Aunt Flossie’s Hats (and Crab Cakes Later) by Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard, paintings by James Ransome, 1991.
On Sunday afternoons, a pair of sisters, Susan and Sarah, go to visit their Great-Great-Aunt Flossie. They love her house because it is full of interesting things, especially Aunt Flossie’s hat collection.
When their aunt welcomes them in, she offers them tea and cookies and promises that they will get some crab cakes later. After they have their tea and cookies, Aunt Flossie lets the girls try on her hats and tells them stories about them.
The girls are fascinated by the different colors and styles of the hats, but to Aunt Flossie, they represent memories. As the girls pick hats to try, Aunt Flossie tells them what the hats remind her of.
One hat that still has a slight smokey smell reminds Aunt Flossie of a big fire she witnessed in Baltimore. Another hat, one with a red feather, reminds Aunt Flossie of the parade she saw at the end of the Great War (what WWI was called before WWII).
Aunt Flossie’s favorite hat has pink and yellow flowers, and it reminds her of the time when she almost lost it, but it was rescued by a friendly dog. The girls love Aunt Flossie’s stories about her hats, and they love the crab cakes they get later with their family!
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
This is a sweet, slice-of-life story about an elderly aunt sharing her memories with her young nieces. The girls enjoy their time with their aunt, trying on the hats in her collection and getting glimpses of the past through her stories. By spending time together, getting together for tea (and crab cakes later) and trying on the hats, the girls are also building new memories. Years later, they will be able to tell stories about the afternoons they spent with Aunt Flossie and the stories she would tell them about her hats. A note in the book’s dedication indicates that the story is based on memories of the author’s own elderly Aunt Flossie.
The pictures in the book are colorful, like the colors of the aunt’s hats, and they’re also a little soft. I think the soft quality of the images is a good match for the memories the aunt shares with the girls and the new memories they’re creating by sharing stories and spending time together as a family.
The Girl Who Loved Caterpillars adapted by Jean Merrill, illustrated by Floyd Cooper, 1992.
This story is a rendition of a 12th century folktale from Japan.
Izumi is the daughter of an important man, a provincial inspector who serves the emperor in Kyoto. Court life is full of elegance, and Izumi is a pretty and clever girl. Her parents have high hopes that she might become a lady-in-waiting or marry a nobleman, but she is mainly known for one thing: her peculiar love of caterpillars.
A beautiful and elegant woman who lives nearby is known for her love of butterflies, and she is considered to be The Perfect Lady. She has all of the skills that a noblewoman could aspire to, and Izumi’s parents think of her as a great role model for their daughter.
However, Izumi doesn’t see the appeal of beautiful butterflies. After all, they come from caterpillars, and caterpillars are much more interesting. Izumi also loves worms, toads, insects, and other things that most people would find unappealing. She likes to keep them as pets and observe how they live and grow. Izumi’s parents don’t approve of the lower-class boys who bring Izumi new creatures for her collection, and nobody else understands her fascination with these creatures.
Izumi just loves the natural world. To her, court life and the beauty standards for women there are too artificial. She also believes in reincarnation and the idea that any person might have been one of these unusual creatures in a past life or could be one in the next. Her parents love her, and they understand how she feels when she explains her reasoning to them, but they also worry about her future. If she doesn’t conform more to the standards of the court and develop more “normal” interests, will she ever make a desirable marriage? People at court gossip about Izumi and her odd tastes.
However, the rumors about Izumi reach a young nobleman who is as clever as Izumi, and he is fascinated at the idea of a pretty girl who isn’t afraid of the creeping creatures of the Earth.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction
I remember this story from when I was a kid! When I was a kid, I didn’t bother to read the Afterword of the book, which explains more about the origins of the story. Izumi’s story actually seems to be part of a much longer story about court life in Medieval Japan. The original author of the story is unknown, and Izumi’s part of the story is incomplete. It ends with the promise that what happens next will be revealed in the next chapter, but the rest of the story is unknown. We don’t know if she ends up marrying the nobleman who has developed a fascination with her or not.
I have a theory, based on a comment that Izumi made, comparing caterpillars to their adult forms and asking why people are only interested in the adult forms, that Izumi’s love of caterpillars is based both on her young age and perhaps a hidden affinity for children. Perhaps Izumi will grow to love butterflies as well as she grows up and be viewed as more of a butterfly herself, or maybe the nearby lady who loves butterflies will admit to a secret love of caterpillars as well. None of us stay young, and we all evolve as we grow, but part of us always remembers being in those early, awkward stages. Maybe everyone has a secret soft spot for the young, even when they’re fuzzy or grubby crawling things, and a desire to see them become the best form of themselves.
Whatever her future brings, readers get the impression that Izumi is happy and at peace with herself as she is, whether anyone else agrees or not. We can hope that the young nobleman will also love her for the person she is, but Izumi seems to believe that being true to her own nature is the way to achieve inner peace.
In other times and places, as the Afterward observes, Izumi might have been a scientist, naturalist, or philosopher. The traits that make her seem odd for her time and place are actually desirable ones that could make her more successful in other circumstances. In the early 21st century, Izumi’s sense of individualism and her value of the natural world would probably win her many friends. People who enjoy the aesthetic of Goblincore would probably relate to her feelings about caterpillars and other crawly creatures.
Harlequin and the Green Dress by Laura Fischetto, illustrated by Letizia Galli, 1994.
What I love about this book is that it’s a fun introduction to commedia del arte and its stock characters! A figure that looks like Charlie Chaplin holds a card that summons readers like guests to a play and introduces our characters like this:
Columbine – “a scheming maid …”
Harlequin – “a sly servant …”
Pantalone – “a stingy old man …”
Punch – “who now heaves a hungry sigh …”
Rosaura – “a lady fair …”
The Doctor – “a menace … and”
Florindo – “a handsome knight.”
There is going to be a costume ball. Rosaura, a wealthy young lady, has a beautiful green dress to wear, but she is unhappy because her father, Pantalone, refuses to let her marry the man she loves, Florindo. Florindo is a poor knight, and Pantalone hopes that Rosaura will meet a wealthier suitor at the costume ball.
Meanwhile, Rosaura’s maid, Columbine, wishes that she had a beautiful dress so that she could go to the costume ball herself. She thinks that, if she went to the ball, she might also meet a rich man.
Harlequin is in love with Columbine, and he wants to do something that would impress her. He decides to borrow Rosaura’s dress and give it to Columbine as an anonymous gift so that Columbine can to go to the ball, but unbeknowst to him, Florindo is coming up with a scheme that will allow Rosaura to run away with him and get married. Florindo enlists his servant, Punch, to pretend to kidnap Rosaura, to provide a reason for her sudden disappearance. He tells Punch that he will know Rosaura at the ball because of her magnificent green dress, not knowing that Columbine has already received the dress from Harlequin and is wearing it at the ball.
Chaos ensues when Punch abducts Columbine, thinking that it’s Rosaura and that she’s just playing along with Florindo’s plan. When Punch says that he’s taking her to her suitor, Columbine assumes that he’s taking her to the secret admirer who gave her the dress.
In the meantime, poor Rosaura is having hysterics because she can’t find her dress and can’t go to meet her suitor. When Harlequin discovers what a mess all the scheming has caused, he comes up with another scheme to straighten out everything. Can he reunite Rosaura with Florindo, convince Pantalone to allow their marriage to take place, make her that Punch gets all the snacks he wants, and make things right with Columbine?
My Reaction
I love books that introduce lesser-known topics, and I imagine that few young readers would know anything about commedia del arte. For kids who are old enough to appreciate a little theatrical history and expand their cultural horizons, this is a fun introduction to an art form that they may have never seen before!
My first introduction to the stock characters was in Agatha Christie movies because Agatha Christie was fond of commedia del arte and put references to it into some of her stories, like The Affair of the Victory Ball. There is a section at the back of this book that explains the historical background of this type of theater and more about the characteristics of the stock characters.
I did think that the story in the book jumped around oddly in some places, and the role of The Doctor wasn’t very well explained. I think part of the reason was that the action would be easier to understand if we were watching it on stage rather than reading it in a book. The pictures are also chaotic and a little difficult to follow. I think they’re meant to convey the shifting scenes and the fast and chaotic movements of the characters as they go about their various schemes. The story itself is meant to be chaotic and action-filled because of all the characters’ schemes and counter-schemes. The action and visual jokes would probably make more sense seeing them performed rather than hearing them described.
I did like the part at the end, where we see the actors taking their bows and some of them removing their masks because the story was a play the entire time. The story isn’t meant for readers to see the characters as real people and events that are actually taking place. It’s all been a stage play the entire time. The pictures also indicate that it was always a play, with its flat scenery, objects at strange angles, and characters that seem to be separated from each other by thin walls. It’s all a bit unreal because it is unreal.
To get around some of the chaotic nature of the story and make it more fun for kids, I think this is a good book to read aloud with a lot of enthusiasm and maybe even act out rather than just telling it, encouraging young listeners to get involved in the story and the imaginary world of the theater.
The Shoemaker’s Boy by Joan Aiken, illustrated by Victor G. Ambrus, 1991, 1994.
Jem’s father is a shoemaker, and Jem is learning his trade. However, things take a bad turn when his mother suddenly becomes ill. It’s a strange kind of illness. She sleeps all the time, can’t eat, and is hardly breathing. The doctors can’t seem to help her, so Jem’s father decides to go on a pilgrimmage to St. James in Spain and pray for his wife to get better.
While he’s gone, Jem has to mind the family business and look after his mother. Jem’s father has a reputation as a incredible shoemaker, with people coming to see him even from other kingdoms, and Jem is worried that he won’t be able to maintain the business on his own because he’s still learning the trade. However, since nothing else seems to help his mother, it seems like his father’s holy pilgrimage is their last hope.
While his father is away, Jem tries his best, but he finds it difficult to keep up with the orders that come in for shoes. He falls behind on his work, and money is running short. Then, one day, he has a strange encounter with three little men, who are only the size of young children. They are all dressed in green, and they ask Jem for the three silver keys. Jem doesn’t know what they’re talking about, but the men say that they were sent to ask him for them because someone was supposed to leave the keys with him. Jem says that nobody has left any keys with him, and suddenly, the little men vanish! At first, Jem thinks that maybe he imagined the whole thing, but this is just the beginning of a series of strange happenings.
Late that night, there is a knock on the door, and when Jem answers it, he is confronted by a knight wearing black. The knight says that he wants Jem to make him a pair of boots because he’s heard that the boots from this shop are the best. Jem doesn’t want the knight to be disappointed, so he explains to him about his father being away and that he is not as good as his father at making boots. The knight appreciates his honesty and says that he will try Jem’s work anyway. He promises Jem an excellent fee for his services if the boots are ready by morning, and to Jem’s surprise, he also asks Jem if someone has left three silver keys for him. Jem tells him that nobody has left any keys with him, and the knight says that someone may leave them by the time the boots are ready, and he asks Jem to take good care of them.
Jem works on the boots through the night, and he’s making good progress when, in the middle of the night, a second knight arrives. The second knight is dressed in white. This knight doesn’t want any boots or shoes. Instead, he asks Jem to take care of a little packet for him while he runs an errand. He says that he has heard that Jem is very trustworthy, and he says that if he doesn’t return by morning, Jem can keep the packet. Jem agrees that he will take care of the packet and make sure no one else touches it.
The rest of the night is very strange. While Jem works hard on finishing the last boot, he hears strange sounds outside, and he thinks that he can hear the little men and the black knight calling out for the mysterious keys. What does it all mean? Are the keys in the packet left by the white knight, and if so, what are they for?
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
This is a short, easy beginning chapter book, and it’s a nice story with a Medieval setting, written in the style of an old fairy tale. The story leaves a few questions unanswered at the end. We never really find out who the two knights are or who the little men are, although there are implications that they are supernatural. I think that they also have religious significance, tying them to Jem’s father’s pilgrimage. The contents of the white knight’s packet are not obvious, but it is the solution to Jem’s main problem. When Jem’s father returns home, he also has some information about Jem’s mysterious visitors, although he doesn’t have all the answers, either. Readers know enough at the end to appreciate that Jem made the right decision when he handled the packet and that his experiences were partly a test of his character.
The book mentions Jem’s father putting a scallop shell on his cap when he’s about to begin his pilgrimage. The scallop shell is a symbol of St. James, one of the original Twelve Apostles. The place where Jem’s father was going on his pilgrimage, the shrine of St. James at Santiago de Compostela in Spain is a real place that has been a popular site of religious pilgrimages for centuries. After Jesus was crucified, His disciples traveled to other places to spread the word about Jesus and gain new converts to the new religion of Christianity. St. James went to what is now Spain, and after teaching there, he eventually returned to Jerusalem. It isn’t entirely clear what happened to his body after he died, but one of the stories is that his followers brought his body back to Spain and buried it at the site now known as Santiago de Compostela. St. James is now the patron saint of Spain, and pilgrims who visit Santiago de Compostela often collect a scallop shell as a souvenir of their journey. Actually, that is the one complaint that I have about this book. In the story, Jem’s father puts on a scallop shell as he begins his journey, but in real life, Medieval pilgrims usually used the shell as a sign of completion of their journey.
Somewhere in the World Right Now by Stacey Schuett, 1995.
This picture book explains time zones by showing what people and animals all over the world are doing at the same time, reminding children that, somewhere in the world right now, it’s a different time of day.
The book begins with A Note to the Reader, explaining that it takes 24 hours for the Earth to make one full rotation on its axis and that the Earth is constantly turning. This rotation is what makes the sun seem to move across the sky and creates our periods of day and night. Then, it explains how, in 1884, our formal system of time zones was established to standardize how times of day are expressed around the world. There are 24 time zones, roughly equal in size, with a few adjustments for geographical boundaries. Within each time zone, it is the same time, and it is one hour different from the time zones on either side of it. It also explains that the international date line is an imaginary boundary drawn through the middle of the Pacific Ocean that marks the point at which new days begin. There is a map in the book that illustrates all the time zones we will be traveling through and the International Date Line. The places we see in the rest of the book are also labeled on the map.
The main part of the book shows what people and animals around the world are doing “right now”, compared to a child in the United States. We don’t see the child in the United States until the very end of the book, but everything else is based around her “right now.” The text doesn’t specify where each of the places are, but each picture has a map in the background with labels that indicate the location to readers.
The first place we see is London, England. It’s the middle of the night (or possibly very early in the morning, after midnight but the sun isn’t up – according to the map at the beginning of the book, it’s 1 am), but a baker is preparing fresh bread to sell in the morning. Meanwhile, there are elephants sleeping in Uganda, whales swimming in the sea, penguins protecting their chicks in Antarctica, and a little girl sleeping in Madagascar.
It’s dawn in India, and people there are waking up. People are eating breakfast in Bhutan, and people are on their way to work in the morning in China. At the same time, it’s lunch time in Siberia, and there are kangaroos and koalas eating their own lunch in Australia.
Meanwhile, it’s afternoon on the western coast of the United States. There’s a fishing boat returning to port in Alaska, and a girl on a farm in California. As we move further east, it gets later and later. When we reach Chicago, it’s evening, and people are heading home. In Guatemala and Honduras, children who have been playing outside head for home, and families are having supper.
Eventually, we reach Boston, Massachusetts, where someone is reading a story book to a little girl before bed. It’s 8 pm, according to the time on the map at the beginning and the clock next to the little girl’s bed. All the things that we’ve seen in the book are happening, somewhere in the world, right now, as she is going to bed.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
This book is educational, showing children how time and time zones work around the world, but it’s also a good, gentle bedtime story. Although we don’t really know it until the very end, it’s framed around a girl who is going to bed and is hearing a bedtime story. It is relaxing to think about how different things are happening in different places, to people and animals around the world, almost counting them off like counting sheep. No matter when it is or where you are, there’s someone, somewhere in the world, going through a different point in their day.
I found the human parts of the story more interesting than the animal portions, but I think children would enjoy hearing about the animals and seeing the animal pictures. It’s also relaxing to think about animals just going about their routines, like people go about theirs. There’s nothing stressful happening to any of the people or animals in the story.
I remember, when I was younger, I sometimes pictured things happening around the world when I had trouble sleeping. I can’t remember why I started doing this, if it was because I read this book or one like it. Somehow, though, I found it reassuring to think that, somewhere, it was daytime for someone else and that there were always people awake somewhere. It might be just me, but somehow, I found that idea reassuring because it meant that there were other people taking care of things, and it was their turn to be awake and do things, so I could have my turn to relax and rest.
All in a Day is a picture book on a similar theme, but instead of just showing what’s happening around the world at one particular moment, All in a Day follows children in various countries through the course of an entire day.
The Legend of the Christmas Rose by William H. Hooks, paintings by Richard A. Williams, 1999.
Dorothy is a 9-year-old girl with three brothers, who are all much older than she is. Her three brothers are all shepherds, and her daily chore is to take water to them when they’re out in the fields with the sheep. Her brothers love her, but they always treat her like a small child because they’re so much older.
One day, she spots some strange travelers on the road. She worries that they might be robbers, but her brothers tell her not to worry. There are more travelers on the road these days because the Roman Emperor has ordered everyone to return to their home towns to be taxed. However, because there are so many strangers traveling through the area, Dorothy’s brothers plan to spend the night in the fields with their sheep to keep an eye on them.
Early the next morning, the brothers return to the family home, excited. They tell their father that they saw angels in the field during the night. An angel appeared to them and told them that they would find a newborn Savior in a manager in the City of David, which is Bethlehem. Their father says that there is a prophecy about this. Because God has sent His messengers to announce the birth of the Savior to them, the brothers should go to the city and take a lamb with them as a present to the Savior.
Dorothy helps her brothers to pack their supplies for the journey to Bethlehem, but she knows that she will not be allowed to go with them because she is too little. In spite of that, Dorothy makes the sudden decision to follow her brothers secretly. However, as they travel, Dorothy suddenly realizes that she doesn’t have a present of her own to offer when she arrives.
When Dorothy begins to cry about her lack of a present to give, an angel appears to her and produces snowy white flowers. Dorothy is happy because she can bring the flowers with her as a present.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
There is an Author’s Note at the back of the book that explains about the Christmas Rose plant and its associated legends. The Christmas Rose is a real plant, but technically, it’s not a rose, and it doesn’t always bloom at Christmas. It’s native to southern and central Europe, where winters are relatively mild, and the flower can bloom in Christmas, but in colder climates, it tends to bloom in spring. It’s actually a member of the hellebore family, which is toxic to humans, although it has been used medicinally as a purgative, and it does contain a chemical that can be used to treat heart conditions. The story in the book also references the plants’ medicinal uses.
There are multiple legends about the origins of the plant. The version presented here, the legend about an angel giving the flower to a young shepherd girl to offer as a present to baby Jesus, comes from Medieval nativity plays. There is an older Greek legend where the plant was discovered by a shepherd around 900 BC. In that version of the story, the shepherd used the plant to cure three princesses who were afflicted with delusions that they were cows. After he cured them, the princesses’ father, the King of Argos, allowed the shepherd to marry his youngest daughter.
Overall, I liked this picture book version of the legend. I like books about folklore, especially ones that use lesser-known stories. The pictures in this book are also realistic and beautiful, taking up full pages.
In this Scandinavian Christmas story, young Treva and her brother Sami are getting ready for Christmas when strange things start to happen.
First, Treva feels like someone is watching them when they go to pick out a Christmas tree in the forest. Then, after they start decorating for Christmas, some of their decorations start to disappear. They had already wrapped Christmas presents and hidden them away, but they discover that those are gone, too!
Treva begins to realize what is causing these disappearances when she spots their Christmas pudding, apparently moving quickly across the snow, stuck to the back of a hedgehog! Treva follows the hedgehog and pudding into the forest, where she finds two trolls, pulling the pudding up into their tree house.
In the tree house, Treva finds the trolls arguing over all of the Christmas things they’ve taken from Treva’s family. Treva confronts them about stealing their Christmas things. The trolls say that they just want Christmas. They’re like small children who want something but don’t know how to get it or make it for themselves, so they just started trying to take it from other people.
Treva tells them that she will show them what to do for Christmas. She helps them clean up their little house, make decorations, and decorate their tree for Christmas.
She also explains to them that arguing and being greedy isn’t the proper Christmas spirit, and it’s been ruining their mood. She tells them to try cooperating with each other and playing nicely together while they decorate. Finally, she teaches them that Christmas is about being generous and giving something to each other, not just taking things. To demonstrate what she means, she gives them their first Christmas present, her favorite Christmas decoration.
With the trolls now able to have Christmas on their own, Treva is able to reclaim the rest of her family’s Christmas presents and decorations. However, the trolls and their hedgehog friend have one more special Christmas present to give now that they understand what giving is.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).
My Reaction
This is a fun Christmas story with beautiful, colorful illustrations! I really loved the pictures in the book, with all the colorful Christmas decorations. The designs of the family’s Christmas decorations are traditional Scandinavian decorations. The side and bottom panels of the illustrations also explain some of what’s happening even before the main character understands.
I also loved the designs of the troll and their fun hedgehog friend. Around the time this story was published, troll dolls, which have existed since the late 1950s, were having a rise in popularity. The trolls in this story somewhat resemble troll dolls, with their fluffy hair rising to a point, although the troll dolls have more colorful hair options. I enjoy stories that use fantasy creatures, especially ones that aren’t especially common. The trolls in this story are troublesome, but in a little kid manner, not overly threatening. They’re more about mild magical mischief and lessons they have to learn.
A Pioneer Thanksgiving by Barbara Greenwood, illustrated by Heather Collins, 1999.
This book is part story, part history, and part craft and activity book. It tells the story of a particular pioneer family’s Thanksgiving celebration in 1841 to explain the sort of Thanksgiving celebrations that pioneer families would have at the time, and there are related activities and recipes to accompany the story.
Everyone in the Robertson family helps with preparing the food for the Thanksgiving feast, including the family’s neighbors, who will be joining them. The story is episodic, focusing on different family members and their adventures and activities through the Thanksgiving preparations.
As they begin their preparations, they are worried about Granny, who is unwell. Mrs. Robertson is afraid that she might die because she doesn’t seem to be improving. As Sarah reads to her, Granny expresses a wish to taste her mother’s cranberry sauce one more time.
Sarah decides to go out and gather some cranberries for the sauce herself, but her little sister, Lizzie, tags along with her. The cranberry bog isn’t safe. Lizzie falls in and nearly drowns. Sarah manages to save her, but she’s very upset at almost losing Lizzie. However, her brother George finds Sarah’s basket of cranberries and brings it back to the house. The first activity in the book is a recipe for cranberry sauce.
Willie, one of the boys in the family, almost gets lost while looking for chestnuts for his mother’s chestnut stuffing, and he plays a game of Conkers with a Native American (First Peoples) friend, whose family trades foods with the Robertson family. Part of the story explains about Ojibwa and Iroquois thanksgiving ceremonies, and there are instructions in the book for playing Conkers with chestnuts and a Native American game with peach stones.
The younger children go into the woods to gather nuts, and there are instructions for weaving a nutting basket. Meg, the oldest girl in the family, makes bread with interesting designs, and there’s a recipe for bread. Sarah makes a Corn Dolly, and Granny explains the superstition of making a Corn Dolly and then plowing the Corn Dolly back into the soil at the beginning of the next planting season to ensure a good harvest.
Mr. Burkholder, their neighbor, tells them a story about when his family had newly arrived in North America and they had little food. Then, there is a section about weather and now to make a weather vane. Finally, everyone gathers at the table to say grace and enjoy the feast!
In the back of the book, there is a section about the history of Thanksgiving as a holiday in North America, both in the US and Canada. This book is actually set in Canada, and it explains that the date of Canandian Thanksgiving celebrations wasn’t initially fixed. Sometimes, they could be in October and sometimes in November. Canadian Thanksgiving was finally established as the second Monday in October in 1957.
I couldn’t find a copy of this book online, but I did find a copy on Internet Archive of a related book by the same author about the same pioneer family in Canada.
My Reaction
Although the book doesn’t say exactly where this family is other than North America, the other book about the family establishes that they are in Canada, and the references to Native Americans as “First Peoples” confirms it. When I first started reading the book, I thought that the pioneer family was somewhere in the United States or its territories. The lifestyle that the Canadian pioneers lived seems very similar to the way pioneers in the United States lived around that time, so I think the recounting of this family’s holiday would still be of interest to fans of the Little House on the Prairie series and similar books.
Hearing about Canadian Thanksgiving was interesting, and I liked the inclusion of information about the Thanksgiving traditions of the First Peoples and immigrants to Canada. The family in the story was originally from Scotland, and the grandmother in the story talks about how Thanksgiving celebrations remind her of the Harvest Home celebrations back in Scotland.
The book has a good selection of different types of activities for readers to try, from recipes to games to crafts. It seems like there is something here that could appeal to many people with different interests. Each of the activities appears next to a part of the story that references it, so readers can feel like they’re taking part in the activities along with the people in the story. I also really love the realistic art style in the illustrations!
A Native American Feast by Lucille Recht Penner, 1994.
This nonfiction children’s book explains the traditional foods of different Native American tribes and how they were prepared. (Throughout the book, they are referred to both as “Native Americans” and “Indians”, but mostly, the book uses the term “Native Americans.” The focus is on Native American tribes in the area that is now the United States, but the book includes information about various tribes across the United States.)
It starts with an Introduction that explains how European settlers came to North America and how the first settlers almost starved to death because they weren’t prepared for the conditions they found and didn’t understand the plants and foods of the Americas. In those early years of the colonies, the colonists relied heavily on help from nearby Native American tribes in learning techniques for hunting and growing food in North America. These colonists had to adopt some of the Native American foods and techniques of getting food in order to survive. Not only did European colonists adopt some foods used by Native Americans, but Native Americans also adopted foods that were introduced to them from Europeans, including some plants and grains, like apples and wheat, and some domesticated animals, like sheep. The focus of this book is on Native Americans and their cooking and eating habits, both pre-colonization and post-colonization. For more information about what the colonists were cooking and eating, see The Colonial Cookbook.
The book explains how we know what we know about Native American foods and cooking. Some information was recorded by early European colonists in America and European scientists who were interested in plants of the Americas, and archaeology provides information in the form of animal bones, clamshells, and pollen from plants that Native Americans cultivated, going back hundreds and even thousands of years. Native American eating habits shifted throughout their history, although they shifted very abruptly with the European colonization of North America.
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
Contents
Every chapter, including the Introduction, contains recipes that readers can make at home. Some of them are easier than others. Some recipes include pieces of Native American folklore about them or the foods in the recipes. Many of the illustrations are 19th century drawings.
Rather than organizing the book based on tribe or geographic region, the chapters of the book are based around particular types of food or cooking and eating concepts:
Introduction
This section introduces how historians know about the history of food among Native American tribes and how their diets changed after the arrival of Europeans.
Recipes in this section are:
Hickory Nut Soup
Green Succotash
Pueblo Peach Crisp
Discovering America
This section includes information about the earliest known hunting and cooking habits of Native Americans. It includes a description of the “land bridge” theory of how the ancestors of Native Americans arrived in the Americas from Asia. As of the early 21st century, we still don’t have a definitive answer for precisely how ancient people first arrived in the Americas, more recent theories include the possibility of these ancient people being seafaring rather than finding a land crossing, although the land crossing theory is also still possible.
Then, it explains about the arrival of the European colonists. It doesn’t sugar coat that the arrival of the colonists and their westward expansion led to the extinction and endangerment of native animal species because these newcomers hunted them without restraint. The introduction of unfamiliar diseases, like measles and smallpox, to the Native Americans took many lives, sometimes even killing whole tribes. These drastic changes greatly impacted the lives and lifestyles of Native Americans, although some traditional habits survived, including the preparation of traditional types of foods.
There are no recipes in this chapter.
A Great Mystery
This chapter explains about hunting and gathering and the development of agriculture among ancient Native American tribes. The “mystery” is about the development of corn as we know it. It was never really a wild plant. The evidence suggests that ancient Native Americans deliberately created it by cross-pollinating different wild grass plants, but it isn’t really known which ones. Most of this chapter explains how widespread corn was as a food and the uses and folklore that different tribes had for it.
Recipes in this section are:
Roasted Corn on the Cob
Blue Pinole – a blue cornmeal-based drink with sugar and cinnamon, from the Southwest
Thumbprint Bread (Kolatquvil)
Hopi Blue Marbles – boiled balls of blue cornmeal dough, a traditional breakfast food
Wagmiza Wasna – a mixture of cornmeal and dried berries
Treasure
This section is about foods that Native Americans introduced to the rest of the world, like pumpkins, peanuts, chili peppers, sunflower seeds, maple sugar, and different varieties of beans, including kidney beans and lima beans.
Recipes in this section are:
Cherokee Bean Balls
Apache Pumpkin with Sunflower Seeds
Popped Wild Rice
Zuni Green Chili Stew
The Hunt
This chapter is about Native American hunting techniques and the animals they hunted.
Recipes in this section are:
Broiled Buffalo Steaks
Venison and Hominy Stew
Feast and Famine
This chapter is about Native Americans who lived in areas where food was scarce and ways of foraging for food during times of famine. It also explains special feast days.
Recipes in this section are:
Mouse Cache Soup – made with beef broth and seeds: sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, buckwheat groats, and millet
Iroquois Strawberry Drink
Mushrooms Cooked in Oil
Berries, Flowers, and Bear Fat
This chapter explains the seasonings that Native Americans added to food and cooking techniques that added nutrients.
Recipes in this section are:
Fried Squash Blossoms
Pemmican Cakes – the origins of beef jerky
Maple Sugar Drink
Wild Grape Dumplings
Inuit Ice Cream – a berry dessert originally made with seal oil but made with egg whites here
Wojapi – a Sioux fruit pudding
Lighting the Fire
This chapter is about how plants and animals were processed to make them ready for cooking, such as how corn and acorns were ground into flour and how animals were butchered. When they had to boil water, they often used vessels that would have been damaged if they were put directly over fire, so they would heat stones and put them into the water instead.
Recipes in this section are:
Broiled Salmon Steaks with Juniper Berries
Broiled Rabbit with Corn Dumplings
Baked Beans with Maple Sugar
A Basketful of Water
Native Americans didn’t have cooking pots and pans made out of metal or glass until after the European colonists arrived. Before that, their cooking vessels were made of wood, stone, pottery, or tightly-woven baskets. This chapter explains the different types of cooking vessels they had, including the shells of pumpkins and gourds.
Recipes in this section are:
Pumpkin Shell Soup
Good Manners
This short chapter is about eating manners, superstitions, and taboos among different tribes. There are no recipes.
Thanksgiving
This section explains how Native Americans would give thanks to their Creator or Great Spirit or Nature or to animals and plants themselves for the foods that helped keep them alive. There are no recipes in this chapter.
#26 The Mystery of the Runaway Scarecrow by Elspeth Campbell Murphy, 1999.
Sarah-Jane astonishes her cousins when she tells them that Buster, the scarecrow her mother made, which has been sitting outside of a local restaurant, has gone “on vacation. Scarecrows don’t just get up and go on vacation, and when they say that, Sarah-Jane says that Buster left a note saying that he had gone on vacation. The boys don’t believe scarecrows can write notes any more than they can go on vacation. Sarah-Jane admits that scarecrows don’t write notes, but someone else wrote a note on Buster’s behalf and left it behind when Buster disappeared. The note says that Buster is going on vacation and will be back when someone figures out where he’s gone. That’s weird enough, but Sarah-Jane says that Mr. Wesley, who owns the restaurant where Buster was, has been receiving pictures of Buster on his trip in the mail since he disappeared.
It seems like someone is playing a bizarre prank or maybe setting up some kind of treasure hunt involving the scarecrow. The town mayor says that Buster’s “vacation” has created more publicity for the town’s upcoming Fall Festival, so it could even be a publicity stunt. However, it’s been a few days since the last pictures of Buster arrived, and Mr. Wesley is inviting Sarah-Jane and her cousins to investigate Buster’s disappearance and find him because he knows that they like to solve mysteries.
The kids study the pictures for clues to Buster’s whereabouts, but the pictures are pretty generic. They show him outside a motel, at a gift shop, and at a gas station, but the locations aren’t very distinctive and could be found in any number of cities. The postmarks on the envelopes that pictures came in are all still in the area, so it seems like Buster didn’t go very far. They need to hurry if they’re going to find Buster in time for the town’s parade because the parade is tomorrow!
Then, Sarah-Jane reveals that something else mysterious has happened in the area recently. Someone stole a rare coin from Mr. Clark. This is also an intriguing mystery, but they don’t have many clues to start. Mr. Clark isn’t exactly sure when the coin disappeared because he doesn’t get out his coin collection very often.
For some strange reason, an older boy in Sarah-Jane’s neighborhood, Billy, seems very concerned about whether Sarah-Jane and her cousins have made any progress in finding Buster. Could Buster’s disappearance also have something to do with the missing coin?
Theme of the Story:
“The land has produced its harvest; God, our God, has blessed us.”
Psalm 67:6
The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.
My Reaction and Spoilers
I liked the way the person who took the scarecrow used the pictures to provide clues to their treasure hunt. Readers won’t be able to figure it out right away without explanation from the characters because the book doesn’t show all the pictures, but I liked the concept for how the culprit worked a series of clues into the pictures. There’s also a fun backstory behind the scheme. The prankster doesn’t have a sinister motive. The scarecrow caper is meant as a kind of prank/game/harmless publicity stunt.
I guessed pretty quickly who had taken the scarecrow, based on motive, but I liked the addition of Billy and the coin because it complicated the story and provided a second mystery on top of the first. There is a genuine crime in the story, but it’s not the one that the kids start out investigating.
The story takes place during October, but it’s not on Halloween. The town’s Fall Festival just seems to kick off the fall season in general.
Jestress's Forgotten Books and Stories 