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The Curse of the Pharaohs

Sherlock Holmes’ Tales of Terror

The Curse of the Pharaohs by Kel Richards, 1997.

This is the first book in a short series of spooky mysteries for children featuring Sherlock Holmes.

One foggy night, a woman named Laura Coffin comes to Baker Street to see Sherlock Holmes, and his friend, Dr. Watson. She’s very worried about her uncle, Professor Sloane Coffin, who is an Egyptologist, living in Scotland. He’s been very ill and is likely to die, but Laura is increasingly alarmed by his mental state. Her uncle has come to believe in the Ancient Egyptian religion and believes that, when he dies, he will return from the dead. He thinks this power to return from the dead and live forever will come from a diamond he found in a tomb in Egypt called the Eye of Osiris. Laura and her uncle’s doctor, Dr. Cabot, have also come to suspect that her uncle’s medical state may be due to poison, although they’re not sure who could be poisoning him. Laura has come to Sherlock Holmes because the local authorities don’t believe her.

The most likely suspects for poisoning the professor would be his lawyer, Mr. Grizzard, who has been staying in his house and seems to have a sinister and unhealthy influence over the professor; the professor’s manservant, who Laura suspects of plotting to steal her uncle’s diamond when he dies; and a mysterious Egyptian man who has been staying nearby and seems to be lurking around the professor’s property for unknown reasons. Sherlock Holmes promises Laura that he and Dr. Watson will come to Scotland and investigate her uncle’s condition. Privately, he tells Dr. Watson that he thinks that there is something else that’s bothering Laura, something that she’s not telling them.

When they arrive in Scotland, Laura is glad to see them, although Mr. Grizzard isn’t. Laura introduces them to Dr. Cabot and her uncle. Dr. Watson doesn’t recognize the disease that the professor is suffering from, and Dr. Cabot says that he can’t figure out why the professor is so sick. Based on the tests he’s done, the professor really shouldn’t be this bad, but he does look like he’s dying. The professor accuses his niece and everyone else of only being concerned about his diamond. The professor confirms that he believes everything that his niece said earlier. He says that he believes in Ancient Egyptian gods (he calls them “gods of darkness”, which doesn’t seem scholarly), and he believes that, through his diamond, they will bring him back to life, and he will live forever.

Soon after Holmes and Watson meet the professor, he suddenly dies. Mr. Grizzard explains the professor’s will and final wishes. Laura is the professor’s primary heir, but she cannot take possession of the estate until she is 21 years old, so Mr. Grizzard will be in charge of the estate as executor until then. The professor had an Egyptian-style tomb built in his backyard, and his wish was to be buried there, along with his diamond. Mr. Grizzard makes certain that the professor’s requests are carried out, including the requirement that the tomb must be able to unlock from the inside.

Holmes spots a man spying on the funeral. He and Watson take turns watching this man as he seems to be observing the tomb and waiting for something. As Watson watches this man during a storm, he sees the door of the tomb open and the professor come out! Unfortunately, Watson is knocked unconscious by a falling tree branch. When he wakes up, there is no sign of the professor, and the man who was spying on the tomb has been murdered!

Did Watson really see what he thought he saw? Did the professor really rise from his tomb and kill the man watching him? Why was this man watching the tomb in the first place? What will the professor do now, and what does he want?

My Reaction

When I first got this book, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Pastiches can take familiar characters in some unusual directions, and I had read a review criticizing this series for adding supernatural elements and Christian themes that weren’t found in the original Sherlock Holmes stories. I thought that the story would probably be a pseudo-ghost story, somewhat like Scooby-Doo mysteries, where it seems like something supernatural is happening, but there’s actually a rational, more physical explanation. However, I wasn’t completely sure for most of the book whether that would be the case or not. There’s room left for readers to wonder whether Professor Coffin has really risen from the dead or not.

For those who prefer the ghosts to have logical explanations … you won’t be disappointed. There is a rational explanation for everything that happens in the story, and there are multiple people who could be good candidates for the villain behind everything that happens. Some of my suspicions turned out to be correct, but there are actually multiple villains involved, which complicates the situation and offers surprises for readers.

The other reviewer was right that there are Christian themes in the story. The Christian themes don’t really come into the story until the end, when Holmes and Watson are discussing the case with Laura Coffin. Laura asks why God allows people to behave wickedly. Holmes and Watson say that it’s not so much a matter of God allowing it as people choosing to commit evil deeds, and reassuring her that, sooner or later, everyone faces the judgement of God. Laura feels disillusioned about some of the people she trusted, but they also reassure her that, as a wealthy young heiress, she has her life still ahead of her to enjoy, and she will find better people. The religious talk and the quote from the Bible do seem a little out of character because I can’t recall the characters focusing on religious morals in the original stories so much as the deductive process, but I didn’t think it was bad. It was just a brief conversation, not overdone. If the characters had talked that way all the way through the book, it might have been a bit much, but it seemed plausible enough for a brief conversation on the subject.

The themes of the story reminded me of the Sherlock Holmes computer game The Mystery of the Mummy, but the story in that computer game isn’t the same one in this book.

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Medieval Places

Medieval Places by Sarah Howarth, 1991, 1992.

This book takes a unique approach to explaining life in the Middle Ages. It focuses on the types of places where people spent their time and what they did there. I like it that the author doesn’t rely on just one country for the descriptions of places, providing examples from various places around Europe, including Germany, France, Italy, and Iceland.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive. There is also a companion book to this one about Medieval People. The author has also written other books about people and places in different time periods.

The places described in the book are:

The Field

During the Middle Ages, most people lived in small farming communities, making their living through farming. This chapter describes the agricultural year and the feudal system, where peasants worked fields belonging to lords and gave the lords their services and food they produced in return for use of the land.

The Peasant’s Cottage

This chapter explains what a peasant’s house and living conditions were like.

The Castle

This chapter explains how castles were built and how they were used to control territory. There is also a brief description of what life in a castle was like.

The Battlefield

This chapter describes how warfare and sieges were conducted and what types of weapons were used.

The Forest

People hunted animals in forests for sport and food, but there were rules regarding who could hunt where and what types of animals they were permitted to hunt. Anyone caught breaking these rules would labeled a poacher and could suffer serious consequences.

The Law Court

There were different types of law courts in different places, and they could handle different types of cases or offenders. For example, clergy were often tried in special courts. Punishments for offenders varied with the nature of the offense. Prison wasn’t typically a punishment by itself. Dungeons were more for holding prisoners until their case was tried. After the trial, another punishment would be assigned, possibly a fine or some form of public humiliation. For more severe offenses, offenders might have a hand or an ear cut off or might be executed. However, there were some law breakers who had so many supporters that no one was ever able to bring them to justice.

The School

Most schools were church schools held in monasteries, cathedrals, and other churches. There, students would be taught Latin (the universal language of educated people all over Europe during the Middle Ages) and religious lessons. Students practiced writing lessons on wax tables or pieces of slate that could be reused. School was not a requirement, and most lower-class children did not attend, either simply helping their families on their farms or learning a trade. There were some secular trade school run by towns to teach the children of merchants some basic skills, like reading, writing, and keeping accounts.

The University

The format for modern universities began during the Middle Ages. Particularly skilled teachers, often ones who taught at church schools, who gained a reputation for their teaching ability sometimes attracted a following of scholars, and people would travel to the location where they were teaching in order to study with them. Universities grew because of the excellent reputations of individual teachers, who attracted students to come. As they grew, they developed sets of rules, sort of like the a trade guild, organizing courses for students to study and exams to test them on what they had learned. There were no age requirements for students, but they always started by studying some general knowledge subjects, like Latin and mathematics, before choosing a specialty to study, such as law, medicine, or theology.

The Road

There were various reasons why people had to travel during the Middle Ages. Nobles had to travel to to visit different parts of their estates, and peasants had to travel to bring their produce to markets. Merchants would travel in search of customers for their trades. Criminals and judges both had to travel to law courts. Messengers would carry letters. There were also soldiers and religious pilgrims. People from every level of society could be on the roads. However, the roads were rough, making travel uncomfortable, and there was always the danger of robbers.

The Port

People also traveled by ship, and merchants brought goods from other countries through ports.

The Parish Church

Local parish churches were important centers of life and religion in the community. The local church would perform baptisms, marriages, funerals, and other services for the parishioners. Because most people couldn’t understand Latin and many couldn’t read at all, priests had to use sermons and scenes painted on the walls of the church to teach people Biblical lessons. Sometimes, church buildings and the churchyards surrounding them were also used for other important community functions, like schools, hospitals, meetings to discuss local matters, and even markets, dances, and games.

The Market

People in towns practiced trades other than farming, so towns held regular market days when village farmers could come and sell their produce.

The Guildhall

Various types of merchants and craftsmen formed guilds to organize and regulate the standards for their trades and how much their goods and services would be worth. Guilds were also responsible for arranging apprenticeships for those wanting to learn specific trades.

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Medieval People

Medieval People by Sarah Howarth, 1991, 1992.

This book looks at Medieval history in terms of the different types of people in Medieval society and what their lives were like. It has examples from different countries focusing mainly on western Europe.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive. There is also a companion book to this one about Medieval Places. The author has also written other books about people and places in different time periods.

The types people included in the book are:

The Chronicler

This is an important chapter because it explains how we know many of the things we know about the Middle Ages. Some people kept chronicles of events that happened in their time. Most of the chroniclers were monks because they were usually the ones who had both the education and the time to keep written chronicles. That’s part of the reason why many chronicles have religious overtones. People who wrote chronicles not only recorded events but also considered why certain important events may have happened, and they interpreted events through their religious beliefs.

The King

Medieval society was structured in levels, and the king was the person who held the most power and authority. However, he also depended on the nobles who supported him, so he had make sure that they were satisfied with his rule and rewarded for their loyalty. A successful king had to be a successful military leader, and he rewarded the nobles who served him with gifts of land. In turn, the nobles had to serve the king militarily and successfully manage their estates, and they could attract other people to serve them by granting them some of the land that they received from the king.

The Pope

The pope is the highest leader in the Catholic Church, and during the Middle Ages, Catholicism was the major Christian denomination in western Europe. (The Greek Orthodox Church was the major Christian group in eastern Europe, and Protestantism wasn’t an option until the Reformation.) Medieval popes were different from modern ones because they were political leaders as well as spiritual ones, and they clashed with secular kings about whose authority was greater.

The Bishop

Bishops were below the pope and the archbishops in authority, but they oversaw the lower religious officials within their territory or diocese. A bishop would make sure that church buildings in his diocese were being built and properly maintained and that the clergy were doing their jobs correctly and teaching and leading their parishioners properly. He would also oversee the training of new priests. In some ways, his position would be somewhat like that of a noble within the church, answerable to people higher than himself and in charge of people below him, but aside from his position in the church, a bishop would also have obligations to the king, owing services to him. Kings often used bishops as ambassadors and advisers and even as military leaders because they were among the most educated people available. However, this sometimes put bishops in an awkward position when their kings’ demands conflicted with their orders from the pope.

The Knight

A knight was a warrior who fought on horseback. Part of the service that nobles owed to their king in exchange for grants of land was supplying him with knights when he needed them. In the early Middle Ages, the status knighthood was a reward for excellent performance as a soldier, but later, there were rituals associated with knighthood, including that knighthood could only be granted by a king.

The Pilgrim

Pilgrims were travelers going to religious shrines. Some shrines were fairly close to the places where they lived, and some were far away, in major cities like Rome and Jerusalem. Pilgrims hoped to spiritually connect with the saints associated with the shrines they visited in order to ask for their help with some special purpose, such as recovery from an illness or the forgiveness of their sins.

The Lady

Women in Medieval society were subject to the authority of their fathers up until their marriage, and then, they were under the authority of their husbands. Money was a consideration when marriages were arranged, and marriages could be arranged for wealthy heiresses when they were very young. Married women had the task of managing their husband’s household and accounts, supervising the servants, and making cloth and clothing for her household. Women who did not marry might become nuns. Some liked the religious and scholarly life of a nun, but others simply became nuns because they had no other options and their families didn’t know what else to do with them.

The Herald

Knights always wore full armor when they fought, including a visor that covered the face. In order to know who was who, knights had special crests or coats of arms, which included identifying symbols and colors. Knights could wear their coat of arms on a tunic over their armor, have it displayed on a banner, and on coats on their horses. The herald was the person who kept track of everyone’s coat of arms, ensuring that they were all unique and settling disputes between knights who tried to claim the same combination of colors and symbols.

The Monk

Monks and nuns devoted their lives to prayer and meditation. Their days were organized around prayer, but they also performed manual labor, producing food for the monastery where they lived. Other tasks involved copying the Bible or prayer books and making clothing or medicine for the poor.

The Doctor

There were many dangers from illness during the Middle Ages, particularly the Black Death in the 14th century, when about a third of the population of Europe died. Doctors often didn’t understand the causes of illness, and not all doctors and healers even had any formal training. Wealthy people could afford doctors with more training. Cures often included combinations of herbs and various experimental substances, like crushed bugs or even gold and pearls. They had reasons for choosing the substances they did to put in medicine, but because they were lacking knowledge of the true nature of disease, their choices were often flawed.

The Heretic

Although the Catholic Church was the major form of Christianity in western Europe and widely regarded as the “true” Christian religion, religious beliefs were not completely uniform in the population. People whose beliefs seriously conflicted with the Church would be labeled as “heretics.” Because the Church believed that heretics’ souls were in danger, they could use severe punishments and even execution or the threat of it to force them to change or to stop spreading their messages to other people, thus endangering their souls.

The Mason

Masons were responsible for the great building projects of the Middle Ages, like castles and cathedrals. Some of these great buildings kept a staff on site to handle repairs, but some masons were itinerant, moving from site to site as necessary.

The Merchant

Merchants had to travel frequently to obtain and trade goods, some of them even from other countries. Towns would hold fairs at regular intervals where merchants would gather to sell their goods. Merchants with highly desirable goods could become very wealthy, and some people thought that they often got above their station in society, living like nobility.

Posted on by TracyC

Eyewitness Castle

Eyewitness

Castle by Christopher Gravett, photographed by Geoff Dann, 1994, 2004.

Eyewitness books are always great for the photographs that they use to illustrate the concepts in the book!

This book is all about Medieval castles. It starts by explaining the evolution of castle-building from early wooden motte-and-bailey castles to the great stone castles that we often think of as being the classic Medieval castle. However, stone castles could come in different shapes and styles, depending on where they were located.

The book shows examples of castles in different countries. Most of the focus of the book is on castles in European countries, including Spain, Germany, and France. However, the book also includes information about castles in Japan.

Castles were built for defense, and the book explains the types of defenses that castles would have, such as gatehouses, murder holes, lifting bridges, battlements with corbels and machicolations, and loopholes. It also explains what a siege was like, what types of weapons would have been used, and what knights and soldiers were like.

The parts of the book that I liked best were the parts that described the rooms in a castle and the daily lives of the people in a castle. Among the rooms in a castles were the great hall, kitchen, and chapel. I like how they show the objects that would be found in different rooms and how they would be used.

The book explains the lives of the lord of the castle and women and children who lived there. There is information about the types of foods they would eat in a Medieval castle and the types of games and entertainment they would have enjoyed.

There is also information about other workers in and around the castle, including the castle builders and people who tended the castle’s animals and worked in the agricultural fields around the castle, producing food and textiles for the population.

There are sections in the back of the book with additional facts and information about castles and the people who lived in them and a glossary.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

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The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt

The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt by Elizabeth Payne, 1964, 1992.

This is a book for kids about the lives of Egyptian pharaohs, including Hatshepsut, Akhnaton, and Rameses the Second. It also includes details of Ancient Egyptian history, daily life, and religion. I would put the difficulty level of the book around the middle school level. It’s a chapter book with very few pictures and more dense writing than others I’ve read in the same series. It’s one of the Landmark Books (called Step Up Biographies in earlier printings).

Egypt is among the world’s oldest civilizations, having a long history, extending over thousands of years. The Ancient Egyptians created a powerful legacy that has influenced other civilizations for millennia.

In the early days of Egyptian civilization, groups of small villages that early settlers had established along the Nile joined together to form kingdoms. At first, there were three of them:

  • The Bee Kingdom in Lower Egypt — at the Nile delta, on the Mediterranean
  • The Reed Kingdom in Middle Egypt — near the site of modern Cairo
  • The Hawk Kingdom in Upper Egypt — near the rapids that lay between Egypt and the Nubians to the South

If you’re wondering why “Lower Egypt” was in the northern part of Egypt and “Upper Egypt” was in the south, it’s because the Ancient Egyptians weren’t concerned about north and south with regard to their kingdoms. They lived along the Nile, their major source of water and transportation, and when they thought about the relations between cities and kingdoms, they were most concerned about whether they were upriver or downriver. So, “Upper Egypt” was the kingdom farthest upriver, and “Lower Egypt” was the one that was farthest downriver. The Nile just happens to flow from south to north.

Then, around 3200 B.C., the Hawk King known as the Scorpion conquered the kingdom in Middle Egypt. His successor Menes (also called Narmer), who ruled both Middle and Upper Egypt, conquered Lower Egypt as well, turning Egypt into a single nation with a single king. However, there were still rivalries between Upper and Lower Egypt, and the people in different regions spoke different dialects.

The Ancient Egyptians believed that their kings, called Pharaohs, were half-human and half-god. Part of the reason for this belief may have been because the Egyptians believed that a partially-divine ruler could help ensure that life in the Nile Valley could continue smoothly by appealing to his godly relations and partly because, if the king wasn’t completely human, he could be considered above the rivalries between the different regions and remain a unifying figure for the Egyptian people, no matter which region he had come from originally.

Although most Ancient Egyptians were polytheistic, like other ancient civilizations, there was one pharaoh who believed in only a single, all-powerful god. This pharaoh was Akhnaton, the father of Tutankhamen. (The book refers to Tutankhamen as a younger half brother of Akhnaton, but later sources say that he was Akhnaton’s son, although there is still some dispute about that. Either way, the two were related, and Tutankhamen was Akhnaton’s successor.) Akhnaton worshipped the sun, calling the sun god Aton. Part of the reason for this conversion to the worship of a single sun god instead of the many gods of the Ancient Egyptian pantheon may have been due to a power struggle between the pharaoh and the High Priest of Amon. However, Akhnaton seemed to genuinely believe in the Aton and was devoted to it, establishing a new capital city and outlawing worship of other gods. Unfortunately, his health was frail, and worship of the Aton didn’t extend beyond his death around the age of 42, with Egyptians returning to worship their old gods. Tutankhamen, who had been born Tutankhaton, changed his name and moved the capital away from Akhnaton’s city. Tutankhamen’s reign was short. He died in his late teens. (The cause of his death has never been precisely determined, although it seems likely that it was a combination of ill health, possibly a congenital condition due to inbreeding in the royal family, malaria, and a physical injury.) Tutankhamen’s main source of fame is his tomb, found largely intact in November, 1922.

Dynasties of Egyptian Pharaohs ruled Egypt for thousands of years, although in the later centuries of Ancient Egypt, foreign rulers moved in and took control for long periods. Then, in 332 B.C., Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, bringing it under Greek and Macedonian control and ending the reign of Egyptian Pharoahs forever.

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Eyewitness Ancient Egypt

Eyewitness

Ancient Egypt by George Hart, 1990.

I love the way this book, like others in the Eyewitness series, shows photographs of artifacts so readers can not only read about how people lived but see the objects that they used. Each photograph in the book has a caption to explain what it is.

The book begins with an explanation about the origins of Ancient Egyptian civilization thousands of years ago, before there were pharaohs. Then, it explains about the geography of Egypt and the Nile and how the Nile floods and fertile lands along the river made Egyptian civilization possible.

The book then explains the concept of the Egyptian king as a “pharaoh.” The title of “pharaoh” comes from an Ancient Egyptian word meaning “great house”, referring to the palace where the king lived, so the king was the one who lived in the “great house.” However, the pharaoh was more than just the an important man living in a palace; he was also regarded as being a god. Most Egyptian rulers were male, although queens also sometimes ruled and were also regarded as divine. The book shows pictures of statues depicting pharaohs and explains a little more about some of the most famous pharaohs and queens. Then, it goes on to discuss life in the royal court.

Of course, no book about Ancient Egypt is complete without a discussion of mummies and tombs. Much of what we know about Ancient Egypt comes from what the Ancient Egyptians left in their tombs because Ancient Egyptians believed in life after death. They developed methods of preserving their bodies after death, and they stocked their tombs with things that they wanted to have with them in the next life. The book explains the embalming process, what pyramids and royal tombs were like, who the Egyptian gods and goddesses were, and what Egyptians believed about the journey to the afterlife.

I liked how the book not only explains different types of gods and goddesses in Ancient Egypt but also the roles of priests and temples in Egyptian society, types of religious rituals, and the role of religion and magical rituals in Ancient Egyptian medicine.

As the book covers a wide variety of different topics in Egyptian society, including scribes and writing, weaponry, and trading. I particularly like the parts focusing on daily life, like what Egyptian homes were like and some of the tools and details of different trades, like carpentry. The book has details about foods Ancient Egyptians ate, what music and dancing were like, and types of clothing and jewelry they had.

One of my favorite sections in the book is about toys and games in Ancient Egypt. We don’t know all of the details of games that were played in Ancient Egypt, but we do know that they had board games because they were found in tombs. Children’s toys were whimsical and included moving parts. Some of the games children played are similar to ones that children play today, like versions of leapfrog and tug-of-war and spinning tops.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies, including some in different languages)

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Cleopatra: Queen of the Kings

Cleopatra: Queen of the Kings by Fiona MacDonald, illustrated by Chris Molan, 1998, 2003.

I always like books from DK Publishing because they have great illustrations, and they do a good job of helping to explain nonfiction topics, including different periods of history. However, one thing that’s important to realize is that you really have to read all of the small text that accompanies even the small pictures in order to get the full story. If you don’t, you may miss important details. Although this is a picture book, the detailed nature of the information and some of the dark subject matter make it inappropriate for young children.

This particular book is about the life of Cleopatra, the famous Egyptian queen. The queen we know as simply Cleopatra was actually Cleopatra VII. She was part of a dynasty of Egyptian rulers who were originally from Macedonia, a region of Greece. This dynasty was known as the Ptolemaic Dynasty because all of the kings in the dynasty were named Ptolemy, including Cleopatra’s father, Ptolemy XII. There were certain names that were repeated in every generation of the family and even within generations, like Ptolemy (Cleopatra’s two brothers both had this name), Cleopatra (Cleopatra also had a sister who was also named Cleopatra), and Arsinoe (Cleopatra’s younger sister). The book doesn’t fully explain why they came from Macedonia, but one of Cleopatra’s ancestors, Ptolemy I, was a Macedonian nobleman and a friend of Alexander the Great. Ptolemy I went with Alexander the Great on his military campaigns. Through his service to Alexander the Great, Ptolemy I was made the Greek governor of Egypt, ruling from the city Alexandria, which had been established by Alexander the Great. Alexandria was an important port city as well as the seat of the royal family. It was a gathering place of traders, scholars, and people from different cultures in Egypt, although average Egyptian citizens viewed it more as city of foreigners, just as the royal family itself was also foreign. That’s an abbreviated explanation of the family’s history, but it helps to understand that, while the family ruled Egypt for generations, they remained culturally Greek. The book mentions that most of the members of Cleopatra’s family only spoke Greek and that Cleopatra departed from the norm by learning to speak Egyptian.

Cleopatra was born into tumultuous times in the history of Egypt and her family. Her father was known as a cruel ruler who taxes his people heavily and sent large amounts of money to Rome, attempting to befriend Roman leaders and bribe them not to invade Egypt. In 58 BC, Alexandrian citizens had enough of Ptolemy XII and the way he catered to Rome, and they revolted, forcing Ptolemy XII to flee the city for Rome. Cleopatra was only fourteen years old at the time. Members of the family were left behind in Alexandria when Ptolemy XII fled, and Cleopatra’s oldest sister, Berenice claimed the throne in her father’s absence. The Ptolemies were always focused on maintaining their power, even in the face of competition or opposition from family members, and they were not afraid to fight or even kill each other to maintain control. Berenice may have murdered another of her sisters during her time as queen because she died under mysterious circumstances. However, when Ptolemy XII returned to Egypt a few years later, he had Berenice executed as a rival for the throne. By then, Cleopatra was the oldest surviving child of the family, with only her youngest sister and her brothers still alive.

A few years later, Ptolemy XII died, and Cleopatra acted quickly and prudently to secure both her life and her power. Her younger brother, Ptolemy XIII, had a claim to the throne, but he was still only twelve years old, and Cleopatra was eighteen. Asserting her authority over her child brother, Cleopatra took the throne as the oldest remaining offspring of Ptolemy XII and married her brother in order to turn her brother from a rival for power into a further source of her own authority. She could then rule on her brother’s behalf as his wife as well as his older sister. (Other Egyptian rulers had married close relatives for reasons like that. Tutankhamen was similarly the result of an incestuous royal relationship.) As queen, Cleopatra called herself the Sun God’s Daughter, an old royal title that tied her image to rulers of the past and the gods of Ancient Egypt.

From the beginning, being queen was a difficult task for Cleopatra. There were famines in Egypt during the beginning of her reign, and Cleopatra had to manage a response that would satisfy the citizens that she was doing her job as ruler. Family rivalries were also an ever-present danger. Cleopatra knew that she had enemies in her court, including people who favored her brother over her. As her brother got older, he became dissatisfied with the way his sister was ruling without sharing power and authority with him. For a time, Ptolemy XIII forced Cleopatra to flee Egypt and go to Syria. Cleopatra took her sister Arsinoe with her, both to protect her from their brother and to prevent her from trying to seize power herself. (In the Ptolemy dynasty, either could be a possibility. When family members weren’t in danger from each other, they could be a danger to each other.)

In the meantime, Julius Caesar came to Egypt to collect a debt that he claimed that Cleopatra’s father had owed him. He arrived during the power struggle between Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII, and he decided that it would be for the best to try to mediate peace treaty with the two of them. He wanted to meet with both Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII together, but Cleopatra knew that there was a risk that she might be killed if she showed up for a meeting. Yet, she did want to meet with Caesar because she recognized that he could be an important friend and source of protection for her. She ended up visiting Caesar in secret. According to legend, she had herself delivered to Caesar’s room in a rolled-up carpet. Caesar was charmed by Cleopatra and became her ally. When the news of their alliance spread, it tipped the balance of power in the royal family. Caesar learned that Ptolemy XIII’s adviser was plotting against him and had him executed. Ptolemy XIII fled with Arsinoe to join the Egyptian army and was later killed and found dead in Alexandria’s harbor. Getting rid of her brother/husband and his advisers secured Cleopatra’s position. She had one remaining brother, Ptolemy XIV, who was only eleven years old at the time, so she married him, too, further solidifying her power. As her ally (and possible lover), Caesar provided her with guards for her safety.

Cleopatra had a son named Caesarion, who was rumored to be Caesar’s son as well. However, Romans feared that Julius Caesar would proclaim Caesarion as his heir. They didn’t want him as the future ruler of Rome, citizens were appalled at the way Arsinoe was paraded through the streets as a war prize, and people generally began to fear that Caesar was becoming too powerful. In 44 BC, Caesar was assassinated by a group of senators. Cleopatra was in Rome when Caesar was killed, and she fled back to Egypt with her son. Around this time, Ptolemy XIV disappeared, and he may have been murdered by Cleopatra. With a son to inherit her throne, Cleopatra no longer needed Ptolemy XIV. However, her Roman protector was now gone, and Cleopatra still had enemies at court. Cleopatra’s remaining sibling, Arsinoe, sided with Caesar’s enemies and plotted against her sister and Caesarion.

Nobody knows exactly what Cleopatra looked like (statues and carvings of her don’t always look alike, and they may have been idealized images of her), but she took care of her appearance as part of her image as queen. Apparently, Cleopatra was more striking than beautiful, and what struck people about her the most was her intelligence and personality. Her charm was one of her most important tools in winning allies, and she used it again to win over a new ally to replace Caesar. She found a new ally in Marcus Antonius (also known as Mark Antony), one of the candidates to replace Caesar in Rome.

Mark Antony needed the control of Egypt and its resources and the support of Cleopatra for his own political purposes. To win his support for her purposes, Cleopatra began a romantic relationship with Mark Antony that eventually became a major part of the legends around Cleopatra. Although Mark Antony already had a wife in Rome, he became devoted to Cleopatra and fathered a set of twins with her and, later, a third child.

When Caesar’s nephew, Octavian, learned that Antony had divorced his wife and was conspiring against him, he declared war on Egypt to take down both Antony and Cleopatra. Cleopatra and Antony’s forces were defeated at the Battle of Actium although the two of the escaped. Feeling that the end was probably near, Cleopatra had stoneworkers hurry to complete her tomb. She began experimenting with poisons, and she and Antony swore to each other that they would die together. When Antony’s soldiers turned against him and refused to fight, Antony was disgraced and forced to flee. He ended up taking his own life by stabbing himself. Cleopatra had retreated into her own mausoleum, planning to die, but Octavian allowed her to remain there as a prisoner while she arranged Antony’s funeral. The exact cause of Cleopatra’s death has never been confirmed, but according to legend, she arranged her own death by the bite of an asp and sent a note to Octavian, asking that she be buried with Antony.

It’s a tragic end to a story that was full of treachery and family rivalries from the very beginning. Octavian refused to allow any of Cleopatra’s children to assume the throne of Egypt, ending the reign of pharaohs forever. Rome took control of Egypt, and Cleopatra’s children were sent to be raised by Antony’s first wife in Rome, Octavia (who was also Octavian’s younger sister). Caesarion tried to flee to Syria, but he was caught and executed by Octavian’s orders. No one knows what happened to Cleopatra’s other two sons because they disappear from historical records after this point, so they may have died young (or were murdered, given how things went in the powerful circles in which they lived). However, Cleopatra’s daughter survived, grew up, and eventually married the King of Mauretania, a region in North Africa. The book mentions that she had a son that she also named Ptolemy, but it doesn’t mention that this Ptolemy was the last king of Mauretania and was assassinated by Caligula. Caligula and Ptolemy were distant relatives of each other because Ptolemy of Mauretania was a grandson of Antony, and Caligula was descended from both Antony and Octavian. In many ways, it seems like this family’s greatest misfortunes were themselves and each other. Fortunately, the death of death of Ptolemy of Mauretania didn’t end the family line. It’s unknown whether or not Cleopatra has living descendants today, but Ptolemy of Mauretania did have a sister (the details of her life are unknown) and a daughter named Drusilla, who apparently grew up, married, and continued the family line. Further down the family tree, relationships and offspring become harder to trace.

Something I particularly liked about this book was the separation between the legends of Cleopatra and the her known history. As with other ancient historical figures, the history and legends go hand-in-hand, and it can become difficult to separate the two. The book is pretty open about which parts of her life are known, what can’t be firmly established, and which parts of her story come to us from legend and may or may not be reality. The final section in the book discusses the known facts and fiction about Cleopatra and possible confusions between her and other Cleopatras in her family (which may be another reason why not all of the images of Cleopatra look alike). It also explains the information about Cleopatra in Plutarch‘s biography of Mark Antony and how his stories inspired Shakespeare’s play and modern movies about Cleopatra.

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

Posted on by TracyC

Wacky Facts About Mummies

101 Wacky Facts About Mummies by Jack C. Harris, 1991.

This is a book of fun facts about mummies, particular ones from Ancient Egypt, but also ones from other parts of the world. Some of the facts and trivia have to do with the way mummies are made, and others have to do with the discoveries of mummies in modern times.

Here’s just a sampling of the kinds of facts the book offers about mummies in each section:

Will the Real Mummy Please Lie Down? – Basically introduces what mummies are and basic methods for making them and mentions that they’re thousands of years old and that many still have fingernails and toenails.

Egyptians: The Mummy-Making Masters – Facts specifically about Egyptian mummies, including the fact that the Ancient Egyptians never wrote a guide to how to make mummies and few sources have been found with any description of the process, so no one knows precisely what combination of preservatives they used.

Wrap Session! – More about how Egyptians made mummies, including how they removed bodily organs and stored them separately from the body, probably throwing away the brain because they thought that the heart was more important, believing it to be where intelligence and memory were stored. Sometimes, mummies were also painted in different colors to indicate if they were male or female – males were painted red, and females were painted yellow. Fingernails and toenails might also be capped with gold.

The First Mummy-Wrappers – This section is about the Egyptians who embalmed mummies. It was a profession that was generally passed down through families, and they lived in a special area of their city because other people didn’t want to live near people who handled dead bodies for a living. However, the embalmers often had servants or slaves who would be made to do the worst parts of the embalming.

Tomb It Make Concern – This section is about the construction of pyramids and tombs. Because they took years to construct, pharaohs would start the construction of their own tombs immediately on taking the throne.

Farewell, Mummy Dearest – This section talks about funerals, mourners, and what Egyptians believed about the afterlife.

I Want My Mummy! – This section discusses things later people did because they were fascinated by ancient mummies. Sometimes, poor Egyptians would dig up mummies to sell or create fake mummies to satisfy demand. Sometimes, mummies were used in medicines because people believed that the secrets of their preservation could be used to heal the living or help them maintain their youth. During the 19th century, some people would hold “mummy unwrapping” parties, where they would show off and unwrap a mummy they had purchased.

The Chinchorro Connection – This section is about South American mummies.

Natural Beauties! – There are natural conditions that can preserve human bodies, like the cold in high mountains and the acids in peat bogs.

Better Left Shut: The Tomb of King Tut – King Tut’s tomb is one of the most famous Ancient Egyptian tombs because it was relatively undisturbed when modern people found it.

The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb – A series of strange and unfortunate events that happened around the time of the discovery of King Tut’s tomb led to the rumor that the tomb was cursed.

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

Posted on by TracyC

The Mystery of the Gingerbread House

Three Cousins Detective Club

#13 The Mystery of the Gingerbread House by Elspeth Campbell Murphy, 1997.

Sarah-Jane lives near a couple whose names are Jack and Jill. They live in an old Victorian gingerbread style house. They have been fixing up the old house, and Sarah-Jane has been acting as a messenger, carrying samples of wallpaper to them from her mother, who is a decorator.

Sarah-Jane brings her cousins to see the house, and Jill shows them an old photograph that she and her husband found of the children who used to live in the house a hundred years ago and a friend of theirs. When the kids first arrived at the house, they startled someone who was working in the parlor. However, Jack and Jill insist that it was not either of them. They look in the parlor and are surprised to see that someone has continued the work they were doing, removing some of the old wallpaper that needs to be replaced. Why would someone sneak into the house to continue their work?

Someone has learned an important secret about the house and something hidden inside, and they are trying to find it before Jack and Jill stumble across it in their renovation work.

The theme of this story is Proverbs 25:13, “A trustworthy messenger refreshes those who send him. He is like the coolness of snow in the summertime.”

Posted on by TracyC

The Hidden Message

Adventures in the Northwoods

The Hidden Message by Lois Walfrid Johnson, 1990.

The story, like the others in its series, is set on a farm in Wisconsin during the early 20th century.

One night, Kate McConnell wakes up to hear her mother and stepfather talking. The family needs money for the new planting season, so Papa Nordstrom has decided to take a job in a lumber camp over the winter. It will keep him away from home for a couple of months. He doesn’t really want to leave his family, but there’s a new baby on the way, and they really need the money. His absence on the farm means that the children will have to take on extra chores to help out. Kate also worries because conditions in lumber camps can be dangerous. Her birth father was killed in an accident in a similar camp, and she doesn’t want the same thing to happen to Papa Nordstrom.

Before Papa Nordstrom leaves for the lumber camp, he butchers a pig so his family will have meat while he’s gone. With winter setting in, it’s important to make sure that food supplies are secure. That’s why Kate knows it’s serious when her friend Josie tells her at school that someone stole her family’s steer, the one they were planning to butcher for meat this winter. Her family has no other source of meat, and they might go hungry if they can’t find the steer. Josie asks Kate for help because she and Anders solved a mystery involving a mysterious stranger who took things before.

One of the possible suspects is an older boy who has recently returned to school, who the others call Stretch. Kate has never met Stretch before because he’s been gone from school, doing farm work, since before she arrived in the community. Anders knows him, though, and he tells Kate that Stretch is trouble. Part of the reason they call him “Stretch” is that he has a habit of stretching the truth. Kate finds Stretch handsome at first, but Anders warns her not to get involved with him. Kate thinks Anders is exaggerating about Stretch because other people at school seem to like him. Anders says that if Kate wants to like someone, she should like Erik instead. Kate has a kind of rivalry going with Erik since he dipped her braid in his inkwell, and it permanently stained her dress. Anders says that Erik didn’t really mean to ruin her dress, but Kate is still unhappy about the incident. So, although Kate can tell that Erik is more responsible in other ways and is a bright and dedicated student, and they go to the same church, she has reservations about liking him.

However, Kate soon comes to realize just how dangerous Stretch is. Their teacher warns them all away from the frozen lake because the springs in the lake make the ice unpredictable. While the others play on the playground, Stretch talks Kate into walking by the lake with him. He says that he knows it’s safe because he was out on the lake earlier that morning, although Kate has her doubts about it. Then, Kate spots Anders’s dog out on the ice. Worried about the dog, Kate tries to call to him, but the dog doesn’t come to her like he usually does. Kate steps onto the ice to get the dog, and the ice breaks. Kate nearly drowns in the icy water, but Erik saves her. Kate realizes that, when she was in danger because of Stretch, Stretch actually abandoned her to drown. Later, he won’t even admit that he was the reason why Kate went down to the lake in the first place. When Kate is warmer and able to think better, she also begins to realize that the reason why Anders’s dog wouldn’t come to her when she called was because she was with Stretch, and the dog is afraid of Stretch, indicating that Stretch has been cruel to the dog in the past.

Kate’s brush with death opens her eyes to what Stretch is really like. It also creates a problem because the teacher writes a letter to Kate’s mother about the incident, letting her know that Kate did something very dangerous. Kate doesn’t want her mother to know what happened because it would upset her, especially with Papa Nordstrom being away and the children supposed to be behaving responsibly to help her on the farm. Kate wants to hide the teacher’s letter and not tell her mother, although Anders and Lars try to persuade her to be honest about what’s happened. They argue about it, and Kate accuses them of wanting to tattle on her, threatening to tell on them if they do something wrong. She feels sorry for upsetting them, especially young Lars, but she’s afraid of how her mother might react when she finds out what happened. Anders warns her that her mother might still find out what happened from someone else and that by being dishonest and fighting with Lars, she’s starting something that she’s going to regret. But, Kate can’t even bring herself to confide in anyone that Stretch was the reason she went down to the lake. Even though he almost got her killed and didn’t even try to help her, she can’t bring herself to tattle on him. (That’s dumb, on several levels. I’ll explain why below.)

After the incident with Kate falling through the ice, Stretch avoids going to school for awhile. Then, one day, Kate sees him stealing candy at the general store. Even though Kate knows what she saw, she still can’t bring herself to tell on him, and she even begins making excuses for him in her mind to make him seem less bad. When he offers her a ride home, she’s a little hesitant, but she decides to accept to avoid the long walk home. On the way, she asks him why he didn’t help her when she fell through the ice, but he never answers her. She also notices that his hand is oddly blue, and when she asks about that, he says that he must have just worked that hand too hard when he was cutting wood. However, he doesn’t have wood in the back of his wagon. He’s hauling boxes of something. This time, she decides to tell Anders about Stretch stealing, but she doesn’t mention the boxes in the back of Stretch’s wagon because she still doesn’t know what to think about them.

The secret about the ice incident comes out when Kate’s step-siblings, feeling uncomfortable about her deception, play a prank on her to get her to tell on herself. Knowing how afraid of mice Kate is, they put a dead one in a box with the label, “Pretty on the outside, like this on the inside,” on top. When Kate opens it, she screams, and her mother comes running. Knowing why they played this prank on her, Kate explains the truth to her mother. Her mother gives her a punishment for lying to her before, and Kate sees how upset she is that Kate didn’t tell her the truth earlier.

However, Kate hasn’t quite learned her lesson about lying. She sneaks out when she’s supposed to be grounded in her room by climbing down the tree outside the window. While she’s outside without permission, she spots a loose cow belonging to Josie’s family and guides it back to them. It’s a good deed, but she was still out without permission, and Tina spots her. Kate is angry and accuses Tina of “spying” on her and tries to persuade her not to tell. Kate can tell that Tina is upset and worries about lying to her mother and making her mad. Kate feels badly, but she can’t seem to stop herself from doing these things. She still continues to sneak out during her period of being grounded. When little Tina tries to imitate her by climbing down the tree herself and gets stuck, Kate has to rescue her. Her mother spots them once they’re down on the ground, and Kate confesses everything.

Kate feels like an awful person because Tina could have been badly hurt or even killed by following her example. Her mother says that everyone is awful in the sense that humans are all imperfect, and that’s why they commit sins. That is why God sent His son to redeem human sins. It’s good to be sorry when you’ve done something wrong and ask for forgiveness because forgiveness will be granted, and if you accept Jesus as your Savior, he will take away your sins. (I’ve heard this before, the part about everyone being “awful”, or words to that effect. This is kind of a Protestant way to phrase this. When I’ve heard it before, it usually seems to be from Protestants with a more Evangelical outlook, although that might vary. I don’t disagree with the principles, but Catholics would say it differently, and I may include a little more about it in my reaction.)

Meanwhile, there are still more thefts occurring in the community. Someone robs Erik’s family of all of the vegetables and fruit they’ve canned for the winter. Having food stores stolen at the onset of winter puts the family in a precarious position, and everyone else in the community worries about their foods stores, too.

One day, when Erik is at Windy Hill, Anders starts teasing Kate about her organ playing. He takes it too far, and both Kate and Erik tell him to stop. To Kate’s surprise, Erik hits Anders when he refuses to stop when asked, and the boys start to fight. Kate’s mother comes in, stops the fight, and makes the boys clean the room as punishment, which leads to several revelations. Kate comes to realize that Anders is a major reason why Erik has been teasing her. Anders has been urging Erik to tease her and also using Erik as an excuse for his own teasing. Now, Erik is getting as tired of it as she is. Erik confides in Kate that he knows that Stretch was the reason she went down to the lake when she fell in, and the only reason he hasn’t told anyone else is that he can’t prove that Stretch was there or that he abandoned Kate when she got into trouble.

As the kids move Kate’s organ back into position from the cleaning, Anders almost drops his end, and he accidentally opens a secret hiding place in the organ, knocking a hidden book onto the floor. The book contains church hymns in Swedish, but there’s also a torn part of a note in English. Unfortunately, they don’t have enough of the note to really understand what it means. (This is the “hidden message” of the title, and it doesn’t enter the story until about the final third of the book. I suspected it was a Biblical quotation, but I couldn’t place it from the fragment.) The note fragment contains the word “fear”, which makes the children worry that someone might be in trouble and asking for help. Erik asks them when and where they got the organ, but Kate explains that they bought it a few months ago at a fair in Grantsburg, and she doesn’t even know the name of the man who sold it. Papa Nordstrom might know, but since he’s away, they can’t ask him.

Stretch still seems like the likely suspect for the food thefts. Kate has seen him do some suspicious things, and he’s been telling some obvious lies, but she and Anders have difficulty finding any positive proof to get the authorities to intervene. Then, the thief takes the pig that Papa Nordstrom left for his family and the lid from their stove, rendering the stove useless until it’s replaced. With the stakes that much higher, Kate knows that they have to catch the thief, fast!

Kate also manages to figure out who originally owned the organ and who left the book and the message in the secret hiding place. The original owner is someone Kate already knows who used to play the organ. As I guessed, the message is actually part of a Biblical quotation (Psalm 118, Verse 6). The message is part of the theme of the story, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the theft directly. However, some strange things that the former owner of the organ has observed help to provide Kate and Anders with the proof they need to get back everything that was stolen. The story ends at Christmas.

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

Themes and My Reaction

In some ways, I was disappointed in this book. The identity of the thief isn’t really a surprise. Most of the mystery concerns how to prove it. Also, even though the title of the book refers to the hidden message, the mystery doesn’t center around the hidden message, and the hidden message doesn’t contribute directly to the solving of the mystery. Its main contribution to the story is to provide a theme: “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” This quotation does give Kate the courage she needs to confront the thief.

Honesty in Relationships

I don’t blame Kate for having reservations about liking Erik at first. I know that things end up improving between them as the series goes along and even during this book, but he really did do something dumb and started off on the wrong foot with her. He’s not the first to do it, and frankly, it’s become a rather sad cliche. (It’s not unlike Gilbert in Anne of Green Gables and the way he started off wrong with Anne by making those “carrots” comments about her hair.) I’ve heard people say that boys will do mean things like that because they like girls and just don’t know how to say it, but you can’t just let people keep causing problems without some feedback about it because it doesn’t lead to good relationships. You don’t want to give someone the impression that you’re okay with teasing or rough play when you’re not because, if they don’t know it bothers you, they’ll never stop doing it, and it will drive you crazy. We all teach people how to treat us through the feedback we give. If Erik really cares about Kate, he’ll learn to give her the kind of attention she wants instead of the kind she doesn’t.

I started feeling better about Erik when he started standing up to Anders because Anders was going to far and wouldn’t stop even after both Erik and Kate telling him to stop. I appreciated that, while Erik may have initially felt compelled to join Anders in teasing Kate, Erik seems to have developed a sense of when to stop teasing and is willing to draw a hard line when necessary, even standing up to a friend and telling him “no.” Toward the end of the story, Anders finally has an honest talk with Kate, asking her why she didn’t tell him that Stretch was with her at the lake and abandoned her when she got in trouble. The answer is that Anders teases Kate all the time about everything. His constant teasing prevents her from confiding in him about things that they really should discuss. His teasing shuts down conversations before they even start. Anders finally tells Kate that he is her brother and wants to help her when she needs it, and he says that he wouldn’t tease her about anything really important. That attitude sounds promising. Unfortunately, he still insists that he’ll be the judge of what’s important, so I think that relationship still needs some work.

I’ll never understand people who say that teasing helps build relationships. Never. I’ve never seen it work that way in real life, not for building relationships of any depth, at least not unless the relationship has already been established on another basis first. It usually goes the other way, preventing relationships from developing or getting deeper than being shallow because relentless teasing does tend to shut down conversations and prevent people from opening up to each other. Why should someone tell you anything at all if they know that’s the reaction they’re going to get from you and that you don’t care that they don’t like it? The only times when teasing seems tolerable in real life is when the people involved already have built solid relationships with each other based on other qualities, really know each other well, and trust each other. Relationships are frequently based on trust, and you simply can’t trust someone who’s not really listening to what you say so much as trying to figure out how to use any and every little thing you say as a punchline for a dumb and hurtful joke for their own amusement or so they can score a few points off someone else and feel clever about it. I see it more as using other people than building a relationship with them. I just don’t feel endeared to anyone who only seems to be using me to score points to impress some third party onlookers. You can’t build a relationship based on teasing by itself. At least, I know I can’t. It just doesn’t work. What I’m trying to say is that Anders has not built a relationship with Kate and is both oblivious or resistant to feedback. He does not know when to take a hint and shut up even when people tell him plainly and not even when someone physically tackles him to the ground over it. So far, Kate has been doing all the heavy lifting in her relationship with Anders, trying to win him over, and he’s not really giving her much in return, although he’s slowly starting to show some signs of being helpful.

The characters in the story also alternately worry about being thought of as tattle-tales or criticize others for “tattling.” I’ve always thought all that “tattling” stigma was dumb. I know sometimes “tattling” means complaining about really petty things to one-up someone else, which is truly annoying (as I think all forms of one-upmanship are). However, people also use that word to try to shame people for talking about problems that really do need to be discussed. The way I look at it, if you’re going to be either mean or an idiot in a way that hurts other people, you forfeit your rights to complain about those other people talking about your meanness or idiocy. It’s not like the person talking about you made you do what you did, they didn’t ask to hurt by you, and if you did what you did in public, where other people could see it, it already counts as public knowledge anyway.

In 1906, when the story takes place, the Kate’s biggest worry is that her mother will hear about things she’s done from a neighbor at church because that’s their biggest opportunity for seeing and talking to other people. Every kid at school knows that she almost drowned, and since that was the big event of the day, they all no doubt told all of their parents about it. It’s common knowledge, not tattling. In the early 21st century, news of Kate’s brush with death at the lake would be all over social media before the end of the day because an entire classroom of people is aware of what happened and will be excited to talk about it. Even in cases where something happened that wasn’t serious enough for the school to immediately call the parent and tell them directly, any usual incident at school will get around fast. Usually what irritates people about “tattling” is that it can be pointless, petty nitpicking. However, the lake incident in this book was a matter of life and death, so I think complaining about anybody “tattling” is pretty dang petty itself. I think there needs to be a distinction between petty complaining and serious discussion. I think the anti-tattling attitudes people have teach bad morals, including dishonesty, self-delusion, and excuse-making, all issues that Kate has to confront in herself during the course of the story.

By choosing not to “tattle” on Stretch, which actually wouldn’t be “tattling” so much as just giving an honest answer to questions people were directly and specifically asking Kate about how she happened to be out on the frozen lake, Kate has also left Stretch open to doing similar things in the future to other innocent victims. She isn’t helping herself or the next person who could use some honest warnings. She didn’t initially trust Anders’s warnings about Stretch because he wouldn’t answer her questions about Stretch in specific terms (perhaps for fear of being thought a tattler), but Kate is now in a position to describe Stretch’s behavior in very specific terms herself, from first-hand knowledge. Anders was trying to be honest with Kate in his warnings, but he wasn’t fully honest and is already known for being an annoying teaser, which is why he didn’t seem believable. For all Kate knew, it just might have been another of his dumb jokes to embarrass her. (Another problem with too much teasing – no one knows when you’re actually trying to be honest and sincere about something, and few people are prepared to believe it because those are not a teaser’s default modes. If the teaser has already built a relationship based on qualities other than teasing alone, I suppose those close to him might be able to tell the difference, but no one else will, and Anders hasn’t built that kind of relationship with Kate yet.) If Anders had simply said why he didn’t trust Stretch, maybe Kate would have believed him and been more careful in the first place. Kate had to learn the hard way that Anders was telling her the truth about Stretch, and now, she’s going to have to learn the hard way that she also needs to drop her “tattling” hang-ups and be fully honest with herself and other people. Again, we teach others how to treat us, and Stretch could use some fully honest lessons from various people in his life. Don’t worry; he does get some help at the end of the book.

I was interested in what Anders said at the part of the story where he and Kate are talking about whether it’s better for her to like Stretch or Erik. Anders says that Papa Nordstrom has said that liking people is a choice, and people can make good choices or bad choices about who to like, which leads me to a few comments I have about the religious themes in the stories.

Sin and Forgiveness

I’ve explained before that I came from a family of mixed religions, although I was raised Catholic, and my religious education has also been somewhat mixed from childhood, although mainly Catholic. The only reason why I mention it is because, although Catholics and Protestants have similar ideas about the flawed nature of humanity, the causes of sin, and the role of Jesus in redeeming humanity, they have different ways of phrasing these concepts, which can sometimes give people wrong impressions and make it seem like their views are more different from each other than they actually are. When I see it, the differences are partly on where each puts the emphasis and the words they use.

A friend of mine (Mormon) was taking a college religious studies course and she was irritated by the way the teacher talked about original sin and about human beings as being “awful.” I can’t remember the exact phrasing she said that the teacher used, but it was something similar to what the mother says in this book about everyone being “awful.” My friend told me about it because she knows I’m Catholic and don’t mind discussing these things, and she thought her teacher was Catholic. I said that didn’t sound like a Catholic speaking. I looked it up, and it turns out that the teacher was specifically speaking from an Evangelical viewpoint, which is what I expected would be the case because, as I said, I’ve heard this before. I get the concept, but I don’t like that phrasing. It seems like it implies that all humans are inherently “bad” (which is what got on my friends’ nerves), but that’s not really the concept, not in real life or in this book.

The article that I linked in the first paragraph of this section explains it very well, but as a quick overview, the real issue is not that humans are inherently “bad” or “awful.” Not completely. (That’s what some people call the doctrine of “total depravity“, although even some of its adherents say that’s still a misunderstanding of the concept of “total depravity.”) It’s just that human beings are not perfectly good. Humans are inherently imperfect, which is different from just being flat-out “awful.” We’re not completely good or completely bad, just imperfectly between the two. Since we have elements of each in us, neither side can be ignored to get the full picture, and we can make choices about which of our sides we favor and try to maximize. Because we are imperfect as humans, we all sometimes have impulses, desires, and lapses in judgement that lead us to sin. That’s a part of who we are, but at the same time, we also have other desires for relationships with God and our fellow human beings that lead us to self-improvement and a desire to do good for others.

As Papa Nordstrom observed, we all have the ability to make choices. (This is part of the concept of “free will.” Catholics believe strongly in the concept of free will and reject any concept that original sin renders people unable to use their free will to make good decisions and consciously reject flawed impulses. I think that helps make “original sin” seem less of a tragedy because, while there’s always a struggle, knowing that there are still things you can do about it helps. Nobody’s doomed just for being human.) People can make good choices or bad choices. They can choose to give in to their worst impulses or practice mindfulness and self-discipline to resist them and strive for improvement. Understand that there are times when anyone could potentially do the wrong thing or have the impulse to do it. It happens to everyone from time to time, in varying degrees, throughout their lives. But, having the impulse to do something doesn’t mean you have to give in to it every time. Because human beings are imperfect, we often need some help and support to make the right choices when we’re struggling, and that’s the help that Christians look for when they turn to Jesus, accepting Him as their Savior, the example of what to do when they’re not sure how to control their feelings and impulses. People just need to make the choice to seek out that help when they’re struggling with bad habits or a crisis of conscience because there is help available, both spiritual help and help from other human beings. People can choose to say they’re sorry for bad decisions they’ve made and ask for forgiveness and guidance for making better choices, both from God and their fellow humans. (Kate should have been honest with her mother because she’s there to help and guide her and needs to know when something serious happens.) I prefer that description to saying that “we are all awful.” We’re not “awful.” We’re imperfect, and even if we’ll never be perfect in our human state, we can improve. That doesn’t sound as bad, does it?

The part where Kate rescues Tina from the dangerous situation she was in because of Kate’s bad example sort of reminds me of the end of Disney’s Freaky Friday from 1976, when the mother and daughter are talking about what they’ve done and what they’ve learned from being each other for a day:

“I am so much smarter than I thought. And so much dumber.”
“Oh, my darling, aren’t we all?

Other Interesting Topics

I thought the part of the story where Kate was talking to her organ teacher, Mr. Peters, about the difference between playing by ear and learning the notes was interesting. Mr. Peters points out that Kate is in the habit of playing songs by ear but she hasn’t really learned to read music. He tells her that she’ll learn more if she gets in the habit of reading the music for herself instead of depending on someone else playing a song for her to learn it. She later uses her new knowledge of reading music to learn to play one of the songs in the Swedish book of hymns. Musical notes are the same even if the songs are written in other languages.