard to make me believe that slavery wasn’t bad, that their ancestors weren’t bad for doing things they admittedly did, that I don’t really know the things I actually do know about that, and that I should not only be respectful but reverent toward these people and their institutions, I blame them a lot, specifically for that. When I was young and found out about censorship, propaganda, and book burnings, I daydreamed about writing something that would personally offend this type of person as much as they offended me, and it seems like the best way to do that is just by telling the truth about history.
Although some people like to think of people in the past, especially their own ancestors and family, as being above average, most people are average, by definition. It’s not that it never happened, because I know that it did in rare cases, but most people are simply not rare exceptions. If they were, the average would have looked very different indeed, and those anti-literacy laws would not have existed in the first place, but that’s just not the reality. The reality is that those laws did exist, and most people both followed and enforced them because they both agreed with them and feared the consequences of disobedience. Most people, by definition, are basically average, and this is just what the basic average was. The average slave-holder was harsh, punitive, anti-education, and far more interested in what they could get out of their slaves than in the slaves themselves because that was the entire reason for having them in the first place.
Plantations were not non-profit organizations, and they were not run like non-profits as tools for the welfare and social betterment of clients. Non-profits serve others. Slave owners forced other people to serve them, and that’s seriously all there is to it. Slave owners were takers, not givers, although I’m sure that they engaged in occasional public philanthropy for the social cred because one of their primary goals was climbing that all-important social ladder and maintaining their place on it. Plantations were family businesses for the wealth and social betterment of the families who owned them, designed to maximize profits, and the profits were meant entirely for the owners and no one else.
In the story, Morris becomes a teacher for the other slaves because he is the rare exception among them, having had lessons from his master’s wife when he was young. Most were not given any lessons at all, and both the slaves and their potential teachers could face serious consequences if they were caught. Everyone knows that, if Morris is caught teaching the others, he will be punished much worse than the rest of them. They’re all taking a serious risk, but Morris is in the most danger if they are discovered.
Kate Sutton and her sister, Alicia, live in the household of Princess Elizabeth in the year 1558. Alicia hates the Hatfield palace because it’s dreary and poorly maintained, apparently on purpose because Queen Mary Tudor resents Princess Elizabeth and wants her and her household to be uncomfortable. Kate and Alicia are maids in the household, and Alicia decides to write a complaining letter to Queen Mary about the condition of the house. Alicia thinks of herself at trying to help Princess Elizabeth by explaining how bad the conditions there are, but her letter gets heated and insulting toward the queen. Alicia is accustomed to getting away with things and with people not being angry with her because she’s pretty. However, Kate has to be the one with a brain, and she sees immediately that Alicia’s letter is bound to cause trouble.
When Princess Elizabeth receives a reply to Alicia’s letter, she summons the sisters to see her. Queen Mary is very direct in her letter about what she thinks of Alicia Sutton’s letter, but she ultimately blames Kate for it because Alicia is a favorite of hers and Kate reminds her too much of her father, who she never liked. She believes that Alicia is only a sweet innocent and that Kate is a corrupting influence, which is unfair. Queen Mary has decided to separate the sisters, taking Alicia into her own household and sending Kate to Sir Geoffrey Heron at his house, Elvenwood Hall, in Darbyshire. The queen wants Kate to stay at Elvenwood Hall and out of her sight or hearing from now on. Kate has no idea where Elvenwood Hall is, other than in Darbyshire, and she doesn’t know Sir Geoffrey Hall. Although Alicia is initially pleased that the queen doesn’t blame her, she becomes remorseful when she realizes that Kate is taking the blame for the letter, when she knew nothing about it. She offers to write to the queen again and confess everything, taking full responsibility for the letter, but Princess Elizabeth, Roger, and Kate herself all tell her not to. The queen’s mind is made up, and another of Alicia’s letters might make it worse.
Princess Elizabeth asks her tutor, Roger, if she knows anything about Sir Geoffrey Heron, and he says that he’s heard of him. The house, Elvenwood Hall, has another name, Perilous Gard. The word “gard” indicates that the place was once a castle, but Roger knows that the house has been rebuilt with old parts cleared away. The other part of the name “perilous”, indicates that there is a superstitious element to the place, like places rumored to be inhabited by fairy folk or associated with pagan religion. One of his old pupils told him some stories about the place, but Roger would rather not repeat them. The accounts that Roger has heard of Sir Geoffrey say that he is an honorable man, so he thinks that Kate will be safe in his household.
Other than that, Kate has little idea of what to expect from Elvenwood Hall. She doesn’t think that Alicia’s dire fears that Kate will be thrown into a dungeon are true. The queen wants her out of her sight, and that’s why she’s sending her to a relatively remote area where she won’t have to deal with her and putting her under the supervision of a supporter of hers, who is supposed to keep her out of trouble. Kate isn’t actually under arrest.
The journey to Elvenwood Hall is rough. On the way, the traveling party meets an old harper, Randal, who Sir Geoffrey says is a little addled since he suffered from a serious illness. When they tell the harper that Kate is coming to stay at Elvenwood, Randal asks if she might be lost like the last girl. Sir Geoffrey seems upset about what Randal says and hurries Randal away to get some food. Then, Kate hears a laugh and sees a strange woman looking at them from the hill. Then, her horse acts up, and when Kate looks again, the woman is gone.
When Kate sees Elvenwood Hall, it doesn’t seem to be very old due to the recent rebuilding, and its interior is luxurious, compared to the house where Princess Elizabeth is living. It is surrounded by ancient stone walls and battlements, and the older parts of the house are more castle-like and crumbling. Sir Geoffrey is still in the process of renovating the castle and turning it into a luxurious manor. The elderly Dorothy, former nurse to Sir Geoffrey’s wife, is the manor’s housekeeper, and Master John is the estate’s steward. Master John seems cold and unfriendly, but he is in charge whenever Sir Geoffrey is away.
Much to Kate’s dismay, Sir Geoffrey will be leaving Kate under Master John’s supervision while he makes a trip to Norfolk. Kate gets the impression that Sir Geoffrey doesn’t like being at Elvenwood, in spite of its renovations, but under the queen’s orders, Kate is required to stay at Elvenwood and not to travel away from it. Sir Geoffrey also tells her that the queen will not allow her to write to anyone or communicate with anyone outside of Elvenwood without Sir Geoffrey’s permission, of in his absence, Master John’s permission. Sir Geoffrey says that he will not be back at Elvenwood until All Saints’ Day, so Kate will be under Master John’s authority for months.
Elvenwood used to belong to Sir Geoffrey’s wife’s family, the Wardens, and old Dorothy doesn’t like Sir Geoffrey or any of the Heron family. Dorothy says that Sir Geoffrey’s brother, Christopher Heron, was responsible for the death of Sir Geoffrey’s daughter, that he had admitted it, and that Sir Geoffrey never punished him for it. Sir Geoffrey knows that Dorothy has been gossiping with Kate, but he is not upset with Kate for it. He also doesn’t offer any further explanations about what Dorothy said before he leaves on his trip to Norfolk.
Elvenwood Hall is pretty comfortable and nobody there mistreats Kate, but she is often lonely because the place is isolated. The farthest Kate is allowed to go from Elvenwood Hall is to the nearby village, but there isn’t much there. When Kate visits the village, people stare at her and act like they’re afraid of her. Even the village priest makes the sign of the cross at her, as if he thinks that she is something evil. Mostly, Kate has Dorothy as her companion.
Then, one day, she notices a pair of visitors, and Dorothy says that they are pilgrims, coming to visit the holy well on the grounds. Kate knows that some people believe that holy wells have the power to heal or make people more beautiful. Dorothy says that the holy well in the cave here will take away sorrow and pain, if a visitor offers a gift in exchange. The gift is for “those who rule over the well”, who Dorothy says were in this land long before saints and Christianity, but she hesitates to say more about it. She says that Kate can ask Master John, if she wants to know.
When Kate decides to take a look at the well herself, Christopher Heron finds her, grabs her, and hauls her away from it. Kate is startled, and he explains that he thought that she would fall in and be lost in the chasm under the rocks there. Kate thinks that’s silly because the well has a wall around it, but Christopher explains that’s what happened to Sir Geoffrey’s daughter, Cecily. At least, that’s what Christopher thinks happens to her.
He explains that Cecily was a little girl and that her mother was dead when he and his brother came to live at Elvenwood. One day, Sir Geoffrey left on one of his trips, and Christopher was responsible for Cecily. Cecily liked playing a kind of hide-and-seek game, but that day, Christopher found her antics irritating. He left her with Master John and went for walk to visit the well. However, he spotted Cecily following him, so he made a mock wish at the well that Cecily, being a spoiled child, would be in the care of someone else. And, that was the last time he saw Cecily. He supposes that she must have fallen when he wasn’t looking, although he didn’t actually see her fall, and they never found her body. They only found one of her shoes on the path. Christopher feels horribly guilty about losing Cecily, and he knows how her loss has hurt his brother, who has been the only person who loved and cared of him since his mother died giving birth to him. For him to lose Cecily when Geoffrey trusted him to take care of her was terrible, and he knows that his brother has not looked at him in the same way since. As a penance, Christopher has been living in the old leper’s hut on the estate whenever his brother is not in residence.
It’s sad, but Kate thinks that Christopher has been spending too much time feeling sorry for himself. She thinks it would be more sensible if he made a confession to the local priest to clear his conscience rather than brooding over what he could have done or should have done. Christopher says that it’s none of her business what he does, and he will give himself whatever penance he thinks is fitting. Kate thinks that Christopher is indulging in pride and self-pity over what was merely an accident.
When Kate helps to rescue a local boy from a flooded river, his grateful mother talks to her about the guardians of the well, insisting that it’s really the fairy folk. She says that they live in a cave under the hill, that the strange woman Kate saw on the hill is their queen, and that they sometimes steal away children to be their slaves … or worse. She and others in the village think that’s what really happened to little Cecily and that the people at the castle know it, too. She thinks they’re purposely letting Christopher blame himself so that Sir Geoffrey won’t learn that his daughter is really alive and a captive of the fairies.
It does seem to Kate that everyone but the Herons genuinely believes in the fairies and that’s what Dorothy was talking about when she was talking about the guardians of the well being older than the saints. She reflects that Roger believed that the stories about fairies are just references to pagan gods and religious practices, and she starts to wonder if the people of Elvenwood, or the Perilous Gard, are secretly practicing pagan rituals with their traditions about the well. If the fairies are only superstition and the remnants of old religion, though, who was the mysterious woman who was watching Kate’s arrival? Could that have actually been a real fairy queen?
Kate tries to discuss it with Christopher, but he’s convinced that he knows what must have happened to Cecily. Then, they have an encounter with Randal, who tells them that the fairies have stolen away his wits. He knows he’s a bit addled and missing some memories, but he insists that the fairies did it to him because they couldn’t use a musician as one of their sacrifices, so they sacrificed his wits instead. Then, he claims that he has seen a little golden-haired girl dancing with the fairies and that she gave him her slipper to show to someone. To their astonishment, Randal produces a little girl’s slipper that matches the one Cecily lost on the path the day she disappeared! This slipper is much more worn than the other one, indicating that the girl who wore it continued to wear it after she disappeared.
Realizing that Cecily is still alive, Christopher wants to make a thorough search of the chasm beneath the well, but Kate urges caution. Whatever is going on at the well and whatever happened to Cecily, she’s sure that the people at the castle know about it, like the woman from the village said. If they don’t want to find and rescue Cecily themselves, it’s because they have something to hide. Sir Geoffrey’s wife seemed eager to leave this place, where Kate is now trapped by the queen’s orders, after her marriage, and Sir Geoffrey only returned here after she was dead, apparently unaware of the dark things that have happened here and still may be happening. Whatever is going on, the people of Perilous Gard are involved, and Kate and Christopher cannot expect any help from anyone in the castle.
People leave coins and gold as gifts to the well when they ask it for something, and Christopher wonders if that could be the secret source of money for the estate that has funded all the luxurious renovations. Master John could be secretly taking all of the offerings the pilgrims leave. On the other hand, the name of the family that once owned this estate was “Warden”, a name that indicates the caretaker for something. Were they once the caretakers of the well, of a remaining cult of pagans that still practices the old religion and its rituals … or perhaps of actual fairies? What was Sir Geoffrey’s wife afraid of in her old family home, and where is little Cecily now? Was she taken as a hostage to ensure that Sir Geoffrey wouldn’t interfere with whatever the people at the castle are doing … or as a potential sacrifice to fairies or pagan gods? They reflect that the story of Tam Lin, about a lover who rescued her beloved from the fairies, was set on All Hallow’s Eve (Halloween). Cecily’s father plans to return on All Saint’s Day, the day after All Hallow’s Eve (November 1). Kate and Christopher need to get word to Sir Geoffrey or rescue Cecily themselves before it’s too late!
This is a Newbery Honor Book. It is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction and Some Spoilers
This book was fascinating and suspenseful! From the beginning, I wasn’t really sure whether or not this was a fantasy story. It turns out that it’s what I call pseudo-fantasy. It has all the trapping of fantasy, and there are points when it seems like something supernatural might be happening. However, it seems that, in the end, the “fairies” are humans practicing pagan rituals and who have convinced themselves that they are somehow different from the other humans who live above ground, out of the caves. There may be things that indicate that they might be more than that, but overall, Kate believes from the very beginning, that they are merely humans with strange and dangerous practices. As she puts it, “There were never any heathen gods, only heathen people who believed in them.”
Ancient Religion and Folklore
In their attempts to free Cecily, Christopher and Kate become the captives of the “fairies”, and Christopher is in danger of being used as one of their sacrifices. During their captivity, Kate gets to see some of their practices, and she realizes that they control people through things they give them to drink that affect their minds, and she learns what she needs to know about their rituals and beliefs to thwart their plans. In real life, there are a lot of gaps in our knowledge of pre-Christian religion in Britain because the practitioners didn’t leave written records. Mostly, what know about them is based on archaeology and accounts left by the Romans, which may not be entirely accurate. In the story, the “fairies'” beliefs are based around the idea of sacrifices, energy from humans and the earth, pieces of folklore, and probably the use of some kind of psychedelics. The most interesting and revealing part of their beliefs comes when Kate discusses the need for sacrifice with the fairy queen, and the two of them face off with their respective religious beliefs. During their discussion, they compare their beliefs on the subject of God/gods, power, and the purpose of sacrifice.
The fairy queen says that sacrifice is necessary to take the power from a human life and put it into the land and people through to keep them alive. In spite of her group’s isolation and life in the caves, she seems to understand some of the basics of Christianity, and she says that Kate should understand the notion of sacrifice because Christianity is built around one particular sacrifice. The fairy queen compares Christ’s sacrifice to the sacrifices that her cult holds – one person must give their life for the sake of the others as a way of transferring their life energy. Kate is a Christian, and she knows this description of Christ’s sacrifice isn’t completely accurate, but she tries to convince the queen that Christ’s sacrifice makes other sacrifices unnecessary. She says, since Christ gave Himself for the sake of humanity, He has guaranteed humanity’s safety so no others need to pay the price He paid. The queen argues that Christ’s sacrifice happened a long time ago, that His life energy has passed, and their cult holds a sacrifice on All Hallow’s Eve every seven years to renew the energy. Kate argues that Christ was special as the son of God, the only God that truly exists, and that His energy never dies, that it has transferred to living humans. She uses the story of Christopher’s namesake, St. Christopher, as an example of Christ’s power extending to humans. Unfortunately, the queen takes that to mean that Christopher holds some of Christ’s power in him, so sacrificing Christopher would not only give them the power of his life force but the power of Christ as well. Kate realizes that she can’t persuade the fairy queen or make her understand because the queen will just take everything she says and try to fit it into her views and what she has already decided needs to be done.
The philosophical and theological discussion between the two of them was fascinating, but the only way Kate can disrupt the sacrifice and save Christopher is to use the power of stories these people already believe. Kate never cared much for folk tales and ballads before, but she knows that the queen believes in the legend of Tam Lin and that the method the heroine from that story is the only one that can save a sacrifice like Christopher. When Kate finds out that the queen completely believes in that story, she realizes that she has to use the heroine’s solution from the story to rescue Christopher.
This is a point where the actual ritual differs from the magic in the story of Tam Lin. In the story of Tam Lin, he is physically changed into various forms that are frightening or difficult to hold onto, but his lover has to keep hold of him for him to be released from the magic. In this story, Christopher is not actually transformed into anything. It’s more psychological. The fairies believe that people who are going to be sacrificed need to give themselves to the sacrifice willingly, so they use psychological manipulation to convince Christopher that he has nothing to live for, playing on his feelings of guilt for not protecting his niece better and other traumatic pieces of his past, like his mother dying while giving birth to him and his father resenting him because of it. To hold on to him, like the heroine in the story, Kate has to speak up and convince him that the fairies are lying to him and that he does have things to live for. She needs to hold on to his mind and get him to assert his own will to survive while the fairies try to convince him that the only purpose he has left is to offer himself for sacrifice. “Holding on” in this case means holding on to one’s sense of self and one’s purpose, even in the face of doubts, insecurities, personal trauma, and the toxic influence or manipulation of other people.
Personal Growth
In her arguments with Christopher to get him to see that his life is worth living, Kate also confronts her own inner demons and insecurities – that everyone prefers her pretty sister, that she was blamed for things her sister did, etc. Their experiences with the fairies and confronting their personal demons are traumatic for Christopher and Kate, but they grow through them and come away with a better sense of self and greater self-assurance. Kate’s growth shows in the end both because she other women realize that she no longer fits into her clothes and will need new ones and in her maturity with dealing with her old insecurities when she sees her sister again.
There is a point when, because Alicia is thoughtless in the way she talks and has a habit of giving people the wrong impression about things, Kate thinks that Christopher has fallen in love with Alicia as the prettier sister and that he is going to marry her. This is crushing for Kate because Alicia is often favored by people and because she has fallen in love with Christopher through their shared experiences. The fairy queen makes a last appearance in which she offers to give Kate something to make Christopher fall in love with her, but Kate rejects it. While it would hurt for Christopher to reject her in favor of Alicia, and it would add to past hurts she’s had about Alicia being the favored girl, Kate has grown emotionally through the story. She is above the manipulations of the fairies, and whatever she encounters in her life that might cause her hurt, she has the emotional strength to handle it and do the right thing in spite of it. Her rejection of using dirty tricks is rewarded when Christopher proposes to Kate. Her doubts of his love were only because Alicia is thoughtless in the way she says things to people and because of Kate’s remaining insecurities. Kate is happy that she can accept Christopher’s honest love for what it is without attributing it to any manipulation. They’ve been through the worst together, they’ve seen each other’s insecurities, and they love each other all the more for it.
It isn’t just Christopher and Kate who grow through their experiences. Sir Geoffrey realizes that his own bad decisions and blindness to what was going on contributed to the danger his daughter was in. He had no idea what his steward was involved in and what was going on around the castle. He also realizes that little Cecily needs the attention of someone who can devote herself more to the little girl without distraction and a life in a more settled place with greater access to broader society, so he sends Cecily to her aunt’s house in London. Sir Geoffrey’s acceptance of his own failings absolves Christopher of the last of his guilt over Cecily’s disappearance/abduction.
I also appreciated that characters in the story didn’t hate each other even when they had suffered hut because of them. Sir Geoffrey didn’t stop loving his brother when he thought that Christopher had failed to protect Cecily. He found the loss of his daughter difficult to take, and his brother’s role in that was hard on his feelings for his brother. However, Sir Geoffrey never sought to banish or punish Christopher for it, and when he finds out that Christopher is in trouble, he races to the rescue! In the end, Kate also cares about Alicia. Even when she was punished for the letter that Alicia wrote and thought that she might lose Christopher to her, she didn’t let spite and resentment take over. I appreciate the characters’ growth, and I also liked the way they dealt with their emotions when they were hurt and things were difficult. They still care for their family members because, deep down, they still love them and want to do right by them, even when it isn’t easy.
Lucy Emerson (Lucy Watson after her marriage) and her family live in an English village in the 17th century. As an elderly woman in her early 60s, she looks back on her sister, Sarah. She has actually had two sisters named Sarah, but it’s her first sister Sarah that she thinks of.
Little Sarah was always a strange child. From when she was very small, she would do odd things, like rocking back and forth while singing odd little wordless songs and being very clumsy. She could never talk clearly, and most people couldn’t really understand her. Because she is abnormal, she is quickly labeled as a “changeling” – a fairy baby substituted for a regular human child. Those who don’t call her a changeling call her a “half-wit.” Only Lucy really values Sarah, whether she’s a little human child or a fairy child, and she tries hard to understand her and take care of her. What Sarah likes best are the little “stone dollies” – small statues of praying children – in the local church, and she always asks Lucy to take her there to see them.
Lucy and Sarah’s mother is often harsh with Sarah out of frustration because she’s difficult to understand and difficult to deal with. Some people in the community think that she should be even more harsh with Sarah than she is because, if she really is a changeling, the fairies or Little People might snatch her back if she isn’t being treated well, being beaten or starved. Their Granny believes that Sarah is a changeling, and she implies it often, comparing a changeling child to a cuckoo’s egg, substituted in the next for another’s bird’s egg. However, their mother never refers to Sarah as a changeling and doesn’t seem to believe that Sarah isn’t really her daughter.
Then, one day, they can’t find Sarah. It seems like she’s wandered off by herself. Lucy looks in the church to see of Sarah went there to look at the “stone dollies.” Sarah isn’t there, but one of the dollies has the daisy chain that Lucy made for Sarah. According to superstition, a daisy chain helps to protect a child from the fairies, and Lucy thinks that, without it, maybe the fairies did carry Sarah away. On the other hand, maybe Sarah fell in the river, and it carried her away. Worried, Lucy desperately searches the village for Sarah, until one woman says that she saw Sarah in the churchyard. She would have walked Sarah home, but Sarah didn’t want to come with her, so she came to get Lucy to take her. Lucy hurries back to the churchyard and finds Sarah there, waiting for her. Lucy demands to know what Sarah has been doing, and she says that she’s been playing with the “little people.” Fearing that Sarah is talking about the fairies, Lucy demands to know if she’s seen them before or had anything to eat from them, but Sarah just says, “Not telling.” Lucy considers that maybe Sarah meant something other than fairies when she said, “little people.” Maybe Sarah just met some other young children, or maybe she was talking about playing with the stone dollies again.
One day, Lucy leaves Sarah at home with their mother when she goes to visit their older sister, Martha, who is working at a farm near a neighboring town. Lucy’s mother tells her that Sarah should stay home because it’s such a long walk to the farm, and Sarah is too little to handle it. When Lucy returns home from the visit, she discovers that something disastrous has happened while she was away. Lucy’s mother, who was pregnant and due to give birth in another month or so, accidentally tripped over Sarah in some way and fall, bringing on the birth of the baby too soon. A neighbor who came to borrow some salt found her and called the midwife to come and tend to her. The baby is safely delivered and survives, but Lucy’s mother is in bad condition.
While everyone was busy attending to the mother, little Sarah apparently ran away from the house and disappeared. Lucy is too worried about her mother and the baby at first to leave the house and go looking for Sarah, although she sends her brother to ask the neighbors if they’ve seen her. Her uncle promises to look for her in the countryside and to send out criers to the neighboring towns if she isn’t found. However, the town is also disrupted that day by soldiers who vandalize the town’s church! Later, Lucy goes to look for Sarah in her usual favorite spots, but she doesn’t find her. When Lucy returns home, her brother tells her that their mother has died.
Their father says that their mother’s last wish was that this new baby girl will be named Sarah. Lucy is shocked because she is sure that the sister named she already has is still out there somewhere, lost. Lucy’s father isn’t so sure. He seems to suspect that the rumors were right, that Sarah was always a changeling, that maybe she has gone back to the fairies now, and that this new baby may be the Sarah they were always meant to have. At least, Lucy’s mother seemed to believe that when she told him that this new baby was to be named Sarah. Lucy never thought that her father believed the changeling stories, but he privately admits to Lucy that he doesn’t really know what to think. None of it makes sense to Lucy because, after all, her mother was pregnant with this new baby while Sarah was still at home with them. If the first Sarah was taken away and the “real” Sarah left her in place, surely there would be two babies now – the “real” Sarah plus this other new sister. As it is, there’s only one baby and one missing sister. Lucy father says that if Sarah returns before the baby’s christening, they will choose another name for the baby, but if she’s still gone, she is probably gone for good, and the baby will be named Sarah.
Sarah is not found by the time the baby is christened, so the new baby becomes the “new” Sarah. Sarah’s father and sister, Martha, try to console Lucy about the loss of the first Sarah, saying that it might be for the best and that Lucy’s life will be easier now because Sarah was too wild, too strange, and too difficult to care for. Lucy feels even worse then they say that because, although Sarah was difficult to look after, Lucy truly loved her and didn’t think of her as a burden. Lucy takes care of her new sister for a couple of years, never giving up hope that she will find the first Sarah or at least learn what happened to her. When Lucy’s father decides to remarry, Lucy goes to work on the farm where Martha is working, leaving the new Sarah to be cared for by their stepmother.
It’s only after Lucy goes to work on the farm that she eventually meets someone who is able to tell her at least some of what happened to the first Sarah after she was lost.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction and Some Spoilers
I first read this story as a young teen in middle school, and I found it fascinating for the historical and folkloric connections. This story takes place over a period of years. The year when the older Lucy reflects on her sister Sarah is 1700. During the year that the first Sarah disappeared, Lucy is talking to someone else, and they mention the Roundheads and that the king was executed the year before, so they are referring to the execution of Charles I in 1649, putting the year of that conversation at 1650. Most of the book is set around the middle of the 17th century.
In real life, there were stories about changelings, fairy children substituted for human children as infants, and stories like this seem to have been used to explain human children born with deformities or disabilities of various kinds. Modern people might recognize that young Sarah was born with some kind of developmental disability, which is why she’s not like her siblings, but people in the past didn’t have as much ability to diagnose or understand people who were born “different” from others. They couldn’t understand how children with disabilities could be born to apparently healthy parents, especially ones who had produced other healthy children, so they explained it by saying that those children were not the “real” children but substitutes left by the fairies in exchange for the healthy human children, like a cuckoo lays its eggs in the nests of other birds, to be raised and cared for by them. In the story, Lucy’s grandmother makes the comparison between Sarah and the cuckoo bird, although Lucy is very upset by that description.
During the course of the story, Lucy, as the one who seems to understand Sarah the best and love her the most, struggles to find her missing sister and learn what happened to her. At various times, she also struggles to reconcile what other people tell her about Sarah being a changeling or being taken away by fairies with her own love for Sarah as her sister, a real sister and not just a changeling, and her own worries about the more mundane tragedies that can befall a lost and neglected child. There are times when Lucy finds it difficult to ignore the superstitions of the people who raised her, and she finds herself at least halfway believing in fairies and that the girl she loves as a sister is in danger from them. While Sarah is with her, she makes daisy chains for her to wear as a precaution against the fairies taking her, although those who seem to most believe that Sarah is a changeling would be happy to see her reclaimed by fairies in the hopes of getting the “real” child back.
When their dying mother insists that the new baby girl be named Sarah, Lucy is heart-broken, realizing that her mother believes that Sarah was a changeling all along and that this new baby is the “real” daughter that Sarah should have been. However, to Lucy, who always loved the first Sarah, this new baby is the imposter Sarah, the “new” Sarah, taking the place of the Sarah she has loved and cared for. She never feels the same way about the new Sarah as she did for the first Sarah.
What always interested me about the story since I read it when I was young was how it demonstrates that real phenomena and the more inexplicable parts of human nature are part of the basis behind folklore. All through the book, people refer to children like the first Sarah as being “changelings” because they simply don’t understand why these children are the way they are, but the superstition is ultimately less about people genuinely trying to understand something and more finding a way of taking out their emotions on the “problem” or finding an excuse for not really dealing with it. Beyond the adults simply failing to understand children like Sarah and help their development to the best of their ability, their superstitions lead some of them to be deliberately cruel to children like her in the hopes that the fairies will decide to reclaim them. When a child like that runs away or is lost and never recovered, the adults tell themselves that the child was simply taken by the fairies, apparently both as an excuse to stop looking for a child they don’t know how to handle and also to soothe themselves that they don’t have to worry about her anymore because she is being taken care of by her “real” supernatural family. Whether they really believe that’s what is happening on an intellectual level or not, if they can convince themselves and others that it’s true on an emotional level, then they’re basically letting themselves off the hook and getting rid of an unwanted responsibility without guilt, which sounds a lot less noble than trying to understand and help make the situation better. I think that attitude comes from the sense that these people didn’t think it was even possible for them to understand or deal with the situation. From that attitude, the notion of the “problem child” magically vanishing would be appealing.
It’s sad because, as readers realize, that is not actually the case. Sarah’s disappearance isn’t magical. What Lucy learns about Sarah after the time she disappeared contradicts that idea because she did almost die but was rescued by a kind stranger who happened to be in the right place to find her. Sarah’s eventual whereabouts are unknown at the end of the story because she seems to have wandered off when her caretaker died or shortly before that. Until the very end of the story, elderly Lucy thinks that Sarah is probably dead, having spent some time wandering wild somewhere, but the fact that she never learns for sure leaves it open that Sarah could be alive or for Lucy to convince herself that maybe she finally got Sarah back in the end. When another child, who is very like Sarah, is born into the family, elderly Lucy finds herself wondering again about changelings. Is this new child just another unfortunate child who happened to inherit the developmental disability that Sarah had, or has the original Sarah managed to come back to Lucy in another form? They are so much alike that Lucy begins speaking to her as Sarah, and the new child answers just like Sarah always did, leaving the situation ambiguous in Lucy’s mind.
Although Lucy is ambivalent in her feelings at the end of the story, modern readers will likely side with the more scientific explanation of heredity and genes that sometimes reappear in later generations, producing lookalikes and people with similar health conditions. However, I think that the author did a good job of depicting the uncertainty that affects people confronted by situations and conditions they have no capacity to understand. The people of Lucy’s time did not understand what causes developmental disabilities. Because they needed to come up with an explanation for something they couldn’t understand, they developed the superstition about children like Sarah not being fully human or being substitutes for the “real” children, who were abducted by supernatural beings. Lucy finds herself torn between her own sense that Sarah is her real, human sister and that there must be more logical explanations and her own inability to understand what ultimately happened to her sister.
The book is a little sad because readers can recognize that, with better understanding and support, the original Sarah would have lived a much happier life and that Lucy (and others who appear later in the story) wanted to give her the support she needed but just didn’t know how. At the end of the book, Lucy reflects that times have changed since she was younger. Most people don’t believe in changelings and other old superstitions in 1700, not as much as they did in 1650. The Puritans, in particular, reject all such ideas as “pagan superstitions.” Society seems to be moving more in the direction of rationalism. Lucy says, “So there are plenty boasting nowadays that they cannot believe in such hocus-pocus, and that they have what they call a scientific reason for explaining any strange happenings that occur, instead of blaming the fairies, duergars or witches even. Though much that some call scientific I would say was just plain common sense.”
Even though Lucy generally believes in the rational explanations for what likely happened to the first Sarah, she experiences some doubt again at the end of the story, when she’s confronted with the young relative who looks so much like her. I liked the way the story ends on a slightly ambiguous note, with Lucy reconsidering whether or not Sarah was a changeling and if she has come back to her in another form. Modern readers know that’s not likely, but it does speak to the lifelong uncertainty that Lucy has lived with and the element of uncertainty that often surrounds the human experience in general. Even in modern times, there are many things that we don’t fully understand. In the 21st century, we’re more likely to accept the idea that, just because we don’t know the explanation for something doesn’t mean that there is no explanation that humans can understand but that we just don’t understand it yet. Still, that feeling that there are things beyond our mental grasp still appeals to the human imagination. If Lucy wants to believe that she has found Sarah again, after a fashion, it might give her some peace. For me, though, I just feel a little reassured that this member of the next generation might get more of the love, attention, and support that Sarah always needed, at least from Lucy, and less of the superstition surrounding her condition.
In the section at the back of the book about the author, it says that Kathleen Hersom used to volunteer at a hospital working with mentally disabled children. She was inspired to write this story both because of that experience and because of her interest in folklore.
Bronwen and Dylan are two young children who live in Liverpool. They moved there from Wales with their mother after their father died in a mining accident. The family is poor, and their mother works out of her home as a laundress. When she has some free time, she tells the children exciting stories about dragons and ghosts.
The family living next to them, the O’Rileys, are also poor, but the children’s mother discourages the children from being too friendly with them. The children don’t fully understand why, but it has something to do with the fact that the O’Rileys go to a different church. Bronwen’s mother tells her that the O’Rileys are not their kind of people and that she doesn’t want her to go near their church.
As Christmas approaches, “times are hard”, and the children’s mother doesn’t have much money. She saves what she can to give the children a bit of a treat, but she can’t spare much. Although their mother doesn’t like leaving her young children home alone, on Christmas Eve, the children are tired, and she needs to do a little more shopping. She tells the children to be good, play nicely, and not open the door for anyone and that she will be back soon.
Things are fine at first, but then, the children begin hearing a strange sound. They can’t figure out what it is, but it seems to be coming from their mother’s wash house. Based on their mother’s stories, they think maybe it’s a ghost! In a panic, Bronwen and Dylan run out of their house and straight into Mrs. O’Riley. Fortunately, Mrs. O’Riley knows what the sound is, and as a mother herself, knows what to do.
The book is available to borrow and read for free through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
Although this story never explains what year it takes place, it appears to be set during the Great Depression. (Although the Great Depression started in the United States, and this story is set in England, economies all over the world are and have been connected to each other. When one country’s economy experiences something catastrophic, it affects everyone else. The Great Depression was a worldwide event.) The setting is partly in the way people are dressed but also in their circumstances. The way the mother does the laundry is an old-fashioned, labor-intensive process. More tellingly, not only is the children’s widowed mother poor and struggling to get by as a laundress, but the O’Rileys are struggling, too. The children in the story know that Mr. O’Riley and his grown sons often work at the docks, and when there’s no work for them there, they hang out on the street with other men looking for work, and they don’t always find it. This is a time when everyone is poor and suffering. In the back of the book, the author explains that the story was based on her own memories of growing up in Liverpool in the 1930s.
The book doesn’t explicitly identify what the O’Rileys’ religion is because the story mainly focuses on young Bronwen and her perspective. The Irish name is a clue, but Bronwen also says that she once looked inside the church that the O’Rileys attend, out of curiosity, and she saw stained glass, candles, and statues, far more decoration than she normally sees in the comparatively plain church she attends with her mother. These are features of Catholic churches that aren’t always found in Protestant churches, at least not to the same degree, especially in more strict Protestant churches. The religious symbols in the O’Rileys’ house also confirm that this is a Catholic family. The issue between Bronwen’s mother and the O’Rileys is the conflict between Catholics and Protestants, and Bronwen’s mother fearing that the O’Rileys and their different ways might have a negative effect on her children.
In real life, in the modern world, I wouldn’t recommend small children going into a neighbor’s house without their mother’s knowledge and approval, but in the story, it works out for the best. When Bronwen and Dylan’s mother finds out how Mrs. O’Riley helped look after the children when they were alone and scared, she realizes that she can trust the O’Rileys. Mrs. O’Riley even offers to look after the children sometimes when their mother needs to go somewhere, and the children’s mother is grateful. It’s difficult for her, being on her own and not living near other relatives, who could help look after the children. She needs someone to rely on for help sometimes, and the key to finding someone is being open to getting help from people around her, regardless of their religion.
I thought was also telling that the neighbors’ last name is O’Riley. That’s an Irish name. Bronwen and Dylan’s family moved to Liverpool, England from Wales, but it seems like the O’Rileys have probably moved there from Ireland. We don’t know the history of the O’Riley family and how long they’ve lived in Liverpool, but it seems likely that both of these families are from somewhere else, living in an area that probably has a lot of immigrants who are struggling to get established and look for new opportunities in a new place during economically rough times. Aside from the religious differences, their positions are probably pretty similar.
I enjoyed the old-fashioned charm of the pictures in the story. The family lives in a small, old-fashioned house, and they are obviously poor, but at the same time, it’s charming and cozy.
An Ellis Island Christmas by Maxinne Rhea Leighton, illustrated by Dennis Nolan, 1992.
A six-year-old girl, Krysia Petrowski, knows that her family is preparing to leave Poland for the United States. Her father went ahead to America to establish a home for the rest of the family, and she knows that she, her mother, and her brothers will soon follow him. She doesn’t want to leave her home and her best friend, but her mother explains that life will be better in America because there is more food and there are no soldiers in the streets.
When the family begins packing to leave for America, they cannot bring everything with them because they have a long walk to get to the ship that will take them to America, and they can only bring what they can carry with them. The girl can only bring one of her two dolls with her, and she is sad at having to leave one behind.
When they board the ship, the conditions are cramped and cold. The food isn’t good, either. The voyage is rough and stormy, and many people are seasick. The one bright point is that Krysia meets another girl she knows from school, Zanya, so she knows that she won’t be going to America alone and friendless. Krysia and Zanya play together on the ship when the weather is better.
Finally, they reach Ellis Island on the day before Christmas. Everyone lines up, and the family has to show their papers to the immigration officials. Doctors look at them to make sure they are healthy enough to go ashore and into the city. Fortunately, they pass the health tests, although Krysia sees another woman who is told that she will have to go into the hospital or back to Poland because she is ill. The family converts their money to American money and buys some food. A man has to explain to them how to eat a banana because they’ve never seen one before.
Because it’s Christmas Eve, there is a big Christmas tree, covered with lights and toys. There is also a man dressed like Santa Claus, although Krysia thinks of him by the Polish name, Saint Mikolaj. They don’t receive any new presents, but Krysia’s mother does have a surprise for her. The best part is when Krysia’s father comes for them and takes them to their new home.
The book ends with a section explaining the history behind the story.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
The focus of this story is all on the feelings and experiences of the immigrant family, especially little Krysia. Krysia’s impressions of the journey and the arrival at Ellis Island are all a child’s impressions, and she often needs explanations of what’s happening and what’s going to happen next, which is helpful to child readers.
The historical context for the story is provided in the section of historical information at the end and in some hints during the course of the story. The section of historical information in the back of the book discusses the peak years of US immigration, from 1892 to 1924. They don’t say exactly what year this story takes place, but it mentions 48 stars on the American flag. That means that this is the early 20th century, after Arizona and New Mexico were admitted as states in 1912. During that time, 70% of US immigrants came through the immigration center on Ellis Island, just off the coast of New York City. Of those who arrived at Ellis Island, about a third stayed in New York, and the others spread out across the US. The family in the story seems to be going to stay in New York, but because the focus of the story is mainly on the journey, there are still few details provided about this family’s background and circumstances. The section of historical information also explains a little more about the traveling conditions of immigrants around that time and what typically happened at Ellis Island, so readers can understand how the experiences of the characters in the story fit into the experiences of other, real-life immigrants. (For more details, I recommend reading If Your Name Was Changed at Ellis Island and Immigrant Kids, nonfiction books which echo many of the details included in this book.)
There is some discussion in the section of historical information about the reasons why immigrants left their homes, and we told in the beginning of the story that there are shortages of food in Poland and soldiers everywhere, but there is more that I’d like to say about this. Because I like to add context to historical stories, I’d like to talk what was happening in early 20th century Poland and what’s behind the circumstances the characters describe. During the 19th century, parts of Poland were under the control of three different European empires: Russia, Prussia (a German state), and the Austro-Hungarian Empire (while later dissolved into Austria and Hungary). The oppressive control of these imperial powers accounts for the soldiers the family describes on the streets. There were Poles who resisted the control of these forces and wanted to reunify their country, so the soldiers were to keep the population under control and put down resistance. Around the turn of the 20th century, Polish territories were also suffering from unemployment and land shortages, which explains the food shortages the family experiences. Because of these conditions, there was massive immigration from Poland to the United States during the late 19th century and early 20th century. The Petrowski family in the story would have been on the tail end of this wave of immigration because circumstances changed for Poland after World War I (1914 to 1918), when Poland became an independent country again. Some Polish immigrants to the United States intended to stay only for a relatively short time, hoping to save up money and return to their homeland with the money to purchase land or improve their family’s circumstances, but many of these people remained in the United States anyway.
Because the main character, Krysia, is only six years old, she likely wouldn’t understand the full background of her family’s circumstances and the political causes of the hardships in her country, but I like to explain these things for the benefit of readers. I think it’s also interesting that this story is a Christmas story. We are never told what the religion of the characters is, although it seems that they are Christian because they care that it’s Christmas. Many people from Poland were Catholic, so it’s possible that this family was Catholic, too, but it’s never clarified.
If you read the short biographies of the author and illustrator of the story, the author reveals that the inspiration for the story was the story of her own family’s journey from Poland. The illustrator says that he went on a tour of Ellis Island to prepare for producing the illustrations, and he tried to capture the “awe and anticipation” of the immigrants and the high vaulted ceilings and views of the New York skyline through the windows. I’ve also been to Ellis Island, and the illustrations in the book brought back memories of my trip there. I thought that the illustrator did a good job of capturing how big, impressive, and bewildering the Ellis Island compound would be to a young child.
When Jessie Came Across the Sea by Amy Hest, illustrated by P. J. Lynch, 1997.
Jessie and her grandmother live in a small, thatched cottage in a small village. The little village is poor, and so are Jessie and her grandmother. Jessie’s parents died when she was a baby. Jessie’s grandmother raised her, and she insists that Jessie have lessons with the village rabbi, like the boys in the village. Jessie can read and write, and she also tries to teach her grandmother. Her grandmother makes a little money by sewing lace, and she teaches Jessie how to sew. Although they don’t have much, they are basically content with their lives.
Then, one evening, the rabbi makes an important announcement. His brother, who was living in America, has died. Before his death, he sent a ticket for a ship traveling to America to the rabbi, asking him to join him in America. Now that his brother is dead, there is no need for the rabbi to go to America, and he would rather stay in the village with his congregation. However, he thinks that someone else should use the ticket his brother sent.
Various villagers ask rabbi if they can use the ticket, offering reasons why each of them would be the best person to go. They brag up their best qualities, boasting about how strong, smart, and brave they are. The rabbi knows that they’re boasting, so he just tells them that he will pray about it and let them know his decision tomorrow.
The next day, he goes to see Jessie and her grandmother and tells them that Jessie should be the one to go to America. His reasoning is that his brother’s widow owns a dress shop in New York City. Jessie can work there, and she would be a comfort to a lonely widow. Jessie doesn’t really want to leave her grandmother, and her grandmother fears to send her, but her grandmother can see the rabbi’s logic. She knows that this is an important opportunity for Jessie.
So, Jessie leaves her village and sets sail on a crowded ship for America. On the ship, Jessie is scared, lonely, and seasick. As Jessie spends time with the other passengers, she makes a few friends, and she sews a few small items for them. A boy named Lou, who is a shoemaker’s son, makes a pair of small shoes for a baby, and he and Jessie also become friends.
Finally, their ship arrives at New York. Everyone crowds around the rails of the ship to see the Statue of Liberty and their first glimpse of America. The ship docks at Ellis Island, and the passengers disembark to be inspected and questioned by immigration officials.
The rabbi’s brother’s widow comes to meet Jessie. She is a friendly woman, and she asks Jessie to call her Cousin Kay. Cousin Kay shows Jessie around the city. It’s a crowded, confusing place with fascinating sights, although the streets aren’t paved with gold, as Jessie has heard. Cousin Kay runs the dress shop out of her home, and she pays Jessie to sew for her. Jessie likes watching the busy street outside while she sews, and she saves the money she earns in a jar.
When Jessie puts some lace on a plain white dress, turning it into a lovely bridal gown, the shop becomes popular with young women who are getting married and looking for similar gowns.
Cousin Kay also insists that Jessie go to school and learn English. It isn’t easy, but Jessie learns. She likes walking around the city and going to the local library. Gradually, Jessie begins feeling more at home in New York, and she builds a new life for herself there. One day, she runs into Lou again in the park, and they begin meeting there regularly. Lou proposes to Jessie, and Jessie uses the money she has saved to buy a ticket so her grandmother can come to America for their wedding.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
I remember reading this book when I was young! I was really older than the target audience when it was first published, but I enjoyed the story. It’s one of those books that I think takes on more significance when you’re older and understand more of the history behind the story. We don’t know exactly where Jessie is from because the book never says, but her journey resembles the kind of journey that many people made during this same period of history. We don’t know the year, either, but it appears to be set in the late 19th century or early 20th century.
Although coming to a strange country, alone and unable to speak the language, is a scary experience, Jessie is fortunate because there is a friendly and caring person waiting there for her, and she has a job lined up that suits her skills. In real life, not everyone was so fortunate, and it was more of a struggle for them to get established in their new home. Jessie still has to struggle with homesickness and missing her grandmother, but her life changes for the better because she took the chance to go to a new country and start a new life. Readers can emphasize with Jessie’s fears and uncertainty as she starts out on her journey and celebrate with her when things work out for the best.
The pictures in the book are beautiful! Readers really get the sense that they’re seeing another time, with Jessie’s tiny village, the crowded ship in the rain, and busy New York City, more than 100 years ago. Even when the environment and circumstances are harsh, the pictures are charming.
There is a note in the beginning of the book for parents and teachers about how they can use this book to spark discussion with children. They can use the opportunity to invite children to learn how their own families arrived in America, because this book was originally intended for an audience of young American readers, and most people who live in the United States (with the exception of Native Americans) are descended from people who came from somewhere else. It’s an opportunity for children to learn their family’s history and to see how it compares with that of other people, whose families also made a decision to come here and start over, going through their own struggles along the way. There is also some general advice about sharing books with children, and making a point of surrounding children with books and reading aloud to them.
Young Lucy and Glory Wolcott are orphans in London during the Victorian era, 1848. Their parents died during a disease epidemic, and the penniless girls now live in a work house for orphans. They’ve been living there for 5 years, doing sewing for their support, although they are kept in terrible conditions there, with bad food. Then, another girl who lives in the work house dies of an illness, and people worry about the disease infecting others, as it did during the epidemic. Soon, other girls in the work house get sick. Lucy worries about her little sister, who is only 6 years old and already too thin from the bad food, will get sick and die, too. People begin saying that it may be safer living on the streets than being cooped up with the sickness.
The only comfort that Lucy and Glory have in their lives is each other and the story that Lucy tells Glory of her memories of Christmas with their parents. Glory was too young when their parents died to remember their parents or what life was like when their parents were alive, when they had someone to take care of them and actually had proper food. Glory loves the story that Lucy tells about the doll named Morning Glory that their mother gave her for Christmas but which was left behind when the girls were sent to the alms house and then to the work house when their parents died. Glory dreams that, someday, they’ll find that doll again. Lucy tells Glory that, when she finds her doll again, she’ll recognize her.
As more children at the work house die, Lucy increasingly fears that her sister will get sick and die. She thinks about running away from the work house with her sister, but she’s afraid of what they would do on their own. They don’t receive much food or care in the work house, and they’re subject to beatings and abuse, but what would they do on the streets, and how would they survive?
When Glory develops a cough, Lucy is sent to the sick ward at the work house, and Lucy is terrified that she will never come back. Both Lucy and Glory know that none of the girls who are sent to the sick ward with this cough have come back. Terrified, Lucy thinks that the only way to save Glory is to rescue her from the sick ward and get her out of the work house.
The two girls successfully run away, but once they’re on the streets, they have nowhere to go and don’t know what to do. They have nowhere to stay, and they have to sleep in the cold. Without food or money, Lucy trades a small pair of scissors that she brought from the work house for a couple of crumpets from a muffin seller, although a boy later tells her that the scissors were worth much more than that and that the seller took advantage of her. Lucy worries that they have no way to survive on their own because they don’t know what to do and have nothing else that they can sell or trade.
A kind washerwoman suggests to the girls that they go down to the river to join the mudlarks, who spend their days hunting for things to scavenge and sell in the mud at the river’s edge. Sometimes, she say, they find truly amazing things. With nothing else to do, the girls try it. The mud is smelly and disgusting, and at first, all they find are some old bones and bent nails. They’re about to give up when they find something that is truly amazing – a doll!
The doll is worn out, but its head is still good, and immediately, Glory declares that this is Morning Glory, the lost doll that has come back to them, just like the stories that Lucy has told her. With a heavy heart, Lucy realizes that they’re not going to be able to keep the doll. They have nothing else they can sell for money, and if they don’t sell the doll, they will have nothing to buy food and shelter.
At the suggestion of a rag and bone dealer, who is kind enough to let little Glory sleep by her fire for a time, Lucy takes the doll to a dollmaker. She hates having to do it and knows that it will break little Glory’s heart, but they are starving, and their lives are at stake. The doll is in such bad condition that only the head is worth something, and the dollmaker is prepared to offer Lucy a penny for it. That’s not much, but it’s more than Lucy was expecting. Then, something happens that changes everything for the better for Lucy and Glory.
The dollmaker notices the little morning glory flower embroidered on the apron Lucy is wearing. It’s actually Glory’s apron, and Lucy embroidered the flower for her because Glory was named after the morning glory flowers, just like her doll. The dollmaker asks Lucy who did the embroidery, and Lucy timidly admits that she did. At first, she worries that she shouldn’t confess that because she used thread from the work house to do it, and she would surely be punished for stealing if anybody knew. However, the dollmaker is impressed with Lucy’s sewing skills.
Then, before Lucy can leave the shop, the dollmaker gets word that Mary, the girl who sews the hearts on the dolls has been taken seriously ill and isn’t expected to survive. The disease that afflicted the girls in the work house is everywhere. The dollmaker worries because this particular doll shop is known for the signature hearts that are sewn onto their dolls, and the tradition is that only a girl can sew them, not an adult. Losing the girl who sews the hearts isn’t just sad but also serious for the doll shop because it’s only two weeks to Christmas, and they have a lot of orders to fill. If they can’t find another girl who can sew or break the tradition of the doll hearts, they won’t be able to complete their orders and will lose their shop’s reputation. Of course, it doesn’t take the the dollmaker long to realize that the solution to the problem is literally standing right in front of them.
Lucy is stunned when the dollmaker, Miss Thimbleby offers her the job of sewing the hearts on the dolls. It would only be through Christmas, but it would be regular work, something Lucy definitely needs. However, Lucy worries about what she will do with Glory. There doesn’t seem to be a place for her in the shop. Miss Thimbleby will let Lucy stay overnight in the shop to tend the fire, but Lucy isn’t supposed to let anyone else in after the shop is closed. Could she persuade Miss Thimbleby to let Glory in with her, or could Lucy find a place for Glory to be?
When Lucy returns to the rag and bone shop to talk to Glory, she discovers that the husband of the kind lady is much less charitable and has turned Glory out into the streets. In a panic, Lucy searches for her, losing their only penny out of her pocket. Eventually, she finds Glory with the boy who had told her that she was cheated over the matter of the scissors, Nick. Glory has told him about their escape from the work house, and Lucy sadly confesses her sale of the doll to Glory. Fortunately, Nick sees how Lucy’s new job at the doll shop can help them all.
Since the job requires Lucy to spend every night in the doll shop, tending the fire and keeping warm, Nick points out that Lucy can sneak him and Glory in after hours. In return for being allowed to sleep in the warm doll shop with the girls, Nick says that he will look after Glory during the day and that she can help him to make a little money that will help support them all. Nick is also a homeless orphan, and he get money catching rats and doing acrobatics on the streets. Glory doesn’t like the idea of the rats much, but Nick has her passing the hat while he performs on the streets. Her pitiful cough will help them get more charity.
It’s not an ideal situation, but Lucy agrees that this is the best way to manage things. Lucy continues to worry about her little sister, running around in the cold with Nick during the day, although they do have a warm place to sleep now. At night, Lucy lets Glory hold the doll Morning Glory, although she reminds Glory that the doll now belongs to the shop.
While working at the shop, Lucy notices that Miss Thimbleby also has a favorite doll, one that is never for sale. She calls this doll Charlotte and talks to it when she thinks nobody can hear here. The other women who work in the doll shop explain to Lucy that Charlotte, the real Charlotte, was Miss Thimbleby’s little sister. The sisters were orphans, like Lucy and Glory. Charlotte was much younger than Miss Thimbleby, and Miss Thimbleby raised her. Charlotte was the original hearts girl of the shop, the one who always sewed the signature hearts on the dolls and started the tradition. Sadly, Charlotte died young of an illness. The doll Charlotte was the very last one that the girl Charlotte gave a heart to before she died, and that’s why Miss Thimbleby refuses to sell it and sometimes talks to it, like she’s talking to her sister.
As Christmas approaches and Glory’s illness becomes worse, Lucy increasingly fears for her life. Glory’s illness is particularly bad on Christmas Eve. Miss Thimbleby has promised Lucy that, as part of the tradition of the hearts girl, Lucy may choose any unsold doll in the shop for herself on Christmas Eve. Lucy has her sights set on Morning Glory so she can return her to Glory, but a series of unexpected events and a generous, good-hearted decision from Glory lead to marvelous changes for the girls.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction and Some Spoilers
This story, set in a Dickensian London in the mid-19th century is touching and sometimes a bit tear-jerky, but it’s full of old-fashioned Christmas spirit! The book doesn’t minimize the risks to the children’s lives. The lives of poor people in this period were harsh, and children were vulnerable to being orphaned or even dying young of disease. The story even talks about children being taken advantage of by unscrupulous and uncaring adults, whether it’s being cheated out in a trade for food or the talk of children on the streets being kidnapped and forced into servitude as chimney sweeps. Parentless children on the streets wouldn’t know which adults to trust, and those realities are shown in the story. The children’s worries and hardships make the happy ending of the story touching.
Some readers might guess at the likely, most happy ending for the girls because there is one adult in the story who would have sympathy for a pair of orphaned sisters. The eventual fate of Morning Glory and whether her loss or gain would help Glory hangs in the balance for most of the story. The role Morning Glory plays in the ending of the story is important, and it’s Glory’s decision about Morning Glory that helps determine the girls’ fate and also touches two other lives. Don’t worry about the doll, though. The story works out well for the doll, being with someone who truly needs and appreciates her. The lives of all three children are changed for the better in the end, too.
The Log Cabin Quilt by Ellen Howard, illustrated by Ronald Himler, 1996.
Elvirey’s granny loves quilting, and she always saves scraps of cloth from old clothes in a flour sack for her quilts. After Elvirey’s mother dies, her father moves the family to Michigan, traveling by covered wagon. When Elvirey tries to pack some of her mother’s things to bring with them, her father insists that they leave them behind, saying that they don’t have room for them. However, Granny insists on bringing her sack of quilting scraps, saying that she will sit on them in the wagon.
When the family finally reaches their destination, it’s just a clearing in a wooded area. They camp near a spring, and Elvirey’s father and brother begin building a cabin for the family. Elvirey and her sister add the chinking to the log walls of the cabin, packing the gaps with a mixture of mud and grass to keep out the wind.
However, the cabin still doesn’t feel like home to Elvirey. They don’t have her mother’s books, and there aren’t any flowers growing nearby to decorate the house like her mother would.
Then, one cold day, Elvirey’s father goes out hunting. He says that he will back before dark, but he doesn’t return. The night is very cold, and Elvirey and her family suddenly realize that it’s more than unusually cold in the cabin. The chinking they put in the walls of the cabin has frozen and fallen out, and the cold is getting in. Worse still, it’s starting to snow.
They’re worried about what happened to their father, and they’re worried about what they will do with the cold getting into the cabin. Then, suddenly, Elvirey has an inspiration. There is something they can use to fill the cracks in the cabin walls: Granny’s quilting scraps. With scraps from everyone’s clothes suddenly decorating the walls of the cabin, the cabin begins to look like it has turned into a quilt itself. When Elvirey’s father returns, he tells her that her mother would be proud of her, and for the first time, the cabin starts to feel like home to Elvirey.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
There’s a pun in this story that people who don’t know the names of quilting patterns might miss. There are many patterns that the squares of a quilt can have, and Log Cabin is a traditional quilting pattern. When Elvirey and her siblings stuff the quilting scraps into the walls of their cabin, their Granny laughs about them creating a “log cabin quilt”, and it’s not just that she’s amused that they’ve made their cabin walls look like a quilt with all the scraps; it’s a pun on the name of the quilting pattern.
Although the story is about a family of pioneers, the focus of the story isn’t really their journey by covered wagon or the building of their cabin. It’s about loss and change and about what makes a new place feel like home. At first, Elvirey doesn’t feel like their cabin is their home because they no longer have the familiar things that belonged to her mother, and she can’t do some of the things that her mother used to do, like decorating the home with flowers. Even the quilt scraps and their associated memories don’t quite make her feel like home, although they do add a needed touch of color and hominess to the cabin. What finally makes Elvirey feel like home is when her father mentions her mother. Since her mother died, her father hasn’t smiled and hasn’t talked about her mother at all. When he sees what they did with the quilt scraps, he does both, and that makes Elvirey finally feel like they’re home. She really needed that sense of her mother’s presence or her memory to really get a feeling of home.
Elvirey is an unusual name, but I think it’s a nickname or variation of Elvira. Elvira is an unusual name in modern times, and in the United States in modern times, it usually reminds people of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, a character portrayed by Cassandra Peterson and known for hosting horror movies since the 1980s. That reference has no relation to the story. Elvira/Elvirey is just an interesting and unusual name.
William’s House by Ginger Howard, illustrated by Larry Day, 2001.
It’s 1637 in Colonial New England, and a man named William is building a house for himself and his family. He wants a house that’s like his father’s house in England. The story describes all the steps he and his family go through to build the new house.
The descriptions include interesting historical details about homes from the Colonial era. When the family wants to put a window in their house, they don’t have any glass, so William uses a very thin piece of animal horn instead. It lets in light, but the window opening is still covered. William also uses stones and clay from a nearby creek when he builds a fireplace for the house.
William and his family also need furniture for the house. William uses boards from a wooden packing crate to make a table, and he stuffs bags with corn husks to make beds. When the house is finished, and the family is living in it, the book describes aspects of their daily lives. It describes how the family eats together.
The family has to change some of their habits and make additions to their house and the area around it because conditions are different in New England. The weather is hotter than they’re accustomed to from their lives in England, and their food spoils faster, so William digs a cellar for storing food. Before ice boxes and refrigeration, people would store their food underground in root cellars because it was cooler underground. When the thatch on their roof dries out and becomes a fire risk, William replaces the thatch with singles.
Then, when winter comes and it snows, they realize that the snow is too heavy for the roof, so William replaces the whole roof with one that has a steeper slope, so the snow will slide off. Then, he has to make the fireplace bigger because the house is so cold.
When spring comes, William’s cousin Samuel arrives from England with his wife, and he asks William about the design of his house. Originally, William wanted a house like the one he grew up in, but because he’s living in a different place and under different conditions, he’s had to make many changes to the house. Still, it’s his family’s new house, and it’s exactly what they need it to be.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
I love stories about life in the past, and I liked all of the little details of daily life in this story. The main focus of the story is about the building of a new home, and at first, William wants a house like the one where he grew up in England. However, when the family experiences what life is like in New England, they realize that they have to make some changes to their home and the way they live. I like the way the book points out that the style of a person’s home depends on where they live and the circumstances of their life. The family doesn’t fully understand at first what their new lives will be like and what they really need, but they learn to adjust, and they make changes to their new house along the way.
When William’s cousin arrives, he doesn’t understand the design of their house at first. He hasn’t been living in New England yet, but readers know that he’s about to find out some of the reasons why people’s houses in New England are different from those in England at the same time period. At the end of the book, the characters are building a new house near William’s house, so it seems that his cousin and his wife will be living there, and they will benefit from what William has learned about building a house suitable for that environment.
Jestress's Forgotten Books and Stories 