Posted on by TracyC

Changes for Molly

American Girls

MollyChanges

Changes for Molly by Valerie Tripp, 1988.

MollyChangesLetterMolly’s family has wonderful news!  Molly’s father is coming home from the war to take charge of a veterans’ hospital right in their home town!  Everyone in the McIntire is happy, but Molly has one worry: In her father’s letter, he talked about how much her brothers and sister have grown and changed since he’s been away, but not her.  Molly still feels like plain old Molly, and she thinks that her father will look at her like she’s still a dumb little kid.  What can she do to show her father that she’s grown in the last two years, like her siblings have?

One thing she can do is get the role of Miss Victory in her dance school’s performance.  She’s favored to get the party anyway because she dances it so well.  But, with her plain, old, straight braids, Molly thinks that she looks too plain and little-kid like to get the part.  What she wants more than anything is to have curls.  Miss Victory’s pretty crown would look great on a girl with a head full of curls.

MollyChangesPinCurlsHer friends try to help her by buying a box of hair permanent and offering to help her use it, but it soon becomes obvious that they really don’t know what they’re doing.  Fortunately, Molly’s older sister, Jill, catches them before their experiment goes too far and talks them out of it.  Molly’s older sister likes to trade hair tips with her friend, Dolores, and she’s more experienced with doing hair.  She says that if curls are important to Molly, she’ll help her to set her hair in pin curls until it looks the way she wants.

As Jill helps Molly with her hair, Molly talks to her about how grown up she is and how she still feels like such a kid who hasn’t changed much since their father went away.  Jill says that she doesn’t think that it’s true.  Jill is five years older than Molly, and she tells her that growing up is something that takes time.  A ten-year-old like Molly just isn’t going to be the same as a fifteen-year-old like Jill, and she shouldn’t try to be.  Jill says that the war and their father’s absence has made them all grow up a little faster than they would have otherwise.  They’ve had to become more mature, more accustomed to making little sacrifices and making do.  In a way, Jill envies Molly for having some of her childhood left to spend with their father when he comes home.  Jill has already left a lot of hers behind.  But, she says that even if Molly doesn’t look very different on the outside, she’s changed somewhat on the inside.  She’s developed a more mature outlook on the world.  She’s become more aware of some of realities of life and what’s important (at one point in the story, she and her friends talk about the people they know who have returned from the war permanently injured and some, like their teacher’s fiancé, who were killed and will never come back), and she’s starting thinking about other people more (Jill reminds Molly of how understanding and generous she became when Emily was staying with them).  Molly just wishes that she would look more mature on the outside, too.  More than anything, she hopes that her father will arrive home in time to see her as a beautiful Miss Victory!

Molly gets part of her wish in getting the role of Miss Victory, but it seems like everything is ruined when she comes down with a bad ear infection and won’t be able to be in the performance at all.  Her father’s arrival home is also delayed, so Molly is stuck at home alone while everyone else is at the performance.  But, just when Molly is feeling horrible and gloomy, what seems like a disappointment turns into something good when she is the first person to welcome her father home, a father who is glad to see her looking just the way he remembered her, braids and all!

In the back of the book, there is a section of historical information about the end of World War II and what happened when soldiers began returning home.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

MollyChangesHistorical

Posted on by TracyC

Molly’s Surprise

American Girls

MollySuprise

Molly’s Surprise by Valerie Tripp, 1986.

MollySurpriseFamily

Christmas hasn’t been the same in the McIntire house since Molly’s father went overseas as a doctor during World War II.  As Molly writes her father a letter before Christmas, she and her mother and siblings talk about whether or not he might send them presents.  Molly is sure that he’ll send something and adds a “thank you” to the letter she’s writing, but her older sister, Jill, is less sure and worries that he’ll feel bad if Molly thanks him for presents that he was unable to send.  The boys talk about whether or not any presents that he might send could be shot down before reaching them, and Brad, the youngest child in the family worries about whether Santa might get shot down, too.  The children’s mother reassures them, but it’s just another sign of how the war has changed the feeling of Christmas.

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Jill tries to be realistic and tells Molly that she should be, too.  Jill thinks that there probably won’t be many presents this year, and what they get will be mostly practical things, handmade gifts, or hand-me-downs because of war rationing and the family’s need to be frugal.  Everyone is determined to be practical and patriotic, but Molly finds all this “realistic” talk depressing.  When her father was home, Christmas was always a time of surprises, and she likes to believe that, somehow, he will still find a way to surprise them.

When the children’s grandparents call and say that they won’t be able to come after all because of car trouble, and they won’t be able to bring them a Christmas tree as promised.  The kids are depressed, but Molly says that they’ll just have to do as their mother told her earlier and rely on themselves to make their own Christmas surprises this year.  Jill, Ricky, and Molly pool their money and go out to buy a tree.  As in the Charlie Brown Christmas special, the only tree they can afford is small and scrawny, but it’s better than no tree at all.

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Once they get the tree decorated, it looks much better.  As they decorate the tree, Jill admits that some of her attitudes about how this Christmas should be different and more simple from others is because she really misses their father, and when everything looks the same as it did before he left, it just reminds her of how much she misses him.  Molly also admits that she doesn’t really care what presents their father sends; she’s only worried that, if a package doesn’t arrive, it might mean that something bad had happened to him.  All of the kids want the reassurance that their father is still okay.

The next day, when the children go out to play in the snow, they find the package from their father that they’ve been waiting for!  However, there is a note on the package that says, “KEEP HIDDEN UNTIL CHRISTMAS DAY!”  Probably, their father wanted their mother to hide the package from the children, but since Molly and Jill are the first to find it, they decide to do the hiding themselves, putting the box in the storage room above the garage.  Jill thinks they should tell their mother about it, but Molly persuades her to wait because she doesn’t want to ruin their father’s surprise.

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On Christmas Eve, the girls retrieve the box and put it under the tree after everyone else is asleep.  However, that’s not the end of the Christmas surprises.  Their father has one more special surprise for them . . .

There is a section in the back of the book with historical information about Christmas during World War II.  Many families couldn’t be together during the war because families members were overseas and because many civilians limited their traveling during the war in order to save gasoline.  In fact, speed limits were greatly reduced in order to save gas – the “Victory Speed Limit” restricted people to driving no faster than 35 mph.  Public transit, like trains and buses, was often needed to transport soldiers, so civilians avoided traveling as much as possible.

MollySurpriseHistorical

People also had to get creative about Christmas treats because some essential ingredients, like butter and sugar, were rationed.  People also made their own decorations.  The selection of toys was somewhat limited because factories had been converted to making war materials, and many families gave their children practical gifts. However, there were still toys available, and people managed to give their children a few special surprises.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Happy Birthday, Molly

American Girls

MollyBirthday

Happy Birthday, Molly! By Valerie Tripp, 1987.

MollyBirthdayEmily

Molly is excited because she has just learned that an English girl will be coming to stay with her family for a while.  The girl, Emily, is one of the child evacuees from London.  Really, she’s supposed to be staying with her aunt, who also lives in Molly’s town, but her aunt is in the hospital with pneumonia and won’t be able to take her for another couple of weeks.  In the meantime, Molly and her friends are eager to meet her, imagining her to be something like the English princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret Rose.

The girls have a fascination for England after all the things they’ve seen in movies and newsreels.  Recently, they saw a newsreel about bomb shelters in England.  Inspired by what they’ve seen, the girls make a pretend bomb shelter under an old table and enjoy pretending that they are like the people in the newsreel.  Molly’s brother, Ricky, says that it isn’t very realistic, and the girls say that they’ll have to ask Emily when she comes.

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However, Emily turns out to be very shy and quiet.  She’s pale and skinny and hardly talks at first.  When the girls show her their “bomb shelter”, she doesn’t want to play in it.  Molly thinks that maybe Emily doesn’t like them, but her mother reminds her that, in World War II England, bomb shelters aren’t places to play.  Emily is the same age as Molly, and the war has been going on since she was a little kid.  Molly’s mother points out that Emily probably doesn’t remember much about life before the war.  Emily is accustomed to bombings and danger all around her, and Molly’s mother compares her to a flower “who’s not sure it’s spring yet.  It will take some time for her to realize it’s safe to come out now.”

Emily goes to Molly’s school, and their classmates are fascinated with her.  This fascination makes Emily even more shy than she would be otherwise as kids try to imitate her accent and ask her questions about what it’s like to see buildings bombed.  To the America kids, the war seems exciting, and they want to know what it’s like to see it up close, but Emily dodges their questions.

Molly finally comes to understand why Emily is so evasive when their town has a blackout drill.  When the drill starts, a siren sounds, and everyone has to go down into their basements until they get the signal that it’s all clear.  Molly is surprised to see that Emily is actually frightened by the drill, but everyone assures her that it’s just for practice, not because Illinois is actually going to be bombed.  In Molly’s family, it’s almost like a game, but Emily has memories of real bombings during the Blitz.  As they sit in the basement during the drill, Emily explains it to Molly: the fear, the explosions, destroyed buildings, people getting hurt or killed.  Molly and her friends thought it was exciting to hear about the war in newsreels, but living it is an entirely different thing.  The drill and everyone’s questions about what bombings are like bring back bad memories for Emily.

As Molly comes to understand Emily’s feelings more, Emily opens up to her.  The girls discover that they share a fascination with Princess Elizabeth and her sister Margaret Rose.  They start playing a game where they pretend to be the princesses, dressing alike in blue skirts and sweaters.  Because the princesses have pet dogs, the girls also pretend that they have dogs, using jump ropes as leashes for their imaginary pets.

MollyBirthdayPrincesses

Molly’s birthday is approaching, and she offers to let Emily share in her party and help plan it.  She’s curious about what people in England do on their birthdays, and the idea of an English tea party sounds great to her friends.  However, Molly doesn’t like the way that Emily describes English birthdays, and the types of sandwiches that the English tea with tea don’t sound very good.  Worst of all, Emily says that, at her last birthday before the war rationing started, she had a lemon tart instead of a cake.  Molly can’t imagine her birthday without a birthday cake.  Mrs. Gilford, the housekeeper, has been saving up rationed goods for her cake this year, and it’s what she’s been looking forward to the most!

Sharing things with Emily becomes more of a trial for Molly, and when the girls argue about their countries’ contributions to the war effort, they get into a fight and Molly starts thinking that she doesn’t even want Emily at her birthday party.  However, Molly’s mother points out to the girls that the war effort is a team effort.  A couple of special birthday surprises help the girls to make up, including something extra special that helps Emily to heal further from the trauma of the war.

In the Molly, An American Girl movie, Emily plays a larger role than she did in the books.  This is the only book in the series where Emily appears.  Her story was changed somewhat for the movie, too.  In the movie, she says that her mother was killed in a bombing.  In the book, her parents are both still alive, and it was her dog who was killed.  Molly doesn’t learn that until the end of the book when her family gives the girls a pair of puppies as a present, and Emily tells her about her pet dog who died.

In the back of the book, there’s a section with historical information about what it was like to grow up in the 1940s.  It explains how women used to stay in the hospital for about a week after giving birth, and sometimes, they could hire a practical nurse to help them at home as well.  Canned baby food was a new invention, and vaccines helped to prevent disease.  Back then, people still got smallpox shots because the disease hadn’t been eradicated, but there was still nothing to prevent chicken pox or measles, so children with those diseases had to be kept at home with warning signs out front to tell people to stay away from the quarantined house.  (Note: My father was born in 1944, the year that this series takes place, and he said that throughout his early childhood, parents who knew of a child who had chicken pox would deliberately take their children to visit and get the disease.  It wasn’t that they really wanted their children to get sick, but since there was no way to prevent the disease at the time, they had to accept that it was inevitable that their child would catch it eventually, and chicken pox is somewhat peculiar in that there is a kind of age window in which the disease isn’t likely to be too bad.  If you waited too long, and the child got older or even to adulthood without getting it, it was bound to be much worse when they eventually caught it.  So, if your child was about the right age for getting it, in early childhood but no longer a baby, people thought it was best to get it over with so they could benefit from the lifetime immunity afterward.  This remained true even up through the 1980s, my early childhood, which is why I have a permanent scar on my face from the disease.  Now, there are vaccines to prevent it, although I understand that some people still have chicken pox parties in places where the vaccine isn’t readily available. If you have the option, go for the vaccine.  Preventing chicken pox also prevents shingles.)

MollyBirthdayHistorical1

The historical section also talks about child evacuees, like Emily, and what teenagers did during the 1940s.  It was around this time that people began looking at the teenage years as being a distinct phase of life, and businesses began specifically catering to teenagers.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

MollyBirthdayHistorical2
Posted on by TracyC

Who’s Afraid of Haggerty House?

HaggertyHouse

Who’s Afraid of Haggerty House? By Linda Gondosch, 1987.

Kelly McCoy is eager to begin selling greeting cards for the Bismarck Greeting Card company because she wants to earn extra money for Christmas shopping.  Her best friends, Jennifer and Adelaide are selling cards, too, and Kelly is looking forward to teaming up with them.  However, she soon finds out that Jennifer and Adelaide have already finished their selling.  While Kelly was visiting her grandparents for a couple of days, the other girls hurried right out and started selling their cards.  They were worried about other kids beating them to the neighborhood houses.  By the time Kelly is ready to begin, the others are done and tired of going door-to-door, and many of the houses in the area have already bought all the Christmas cards they want.

Angry and hurt, Kelly has a fight with the other girls, and they mention that one house they didn’t visit was Haggerty House, which is supposed to be haunted.  Although the house spooks Kelly, she decides to go there and try to sell her cards.  When her brother, Ben, followers her and hits her with snowballs, further angering her, she dares him to come to Haggerty House, too.  Ben might be annoying company, but he’s still company.

Usually, the only time that kids in the neighborhood go to Haggerty House is on Halloween, and old Mr. and Mrs. Haggerty give good treats for the kids who are daring enough to visit, usually candied apples and nickels.  When Kelly and Ben approach the house to sell Christmas cards, Mrs. Haggerty invites them in for hot chocolate.  Mrs. Haggerty buys one of Kelly’s cards, and Kelly and Ben learn that Mrs. Haggerty is very lonely.  Her husband is ill and in the hospital.  She invites the garbage men in for hot chocolate, too, but is disappointed that they can’t stay very long because they have to finish their rounds.

Kelly and Ben can’t stay very long, either, much to Mrs. Haggerty’s disappointment.  However, Kelly later accepts an invitation from Mrs. Haggerty to visit again.  Mrs. Haggerty shows her some Christmas cards that people have given her previous years and tells her about her son, Tyler, who is a filmmaker in Los Angeles.  Tyler doesn’t visit very often because his work keeps him busy.  Mrs. Haggerty plays the piano, and she’s writing a song for Tyler for Christmas.  Mrs. Haggerty enjoys Kelly’s visit and wishes she could stay even longer.

Mrs. Haggerty becomes closer to Kelly’s family.  Ben helps Kelly to take Mrs. Haggerty’s picture and record the song she’s writing for Tyler so she can send it to him for Christmas.  Mrs. Haggerty also comes with the McCoys when they go shopping for a Christmas tree, and she comes to see Kelly as the Ghost of Christmas Past in her school’s A Christmas Carol play.

Then, while the kids are helping Mrs. Haggerty decorate at her house, an eccentric woman from the neighborhood, Malvina Krebs, comes to the house to ask if Mrs. Haggerty would like to participate in one of the seances that she holds regularly with friends.  Actually, they are hoping that she will let them hold a séance at her house because her house has such wonderful atmosphere and “vibrations.”  Mrs. Haggerty agrees because she’s never seen a séance before, and the séance group will be additional company.  Kelly asks if she could come because she’s curious to see what a séance looks like as well, and the ladies agree.

The séance is a very strange experience, although Kelly later discovers that some of what happened was a prank by her brother and his friend.  It occurs to Kelly that what she likes about visiting Mrs. Haggerty is that, unlike her friends right now, Mrs. Haggerty is always glad to see her and the interesting things that they do take her mind off of her fight with her friends.  However, she has come to miss talking to people who really understand her.  She can imagine what Jennifer would say about the séance and how she would find it interesting and how she would understand how Kelly felt about it.  Kelly’s earlier anger at her friends wasn’t really about how they made money with their cards and left no customers for her so much as they were having a good time without her and how they no longer seem interested in spending time with her.  She confides a little in Mrs. Haggerty how she feels about her friends, and she says that friends don’t always act like friends should.  Mrs. Haggerty herself doesn’t have as many friends as she used to because many of them have passed away.

Kelly does make up with Jennifer and Adelaide, inviting them to a Christmas party at Mrs. Haggerty’s.  There, she learns that some of their stand-offishness and secretiveness was because they’ve been planning a special Christmas present for Kelly.  The Christmas party is fun with a lot of old-fashioned games, but the best part is when Tyler finally comes home for Christmas!

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

My Reaction

Friendship is a large part of the theme of this story.  Kelly comes to understand Mrs. Haggerty’s loneliness partly through her quarrels with her friends.  At this point in their lives, each of them needs the other because they don’t really have anyone else.  Kelly’s time with Mrs. Haggerty gives her a new perspective on her relationship with her friends, and she also comes to understand some of the difficulties that Mrs. Haggerty faces because she is elderly.  Mrs. Haggerty’s song for her son is what makes him realize that he needs to spend more time with his aging parents, and Kelly and her friends decide that they will continue to visit with Mrs. Haggerty regularly.

Posted on by TracyC

Thomas’ Snowsuit

ThomasSnowsuit

Thomas’ Snowsuit by Robert Munsch, 1985.

Thomas absolutely hates the new snowsuit that his mother bought him.  He thinks it’s ugly.  When it’s time for him to go to school, his mother has to wrestle him into it because he refuses to put it on himself.

ThomasSnowsuitNew

That’s fine until it’s time for Thomas to once again put on his snowsuit so he can go outside for recess.  His teacher insists that he has to wear it, but he refuses.  When the teacher tries to wrestle Thomas into his snowsuit, the results are hilarious!

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Thomas and his teacher end up getting their clothes all mixed up.  When the school’s principal tries to help, it only makes things worse.

ThomasSnowsuitTeacherPrincipalSwitch

Finally, Thomas is persuaded to put on his snowsuit when a friend of his wants him to come out and play.

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Thomas eventually helps set the teacher and principal right again after recess, and the principal decides that it’s time to retire to Arizona, so he won’t have to deal with snowsuits again.

ThomasSnowsuitArizona

Like all Munsch books, the storyline is bizarre and hilarious, and half the fun is watching it unfold in the pictures!

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Murmel, Murmel, Murmel

Murmel

Murmel, Murmel, Murmel by Robert Munsch, 1982.

Robin is playing in her backyard sandbox when she hears a “Murmel, Murmel, Murmel” sound from a hole that she has never seen before. In the hole, Robin finds a baby. Since Robin herself is only five years old, she decides that she needs to find someone older to take care of the baby.

Robin asks various people, but they all have reasons why they can’t take the baby. Then, Robin encounters a truck driver who is enchanted with the baby’s “Murmel, Murmel, Murmel” and says that he wants him.

The story never explains where the baby came from, how he ended up in Robin’s sandbox, or if his parents are looking for him, but apparently, he’s happy with the truck driver. As for the truck driver’s truck, he says that Robin can keep it because he already has seventeen others. Robert Munsch books are like this. That’s basically the explanation.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

MurmelTruck

Posted on by TracyC

Moira’s Birthday

MoirasBirthday

Moira’s Birthday by Robert Munsch, 1987.

Moira wants to have a birthday party and to invite every kid in her school, from kindergarten to sixth grade. Her parents say that she can have only six party guests total, not six grades’ worth. However, so many kids at school want to come to her party that she ends up inviting the whole school anyway.

When every kid in school shows up on the day of the party, Moira’s parents are bowled over. There are so many kids that they hardly fit in the house. Moira calls up a pizza place, asking for an enormous amount of pizza, and a bakery, asking for an enormous amount of birthday cakes. The kids also help out by supplying their own food from home.

Naturally, Moira’s house is a mess, and her parents are upset, but Moira, seeing the enormous pile of birthday presents that everyone brought, promises a present to everyone who helps to clean up.

But, just when everything seems to have worked out all right, the trucks from the bakery and pizza place show up with the rest of Moira’s order.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Molly’s Pilgrim

MollysPilgrim

Molly’s Pilgrim by Barbara Cohen, 1983.

Molly has been unhappy since her family moved to the smaller town of Winter Hill, New Jersey so that her father could get a better job. In New York City, there were other Jewish girls like her, and she didn’t feel so strange and out-of-place. The Winter Hollow girls don’t understand her at all and don’t like her. Molly’s family fled Russia to escape persecution, and they’ve only been living in America for about a year.  Molly still has a Yiddish accent and doesn’t quite speak proper English yet.  Molly is constantly teased about the way she talks and her unfamiliarity with American habits.

MollysPilgrimSchool

One girl in particular, Elizabeth, makes up rhymes to make fun of Molly, even following her home from school like a creepy stalker, to continue singing them at her. The other girls follow Elizabeth’s lead because they kind of admire her and because she is always giving them candy.

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Then, one day, the girls’ teacher begins teaching them about Thanksgiving. Of course, Elizabeth makes a big deal about the fact that Molly has never heard about Thanksgiving before. But, Molly finds the story about the pilgrims interesting. The teacher says that for their Thanksgiving activity, instead of making paper turkeys like they usually do, the children are going to make clothespin dolls to look like American Indians and pilgrims, so they can create a scene like the first Thanksgiving.

MollysPilgrimClass

When Molly gets home and explains the assignment to her mother, she has to tell her mother what a “pilgrim” is. She explains it by saying that they were people who came from across the ocean in search of religious freedom. Her mother understands that and offers to help Molly with the doll.

However, when Molly sees what her mother has done with the doll, she is worried. The doll is beautiful, but her mother has dressed the doll in the clothes of a Russian refugee, like Molly’s family, not in the traditional Puritan garb of the pilgrims. At first, Molly is sure that she’ll be teased more than ever at school when she shows up with a doll wearing the wrong clothes and that people will think that she’s stupid for not understanding how pilgrims dressed.

MollysPilgrimDoll

But, Molly’s mother is correct in pointing out that their family are modern pilgrims, coming to America for the same reasons that the original pilgrims did. Molly does get some teasing from Elizabeth (that’s not a surprise, since it’s Elizabeth, after all), but when the teacher asks Molly about the meaning of her doll, it leads everyone to a better understanding, both of the holiday and where Molly and her family fit in with their new country and its history.

Molly’s teacher points out that the holiday of Thanksgiving wasn’t entirely an original idea that the pilgrims invented all by themselves but that they took their inspiration from a much older Jewish tradition from the Old Testament.  Human beings do not exist in a vacuum, and we all regularly take ideas that we’re exposed to and build on them in our own lives.  Although Puritans were generally known for their belief in religious “purity” (hence, their name) and noted for their intolerance to different religions and beliefs, they also strongly believed in education, which frequently involves taking past ideas and knowledge and applying them toward new situations.  Their Thanksgiving celebration was just an example of that, an older idea that they used for their own purpose, adapted to the lives of the people who adopted the tradition.  It was their celebration, but not their sole intellectual property.

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

There is also a sequel to this book called Make a Wish, Molly, in which Molly learns about birthday parties in the United States.

My Reaction and Additional Information

The book doesn’t mention it, but the word “pilgrim” itself is also much older than the early Puritan colonists in America.  Before the development of the America colonies, it referred to any religious traveler on their way to a holy place, and many people still use it in that sense.  A person on a pilgrimage could be just about anyone from anywhere going to anywhere else as long as the journey has spiritual significance.  The Puritan colonists used that term for themselves to emphasize the reasons why they were seeking new homes in a new land.  For them, it was a kind of pilgrimage to a place where they could start again.  Molly’s family came to America in search of religious freedom, just as the Puritans did.  Their journeys weren’t quite the same, but they shared a common purpose and ended up in the same place (more or less).

By showing the links between Molly and her family and the pilgrims, Molly’s mother and her teacher help the other students to understand that Molly really does fit in, that her being there makes sense, and that she has a place in their class and in their celebration of Thanksgiving.

This story was also made into a short film. I remember seeing it in school when I was a kid in the early 1990s.  I checked on YouTube, and there are trailers posted for this film.  One thing that I hadn’t remembered from when I was a kid was that the time period of the book was earlier than the film.  In the film, the characters are shown to be contemporary with the time the film was made, but the style of dress of the girls in the book’s pictures and the things that Molly’s mother says about why the family left Russia indicate that the book probably takes place during the late 19th century or early 20th century, possibly around the same time as the events in the famous play/movie Fiddler on the Roof.

As a side note, if you’re wondering why the girl is named Molly, which doesn’t sound particularly Russian, Molly is typically a nickname for Mary and other, similar-sounding, related names.  Molly’s mother also calls her Malkeleh, which may be her original name or perhaps another variant, if her original name was Malka, as another reviewer suggests.

In spite of the warning on that last site I linked to about reading a book with your child that may be covered in class, I say to go ahead and read it anyway.  It’s hard to say what books may or may not be used in classes by individual teachers, and if your child’s teacher doesn’t happen to use this one, it’s still a good story.  Perhaps just warn your child not to say something that would spoil the ending for their classmates who haven’t read it yet.

Posted on by TracyC

Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the UFO

CJUFO

Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the UFO by David A. Adler, 1980.

Cam Jansen‘s friend, Eric, wants to enter a photography contest.  All of the pictures for the contest must be taken in black-and-white, have to be “of local interest”, and must be completely natural, not posed.  As Cam and Eric look for things to photograph, Cam spots a kitten trapped in a tree.  Eric takes a picture of her rescuing the kitten.

Then, they see a bunch of people standing around, pointing at some strange, multi-colored lights in the sky.  A local newscaster even shows up to cover the mysterious lights and talk about UFOs.

Cam and Eric decide to investigate the area where it look like the UFOs landed.  When they get there, they spot some strange creatures with silvery skin and pointed heads!  However, it soon becomes obvious that these “aliens” aren’t what they appear to be.  They speak English, are called “Cindy” and “Steven”, and are actually covered in aluminum foil.  But, why are they playing alien, and what are the UFOs really about?

Cam decides to keep the cat that she rescued and names her Neptune.  When the true purpose behind the aliens’ hoax is revealed, Neptune helps to foil their plans.

 

Posted on by TracyC

Eat Your Poison, Dear

EatYourPoisonDear

Eat Your Poison, Dear by James Howe, 1986.

Milo Groot is the editor of the school paper at Sebastian Barth’s school. Milo is something of a social outcast at school, but after he gets extremely ill eating in the school cafeteria, Sebastian and his friend David begin to wonder if there’s been some foul play. Although everyone thinks it’s just a bad case of the flu at first, it’s strange how Milo’s symptoms only come up after eating lunch at school.

Milo recently wrote an editorial for the school paper, criticizing a group of boys at school who have adopted kind of a “greaser” look, wearing leather jackets, smoking cigarettes, wearing temporary tattoos (so badass), and calling each other by biker-style nicknames. The biker boys, who like to call themselves the Devil Riders (they don’t actually have motorcycles, but they like to stand around and look at pictures of them a lot), have been kind of mean to other kids, even former friends, but the school’s principal says that there’s no school rule against simply wearing leather jackets, so there’s nothing he can do about their biker persona. Milo starts up a petition against them, though, trying to get the principal to crack down on their little group. Could one of them be behind Milo’s poisoning?

Then, suddenly, two more kids at school get sick in the same way. The school cafeteria has always gotten good health ratings, leading Sebastian to think that whatever is harming people at school must be deliberate. Soon, whatever is harming the students affects a large part of the student body, with seventy-seven students all getting sick on the same day. But, still, who is doing it and what is their motive?

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction and Spoilers

The story gets somewhat philosophical about the nature of hurt and why people hurt each other. Sebastian asks his friend Corrie’s father, Reverend Wingate, for his opinion about why people hurt others. Sebastian’s grandmother thinks that people hurt others because of some hurt that they have themselves. This is part of the reason why the Devil Riders act the way they do. It is revealed that the leader of the little gang, Harley (not his real name, that’s his “biker” nickname) has a very unhappy home life that he often lies about to others. Acting tough with his friends and pushing other people around is his way of dealing with it. One thing that Reverend Wingate notes is that “There is no way for people to stop hurting one another except to stop.” He relates it to the arms race of the Cold War (contemporary with when the story was written), saying:

“If we justify building up our own arsenals because they have more weapons, then we only heap one folly on top of another. There comes a time when we must say, ‘Enough! I don’t have to have more toys than you. I don’t need the last word. I will turn the other cheek.’”

In other words, some battles aren’t worth fighting because the cost is too high, higher than the gains of victory, and in those cases, it’s better just to move on. In a way, both Sebastian’s grandmother and Reverend Wingate are correct; the villain that they’re looking for is someone who’s been harboring hurt for a long time and hasn’t yet realized the cost of getting revenge.

I found it interesting when Harley (who is not the villain, even though he is the primary suspect for a time) tells Sebastian that a person who is less popular than others is at a disadvantage when they do something wrong. Harley says that his social worker tells him, “. . . everybody makes mistakes. She says, you make a mistake on the blackboard, what do you do? You erase it and try again. I say to her, sometimes somebody writes on the blackboard with a magic marker, just to be mean, and everybody sees it and nobody can erase it away. It’s always there, and always will be the rest of your life.”

Popularity can make other people more willing to forgive a wider range of behavior, however I think that the situation that Harley describes is less a matter of popularity and more of method and intent. When someone does something “just to be mean,” it’s always going to leave a mark, at least emotionally, and “magic marker” isn’t meant to be erased, so it’s a bad choice for someone airing only temporary feelings.  If he had chosen chalk, then yeah, whatever mean or rude thing he wrote would have been erased and forgotten, but Harley didn’t do that, and that’s his own fault. If his aim was to hurt people, he can’t legitimately complain that people got hurt because all that happened was that he succeeded in what he deliberately set out to do. He also can’t legitimately complain about lasting consequences when he deliberately chose a lasting form of inflicting that hurt.  Some people just have poor priorities and bad strategy, and that’s what gets them into trouble.  Harley is still blaming other people for his own bad choices, and he’s going to continue having problems until he realizes that he, and he alone, is the one responsible for the thing he does and only he can change what he decides to do.

That being said, some things that are apparently permanent aren’t really, if you know how to clean up after yourself and have the will to do it.  You can even get permanent marker off of a chalkboard, if you have some rubbing alcohol.  People have figured out how to do that because there are times when they’ve had the need to do it, and they tried ways to fix the situation until they found what worked.  Life is like that.  You can gripe about things being wrong and unfixable, or you can try ways of fixing things before you decide that they’re impossible to fix.  People also appreciate people who make an effort.  Harley needs to learn both how to behave himself in the first place and how to clean up after himself in the second.  He could use a practical adult who understands how to fix things, and he needs to develop the mindfulness to keep himself from creating more problems to solve.

Before the story is over, Sebastian himself makes a big mistake, accusing the wrong person because he made a false confession. However, Sebastian is willing to face up to the apologies that he will owe others after he learns the truth, realizing that a false accusation was part of what the real villain was hoping for. Anger is also a kind of poison. Truth can hurt at first, but unlike poison, it can make things better.