Hand Shadows to be Thrown Upon the Wall by Henry Bursill, 1859, 1967.
When I first read and started playing with this book as a kid, I didn’t stop to read the preface in the book or look at the publishing date, so I completely missed the fact that this is a reprint of a book from the late 1850s. The author, Henry Bursill (link repaired 9-11-24), was a professional artist
In the preface, Bursill refers to a well-known print from the early 19th century called The Rabbit on the Wall, which shows a father making shadow figures on the wall with his hands to amuse his children. Bursill says that there have been other books about hand shadows before his, but he emphasizes that his book is not the same as theirs because he has worked out his own hand shadows through experimentation. He says that it will take some practice for people making hand shadows to get them perfectly, but he encourages people to practice and not be afraid to work out new hand shadows of their own through experimentation. Bursill did the illustrations for the book himself, and he says that he began sketching some of the designs during his time as an art student and that he would amuse some fellow students by making hand shadows on the wall of his studio.
Other than the preface, the only words in the book are the captions on each of the pictures. I’ve tried some of the hand shadows in the book, and I had a more difficult time than the preface makes it sound. The only ones I’ve really been able to do well were the bird and the greyhound. I haven’t given up on mastering some of the more difficult ones someday, though!
This is the first book of the Kipper and Larry mystery series. Kipper (real name Christopher) and Larry are 13-year-old cousins. The two boys meet each other for the first time in this book, when Kipper comes to visit Larry and his family in Michigan. The boys had written letters to each other before, but they were both excited to finally meet in person.
Larry and his father live in Ludington, on the shores of Lake Michigan, and Larry takes Kipper fishing soon after he arrives, which is when Kipper first encounters the mysterious figure known only as The Fog Man. This strange old man starts Kipper, and Kipper finds him eerie. Larry explains to Kipper that The Fog Man is kind of a local eccentric. He is apparently both deaf and mute. No one knows his real name. He apparently lives in the nearby forest, but during the summer, he comes to the beach to collect driftwood, which he sells to tourists, who are fascinated by this eccentric old man, and to the lady who runs the nearby gift shop, Miss Norton.
Shortly after this encounter, the boys learn that someone has stolen thousands of dollars from the safe on one of the car ferries that travel back and forth across Lake Michigan and Wisconsin. (Another book by the same author but in a different series takes place on one of these car ferries, The Case of the Vanishing Villain.) Kipper and Larry are able to see the scene of the robbery because of Larry’s father’s position as the local chief of police. However, the boys’ adventures are just beginning.
The most likely suspect in the robbery seems to be a man called Karminsky, who worked on the ferry. He disappeared around the time of the robbery, and Larry’s father thinks that he’s hiding out somewhere in the area, waiting for the police to stop looking for him so he can make his getaway. Larry is intrigued by the idea that the robber might be hiding out in the woods nearby. Although his father forbids the boys to go looking for the robber, they can’t resist checking out the woods anyway.
Larry confides in Kipper that he really wants to help his father catch this robber so that his father will be a big success and get public recognition. Larry sometimes feels bad that he and his father have been alone since his mother died when he was young. He thinks that, if his mother was still alive to help his father take care of him, his father would be able to do much more in his life and career, so Larry wants to be the help that he thinks his father really needs.
Soon, the boys think that they’ve found Karminsky’s hideout in the woods, but even though they lie in wait for him all night, they don’t manage to catch him there. The only person they see in the area is the Fog Man, and to Kipper’s shock, he sees the Fog Man walking without his characteristic limp!
When the boys later find the Fog Man’s coat and a fake white beard, they reach different conclusions about what happened. Kipper thinks that the Fog Man was involved in the robbery all along and that he was always in disguise from the beginning. However, Larry is accustomed to thinking of the Fog Man as a harmless old eccentric who has hung around town for the last few years, selling driftwood to tourists. Larry thinks that the Fog Man might be an innocent victim of Karminsky’s, that Karminsky may have killed him so he could take his place and blend in with the usual beach scene until he could make his escape.
Then, Larry’s father tells them that Karminsky has been found in another town, apparently having missed being on the ferry in the first place. So, if Karminsky was never on the ferry and never in Ludington, who stole the money and masqueraded as the Fog Man?
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
I bought this book because I always liked the Flee Jay and Clarice mystery story that I mentioned before and wanted to see more by the same author. I liked it because, while I thought that I understood things pretty quickly in the story, there are some surprising twists to the mystery. I thought that I had it figured out twice, but I was surprised both times, and the true identity of the Fog Man remains a mystery until the very end.
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E. L. Konigsburg, 1967.
Elizabeth tells the story about how she first met her friend Jennifer one Halloween. Elizabeth is new in town, and doesn’t know many people yet. She doesn’t have any friends to walk with to or from school, and she encounters Jennifer in the woods she passes through on her way to school. When they meet, Elizabeth is dressed as a Pilgrim for the school’s Halloween parade. Jennifer also happens to be wearing a Pilgrim costume, and she’s sitting in a tree. Elizabeth sees that Jennifer is about to lose a shoe because it’s too big for her, so she impulsively pushes the shoe back onto Jennifer’s foot. Jennifer says that witches don’t lose things, and Elizabeth tells her that she’s not dressed like a witch because she’s wearing a Pilgrim costume. Jennifer says that this is what real witches dress like, not like the silly pointed hat costumes. (It becomes more clear later that Jennifer is referring to the accused witches at Salem, Massachusetts.) Elizabeth admires Jennifer’s costume because it looks more authentically old-fashioned than hers does, like a real antique. Elizabeth points out that they’ll have to hurry or be late to school, and Jennifer says that she’ll walk with her in exchange for the cookies Elizabeth is carrying. Elizabeth gives her the cookies because she isn’t hungry and badly needs some company. Jennifer makes it barely on time to her class, but Elizabeth is slightly late because she’s in a different class that’s further down the hall.
Elizabeth describes the Halloween parade at school, and you can tell that this book was written decades ago because there are kids wearing cardboard boxes because their costume is a pack of cigarettes, which would never happen at a 21st century school. Even in the 1980s and 1990s, when I was a kid, nobody would have dressed as a pack of cigarettes. There were a lot of anti-smoking campaigns when I was young, our teachers and most of our parents wouldn’t have allowed it, and with more exciting things to be, like super heroes and Ninja Turtles as well as the traditional witches, ballerinas, robots, vampires, and monsters, why the heck would somebody want to be a pack of cigarettes anyway? Lung cancer may be scary, but dressing as a pack of cancer sticks isn’t exactly fun Halloween scary. If you want to be a box of something, at least pick crayons so you can tell people you’re the sharpest crayon in the box. But, I digress.
At the parade, Elizabeth sees Jennifer unsnap the tutu of school mean girl Cynthia, who is dressed as a ballerina, so it falls down. It’s not a serious embarrassment because Cynthia’s still wearing her leotard underneath. Still, Cynthia is one of those two-faced kids who are good-looking and act like perfect angels when adults are watching but turn into nasty little monsters when the adults look away, so this minor embarrassment pleases Elizabeth and many of the other kids. Jennifer also passes a note to Elizabeth to meet her for trick-or-treating that evening, telling her to bring two bags. As the students parade across the stage for the costume contest, Jennifer amazes everyone by wearing a paper bag over her head that doesn’t have any eye holes cut into it, yet she doesn’t have any trouble walking, somehow seeing where she’s going or knowing where to go anyway. This is one of the odd things that Jennifer does that makes Elizabeth wonder if she really does have powers of some kind.
When the girls meet for trick-or-treating, Jennifer tells Elizabeth to give her the bigger bag of the two bags she brought. It’s a bit rude, but Elizabeth is fascinated by Jennifer and lets it go. Also, Jennifer has brought a small wagon with her. Jennifer has invented and mastered an act to get extra candy. At each house, she acts weak and breathless and asks for a drink of water. When the home owners give her a drink of water, she drops her empty bag, so the home owners will feel sorry for her and give her more candy. Then, out of sight of the home owner, Jennifer empties her bag of candy into the little wagon and does the same performance at the next house. Elizabeth wonders how Jennifer is able to drink so much water, but they collect an amazing amount candy from Jennifer’s act.
After Halloween, Jennifer tells Elizabeth to meet her at the library on Saturday, and she invites Elizabeth to become her apprentice witch. Elizabeth thinks it over and decides to accept. Jennifer begins leading Elizabeth through a series of rituals to make her into a witch. The first ritual involves both of them putting a drop of their blood on an old key that Jennifer was wearing around her neck. Afterward, Jennifer gives the old key to Elizabeth to wear. This ritual is kind of like a friendship pact.
Jennifer gives Elizabeth books to read from the library about witches and tells her to eat a raw egg every day for a week (she does it by mixing it into a milkshake), insisting that she also bring her a hard-boiled egg. From there, they progress through a list of other strange foods. When their grade starts rehearsing for their Christmas play, the food of the week is raw onions, which Elizabeth happens to love, in spite of being a notoriously picky eater. People notice the onions because Elizabeth is supposed to be a puppy in their school play that the princess played by nasty Cynthia gets for Christmas, and Cynthia can’t bear to get close to her.
Being Jennifer’s apprentice also means putting up with her rudeness and bossiness. When the girls decide to try making an ointment to change themselves into animals, they argue about what animals they’re going to be. Sometimes, Elizabeth finds Jennifer difficult to deal with because she isn’t considerate of her feelings, but she’s also fascinating because Jennifer is a serious reader and likes to talk about a wide range of interesting things, from witchcraft trials to Vincent Van Gogh to shipwrecks to the guillotines used in the French Revolution to secret codes. Their rituals continue through Christmas and the New Year and into the spring, with Jennifer promoting Elizabeth to Journeymen Witch and assigning her various “taboos”, things that she isn’t supposed to do.
For most of the book, Elizabeth doesn’t tell her mother about being friends with Jennifer. Jennifer, as a witch, is rather odd, and Elizabeth’s mother wants her to be friends with nice, normal children. In particular, she wants her to be friends with Cynthia because, like other adults, Elizabeth’s mother has been taken in by Cynthia’s two-faced act and thinks that Cynthia is a sweet, well-behaved little girl. When Cynthia invites her to her birthday party, Elizabeth knows that the invitation was really from Cynthia’s mother because she and Cynthia aren’t friends. However, Elizabeth’s mother makes her accept the invitation. The party is a trial because, thanks to Jennifer’s taboos, there are many party activities that Elizabeth can’t do (no eating cake, no pin-the-tail-on-the donkey because she can’t touch pins, etc.), but Elizabeth decides to make the most of it and enjoy being an oddball. Elizabeth has some fun when she realizes that she can act mysterious and witchy about knowing certain things and winning at the games she plays. She knows where the treasure is in the treasure hunt because it was just behind a pillow on the couch and she accidentally sat on it earlier, she wins at the clothespin drop game because she’s shorter than the other girls and finds the game easier, and she knows who brought which gift to the party without looking at the tags because she was the first to arrive and remembered what everyone else brought when they came. Of course, she doesn’t explain this to anyone, she just acts mysterious and witchy, like Jennifer. When she talks to Jennifer about the party, Jennifer acts like Elizabeth has actually used her witch powers to do those things, but Elizabeth insists that they were just ordinary incidents and her good memory for remembering the presents. Jennifer seems a little disappointed that Elizabeth doesn’t seem to see what she’s getting at with the witch business, and Elizabeth is disappointed that Jennifer doesn’t seem interested in the gossip she’s collected about the “normal”, non-witchy girls at the party.
The girls get a toad, which they name Hilary Ezra, their first compromise with each other by combining the two names that they wanted. Jennifer says that the toad will help them with their flying spell. They treat the toad like a pet, giving it insects that they’ve caught and measuring how far he can jump. They both love Hilary Ezra, but when Jennifer plans to add Hilary Ezra to their flying potion, Elizabeth refuses to allow it. She makes Jennifer set Hilary Ezra free. Jennifer tells Elizabeth that she’ll never be a witch because she’s too sentimental and dismisses her as her student witch.
Elizabeth is angry at Jennifer and thinks that their friendship is over as well as the witch business. However, after thinking it over, Elizabeth realizes something: Jennifer actually wanted Elizabeth to stop her from putting the toad in the pot with the other ingredients because she changed the order in which the ingredients were added from the order that was given in MacBeth, saving the toad for last and making a big show of dangling him over the pot, waiting for Elizabeth to stop her. Still, it makes Elizabeth mad that Jennifer made her stop her when she could have stopped herself and probably would have if Elizabeth hadn’t intervened.
Elizabeth has a right to be angry, but she also goes back to being lonely, and she doesn’t like that. While she’s alone at her family’s apartment one day, she spends some time looking at the greenhouses on a nearby farm called the Samellson Estate, and some of Jennifer’s cryptic comments about Hilary Ezra’s origins and her father being a “plant wizard” fall into place. The more Elizabeth thinks about it, the more the things Jennifer acquired for their “spells” make sense and the more Jennifer herself begins to make sense. Then, Jennifer makes the first move in repairing their friendship.
The book is a Newbery Honor book. It’s available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
One of the important points about this story that helps make Jennifer more understandable as a character is that she’s African American and this book was written in the 1960s. The book doesn’t refer to Jennifer’s race or describe her physical appearance apart from her clothes until about halfway through the story, although she does appear in pictures before that. The 1960s was the time of the Civil Rights Movement, and in 1967, when this book was first published, Martin Luther King, Jr. was still live. School desegregations were a recent issue. The only time in the book that Elizabeth mentions race is when she notices Jennifer’s mother at the performance of the school play for the PTA, and she says that she knew that the woman must be Jennifer’s mother because “she was the only Negro mother there.” This one line says, without really saying it, that Jennifer is the only African American kid in her class because, if there was even one other, the black woman in the audience could have been somebody else’s mother.
When the story begins, each of the girls has a reason to feel like an outcast – Elizabeth because she’s new at school and doesn’t know anybody and Jennifer because she’s the only black kid. Both of them are lonely, and they’re actually a good fit for each other in terms of their interests, but in order to become real friends, they have to learn to relate to each other without the cover of their made-up witchcraft rituals. After Elizabeth realizes where Jennifer actually lives and what her life is really like, and Jennifer shows that she cares about Elizabeth’s feelings, the two of them are able to bond as friends instead of witches.
Elizabeth never explains why Jennifer came up with the witch idea in the first place, and the book ends soon after their friendship is repaired, so it’s left up to the readers’ imaginations. It might have something to do with feeling like an outcast because of her race and because her father is a blue-collar worker when the kids who live in the nearby apartment building are the children of white-collar workers. Because Jennifer feels different from other kids and often spends time alone, reading books and playing games of pretend, she might have felt uncomfortable explaining herself to Elizabeth, fearing that she might not accept her. Training Elizabeth to be a witch gave the two girls a reason to see each other, adventures to share, and something interesting to talk about. As long as Elizabeth needed Jennifer to teach her witch things, Jennifer would feel confident that she’d stick around as a friend. The girls gave that up when Jennifer realized that Elizabeth would be her friend anyway and might actually like her better just as Jennifer instead of a witch.
Mystery of the Witches’ Bridge by Barbee Oliver Carleton, 1967.
Thirteen-year-old Dan Pride is an orphan. His father was an international correspondent, and during his early years, Dan lived in different European countries, as his parents traveled around to his father’s assignments. However, three years ago, his parents died in a plane crash. Since then, Dan has been living in a British boarding school. Now, he has returned to the United States to live with his father’s brother, Uncle Julian. Dan doesn’t know what to think about his new town because it’s very different from everything that he’s known before, but he likes the idea of belonging to a family once again because he has been lonely since his parents died.
The Pride family lives in a New England seacoast town. They were one of the founding families of the town in Puritan times, but Dan discovers that the local people aren’t particularly friendly with the Pride family. Billy Ben Corey, a man who works for his Uncle Julian, explains that the Pride family has been rather stand-offish with the townspeople, and there are also rumors and stories about witches that go back to Puritan times. Billy Ben says that most of the modern locals don’t really know all the details of the witch incidents, but the vague rumors that have circulated about the Pride family have caused the townspeople to treat them with suspicion.
This sounds like a somewhat sinister beginning to Dan’s life in York, Massachusetts as he comes to understand how much of life there is governed by the past relationships between the oldest families of the area. Billy Ben tells him that the Coreys have worked for the Prides for generations, but relations between the Prides and the Bishop family haven’t been good and that Dan should avoid them.
Dan presses Billy Ben for more information, and Billy Ben tells him the story of how one of his ancestors, Samuel Pride, was accused of witchcraft back in Puritan times. Some unfortunate happenings at the time, which were probably just the result of bad luck and bad weather, were blamed on him because he was kind of an odd, temperamental person. He was known for playing the fiddle extremely well, and people said that he used it to summon up the devil in the form of a black dog out of the marsh. The person who made the accusation and who led the group that came to arrest Samuel Pride was an ancestor of the Bishop family. Samuel came out to meet the group that came to apprehend them on the old stone bridge that leads to the island in the marsh where the Pride family has their house and farm, Pride’s Point. The story goes that when Samuel met the mob on the bridge, he placed a curse on them, that doom would come for them out of the night, out of the fog, and out of the marsh. Samuel and his wife were executed for witchcraft, and not only after, there was a terrible fog and a sickness that killed many people in town. People said that it was the result of Samuel’s curse. That’s why the Prides and the Bishops have a bad relationship even though they’re neighbors, why the townspeople are still a little suspicious of the Prides, why the Prides are somewhat standoffish of the townspeople (When you think about it, who really wants to be outgoing and friendly with people whose ancestors not only killed yours but who are not welcoming or friendly themselves because they have continually looked at you and your family with suspicion for generations, like you’re the weird ones? The townspeople basically created this situation and have been perpetuating it ever since, yet they act like the problem is with the Pride family instead of themselves. Gaslighting is a relatively new term from the 20th century, but the concept has been around forever, used even by people who don’t know what it is and that it’s what they’re really doing.), and why people in the area are afraid of the stone bridge that they call the Witches’ Bridge, the place where the curse was supposedly delivered. Even into modern times, people in the area see strange lights in the marsh and hear mysterious fiddle music or dog howls that they think might be Samuel’s ghost.
There is still more to come because the mysterious misfortunes of the Pride family have continued even into modern times. Dan is named for his grandfather, Daniel Pride, who died suddenly under very mysterious circumstances, something that still haunts his Uncle Julian. Young Dan learns the story from Mrs. Corey, a relative of Billy Ben’s, who is Uncle Julian’s housekeeper. Daniel Pride had been working to change the family’s image in the eyes of the local people, debunk all the old ghost and witch stories, and lay past quarrels to rest. To try to make peace with the Bishop family and restore the Pride family’s former fortunes, Daniel had been trying to arrange to buy the shipyards that the Bishop family owned, which had formerly been owned by the Pride family. The Bishop family initially agreed to the sale, and one foggy night, Daniel went to see the Bishops to finalize the sale. What happened after that is still a mystery. Daniel was found dead the next day near the old chapel with a look of terror on his face. It’s known that he had a heart condition, so he apparently had a heart attack, but from the marks on the ground, it also appears that he had been running before he collapsed, possibly deliberately frightened to death. Also, there were marks on the ground nearby where his briefcase fell, but the briefcase containing the sale papers was never found. The superstitious people in the area think that Daniel’s death was another symptom of the family’s curse, but it might also have been deliberate murder and theft. The Bishop family insist that they never finalized the sale of the shipyard with Daniel before his death, but Uncle Julian believes that the sale was finalized and that the Bishops are lying to take advantage of his father’s sudden death, just like their ancestors arranged the execution of Samuel for their own advantage. Uncle Julian remains suspicious and bitter about what has happened, just as the townspeople continue to look at the Prides suspiciously.
All of this makes York seem like it’s not the best place to raise a sensitive young orphan, and that’s basically what Uncle Julian says to Dan when Dan arrives at Pride’s Point. Uncle Julian seems elderly and physically frail, and Dan senses that he is a deeply troubled man. Uncle Julian tells Dan that the family and the old family home have a troubled history. That’s why Dan’s father decided to go away and live his life traveling to different places, and that’s why Uncle Julian delayed sending for Dan for so long after his parents’ deaths. Uncle Julian doesn’t seem to think that Pride’s Point is a very healthy place, and he hints at buried secrets. However, he does say that, now that Dan is there, there are going to have to be some changes.
Dan doesn’t think this sounds too hopeful, and he’s lonely and disappointed that he hasn’t found the happy family and home he was hoping for and that he doesn’t even seem particularly welcome there. He can’t even really enjoy playing his violin because of the connection people there seem to have between “fiddle” music, witchcraft, and his supposedly sinister ancestor. As Dan is looking around his new bedroom that night, he suddenly spots a mysterious flashing light from his window, outside in the marsh. It’s creepy because it not only supports all the ghost and witch stories that Dan has just heard but because he recognizes the patterns in the flashes of light as Morse Code … and the message being sent is his own name: D-A-N P-R-I-D-E.
Dan doesn’t believe that any supernatural force was using Morse Code to flash his name at night. It was obviously some human person, but who would do that and why? What is the truth about his grandfather’s death? Is Uncle Julian right that the Bishops caused Daniel Pride to die and then lied about the sale of the shipyard to cheat the Pride family? Or is someone else responsible?
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
I stand by my earlier statement that there is basically inter-generational gaslighting of the Pride family going on. It’s gone on for so long that the townspeople have trouble recognizing what they’re doing or stopping themselves from doing it, even though some of them seem to have the feeling that it isn’t right. At one point, some of the townspeople who come out to Pride’s Point to help fight a fire make jokes about the Pride curse. I could sense tension in them, and I think it was an attempt to lighten the mood, but under the circumstances, it wasn’t really appropriate for them to joke around, especially not about something that’s been a sensitive topic for the Prides, something that has literally caused members of their family to die and others to be persecuted for generations. Keep your audience in mind, and learn how to read a room, people of York!
Uncle Julian hates the stories and rumors that have circulated about his family since before he was born, but he doesn’t know what to do to stop it, and he sometimes wonders if it wouldn’t be better for the family to simply leave their old family home and start up again somewhere else. Mrs. Corey tells Dan that every single time anything bad happens in the area, people either look at the Prides suspiciously or find a way to blame them, even though they didn’t have anything to do with whatever it was. Dan can tell that Uncle Julian is so accustomed to having people blame him and his family for things and repeat scary stories about them that he halfway believes the stories in spite of himself, and he’s overly sensitive anytime it looks like the townspeople might be trying to blame the Prides for something yet again. That’s what makes this situation gaslighting, because the community’s constant untrue stories have warped even the Prides’ sense of reality and views of themselves. The community of York as a whole has created a situation that makes it difficult for the Prides to make friends with other people and get reality checks, and the most dangerous part of it is that among the few people that the Prides are in the habit of trusting is someone who turns out to be the person they should fear the most.
I couldn’t help but notice that there was someone in the story that Dan trusted too much in the beginning. It’s partly because Dan is young and in a situation where he is just getting to know the circumstances and people involved, but even when this person says things that are untrue, contradictory, or just plain mean, he doesn’t call him on it or seem to question within himself why this person is talking like that, at least not until about the middle of the book. Gaslighters will do this to a person, playing mind games, lying, alternately being friendly and praising their victim and then putting down their victim and/or trying to blacken their name to other people, discouraging them from getting close to people who care about them and might actually help them, acting like normal things that the victim does or feels are somehow weird or abnormal, trying to keep their victims in a constant state of confusion, unsure of what the reality of the situation really is. Although I found myself angry with the people of York in a general way for perpetuating something awful that their ancestors did for generations and for being apparently oblivious to what they’re doing in modern times, there is a definite villain in the story who is both deliberately and concretely evil.
There is a parallel drawn in the story between Uncle Julian’s big, black dog, Caliban, who is disfigured from an old injury and the Pride family themselves. Dan is afraid of the big dog, and Billy Ben tells him that it attacked him once, but Uncle Julian says that Caliban is just distrustful because he was badly abused and injured in his earlier life. People are like that, too. I understand that because I used to volunteer at an animal shelter, and that’s where I got my dog, Betty. (If you look at my About page, you’ll see a picture of Betty.)
I’ll never know Betty’s complete history because she was found wandering alone without a collar before she was brought to the shelter. However, I’m pretty good at reading between the lines, and I can read at least part of the story from her behavior. Betty is afraid of anyone, even me, walking behind her, and I’ve noticed since her shelter days that sometimes, her back end looks a little off-center when she runs. Her tail has an odd, permanent bend at the very tip that we didn’t discover until we had the hair on it trimmed. I think she’s been kicked hard from behind before, hard enough to leave permanent injury. She’s not as scared of things as she used to be after having lived with my family for a few years, but she used to be terrified of newspapers or anybody standing over her with anything in their hands, so I think she’s been hit with things before. Betty also gets scared when people laugh. She’s not as scared as she used to be because she’s gotten used to us laughing at something funny on tv, but there are times when she’s cringed and slunk away with her tail between her legs from people when they laugh and she can’t figure out why they’re laughing. Betty’s fear of laughter actually disturbs me because I think I know why it scares her. Based on her reaction, I’ve think that it’s likely that whoever hurt Betty before laughed when they did it. I think Betty has an association between laughter and pain, and that’s why she takes laughter as a bad sign, reacting fearfully to it when she thinks it might be directed at her. Laughing while inflicting pain is a sick thing to do, the product of a sick mind. There are stories in Betty’s reactions, and I’m disturbed by the mental picture I have of the person who had Betty before.
I have to admit that my own history has also both colored/given me insight into Betty’s behavior. If it isn’t obvious from comments in my previous reviews, I don’t see teasing as a positive thing. I’ve reacted to it in the past much like Betty does to sudden, unexplained laughter, which is why I understand the feeling behind it. Some people say that they like to tease their friends and people they like, but I just don’t like it, and I’ve learned to be more open and honest about how I never will like it. I do not have good feelings about people who tease others for fun, and I deeply resent being told that I have to like it because the people doing it are “just having fun.” It’s not a bonding activity, not with me, no matter who says it is. I absolutely refuse to “bond” with anyone who does it. Anyone telling me that I have to change myself to like people who tease is 100% guaranteed to get on my bad side. I have a bad history with teasing and bullying, I have a bad history with the people who do it, and I just don’t want to be around it. Teasing involves getting a laugh at someone else’s expense, benefiting from their discomfort, and getting a good feeling from making someone else feel bad. I don’t think any of that is right, and it doesn’t take much for it to get way out of hand, especially when people have the impulse press harder to get the reaction they want to their “jokes”, like the other person just didn’t get it, instead of cutting it out when their “jokes” just aren’t funny. It’s always awkward when it comes from people who don’t know the sore spots that they shouldn’t poke at and try to act like they’re special friends who should be cut some slack when the reality is that we don’t really know each other that well, we’re not really close friends, and no such special relationship actually exists between us. Real friends understand and demonstrate respect for each others’ feelings, and they don’t intentionally poke at a friend’s sore spots, like the people of York did to Uncle Julian with their jokes in this story.
What ties all of this together is that Betty’s reaction to laughter is like Uncle Julian’s reaction to the townspeople and their jokes and comments; it’s a conditioned response from long-term negative association. The townspeople are uneasy because Uncle Julian doesn’t laugh with them, but Uncle Julian doesn’t laugh with the townspeople because none of it was actually funny. By perpetuating these witch stories, even in the form of “jokes”, they’re constantly feeding the myths and ghost stories and making the situation worse, and they don’t seem to care about how he or his family feels or how it affects their lives. You can tell who respects you and who doesn’t by seeing who tries to treat you the way you want to be treated. The people of York were making jokes to soothe their own feelings, sharing in-jokes that they’ve had with each other at the Prides’ expense, and they got really uncomfortable when suddenly confronted with Uncle Julian’s, feelings that they helped to provoke and didn’t want to deal with.
Don’t worry about Betty. It’s sad that she’s been afraid of things and it’s kept her from being more outgoing and friendly, but we’re working through it. In non-pandemic times, I take her to places where I know she’s welcome, and she has acquired a fan club of people who like to see her and say hi whenever we visit. Anytime she seems uneasy because we’re laughing about something, I sit next to her, pet her, and praise her for being a Good Girl so she knows that nobody is trying to be mean to her and that we value her. When someone has been programmed through negative reinforcement, positive reinforcement is needed for balance. I’m trying to build more positive associations for her. It’s working, and she’s improving. She behaves very well and is very happy little dog when she’s treated well. Don’t worry about me, either. I’ve had some bad experiences, but I’m not the only one who’s had to deal with this stuff. There are lots of different kinds of people in the world, and I’ve learned some things about finding the kind of people I want to be around and making it clear how I want to be treated. I just gripe and vent now and then because I don’t like mean behavior or seeing others in these situations, and I’m all out of patience for it. I’ve learned what to do to help remedy such problems, but that doesn’t stop me from resenting the people who create problems that need to be solved.
The way both people and animals behave offers clues about what’s been happening with them. Sometimes, they offer warning signs of people to avoid, and sometimes, they are signs that the person or animal is in distress and needs some outside help and support. Caliban’s behavior in the story is more defensive than aggressive. That is, Caliban is reacting, not instigating … and if I saw what Dan saw in the story, I would know immediately to be very suspicious of the person Caliban hates the most because it explains where the source of harm in his life is. In a similar way, the Pride family is mostly reacting, not instigating. They have been harmed, both physically and psychologically, for an extended period of time, and while they seem to have the sense that’s the case, they’ve been too close to the problem for too long to see what the source of the greatest harm really is. But, about halfway through the book, Dan does learn to correctly read the people around him and comes to realize who is really his friend and how isn’t, based not on how others talk about them but by how they each actually treat him. When you pay attention and think about people’s actions in context, you can see who really has your best interests at heart and who doesn’t.
Dan spends much of the story, particularly at the beginning, feeling like he is unwanted, both in York and at Pride’s Point. At first, he thinks that his Uncle Julian doesn’t want him, but he gradually realizes that’s not it. There is someone else who doesn’t want Dan there, for reasons of their own. As I was reading, I noted times when this person said and did things that manipulated Dan’s feelings, even actively trying to make Dan feel bad while carefully seeming “honest” or “helpful” so Dan would continue to listen. I felt so much better when Dan finally realized the truth about this person. I have to say that I was really angry with Uncle Julian when I discovered that he was fully aware of who hurt his dog and that he still trusted this person. For me, the first hint of that would have caused me to permanently sever the relationship because it’s sick behavior and a sign of a disturbed mind, but I can only suppose that he felt unable to because he had been dependent on this person for too long, largely shunned by the wider community, who could have given him a reality check if they’d had a firmer grasp on reality themselves.
Dan, who had never heard of the Bishops before arriving in York, finds himself becoming angry and resentful of them, hating them for what they’ve done to his family for generations. His uncle even warns him not to get involved with the family, but that’s exactly what the real villain wants. When Dan makes friends with a boy named Pip Cole and his twin sister, Gilly, he confides his anger at the Bishops and how he blames them for this whole mess and for perpetuating it for generations, but Pip knows more about the situation than Dan suspects, and he has seen a different side of the problem. Pip tells Dan his family would have less problems if they would just forgive the Bishops, but Dan doesn’t believe it at first because, the way he sees it, the Bishops are the villains, who have actively profited from their villainy all along. I appreciate Dan’s situation. Pip doesn’t fully appreciate that, for Dan and his uncle, it’s not just about the past because they’re still actively suffering from the townspeople’s stories, rumors, and suspicions about them. It’s hard and maybe impossible to forgive something that’s ongoing from people who see no problem with the situation and aren’t particularly sorry. On the other hand, the resolution of this situation requires at least one of the parties involved to make the first move. Dan’s grandfather was trying, but his mysterious death prevented his mission from being completed. Even Uncle Julian reveals that he had been prepared to forgive the Bishops and marry their daughter, but some of the circumstances of his father’s death led him to believe that his fiance actually had a hand in it, and that apparent betrayal is what has left him such a haunted man all of these years.
The stories that Dan has heard about his family are not the complete story. Dan eventually comes to realize that the Prides and the Bishops each have only half of the real story, and because of their reluctance to associate with each other, the Bishops partly out of continued superstition and guilt, not knowing how to deal with the Prides’ anger, and the Prides, because they are both justifiably angry and accustomed to unfair treatment and being shunned by the community. However, it’s important that they do talk to each other because it’s the only way for each of them to get the complete picture of what’s really been happening and learn the real villain’s true motives.
The key to establishing the truth is in the missing briefcase, and both Dan and his enemy are searching for it. Dan needs to make peace with his family’s past, and he finds some help from a mysterious hermit called Lamie, who lives alone in the marsh. Lamie is another outcast of the York community. People avoid him because he has a reputation for being weird. People in this community in general may be “normal” in the sense that their behavior is fairly uniform, but uniformity by itself isn’t a virtue. When you’ve got an entire community doing something they shouldn’t, being the odd one out can be a good thing. Lamie helps Dan when he needs it, and Dan discovers that Lamie is actually a very kind and understanding person. Lamie’s solitary lifestyle is rather unorthodox, but he’s actually happy in his solitude because he knows who he is, he takes care of himself, he’s comfortable with himself, and he’s living the kind of life he likes, in touch with the natural world. When Dan talks to Lamie, he realizes that Lamie is comfortable with his own identity and at peace in his own mind in a way that his uncle isn’t. Even more importantly, Lamie sees things from a different perspective because he isn’t part of the groupthink of this community.
Lamie was friends with Dan’s grandfather, and he tells Dan about a hidden chamber built by the Prides’ ancestors, where Dan’s grandfather kept important family papers. However, Lamie tells Dan that he isn’t sure that he should look for it if his only motive is revenge. Dan does have a desire for revenge after all of the stories of injustice toward his family that he’s heard and what he’s suffered himself since he arrived in this area. Lamie helps to calm Dan’s desire for revenge by quoting from St. Francis of Assisi, emphasizing the importance of forgiveness instead of revenge. The part about truth speaks to Dan, and he comes to realize that what he really wants, more than revenge, is to know the truth about what happened to his grandfather. Lamie tells him that he saw some of what happened the night his grandfather died, from a distance. Because of the fog, he couldn’t see everything, but he knows that the Bishops were telling the truth that Dan’s grandfather didn’t make it to their place that night to complete their deal, defusing Dan’s anger at them for their supposed lies. Lamie’s memories also give him clues about the true identity of his grandfather’s attacker and the location of the secret hiding place. However, to find it and to evade his enemy, Dan will need the help of the very people his uncle has forbidden him to associate with.
I found the parts about the gaslighting of the Pride family and the poisonous duality of their true enemy frustrating and anger-inducing, but once Dan speaks to Lamie (really, my favorite charcter in the story) and begins to sort out who he can trust and who he can’t, I felt a lot better. The story is very atmospheric, with a grand old house and property, surrounded by a foggy marsh, and even when the characters know who their enemy really is, they are kind of trapped with him in a dangerous cat-and-mouse situation as they both race to find what they’re really looking for. By the end of the book, all of the old mysteries are wrapped up, including the source of the the mysterious “fiddler” music.
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg, 1967.
Twelve-year-old Claudia Kincaid is bored with her dull suburban life in Connecticut with her parents and her brothers. Her life also often seems unfair, like she has more responsibilities than her brothers do and she has more chores than her others friends. Basically, Claudia is bored and feeling unsatisfied with her life. She wants to get away from it all and have a little adventure … although not too much adventure because Claudia isn’t the overly-adventurous type.
Claudia is cautious and methodical. When she plans to run away from home, she carefully plans every step and invites her more adventurous nine-year-old brother Jamie to go with her, both for the companionship and because he is a tightwad and has the cash necessary to fund their adventure. Although Claudia and Jamie bicker as siblings, they’re closer to each other than to either of their other brothers. Jamie eagerly accepts Claudia’s proposition to run away, although at first, he’s a little disappointed when he finds out where they’re going.
Claudia plans for them to run away to New York City because, as she puts it, it’s “a good place to get lost.” The city is so big, Claudia is sure that two runaway children will be easily overlooked. She’s also found a great place for them to stay during their adventure: the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Claudia loves comfort, convenience, and beauty, and the museum can offer all of that without the fees of staying in a hotel. There are exhibits of furniture, which provide them with a bed to sleep in, and interesting exhibits to keep them entertained and educated, and all they have to do is evade the security guards. At first, Jamie thinks that sounds a little too tame, but their adventure soon proves to be exciting and challenging, with enough mystery to satisfy both of them.
Claudia and Jamie develop routines for sneaking around the museum, evading the guards, hiding the backpacks and instrument cases that hold their clothes, and raiding the coins in the fountain for extra money. One day, while they’re hiding in the restrooms and waiting for the museum staff to leave, the staff set up a new exhibit for an angel sculpture sold to the museum by the wealthy and mysterious widow Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, who is actually the person narrating Claudia and Jamie’s story in a letter to her lawyer.
Claudia develops a fascination for the angel and a desire to learn the truth about the theory that the statue was made by Michelangelo. Between the two children, Claudia is the more imaginative and romantic, but Jamie’s logical mind and zest for adventure serve them well as they delve deeper into the mystery. They do learn something important at the museum, but to get the full truth, they have to leave their planned hiding place in the museum and go see Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler herself.
Mrs. Frankweiler is a delightfully eccentric student of human nature, who is fascinated by the young runaways who come to her for answers to a mystery hundreds of years old. In exchange for the details of their exploits, Mrs. Frankweiler gives the children a chance to locate the answers they’re seeking in her strange, mixed-up files. In the process, the children learn a secret that gives both of them the sense of being part of something secret and exciting and much bigger than their ordinary, hum-drum lives, which is what they were originally looking for when they ran away from home.
The book is a Newbery Award winner, and it is available to borrow for free online through Internet Archive (many copies).
My Reaction
During the course of the adventure, Claudia and Jamie become closer to each other than they were before they ran away from home. They learn a little more about each other and themselves, and neither of them is quite the same as they were before they started, which is at the heart of Claudia’s reasons for wanting to run away from home in the first place. The language and descriptions in the book are colorful, which is part of the reason why this book is popular to read in schools.
There were two movies made of this story. One is a made-for-tv movie version from 1995, although it changed some of the details from the original story. In the 1995 movie, there is a scene with Jamie getting sick and Claudia worrying about him and taking care of him that never happened in the original book. Also, in the movie, Claudia stops Jamie from taking the coins from the fountain when they had no qualms about raiding the fountain for money in the book. At the end of the book, the children don’t tell their parents where they were hiding when they return home, but in the movie, the parents do find out. There is also an older movie from 1973 which is sometimes called The Hideaways.
Night is an owl who likes to go out hunting for food at night, and Day is a poodle who lives with family called the Pennyfeathers. Because Day is usually only out during the day and sleeps in the family’s house at night, they don’t usually meet. However, by chance, Day rescues Night from a fox.
Night is grateful, and the two of them become friends. However, because they are normally active at very different times, they can’t easily meet to talk to each other.
They sometimes leave each other little treats, like a bone with some meat or something from one of Night’s hunts.
They also begin meeting at the kitchen door at night to talk to each other.
However, Day’s barking and Night’s hooting is too loud, and they start keeping the Pennyfeathers awake at night. At first, they can’t figure out why Day keeps barking every night, but their son, Bobby, sneaks out one night and sees the way Day seems to be talking to the owl.
Bobby correctly realizes that Day and the owl are friends and that they’re just trying to talk to each other. To solve the problem, Bobby builds a dog house for Day so that Day can comfortably sleep outside and talk to his owl friend without disturbing everyone.
Day likes the new dog house, and Night meets him there every night so the two friends can talk whenever they want.
My Reaction
This is a cute picture book that I’ve liked since I was a kid. I like the way that Day and Night talk to each other and some of Day’s misconceptions about what his humans are thinking. When Mr. Pennyfeather yells at them to be quiet, Day tells Night that he thinks Mr. Pennyfeather is barking at the moon.
Some of the pictures are in black-and-white and some are in color. It seems to be common in older picture books to have a mixture of black-and-white and color images. I think it might partly have been done to save money on printing.
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, 1963.
One evening, Max puts on his wolf costume and starts causing trouble all over the house. His mother calls him a “wild thing” and sends him to bed early without supper.
As Max mopes in his room, a forest grows around him, and Max climbs into a boat and sails away.
Max eventually arrives at “the place where the wild things are.” There are all kinds of wild beasts and monsters there, and they make Max their king because he’s the wildest of them all.
After they all go parading about and swinging from trees, Max sends all the wild things to bed and is lonely because he wants to be with someone who loves him.
So, Max sails home again to have his supper, which is waiting for him, still hot.
Max’s magical journey is in his own head. Angry and hurt at being told off for his behavior, he imagined himself far away from where he was being punished, in a place where he could act any way he wanted and tell other people what to do. But, that wasn’t satisfying because what he really wants is to be loved and cared for. Wild monsters don’t get the kind of nurturing that small human boys get from their mothers, so there are benefits to being a civilized human. This is a classic children’s book about the power of a child’s imagination and how love and human feeling wins out over anger.
The book is a Caldecott Medal Winner. It’s available online through Internet Archive.
This is a board book with a very special feature: a hole that goes all the way through the pages to the back of the book. There is something yellow, soft, and fuzzy in the hole, and it becomes obvious as you read the book what it is.
Henny lays an egg in the barn’s hayloft, but she loses it when it rolls through a hole. The anxious chicken immediately chases after it.
Down below, Billy Goat tells her that the egg fell on the ice cream that he was going to eat for dessert and then rolled out the window.
From there, Henny follows the egg’s path along a rain gutter, out a down spout, through a fence, into a hollow log, and eventually, into a hole in the ground.
When Henny fears that her egg is lost in the hole, a mouse comes out to tell her that the egg broke, but it has hatched into Henny’s new baby chick! (The yellow, soft, fuzzy thing.)
My brother and I used to like this book when we were little kids. I think of it as a kind of Easter story because of the bunny painting Easter Eggs, although the book isn’t really about Easter. Baby chicks are also often associated with Easter. It’s cute how the egg’s path is marked by little dots as it rolls across the barnyard, and the gimmick with the holes in the pages is clever.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies). Of course, you can’t quite enjoy the effect of the hole feature with the electronic copies.
The Sleepy Puppy by Mary Jo Chamberlin, illustrated by Florence Sarah Winship, 1961.
Johnny’s father brings a new basset hound puppy home to his son. Johnny is excited about his new dog, but the puppy is sound asleep. Johnny’s father tells him that puppies are like small children, that they need sleep and love, and when they grow bigger, they’ll be more active. Johnny has to be patient and let his puppy grow.
The puppy falls asleep in his dinner and on the grass outside when Johnny takes him out to play. The puppy seems to be able to sleep through anything, and Johnny wonders if the dog will ever be able to do more than sleep.
On the Fourth of July, Johnny tries to get his dog to pull a little cart in the pet parade, but Johnny ends up having to pull the cart with his dog on it instead.
Then, one day, Johnny’s puppy wakes Johnny because he wants to play. Suddenly, Johnny’s dog is full of energy, and Johnny can play with him!
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
I loved this book when I was a little kid, and I think it has a good lesson for young children about caring for pets. Animals, especially young ones, do require patience and time to grow, just like human children do. Johnny is bound to also learn that they also require some training once they get active, but there’s time for that, and that’s been the subject of other children’s books.
A new girl moves next door to Emily Elizabeth. The new girl, Martha, also has a dog, although her dog, Bruno, is a normal-sized dog, unlike Emily Elizabeth’s dog, Clifford.
Martha is competitive and brags that her dog is probably smarter than Clifford. Martha and Emily Elizabeth compare the tricks that their dogs can do, although Clifford’s tricks are different from those of normal dogs. His tricks tend to go wrong or cause problems because of his large size. For example, Bruno can retrieve a newspaper for Martha, but when Clifford tries to do the same thing, he comes back with the whole news stand.
Martha tries to show off Bruno’s bravery by getting him to walk the railing of a bridge, but Bruno doesn’t want to do it because it’s too dangerous. When Martha tries to show Bruno how easy it is, she falls off the bridge into the river. Bruno jumps in to save her and also gets into trouble.
Fortunately, Clifford is big enough to save them both.
Martha is grateful that Clifford saved her and her dog, but each girl still loves her own dog the best.
The book is available to borrow for free online through Internet Archive. The edition that I have is the older edition of the book with pictures that are mostly black-and-white, except for Clifford, who is red. However, there is also a newer edition with full color pictures.
Jestress's Forgotten Books and Stories 