Posted on by TracyC

Wise Child

Wise Child by Monica Furlong, 1987.

Juniper is an unusual woman in the community where she lives. Wise Child knows that she originally came from Cornwall, and now, she lives alone and unmarried. People also know that she practices magic and doesn’t go to church. Yet, although people are a little suspicious about her for that, they still call on her for help when someone is very ill because she is an excellent healer and can frequently help when others can’t.

Wise Child (a nickname given to her by her family) finds herself alone at the age of nine. Her mother, Maeve, had left her with her grandmother years before and her father, Finbar, is a sailor who is often away. While her father is away, Wise Child’s grandmother dies, and the community has to decide where Wise Child will live until her father returns. She wants to live with her aunt, but her aunt and uncle are poor and already have trouble providing food for their children. After church one day, the village priest asks the villagers if anyone else is willing to give Wise Child a home. Few people are willing to take on an extra responsibility and an extra mouth to feed. At first, the only people who are interested in taking Wise Child are people who want to use her as a little servant or extra worker. Wise Child fears going to live with them because she knows they use their own children as hard workers, feeding them little and beating them for discipline. Then, Juniper speaks up and says that she would like to have Wise Child.

The priest is reluctant to let Juniper take Wise Child, knowing that she isn’t a Christian. Juniper suggests letting Wise Child decide where she wants to live, but Wise Child isn’t sure what to answer. She fears the other families and how they would treat her. Juniper has been kind to her in the past, but Wise Child also fears her because of the stories people tell about her. However, Wise Child’s aunt sees that Juniper would take better care of her than the other families, so she lies and says that her father had previously said that, if anything happened to his mother, he would like Juniper to take care of Wise Child. Nobody contradicts this, so Juniper takes custody of Wise Child.

Wise Child is nervous when she goes to live in Juniper’s house, fearing that she will cast spells on her or that she has dead bodies hidden in her cupboards, like her cousins claimed. When Juniper asks her what’s worrying her, Wise Child surprises herself by admitting that she’s heard all of these stories about her and that she’s afraid. To her surprise, Juniper isn’t angry at her or at the people who have told Wise Child these stories. Instead, she says that she thinks Wise Child is brave for coming to her house even while fearing all of these things, and she reassures her that these stories aren’t true. As Wise Child becomes familiar with her house and with her, she will see that she and her house aren’t as scary as the stories say.

Wise Child finds that this is true. Juniper’s cupboards are full of very ordinary things, and the broom that people say Juniper uses for flying is just an ordinary broom. Juniper also doesn’t beat Wise Child, even when she does things wrong. Juniper promises that she will never beat her.

Wise Child finds that she likes living with Juniper. She had always wanted to go to school, like some of the other children, and Juniper teaches her many things. She teaches her some practical household skills, and she also begins teaching her about herbs and medicines. Juniper also promises to teach Wise Child Latin, although girls in their area don’t usually learn Latin because they’re mostly expected to be wives and mothers and to learn to take care of households. However, Juniper says that all truly learned people learn Latin. When her cousin, Coleman, comes to visit to see if she’s all right with Juniper, Wise Child assures him that she’s doing fine.

Juniper does have secrets, though. Wise Child isn’t sure what Juniper keeps in the attic of her house or what she does there. She begins learning Juniper’s secrets when Juniper gets a visit from an older woman called Yuni, who insists that Wise Child undergo a bizarre ritual. Yuni and Juniper smear some kind of smelly ointment on Wise Child’s skin that gives her a vision of flying on Juniper’s broomstick!

The next day, Wise Child questions Juniper about this ritual and whether the things she saw in her vision really happened. Juniper explains that she and Yuni are both magic-users. Some people might call them witches, but they refer to themselves as “Doran”, based on the word for “door” or a way into something. It has to do with people who see into things in ways that other people don’t. Dorans “live in the rhythm” of life, nature, and the changing seasons. Wise Child’s vision means that she has the ability to use magic and become a Doran as well.

As Wise Child begins to understand Juniper’s kind of magic, it awakens memories of her mother in her mind. Wise’s Child’s mother used to beat her and eventually abandoned her, leaving Wise Child with her grandmother while she ran away with another man. Wise Child feels hurt that her mother abandoned her instead of taking her along, wherever she went. However, she also begins to remember things her mother had and things she used to do that seemed strange. Wise Child asks Juniper if her mother was also a Doran, but she says no. Maeve practices magic, but it’s a very different kind of magic.

Wise Child comes to understand what Juniper means when Maeve returns and uses her magic to persuade Wise Child to come live with her for a while. She promises Wise Child a life of ease and luxury with no difficult or boring lessons, but when Wise Child sees what Maeve does and how she takes advantage of other people, she comes to appreciate Juniper’s way of life and lessons more. Maeve has even taken advantage of and hurt Wise Child and her father.

Gradually, Wise Child begins to learn the secrets of her own family’s past, the long rivalry between Juniper and Maeve, and other secrets about the land they live in, the things people who have lived there believed, and the things people have done for power and to control other people or the forces of nature. Wise Child feels conflicted between her beliefs in Christianity and the new knowledge that she’s been gaining about the Dorans. She doesn’t want to have to choose between them, although Juniper says that there’s no need. Juniper says that Christianity and the beliefs of the Dorans don’t really conflict with each other, and she also believes in Jesus. However, she admits that not everybody sees it that way. The village priest in particular is suspicious of Juniper and thinks that Juniper has corrupted Wise Child.

During a particularly bad winter, the priest blames Juniper for bringing on the famine and sickness. He brings in an inquisitor to question Wise Child and Juniper, and Wise Child fears what he and the people of the village will do to them. Will they find a way to escape, and if so, where will they go where they can be safe?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive. It is the first book in a series about the Dorans, although the second book, Juniper, is a prequel to this one, and it focuses on Juniper’s early life.

My Reaction

I remember reading this book in my early teens, but there were many things about the lore it draws on that I didn’t understand back then. For me, it was just an interesting fantasy book. The story draws on witchcraft lore, but it’s not entirely historically accurate. To begin with, the term “doran” to describe witches or magic users is unique to this book and its series. It’s not an historical term.

The time period of the story is never explicitly defined, although it’s set in a small village in Scotland. I think, when I was younger, I took it to be sort of Medieval, and I think that’s probably what the author intended, but if so, there are various anachronisms for the Middle Ages. For example, Wise Child describes Juniper as giving her a kind of tea, but tea didn’t arrive in the British Isles until the 1600s and didn’t really become popular until the 1700s, so Wise Child shouldn’t have had that concept. Because the story’s time period isn’t really defined, I considered that the story could be as late as the 17th or 18th centuries, except that the village is clearly Catholic, with a priest and a monk serving as the inquisitor at the end of the story. There are no mentions of Protestants, and there should be if the story was set in the 16th or 17th century.

To be fair, Medieval people did make hot tea-like drinks of herbs or grains infused with water, but I don’t think they referred to these drinks as being “tea” because they weren’t familiar with the concept of “tea” then. In modern times, we refer to “tea” to mean a variety of infused drinks, but “tea” itself is a specific plant, the one used for black teas and green teas. Herbal teas don’t contain this plant, so they’re technically tea-like, not actually “tea.” I know it’s a technicality, but it’s the kind of thing I notice now that went past me when I was younger. When Medieval people made infused drinks, they didn’t have the tea plant in them, and they called them “waters”, not “teas”, like barley water or sage water.

Returning to the issue of whether or not this is pre-Reformation times or not, while the story seems to be set in pre-Reformation times, the type of witchcraft trial depicted at the end of the story is more in keeping with Reformation and post-Reformation Scotland than Medieval Scotland. The Witchcraft Act of 1563 made witchcraft illegal and led to a period of witchcraft trials that lasted until 1736. This is really the period of intense persecution of supposed witches, not the Middle Ages. Prior to the Witchcraft Act, it was more common for people to skeptically dismiss “witches” as being merely superstitious, delusional, or frauds rather than staging witch hunts and witch trials.

The type of witchcraft lore that the story uses is also somewhat anachronistic based largely around Wiccan lore and feminist sensibilities that had their basis in the 20th century rather than the type of herbal remedy healing that would have been found in the Middle Ages. (This documentary of the life of Gerald Gardner, the founder of Wicca, is fascinating and explains some of the background lore.) Juniper has a sense that there’s a connection between psychology and emotional health and physical health that’s more modern than Medieval, and her notions of what to teach Wise Child wouldn’t have just been unusual as concepts to teach a girl vs. a boy but also generally unusual for anyone of their time and location, a small village where people primarily make their living in farming.

She is correct that, to be truly considered a learned person in the Middle Ages, Latin would be expected, but this is the reason why truly literate people were considered so rare during that time. It wasn’t that nobody knew how to read during this period, but books were highly uncommon, being expensively and painstakingly produced by hand. More people could read and write in a vernacular way during the Middle Ages (spelling also not standardized during this period) than most people suppose, using basic writing for utilitarian purposes like keeping business accounts or sending occasional personal messages, but only clerical scholars and those who trained with them knew Latin. What I’m saying is that what Juniper teaches Wise Child wouldn’t have been shocking in Medieval Scotland for being inappropriate for girls and ruining them for being wives and mothers, as portrayed in the story, so much as it should have been shocking as a thing that a woman who lives as a simple folk healer in a small farming community shouldn’t have known in the first place to teach anybody. The prequel book, Juniper, explains that there’s far more to Juniper’s past than most of the characters in this book know and that she was far better educated than most people of her time because she came from a royal family.

The part about the psychedelic ointment that produces the illusion of flying is based on witchcraft lore, and there is a scene in the book that involves the sacrifice of a willing deer that is eaten after the ritual is based around concepts of pre-Christian rituals in the British Isles. Most of the details we have of pre-Christians rituals in the British Isles comes from Roman writings, and details are sometimes questioned. I had forgotten about that part of the story since I read the book the first time, and I didn’t like it the second time around. Even if the animal seemed willing to be sacrificed and was eaten afterward, making it a public meal and not just a wasteful sacrifice, it was still a disturbing scene.

Posted on by TracyC

The Lancaster Witch

The Lancaster Witch cover

The Lancaster Witch by Carol H. Behrman, 1993.

Thirteen-year-old Maddie Stoner is startled when her parents suddenly tell her that she has an English cousin named Clive who is going to be arriving for a two-week visit on Saturday. Maddie has never even heard of Clive before and wants to know who he is and what’s behind his sudden visit. Her parents explain that Clive is more like a second or third cousin, the son of her mother’s cousin, who moved to England years ago and married a British man. Her mother’s cousin has only occasionally kept in touch since her marriage, but her son, Clive is just a little less than a year older than Maddie and wants to visit the US. His mother has asked Maddie’s mother if she’s willing to have him at their home in New Jersey this summer, and her mother said yes.

Maddie gets the feeling like there’s something more behind this mysterious cousin’s visit than her parents are admitting, but they dodge her questions on the subject. When she tells her friend, Chloe, about her cousin, Chloe theorizes that maybe Clive is some kind of juvenile delinquent or is otherwise in trouble or into something his parents don’t approve of, so they want to send him overseas to get him away from his problems. (Chloe says that she read somewhere that people in England use the term “teddy boy” to describe boys involved in gangs. I looked it up, and it seems to be an older term from the 1950s and 1960s. It seems more associated with the aesthetic of certain types of rock and roll fans, although there were gangs associated with it as well. It’s just kind of an old concept for a 1990s book.)

When Maddie and her parents go to meet Clive at the airport, Maddie sees a creepy woman in black with a very pale face following Clive, her hand on his shoulder. Then, a traveler hurrying past accidentally bumps into Maddie with his suitcase and knocks her down. When she gets up and looks around, the woman is gone. She asks Clive who the woman was and where she went, and he says that there’s nobody with him. Maddie’s parents think she was just mistaken, that she just saw another traveler who happened to be near Clive at the time. Maddie is sure that she wasn’t mistaken, but Clive refuses to acknowledge that the woman in black was with him and her parents don’t want her to keep talking about it.

As Maddie and Clive start getting to know each other, Maddie decides that she likes Clive. Neither of them has any siblings. Clive and his parents live in a resort town called Morecambe outside of Lancaster in northern England. When Maddie asks Clive what made him want to visit the US, he’s a little evasive, just saying that his mother thought it would be good for him to get away for a while, making Maddie more suspicious that there’s something about Clive that no one wants to tell her. However, they discover that they have similar tastes in music, and when Maddie invites him to come to the community pool with her and her friends, Clive eagerly accepts, saying that he likes to swim.

At the pool, something happens that convinces Maddie that something truly sinister is happening. Clive and her friends all go swimming while Maddie takes some time to sun herself. Maddie is dozing in a lounge chair when someone starts yelling that someone is drowning! Clive is the one who almost drowns, but fortunately, he is rescued in time by the lifeguard. When he’s pulled out of the water, he tells Maddie that “she” pushed him into the water and made him hit his head and that “she” almost killed him. When Maddie looks around to see who “she” is, she sees the woman in black leaving the pool area. However, when the lifeguard starts asking Clive questions, he changes his story, saying that he just made a clumsy dive and hit his own head. Maddie later confronts him about what he told her, saying that she saw the woman in black, but Clive just gets upset and denies it all.

Maddie talks to her mother, and her mother confirms that Clive’s mother said that he’s been having a few problems lately that he needs to get away from. Clive’s mother was vague about what kind of problems Clive has been having, and Maddie’s mother assumes that Clive’s problems are just typical kid problems. She discourages Maddie from talking it about with Clive because she wants his visit to be pleasant and doesn’t want him to be upset.

Still, Maddie suspects that something much more serious is happening with Clive. Unable to shake the feeling that something bad is happening and that Clive is in real trouble, she snoops in his belongings, finding a letter that he started writing to his parents, saying that “it” followed him to the US. Clive also has books about ghosts and has written some notes about ghosts. Maddie wonders if Clive could be crazy, but she saw the woman in black herself. Clive’s panicked notes about ghosts might not be the imaginings of an unbalanced person but the reasonable fears of a person experiencing something truly unearthly.

Eventually, Maddie gets Clive to admit that the woman in black exists, but he refuses to tell her more about it until she promises that she won’t tell anyone else. Maddie promises, and Clive tells her that it’s the Lancaster Witch. In the 1600s, a group of women were executed for witchcraft in Lancaster, England. One of them, a woman named Elizabeth Device, was supposedly the head of a family of witches, and she cursed the judge in the trial and his descendants. Clive is one of those descendants. He’s been aware of her presence, following him around for about a year, and that was why he wanted to leave England, hoping to get away from her. His parents don’t seem to see her, so he hasn’t been sure whether she was real or just a ghost in his imagination. There have been stories about people in his family being haunted, but his father thinks that’s just superstition. Even though Maddie assures Clive that she’s seen the Lancashire witch, too, and that he isn’t imagining things, Clive says he can’t be sure. Maybe his imagination is now influencing her imagination.

For a while Maddie is persuaded that maybe the woman in black is all their imagination, and she tries to distract Clive from thinking about it. However, everywhere they go and everything they do, she always seems to be lurking around them, causing bad things to happen. She shatters a mirror in Maddie’s room at night and shoves Clive down the stairs. When Clive goes out for a bike ride with Maddie’s friend Tommy on a day when Maddie isn’t feeling well, he mysteriously disappears. Everyone assumes that he just got separated from Tommy and got lost because it’s an unfamiliar town for him, but Maddie is sure that it’s the ghost of Elizabeth Device and her curse!

As they search for Clive, Maddie and Tommy have to confront some truly dangerous things, both conventional and supernatural. There is a real ghost in the story, but there is also a more conventional form of danger. Dealing with the physical danger provides a solution for ridding Clive and his family from the curse of the Lancaster witch forever.

My Reaction and Spoilers

I remember reading this book when I was about 10 or 11 years old. A friend of mine had a copy, and I borrowed it from her. I remembered that I really liked it, but I had forgotten many of the details over the years. Now that I’m an adult, I understand more about the history behind the events in the story than I did as a kid. As a kid, I knew about witch trials, so I understood the basic concept behind the witch’s ghost, but I now know much more about the specific witch trial the story references.

There is a note in the back of the book about the historical basis for the story. In 1612, ten women were hanged for witchcraft in Lancashire, England, in front of Lancaster Castle, including Elizabeth Device. There have been many non-fiction books written about this case, and there are video documentaries on YouTube about the Lancashire witches, also known as the Pendle witches or Pendle Hill witches. One of the more shocking elements of that witch trial was that Elizabeth Device’s own nine-year-old daughter, Jennet, testified against her.

In the story, when Clive and Maddie are discussing the witches and witchcraft trials, they compare the Lancashire witch trials to the Salem witch trials, although Clive is wrong about the Salem witches being burned to death. It’s sloppy scholarship on the part of the author. The notion of witches always being burned is prevalent in popular culture, and it makes for dramatic scenes in movies, but that’s not how it went in real life, at least not in Colonial American. Nobody was burned in Salem because it was a British colony, and the British punishment for witchcraft was hanging, like in the Lancashire trials. Most of the Salem “witches” were hanged, and one person was pressed to death. It’s been a pet peeve of mine to point that out since I did some reports about witchcraft trials in college. It’s one of the first things people get wrong about Salem when they haven’t really researched the events there.

Maddie and Clive discuss some of the motives people had for accusing others of witchcraft, which could vary from suspicion that a neighbor was causing misfortunes to outright spite against someone they hated or envied for other reasons. Clive says that some of the people accused and executed for witchcraft believed that they were actually casting spells themselves. Whether they actually could do magic or if they were actually just following old superstitions is debatable, and Clive acknowledges that. Of course, since this is a ghost story with a witch’s ghost, the presumption here is that the witch had some kind of real power.

The story is suspenseful, but it has a good ending. Most people don’t know that the ghost is real, and they think that the danger Clive is in comes from another source. There is a conventional source of danger in the form of some criminal activity. Dealing with that situation helps to resolve the matter of the witch’s ghost because the ghost decides that Clive has repaid her family for what happened during the witch trial.

In the story, Maddie and her friends enjoy talking with Clive about differences between American and British teenagers, and they point out the differences in the ways each of them talk. Maddie also wonders if British kids play Monopoly, and the book says that she and her friend Tommy teach Clive how to play. However, I know that Britain has had its own versions of the game of Monopoly for decades, long before this story was written, so Clive should have at least known the premise of the game, even if he didn’t usually play.

Posted on by TracyC

Don’t You Know There’s a War On?

Don’t You Know There’s a War On? by Avi, 2001.

In 1943, 11-year-old Howie Crispers lives in Brooklyn and goes to public school. Although he’s still a kid in school, every part of his life and every part of the lives of people he knows, like his best friend, Denny, has been impacted by WWII. Howie’s father is in the Merchant Marines, which means that he’s away most of the time, taking supplies overseas. Howie never knows exactly where his father goes because people aren’t supposed to talk too much about the movement of people and supplies for the war. The phrase “Loose lips sink ships” has special meaning for Howie. When letters from his father arrive, they arrive censored, with pieces of important information cut out of them, so Howie’s father can’t accidentally give away information that might potentially be important to an enemy if the letter was intercepted or if his family mentioned things that they shouldn’t from his letters.

Denny’s father is in the army somewhere in North Africa, and other classmates have fathers or brothers overseas or family members involved in war work in some way within the United States. The kids also participate in volunteer activities related to the war effort, like gathering useful scrap materials that can be made into supplies. Many things are rationed, and people can’t always get what they want. Sometimes, there are blackouts and air raid drills. Whenever someone has to make do with things as they are or put up with abnormal situations, they tend to shrug it off and say, “Don’t you know there’s a war on?” Howie’s noticed that phrase seems to be an excuse for a lot of things.

Howie and Denny, like other kids, love listening to plays on the radio, and popular entertainment also frequently focuses on the war. Howie and Denny are especially fascinated by stories of spies, and they start wondering if there could be spies around them even now. Their primary suspect for being a spy is their school principal, Dr. Lowminster. With most of the men they know away fighting or working in some capacity related to the war, they wonder why he isn’t also in the armed forces or doing some kind of war work. Dr. Lowminster is a strict man, and when Howie spots him leaving the school one morning just as classes are about to start, he realizes that this is something out of character for him and his usual routine.

Skipping class himself, Howie follows Dr. Lowminster and overhears a conversation between him and an unknown woman about firing Howie’s teacher, Miss Gossem! Howie likes Miss Gossem and even has a secret crush on her, and he’s appalled that Dr. Lowminster wanted to get rid of her. He doesn’t give an exact reason for firing her during the discussion Howie overhears, only saying something vague about Miss Gossem not maintaining the correct moral standards. Howie doesn’t know what that means, but he’s sure that sweet, pretty Miss Gossem couldn’t have done anything bad enough to get fired.

Since he’s already suspected Dr. Lowminster of being a spy, he also starts thinking of him like the villains in radio show or movie serials, who do cruel things to get revenge on pretty women who refuse to marry them, and he considers that this could be a similar situation. Maybe Dr. Lowminster is just mad at Miss Gossem because she doesn’t love him or something. In such cases, in movies or on the radio, a hero steps in and saves the lady from the villain, so Howie decides that he’s going to be Miss Gossem’s hero!

Later, when he can talk to Miss Gossem in private, Howie confides in her that he knows that she’s being fired and that he wants to help her. Miss Gossem, who has only just learned about it herself is surprised how Howie knew, and he’s forced to confess the embarrassing details about how he spied on the school principal because he thought he was a spy. Miss Gossem says that she doesn’t think the principal or anyone else at the school is a spy and that the woman the principal was talking to was Mrs. Walsh, who is the acting school superintendent and the principal’s boss. Howie asks Miss Gossem if there’s anything he can do that would help her, but Miss Gossem says that this is something that she’ll have to work out for herself. She only asks that he not tell the rest of the class about it yet. Howie agrees, although he’s already told Denny.

He and Denny talk it over, and Denny’s still convinced that the matter might have to do with spies or something related to the war. One evening, when Howie is caught outside during an air raid drill near Miss Gossem’s apartment, a policeman tells him to get off the street, so he asks Miss Gossem if he can come in. She lets him in, and she asks him how he knew she lived there. Howie admits that he’s spied on her, too. Miss Gossem tells him that he shouldn’t be spying on her. When he sees a picture of a young man in an Air Force uniform on her table, he asks her who it is, and Miss Gossem admits that it’s her husband. She still goes by her maiden name because not many people knew that she got married. They got married rather suddenly before he went overseas, and now, she’s worried because she hasn’t heard from him and doesn’t know where he is. She worries that he might be dead. Howie confides in her that he worries about his father, too, and how he sometimes has nightmares about horrible things happening to his father.

As teacher and student confide their worries to each other, Howie asks Miss Gossem again about why she was fired and learns some things about her situation. Miss Gossem asks him not to tell the rest of the class what he knows, but he does anyway because he thinks they can help prevent Miss Gossem from being fired. Miss Gossem is upset with Howie for revealing her secrets, and she worries that, if the principal finds out, it will make her situation worse. Miss Gossem insists that she is an adult and has to deal with things herself. Howie is upset because he was only trying to help.

Howie doesn’t know what else to do, but his little sister, Gloria, who listens to romantic soap operas instead of hero stories, offers him another perspective and some suggestions that help to change the situation. Dr. Lowminster is a man, but the nature of Miss Gossem’s problems might get more sympathy from adult women … like their mother and Dr. Lowminster’s boss, Mrs. Walsh.

My Reaction

This story contrasts with another by the same author, Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway?, which is also about a boy growing up in the United States during WWII, coming to terms with the effects of the war on daily life and the people around him, and indulging in a little fantasy and adventure based on radio plays and popular entertainment of the time. The difference between these two stories is that the boy in Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway? lives far more in the world of fantasy and his own imagination than Howie is in this story. Both boys are inspired by radio play adventures, but the boy in Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway? has some serious problems coping with the mundane and hard realities around him and frequently acts and speaks as though he’s living in a radio play.

In this story, Howie is much more accepting of the realities of situations around him, once he understands what the realities are. He is genuinely worried about his teacher’s problems and the effects that they are having on her life. At one point, he sees Miss Gossem looking out over a cliff and worries that she might be contemplating suicide because of her despair at her situation. Fortunately, she isn’t, and although she finds Howie’s efforts to help her somewhat embarrassing, he and his friends and sister are able to get some help for Miss Gossem, at least enough that she is able to finish working until the end of the school year.

However, while Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway? had a somewhat idealized ending in spite of the characters’ troubles and the chaos around them, Don’t You Know There’s a War On? ends on a more realistic and imperfect note. The characters in Don’t You Know There’s a War On? can’t solve all of the problems around them in the end. At the end of the story, the war ends, and the characters’ lives change yet again, as they shift into a new mode where they they can’t keep saying, “Don’t you know there’s a war on?” We don’t fully get the end of everyone’s story because Miss Gossem and Denny both move away, but we know that they have to go on with their lives as they are now, changed because of the war. It’s not exactly a happy ending although it’s not completely unhappy, either, because the characters’ lives will go on. It’s somewhere in the middle between happy and unhappy with an element of uncertainty about exactly what’s going to happen and how things will ultimately end up, which is very realistic.

Because Don’t You Know There’s a War On? was written after Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway?, I had the feeling that the author wanted to revisit that time and a similar setting in a more realistic way than he did in the previous book. Both books are enjoyable, but reading each of them is a different experience. That’s not unlike real life, too. Different people can experience the same situation in different ways. There are common threads between the two stories because the boys are experiencing some shared events and elements of popular culture in their time, but because their situations aren’t exactly the same, and they have very different personalities, their stories take different directions.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway?

Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway? by Avi, 1992.

World War II is happening, but Frankie Wattleson mostly spends his time thinking about his favorite radio shows, like Captain Midnight, The Shadow, The Lone Ranger, and The Green Hornet. He spends a lot of his time listening to radio shows and daydreaming about them, and his parents and teacher are getting concerned about him. He doesn’t do his homework, just copying his friend Mario’s homework because he’s too busy with his favorite radio shows. He and Mario get caught reading radio fan magazines in class, when they’re supposed to be reading the class reader. Frankie keeps narrating his life like it’s a radio show or talking like a radio advertisement, and even Mario is getting annoyed with him.

Frankie gets Mario into trouble with escapades that he tries to act out like they’re radio shows, like when he sneaks Mario into his family’s house so they can sneak into the bedroom of the medical student who’s renting Frankie’s brother’s room while he’s away in the army. The boys wanted to get a look at the skeleton that the medical student keeps in his room, but the medical student catches them and reports them to Frankie’s mother. Frankie’s parents try to impress on him that his behavior is serious. His father works hard at two jobs and is frequently tired, his brother is away at war, and their boarder provides their family with another source of needed income. They don’t want to lose him as a boarder. Frankie’s mother forbids him to listen to the radio for a week, but he sneaks listening to the radio by visiting Mario and listening to his radio. The boys sneak back and forth between their houses, using a board between their bedroom windows.

Then, Frankie’s parents tell him that his brother, Tom, is coming home from the army. Tom has been wounded, and Frankie is thrilled at Tom coming home as a wounded hero. Frankie’s parents try to explain to him the reality of Tom’s condition. They don’t know how serious his wound is, but they know that he will need peace and to recover. At first, Frankie thinks that his parents will get rid of the medical student boarding with them so Tom can have his room back, but to his horror, his parents tell him that’s not the case. They still need the money from their board badly, so they’re giving Tom Frankie’s room.

Frankie protests that it’s not fair for him to have to give up his room, but his parents say it’s necessary. When Tom comes home, he’ll need quiet and privacy. Frankie asks where he’ll be sleeping, and his father says that they’re going to make up a new bedroom for him in the basement. It sounds terrible to Frankie. The basement is dark and smelly, and if Frankie goes down there, he won’t have his radio or the board for crossing over to Mario’s room. It’s like being sent to a dungeon!

However, when Frankie and Mario look through the stuff in the basement, they find what looks like some kind of old radio! Frankie’s father says that it used to belong to his Uncle Charlie. Frankie doesn’t remember Uncle Charlie, but his father is tired and doesn’t want to talk about him. Frankie isn’t good at fixing things, but he persuades Mario to help him repair the radio. It turns out to be a different kind of radio than Frankie thought, the kind for sending and receiving messages, not the kind of listening to radio shows. Still, Frankie thinks maybe Mario can help him use it to listen to the radio in Mario’s room when his family bans him from using the radio in their house.

When Tom arrives home, he’s different from how Frankie imagined he would be as a returning hero. He is wounded in the leg and uses a crutch to walk. He’s quiet and depressed, and he doesn’t want to go anywhere, do much of anything, or see anyone. Frankie, who is caught up in the ideas of the adventure stories that he listens to on the radio, tries to get Tom to tell him what the war was like and what it was like being wounded, thinking that the stories will be exciting, but Tom tells him he doesn’t want to talk about it.

The idea of having an adventure and being a hero is what keeps Frankie so enthralled with radio shows. His daydreaming and narrating his adventures with Mario as if they were a radio play is all based around his desire to be a hero and escape from the dull or difficult parts of his real life. The problem is that Frankie doesn’t know what it takes to be a real hero or what real-life “adventures” are actually like, and even when he tries to ignore real life, it doesn’t ignore him. His attempts to live out the adventures he imagines go awry, and his teacher makes it clear that, if he doesn’t start paying attention to reality, he’s going to fail the sixth grade.

My Reaction

I didn’t read this when I was a kid, although I loved historical novels and books by Avi. The boy in this story has an obsession with radio plays the way kids of my time sometimes got obsessed with tv shows. His family, his teacher, and even his best friend know that Frankie’s taking his obsession too far, but Frankie uses his love of radio to both hide from difficult things in real life and to imagine that he can be a hero, like the heroes on the radio.

In between parts of the story, there are interludes with snippets of radio programs and advertisements, showing readers what Frankie’s listening to and where he gets his ideas. I’m a fan of radio plays myself, so I was already familiar with some of the programs that Frankie listens to and their general style. I could recognize many of the tropes of the radio plays in Frankie’s fantasies from the beginning.

Frankie’s radio-based exploits are amusing, but also cringey because readers as well as Frankie’s family and teacher know that he’s headed for trouble by not paying attention to reality. Even his best friend is losing patience with him. I kept waiting for the moment when he would snap out of it and accept some of the hard realities around him. There is a moment when he does get a dose of reality that shatters some of his illusions, the moment when he meets is Uncle Charlie. Up to that point, Frankie was working his Uncle Charlie into his fantasies, imagining him as some kind of secret hero, but Uncle Charlie’s secrets turn out to be more ordinary and not at all romantic or noble. Uncle Charlie accepts the reality of his own situation for what it is, and he knows things ahead of him will be hard and that he has himself to blame for what his life is now. Frankie finds it hard to hear, and his brother’s confession of what war is really like similarly shatter’s some of Frankie’s illusions. It makes him realize that he’s made some mistakes in his thinking and plotting, and Frankie does try to put an end to a romantic scheme that he’s put in motion. However, Frankie’s scheme, while causing chaos, does actually result in a happy ending, so he is able to maintain some of his fantasies and illusions, even in the end.

This story contrasts with another by the same author, Don’t You Know There’s a War On?, which is also about a boy growing up in the United States during WWII, coming to terms with the effects of the war on daily life and the people around him, and indulging in a little fantasy and adventure based on radio plays and popular entertainment of the time. The difference between these two stories is that the boy in Don’t You Know There’s a War On? is more realistic in his views that Frankie is in this story. Both of them are inspired by radio play adventures, but the boy in Don’t You Know There’s a War On? isn’t living in a fantasy world as much as Frankie is and is more open to accepting the mundane and hard realities of life once he understands some of the situations around him.

Posted on by TracyC

The Bracelet

The Bracelet by Yoshiko Uchida, illustrated by Joanna Yardley, 1976, 1993.

Emi is a young girl, a second-grader, in a Japanese American family in 1942. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, there was widespread paranoia about people of Japanese descent in the United States. In response to the fear that these people could secretly be spies for Japan, many of them were ordered to go to internment camps for the duration of the war. Emi’s family is one of those families.

When the story begins, her family has packed and is preparing to report to one of these camps. Emi is sad to leave her home and worried about where they are going. It’s particularly hard for her to leave her best friend. Before they go, her friend stops by with a special present, a bracelet for her to remember her friend by. Emi promises that she will always wear it.

The move to the camp involves a long bus ride and crowds of people. When they get there, Emi’s family is assigned to a barrack made out of an stable because the camp is in an old, converted racetrack (this is a description of Tanforan Assembly Center from real life), and it’s not a very homey place. It’s dirty and still smells like horses. The camp is surrounded by barbed wired wire, and they have to line up with everyone else for meals. They know that this is a temporary camp and that they will later be sent somewhere else. (They will be sent to Topaz.)

Then, Emi suddenly realizes that she no longer has her bracelet. She must have lost it somewhere in the move to the camp! They look everywhere, but they can’t find it. How is Emi going to remember her best friend without that special present?

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

My Reaction

The author of this book, Yoshiko Uchida, has also written other books about Japanese internment camps during World War II and the experiences of the people there and their experiences with returning to normal life after the war. When she was a young woman, she and her family were also held in the Japanese internment camps, giving her direct knowledge of the conditions there and insight into the affect that the camps had on the lives of ordinary people. The experiences of the people in her stories follow the experiences of her own family.

This particular book would make a good introduction to the concept of Japanese internment camps for children. It shows one of the camps through the eyes of a young girl, and it’s not a very friendly or welcoming place because it is essentially a prison. It’s an unfair prison because the people there haven’t done anything wrong, and that comes through in the story. (“They hadn’t done anything wrong. They were being treated like the enemy just because they looked like the enemy. … They loved America, but American didn’t love them back. And it didn’t want to trust them.”) They’re only there because some people are suspicious that some of them might do something wrong because of their ethnic background. Kids can understand the unfairness of the situation and Emi’s feelings at leaving her home and her friend. It’s not an easy topic to discuss, but the feeling of unfairness is a universal one, experienced by humans of all ages. Everyone has experienced something in their life, big or small, that was unfair, so the emotion isn’t difficult to understand.

Nobody is physically hurt doing the story, and nobody is called any racial slurs, making this a relatively gentle introduction to a difficult topic. There are soldiers with guns watching the people going to the camp, and they wonder if those guards are really going to shoot anyone who tries to run away, but nobody is shot. The presence of the armed guards is the most overtly scary part of the book, although there is also an atmosphere of general uncertainty because Emi and her family don’t know what’s going to happen next.

Through Emi’s thoughts, kids can understand that these are ordinary people who have been caught up in something larger that has changed and complicated their lives. The book doesn’t cover much about life at the camp because it’s a short book that mainly covers Emi’s feelings at leaving home and her arrival at the camp, but it sets the scene well for longer, more difficult books, to fill in the blanks.

The bright side to the story is that Emi realizes that her memories of her friend don’t depend on a physical object, like the bracelet. She has memories of all the fun things she and her friend did together, and as long as they remember each other, they will still be friends. We don’t know from this book whether Emi will ever see this friend again or not, but I think that Emi appears as a secondary character in other books by the same author. I think she’s a friend of Yuki in Journey to Topaz and Journey Home.

The edition of the book that I used for my review is the one from 1993. There is a section in the back of the book with historical information about the Japanese internment, and the section in my edition has updated information that wouldn’t have been in the original version of the book. The story was first printed in 1976, but the historical section in my edition ends with the conclusions reached in 1982 by the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians established by President Carter to investigate the causes of the Japanese internment. The conclusion of that commission was the Japanese internment was the product of racism, paranoia, and hysteria on the part of the public and a failure in leadership on the part of the government for trying to placate the hysterics at someone else’s expense instead of holding firm, providing reassurance and firm leadership, and emphasizing the true reality of their unreasonable fears. (Remember, that doesn’t just come from me or from this picture book. Those were the very real conclusions of an official government commission. I do agree with that assessment of the situation, though. I strong feelings against people who are obsessed with conspiracy theories and insist on spreading them because rumors do very real harm.) I think the earlier edition also had different illustrations because the copyright on these illustrations is only for 1993. I really liked the pictures in this book. They’re colorful pictures that look like watercolor paintings. They have almost a dream-like quality that fits well with the theme of memory.

As I was reading this and writing my review, I tried to remember how old I was when I first learned about Japanese internment camps during WWII and what books I might have read about it when I was a kid. I want to say that I was probably about 10 to 12 when I was first introduced to the topic, and I’m positive that I knew about it by the time I finished middle school, but I can’t remember exactly. I don’t think I read many books about it when I was young, although I remember that Farewell to Manzanar was one that was often recommended. I think my first introduction to the topic was probably either non-fiction, from history class in school and things my parents told me, but I also have a vague memory of being told about Farewell to Manzanar and asking what it was about, so that might have been what started the conversation.

Posted on by TracyC

Listen for the Singing

Listen for the Singing by Jean Little, 1977.

This book is the sequel to From Anna. In the previous book, Anna’s family moved from Germany to Canada both to claim an inheritance from a relative and also to escape the Nazis, whose hold has been increasingly tightening on their country. The inheritance isn’t large, mostly just a house and a small grocery store, but it offers the family a chance to start over, away from the Nazis. Anna, the youngest of her siblings was often clumsy and had learning difficulties that her family did not understand. They were often rough, critical, and impatient with her. However, in Canada, Anna has her first thorough physical with a doctor, who reveals to Anna’s startled parents that Anna has an extremely low level of vision, to the point where she is almost blind. For the first time, Anna gets powerful glasses and special classes that help her to cope with her disability and catch up on the learning she’s missed. Anna’s family repents of how hard they were on her when they didn’t understand her problem, and Anna realizes that she is capable of more than she had ever imagined possible.

The sequel begins about 5 years after the previous book, in the fall of 1939. Anna has been wearing glasses for years now, and she’s adjusted to them well. However, changes are coming for her and her family. She is about to leave the special program that she’s been in for students with vision problems and attend a regular high school. She remembers that she used to have problems in regular classes when she lived in Germany, and she worries that she won’t be able to cope with regular classes. Her family, friends, and teacher all remind her, though, that she’s learned things in the last few years that will help her to do much better now. Her teacher says that she’s ready to move on. Anna gets upset when she learns that her friend Isobel from her old school will be going to a different high school, but Anna’s oldest sister, Gretchen, points out that she won’t be alone in high school. Rudi has already graduated from high school, but Gretchen will still be there, and so will the twins. Gretchen says that she will help Anna register on the first day and help her find her way around.

Anna has also begun to worry about her father, who has been distracted by the news they’ve been hearing about the impending war. Her family left Germany partly because they were worried about the direction it was heading under Hitler and the Nazis, and it seems that everything they worried about is now coming true. Then, they hear on the radio that Britain has now declared war on Germany (marking the beginning of the book as September 1939). The onset of war changes things for the family and creates tensions for them among the people in Canada.

When Anna goes to the first day of high school, she learns that her homeroom teacher will be Mr. Lloyd. Her siblings have had Mr. Lloyd as a teacher, and Anna already knows that he’s mean. He plays favorites in class, even though he teaches world history, he doesn’t actually know much about history. Rudi embarrassed him when he was a student, pointing out things he got wrong, and Mr. Lloyd has no love for him or any of the other Solden siblings. Worse still, Mr. Lloyd has a severe prejudice against students with German last names, asking them in class where they were born and if they were proud of their “Fatherland.”

Anna is upset when she is one of the students he singles out, and she’s not sure what to say, but a couple of other students in class speak up to shut him down. Paula voluntarily tells him that, while her mother is Scottish, she was born in Austria … the same place where Hitler comes from. Mr. Lloyd is taken aback, and Anna is surprised both at how bold Paula is and that Mr. Lloyd doesn’t punish her for talking about. Paula later tells her that her mother works for the local school board and has a reputation for standing up for kids who are bullied by teachers, and Mr. Lloyd knows who she is. He has to be careful what he says to Paula or in her presence, or her mother will deal with him. The other student who spoke up is the son of the local alderman, so his father also has influence. Mr. Lloyd could be risking his job if he pushes them too far or says too much in front of them that they might report to their parents.

Anna is grateful to Paula for her intervention, and she also appreciates some help she gets from Paula’s best friend, Maggie. The girls and their other friend, Suzy, make it a point to walk with her to their next classes when Anna explains that she’s been having trouble getting around because she can’t see well. The four girls become friends, and Anna is happy that she already has a friend group at school on the first day.

However, Anna is still troubled about Mr. Lloyd and his targeting of kids with German backgrounds. When she gets home from school and tells her oldest brother, Rudi, what happened, Rudi gets so upset that he goes to his room and refuses to talk anybody. When Anna walks down to the store that her parents manage, she sees Gretchen upset and arguing with their parents about her name. One of her new teachers is also targeting students with German names and gave her a hard time about being called “Gretchen” when the English version of her first name is “Margaret.” At first, Gretchen tries to persuade her parents that she should change her name to Margaret, but after she calms down a little, Gretchen realizes that a name change isn’t really going to solve the problem. There isn’t really anything she could do to make this teacher like her because the teacher is severely paranoid about Germans and talks about how there are German spies everywhere.

Dr. Schumacher, Anna’s family’s doctor and friend, has also experienced some of the same sentiment that the children are experiencing at school. He’s lost at least one of his patients, who no longer trusts him because of his German background, and Anna overhears some of his other patients gossiping about him and speculating on whether or not he’ll serve in the armed forces. Dr. Schumacher tells Anna and his wife that he isn’t overly concerned about these gossipy women, and he doesn’t consider the patient who switched doctors to be a big loss. He, like other young men, feels called to do something about the situation happening around them, but he cannot join the army because he has a heart murmur from having had rheumatic fever when he was younger. His wife (who is also Anna’s former teacher) is relieved that the army has rejected him because they are also expecting a baby.

As Anna and her new friends get to know each other better, Maggie and Paula ask Anna questions about her vision problems. At first, Suzy doesn’t think it’s kind to ask too many questions about it, and the talk of disabilities seems to make her uncomfortable, but the others let her know that she’s misread the room. Rather than finding it uncomfortable to talk about who vision problems, Anna is actually relieved that she can open up about it and that having these problems isn’t regarded as a shameful secret, and Maggie and Paula say that they genuinely want to know what Anna is experiencing so they can help her when she needs it. Anna admits that, sometimes, she’s not even entirely sure when she needs help because, not being able to see certain things, she doesn’t always know what she’s missing. When Anna needs to use alternate materials in class because of her vision problems, she is nervous that Mr. Lloyd will yell at her or bully her, knowing how he feels about students with German backgrounds, but to her surprise, he doesn’t. In fact, he proves very helpful and supportive to her. Mr. Lloyd treats Anna with more consideration than other students because he understands the nature of Anna’s visual problems better than most.

When Anna has trouble in algebra, her father suggests that she talk to her brother, Rudi, who is a math whiz. However, Anna hesitates to ask him for help because Rudi always used to tease her about her awkwardness, worse than her other siblings. She finds it hard to admit to him that she needs help with anything else. When she does ask him, though, Rudi enjoys teaching Anna about his favorite subject, and he even helps her with other things to help her fit in at high school, like teaching her how to dance and encouraging her to get her hair done.

As the story continues, the war increasingly becomes a larger part of everyone’s life. Anna’s father is upset because word reaches him that his sister was arrested in Germany for being a housekeeper for an elderly Jewish man, who was also arrested. At school, the principal makes a speech on Armistice Day where he acknowledges that the war is going to have a profound effect on all of the students and that they will have to grow up faster because of it. As part of the speech, he quotes a preacher who said, “Faith is when you hear the bird singing before the egg is hatched.” This phrase is what gives the book its title because the principal urges the students to “listen for the singing”, to look to the potentials of the future and have faith that they will get through the crisis that is enveloping the world and that the world contains better things.

Anna tries to discuss the idea of imaging how things will be or could be, like hearing the bird sing before the egg hatches, with Rudi, but he doesn’t understand. Rudi seems like he has a promising future ahead of him. He’s already started college and has a talent for mathematics and engineering. He really enjoys college, but at the same time, with so many other young men like himself preparing for war, he feels the pull to join them. When they hear of their aunt’s arrest in Germany, it only makes it worse. Rudi can’t stop thinking about people he knows back in Germany whose lives have already been affected by the Nazis – people who have fled, been arrested, or simply disappeared. He also thinks of the headmaster of their old school back in Germany, who was known to be a Nazi, and how afraid all the children were of him. Rudi decides that he can’t stand back and let people like that win, so he joins the navy against his parents’ wishes.

It turns out to be a disastrous decision. Rudi is still in Canada when he suffers an accident where cleaning fluid is splashed into his eyes, leaving him blind. The doctors don’t believe that Rudi will ever regain his sight. Although Rudi tries to act brave and calm about his new disability, Anna can see that he’s suffering. Having learned to come out of her shell and cope with her own disability, she has a sense of how difficult this is for Rudi, who is usually accustomed to being able to do things pretty easily. Anna realizes how serious Rudi’s mental state is when she hears him crying one night and even praying to die. Anna knows that Rudi needs help, both physically and mentally. He’s suffered a terrible loss, and he feels like his life is over because he can’t see a way forward. Anna has to help him “listen for the singing”, to envision the possibilities.

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

My Reaction and Some Spoilers

From Anna told a complete story by itself, but I still enjoyed this new story with Anna and her family. It was nice to see Anna making progress in school and life, finding new friends, and her family treating her better. Because her mother and siblings treated her badly for years before they realized that Anna was slow and clumsy because she couldn’t see, there are some lingering feelings that affect their relationships. Anna’s mother and siblings have repented about their treatment of Anna and have become much more helpful, supportive, and considerate, but Anna still has some lingering fear of Rudi, who was always the one who was the meanest to her. However, even he admits that he regrets his past behavior. Even before he is afflicted with his own disability, he makes it a point to help Anna with her math lessons, learning to dance, and going to her first hair appointment.

Rudi becomes much more thoughtful and mature in this book. He especially comes to appreciate Anna when Anna helps him through the shock and depression after the accident that leaves him blind. When the story ends, it’s still at the beginning of the war, and we don’t know the ultimate fates of many of the characters. The war is just starting to change people’s lives. We know that, like Rudi, many of them will end up marked for life in some way by the things that are about to happen. Some of the other characters in the book see family members going off to war, and we have no idea whether they will come back or not. Mr. Lloyd comes out of his shell a little around Anna because they come to understand one another, thanks to their shared disability. It turns out that Mr. Lloyd’s vision is also very poor, much more than most of his students know, making him sympathetic to Anna. At the end of the story, things are looking brighter for Rudi, as he realizes that his life isn’t over, and there are ways he can cope with his new blindness and continue the studies he initially abandoned to join the navy. We only get to see the beginning of the war, but it’s enough to show us that it’s going to have a profound change on people in many ways before it’s over. Like Anna, readers must also “listen for the singing” to imagine how the characters will continue forward from this point. There will be hard things because of the war, but also hopeful developments in the character’s lives.

I enjoy the literary references in the story. During the story, Anna is reading the book A Girl of the Limberlost, and Anna enjoys studying Emily Dickinson’s poems. Anna also mentions other books she’s reading and bits of poetry or book characters, like Little Lord Fauntleroy. The movie The Wizard of Oz is playing in theaters at the time of the story, and Anna and her friends go to see it.

People With Visual Impairment

As in the first book, there’s information about people coping with forms of visual impairment, based on the author’s own experiences, growing up with low level vision. There’s also a lot about the attitudes the main character witnesses toward people with disabilities and her own feelings about the ways people treat her and how she wants to be treated. Some people, like Suzy, try too hard to shield Anna from public scrutiny by trying to avoid mentioning her disability or shutting down questions about it, but Anna actually prefers to discuss her vision with people who genuinely care and are trying to help her.

Anna is surprised at how much Mr. Lloyd helps her when everyone knows that he has anti-German sentiment. In fact, he goes out of his way to make sure that Anna has what she needs, sometimes even before she asks. Anna realizes why he is so helpful to her when she looks at the notes on his desk, which are printed larger for him, the way that he ensures Anna’s test materials are printed. The truth is that Mr. Lloyd also has low level vision. He covers up for his disability, but he privately admits to Anna that he also struggled when he was young. His parents got him a private tutor because his vision was so bad, and he admits to Anna that he’s impressed at how well she does in a standard school. Mr. Lloyd has strong feelings about some things, but Anna realizes that he’s also a bit shy and socially awkward. The two of them bond over their shared disability and experiences they’ve had in common.

When Rudi becomes blind, he initially feels like his life is over. He can’t continue in the navy, and he doesn’t know how he can return to his studies. Although he tries to cover up how hopeless he feels, Anna realizes that he feels like he can’t do anything anymore. He even lacks the will to use the resources he’s being offered. Anna pushes Rudi to “see” things differently, showing him how he can do things besides sit around and feel sorry for himself. She introduces him to recorded books (on records, not tapes or CDs, because of the time period) and Braille. When Rudi begins to see that he can still think and study, even if he can’t see, he begins to feel more hopeful and see new possibilities for his future. The part of the story about Rudi’s blindness doesn’t come until the end of the book, about the last third or quarter, but it serves to illustrate the point about envisioning hopeful possibilities for the future, even in the midst of misfortune and the chaos of the world around them.

Anti-German Sentiment

Anti-German sentiment was common among the Allied countries during both World Wars. People were paranoid about spies being among them. In most cases, it was just paranoia, but as with many conspiracy theories, it’s the odd case where it actually turned out to be true that kept people in that constant state of paranoia. Realistically, most average schools during this period did not have enemy spies in them, but the possibility that a spy could be anywhere haunts the characters, and that’s behind some of the prejudice that Anna’s family experiences in the story. (See also Charlotte Sometimes for an example at a boarding school for girls during WWI.) In the story, Mr. Lloyd’s prejudice isn’t just about the rise of the Nazis but also about his own brother’s death in the previous war against Germany. To him, the war that’s just starting brings back painful memories of the last one.

Later in the story, after Anna and Mr. Lloyd come to an understanding with each other over their shared vision troubles, Anna speaks to Mr. Lloyd about his prejudice against Germans. She points out to him that a lot of Germans don’t support the Nazis, and they are also at their mercy. She doesn’t know whether or not she’s ever going to hear from her aunt again after she was arrested by the Nazis. Mr. Lloyd admits to Anna that he’s probably not going to be able to let go of all of his feelings about Germans because he’s had years of resentments about them, but he also apologizes to her that his feelings have made things harder on her. This is a small concession, but it may be a turning point in Mr. Lloyd’s attitude. He tells Anna to give his regards to Rudi and is nice to Anna’s father when they meet. Seeds of change have been sewn for Mr. Lloyd, and we see the beginnings in the story. It’s another point where we see the beginning of something and can imagine how it might play out over time.

Posted on by TracyC

Treasures From Grandma’s Attic

Treasures from Grandma’s Attic by Arleta Richardson, 1984, 2011.

The Grandma’s Attic series by Arleta Richardson is based on her grandmother’s reminiscences about life growing up on a farm in Michigan during the 1800s.  This is the fouth book in the series, and like the first three, it’s a collection of short stories.

Usually, the stories are framed as grandmother, Mabel, telling her granddaughter some story about herself or her family when she was young, but in this book, the stories don’t have the framing element of the grandmother talking to her granddaughter. Instead, each story is just Mabel, talking about something that happened when she was young. Many of the stories in this book focus on things that happen at the small local school and lessons that they learn. The books don’t always say exactly how old the children are or what the year is, but the beginning of this book says that the year is 1886, and Mabel and Sarah Jane are thirteen and a half years old. The stories that follow the first one take place in order because characters and situations introduced in the earlier stories are referenced in the later ones.

Many of the scrapes the Mabel and her friend Sarah Jane are relatable, the kinds of minor trouble that many children (and even some adults) get into. I particularly liked the story about the fortune teller because it’s similar to something my mother told me about someone who heard something frightening from a fortune teller (or someone who claimed to be able to read palms). Even as an adult, this person similarly couldn’t get the idea out of their head once they heard something that they dreaded would happen, even though it never did. Fortunately, nothing truly tragic happens in any of the stories in this book or in the series in general. The stories are pretty calm, and many of them have a moral to them, many of them Christian-based.

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

Stories in the Book:

Cousin Agatha

Mabel’s father’s Cousin Agatha invites herself to join the family for Thanksgiving, further inviting herself to stay through Christmas. Cousin Agatha is highly critical and difficult to get along with, so the family starts getting nervous when she talks about wanting to stay with them for the long term. Mabel and her brothers consider doing things to irritate her so she won’t want to stay, but Mabel comes to realize that part of the reason why Agatha acts the way she does is that she’s a nervous and insecure person, starved for attention and affection.

A New Friend

A new girl named Mary comes to school, and when she gets a crush on one of Mabel’s brothers, she tries to make herself into Mabel’s best friend. However, when Mabel refuses to help her scheme to ingratiate herself to Mabel’s brother, Mary turns spiteful and tries to get Mabel in trouble.

Christmas Spirit

The children at school draw names for a gift exchange at Christmas. However, one girl, Hannah, is sour and grouchy, and she says that, if she doesn’t draw a name she likes, she won’t bring a gift. Mabel gets Hannah as her name, and she gives Hannah a gift, but when Mabel doesn’t get a gift herself, she blames Hannah. She later realizes that she’s misjudged the situation.

The Perfect Paper

Warren is a boy at school who shows off how well he does at school, and he makes it a point that he thinks boys are smarter than girls. Mabel prays that she’ll do better than Warren on their next math test to teach him a lesson, and at first, it seems to work. However, her father notices that one of the problems was marked incorrectly, meaning that Warren actually got a better score than she did. Mabel finds herself in the position of having to tell the teacher about it, but both she and Warren learn lessons about qualities that are more important than perfect test scores and the relative worth of boys and girls.

Wesley’s Lesson

Wesley is a big boy at school, and the others sometimes tease him or scold him about how much he eats. Wesley’s eating habits can sometimes be a problem when he eats things that everyone was supposed share (as in the Christmas story), but his size is mainly a problem when he’s careless. One day, he runs hard into Sarah Jane while playing, knocking her to the ground. He’s apologetic, but Sarah Jane is angry and embarrassed. She persuades Mabel to help her get some revenge and teach Wesley a lesson, but their teacher ends up teaching the girls a lesson about respecting their classmates’ feelings.

The Seamstress

Mabel wants a new dress for the ice cream social, but her mother doesn’t have time to make one. Mabel insists that she’s old enough to make a dress on her own, but her mother knows that’s harder than Mabel thinks.

The Autograph

Cousin Agatha sends Mabel a special present, a book autographed by the author. Mabel is eager to take it to school to show everyone, but her mother doesn’t think it’s a good idea. It turns into a problem when Warren offers to buy the book from Mabel. She loves the gift, but the money Warren promises her could mean more because she wants to buy something for her mother. Then, Sarah Jane suggests forging the author’s signature in a cheap copy of the same book. Does Mabel have it in her to be a forger?

The Farewell Party

The children learn that their teacher, Miss Gibson, will be leaving, and she’ll be replaced by another teacher, Mrs. Porter. The children at school aren’t happy about it because they like Miss Gibson, and they worry that Mrs. Porter might be mean or that she wouldn’t like them. The children decide that they can’t let Miss Gibson leave without having a farewell party for her, but they learn that the adults are planning a surprise of their own.

Really Responsible

Mabel starts thinking of all the things she’d like to do with her future. Sarah Jane thinks getting married is the best thing to do, but Mabel wants to do something that she can do on her own rather than having her role in life defined by the man she marries. Sarah Jane doesn’t think that she can do anything big like that on her own because she isn’t always reliable and responsible, and Mabel complains that nobody has any faith in her, but she worries that maybe Sarah Jane is right. Mabel’s mother uses a lesson from the Bible to show Mabel that, if she wants to prove that she’s responsible in big ways, she should prove herself responsible in small ones first. However, Mabel’s absent-mindedness soon gets her into trouble again!

The Tangled Web

Mabel is looking forward to a birthday party, but everything goes wrong from the moment she wakes up. It’s a rainy day, and Mabel is sick. Mabel’s mother insists that she stay home. Sarah Jane says that’s fine because the party has been rescheduled. The problem is that the party has been rescheduled to Sunday, and their families believe that Sunday should always be a day of rest. When the girls sneak out to the party without permission, they get caught up in their own scheme.

Gypsies

Mabel’s mother takes in a gypsy family temporarily because their baby is sick, and they need help. Their neighbors ask her if she’s doing the right thing because they think that gypsies can’t be trusted, and even Mabel’s brothers have heard that they’re thieves. However, Mabel’s father says that they shouldn’t assume things about other people because good and bad people can be found among any group, and Mabel’s mother points out that, whatever else they are, they’re human beings who need help. The gypsies themselves prove their own character when it’s time for them to leave, and they repay their hosts’ generosity.

The Expensive Bookcase

When Sarah Jane’s father makes a new bookcase for her, Mabel decides that she’d also like one for her birthday. Mabel’s father agrees on the grounds that it will help Mabel to be more neat and tidy. However, the project turns out to be bigger than they thought when Mabel’s mother decides that Mabel could also use new curtains and new paint in her room, and then, Mabel decides that she would like her bed spread dyed to match. Mabel ends up owing her brother a surprising amount of favors in exchange for the work.

Monday’s Child

Mabel is fascinated by the poem about the days of the week that children are born on. Since Mabel was born on a Monday, according to the poem, she should be “fair of face.” Sarah Jane was born on a Friday, so she’s supposed to be “loving and giving.” Mabel’s mother says that it’s only a poem, not something to live by, and that beauty is as beauty does. The person who does the right thing is the most beautiful person. Mabel has trouble believing that until she sees a lovely girl at the general store who demonstrates the concept that beauty doesn’t bring happiness or character.

The Fortune-Teller

Mabel and Sarah Jane wonder about the future and what the fortune teller in town might have to say to them. Mabel’s mother warns her that curiosity can lead to trouble and that if she tries to have her fortune told, she might hear something she won’t like. However, the girls can’t resist seeing the fortune teller. Although the girls promise themselves that the fortune telling is just for fun and that they won’t take it seriously, when Mabel hears something that she doesn’t like, she has trouble getting it out of her head. Because she’s been primed to believe the prediction, she misinterprets something that she overhears.

Revenge

Mabel can’t find her cameo pin, and she blames her brother Roy because of his teasing and tricks he plays. Later, a comb disappears from her room, and Mabel again blames Roy. He doesn’t exactly deny that he didn’t take these things, although he implies that Mabel probably lost them herself. When a quarter disappears from the money that Mabel has been saving to buy a present for her mother, Mabel is sure that Roy is responsible, but she can’t spoil the surprise for her mother by admitting that she’s been saving money for a present. Mabel decides that she needs to take matters into her own hands and teach Roy a lesson but ends up teaching herself one.

Posted on by TracyC

Still More Stories from Grandma’s Attic

Still More Stories from Grandma's Attic cover

Still More Stories from Grandma’s Attic by Arleta Richardson, 1980, 2011.

The Grandma’s Attic series by Arleta Richardson is based on her grandmother’s reminiscences about life growing up on a farm in Michigan during the 1800s.  This is the third book in the series, and like the first two, it’s a collection of short stories. Each of the stories are framed as a story being told by the grandmother to the granddaughter about something that happened when she was young, inspired by something the granddaughter is experiencing in her life. Some of them are funny stories, others are though-provoking, and many of them have a moral or life lesson to them. The grandmother, Mabel O’Dell, has two older brothers and a best friend, named Sarah Jane, and many of the stories center around things they did as children. There are Christian themes in the stories, and some of them contain Biblical references.

What I like are the small details about life in the past. We get to see children going about their farm choices and attending school in a one-room schoolhouse, and we get to see what was important to the children back then. The children in the story have their own wishes and plans, fun things they like to do in their spare time, things that worry or frighten them, and special occasions that they look forward to.

One thing that I would like address, though, is the religious aspects of the stories. Something that would probably stand out to modern readers is that the Bible readings and lessons aren’t restricted to home and church but are also taught in the school every day. There are some people in the 21st century who seek out private schools that still do this, and some people who wish public schools still did, but there’s an important aspect of this that I’d like to make clear to everyone: This is a small rural community with only a one-room schoolhouse and around 15 or so children at a time and a single church that everybody in the area attends.

Everybody there is the same religion, which is why this school and others from this time period, particularly in small communities, were completely comfortable incorporating Bible readings into their school lessons. There was nobody around whose beliefs were different from theirs. They could happily take it for granted that was the case because it definitely was. They didn’t have to give it a second thought or even much of a first one because they’d all see each other every Sunday in that one little church. There is no need to to accommodate diversity in communities where there isn’t any. We don’t see how the characters in these stories respond to people of different religions because they never meet any, at least not during the course of the stories in this book. I think some people who are nostalgic about that element forget that this is the primary reason why modern public schools don’t do things like that anymore, and there are definite trade-offs.

If you accommodate a group of diverse people, it’s true that you can’t concentrate on religious sub-groups in the same way and don’t get the reinforcement of beliefs that those people also receive at home and at church that make life seem consistent across all channels, but at the same time, if you live in a community that intensively studies its own beliefs and customs and has nothing else to accommodate, you have to forfeit the experience of learning more about the variety of people that exist in the wider world or the lessons that diverse groups learn about getting along with people who are different, not taking social agreement or a shared vision of life for granted, and learning to understand and accommodate people with concerns that you don’t necessarily share just because you care about how someone else feels and need to find a way work with each other. Nobody gets to have everything in life or learn everything in life, and putting all of your emphasis on one thing means passing up other opportunities. It’s just the way life is. Mabel and her friends learn many valuable things about life and the choices they make, but how to live in a diverse community with people who have different beliefs just isn’t one of them. They don’t talk about any of that because they don’t need to.

The books in the Grandma’s Attic series cater to a sense of nostalgia, which is pleasant, but I just wanted to remind readers that there are reasons why most people don’t live this way anymore and that most schools aren’t run this way anymore, and there are some benefits to new ways doing things that are a better fit for the world that 21st century people live in. Enjoy this “simpler time” for what it is, but just understand that there are things modern people experience that are worth something, too, and things we get to do with people who 19th century people who were being educated in one-room schoolhouses might not have even imagined meeting!

That being said, I do find this book charming and cozy. It makes for a relaxing read, and I think the morals and life lessons in the stories are positive ones. The characters in the stories do have some consequences for their childhood escapades, but nothing tragic or overly serious. It’s fun to see them getting into childhood scrapes, enjoying simple pleasures, and planning parties and special surprises for friends and family.

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

Stories in the Book:

Still More Stories from Grandma's Attic girls making face cream

Face Cream from Godey’s Lady’s Book

Mabel and her best friend, Sarah Jane, attempt to make face cream from a recipe in a women’s magazine, with unexpected results!

It Rhymes with Mop

Mabel was often a careless and sloppy child, but she learns her less when her family has dinner with the minister and his wife.

High Society

Mabel is invited to come with Sarah Jane on a visit to her cousin’s house in the city. Sarah Jane’s relatives are more wealthy, and they have a big house with servants, but the girls come to realize that the high life in the city isn’t really the life that they want to live.

Still More Stories from Grandma's Attic girl climbing tree

The Dog Who Could Spell

Mabel proves to Sarah Jane that her dog is smarter than she thinks when the girls get into trouble, and Mabel gets the dog to understand and fetch help.

The Wrinkled Stockings

Mabel and Sarah Jane are tired of wearing their heavy long underwear under their clothes because it wrinkles their stockings and makes them feel uncomfortable. Since it’s nearly spring, they decide to modify their long underwear for better comfort, but they’re sorry when they realize just how changeable the weather can be.

Whenever I’m Afraid

Grandma remembers a time when she was a child and found herself home alone while she was sick and how she comforted herself with prayer and the thought that God was looking after her.

Grandpa Hobbs

Grandpa Hobbs is a neighbor whose memory has become confused in his old age. He sometimes lives in the past and confuses past events and people with present ones. When he stays with Mabel’s family for a time, though, they are surprised at some of the things that he does remember!

The Spelling Bee

Mabel and her brother have a habit of leaving things where they don’t belong because they forget to put them away. When Mabel’s father decides that he will confiscate anything that’s not in its proper place, he takes something important of Mabel’s. However, in driving home the lesson about personal responsibility and accountability, Mabel’s father learns that he also needs to teach the children about forgiveness and mercy by demonstrating some himself.

Still More Stories from Grandma's Attic ink stain on dress

The Prettiest House in the Country

Mabel’s mother says that the house needs to be repainted, but Mabel’s father keeps putting it off. When she learns that he’s making plans to repaint the barn instead of the house, Mabel’s mother takes matters into her own hands.

My Own Boss

Mabel is tired of her parents always telling her what to do and insists that she wants to make some decisions about things herself. When her parents allow her to make some choices on her own, she learns that making choices means learning to live with the results.

The Harvest Home Festival

The kids in Mabel’s class at school each have to memorize something from the Bible to recite at the Harvest Home Festival. Mabel, being a procrastinator, puts off memorizing her piece until a couple of days before she recites it. However, when she has last-minute doubts about whether or not she’s really committed it to memory

The Surprise Birthday Present

Mabel’s father needs a new suit, but the family needs to raise the money to buy one for his birthday. At first, they don’t think they’ll be able to raise enough money to get him a new suit in time for his birthday, but Mabel finds something other than money that gives them what they need. The moral of this story is that God sometimes answers prayers in unexpected ways.

The Perfect Party

Mabel and Sarah Jane decide to throw a surprise birthday party for their teacher at school. They think they’ve got everything planned well, but they forget that, even at a surprise birthday party, sooner or later, someone has to tell the birthday person when to arrive.

Windfalls

Mabel and Sarah Jane are allowed to take apples that have already fallen from a neighbor’s trees (the “windfalls), but one day, they see what they think is the perfect apple to give to their teacher and try to make it fall on purpose. In the process, they end up getting into a scrape that Mabel knows she won’t be able to hide from her parents.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Jamie and the Mystery Quilt

Jamie and the Mystery Quilt by Vicki Berger Erwin, 1987.

Money has been tight in the Huddleston family since Jamie’s father died. The family lives in a big, old house that’s been in the Huddleston family for generations, but it has gotten run down because the family doesn’t have enough money to fix it. The local historical society is interested in the house because of its age, but Jamie’s mother doesn’t know if the family will have enough money to hold on to it. Even heating the house has gotten expensive, and there are two girls in the family to raise and educate. Jamie’s mother is seriously considering selling the big house so she and the girls can move to a smaller, less expensive house, but Jamie can’t stand the idea of losing this house, which she loves. To help earn some extra money, Jamie takes on a part-time tutoring job, and she is thrilled when her first tutoring assignment is a popular boy from school, Kevin Parker.

When Jamie discovers a chest of old quilts in the attic that were made by her great-grandmother, she is thrilled to find one that is actually a map of their house! She shows it to Kevin, who is fascinated. His mother has an antiques shop, and he has an interest in antiques because he helps his mother. Unfortunately, the realtor who is trying to convince Jamie’s mother to let him sell their house also sees the quilt and immediately becomes interested in its monetary value. Jamie tries to make it clear to him that the quilt is not for sale.

Then, one day, the quilt is stolen while it was hung out for an airing! Just about anybody could have taken it because it was outside, but when Jamie’s mother reports the theft to the police, the policeman who takes the report says that there have been other thefts of antiques in the area. Their case is a little unusual because the quilt is the only item missing, whereas the other thefts involved houses being completely cleaned out of truckloads of antiques.

There is something unusual about the quilt. Not only is it unusual to find a quilt that’s a perfect map of a house, but it seems like the quilt also contains a secret, hidden message. Was the quilt stolen for its monetary value or just because it’s a fascinating-looking quilt, or does someone else also have the sense that there’s a secret meaning in the quilt?

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

My Reaction

I remember liking this story when I was a kid. I remembered that the rainbow in the quilt was the clue to where the treasure was hidden, but I didn’t remember the story behind why the treasure was hidden. Jamie’s ancestors didn’t do anything illegal or unethical. It was more that they were going through hard times and resorted to an unappealing job that they didn’t really want to discuss with other people.

I didn’t think there was much secret about who the villain in the story was. There’s a person in the story who is both an unlikable character and who would have access to people’s homes to be able to steal from them. In some ways, I thought that the characters didn’t seem to realize that as soon as they should have. The mother in the story seemed a little too trusting.

The story seems a little slow, now that I’m rereading it as an adult, but I still have nostalgia for it. The quilt map is still a fantastic addition to a children’s mystery.

Posted on by TracyC

The Mystery on the Train

Boxcar Children

#51 The Mystery on the Train by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 1996.

The Alden Children’s Aunt Jane is planning to travel to San Francisco to join her husband, who is there on a business trip. Because the Boxcar Children have never actually traveled on a train trip before, she invites them to come with her. The trip will take three days by train. Then, they’ll spend a few days in San Francisco before flying hone. The Aldens love traveling, and they’re excited by the idea of a train trip!

When they arrive to catch the train, they witness an odd scene at the station. An older woman is fighting with a younger woman over what looks an art portfolio. The younger woman eventually gets hold of the portfolio, knocking the older woman to the ground, and runs for the train. The Aldens ask the older woman if she’s all right, and she says she is. They also ask her if the younger woman is the owner of the portfolio, and the older woman says yes. She doesn’t explain why they were fighting over it, but they later see her talking to the train porter and giving him some money. The Aldens wonder what that scene was all about.

On the train, they meet the young woman, whose name is Annie. She explains that she’s also heading to San Francisco because she wants to attend art school there. She tells them that she’s planning to stay with an uncle there and that her portfolio contains her art work. Annie and Violet enjoy talking about art together, but the Aldens have the feeling that there are things that Annie isn’t telling them. She seems very paranoid about her portfolio, always afraid to leave it unattended and panicking every time the porter tries to help her with it.

When the portfolio suddenly disappears, Annie admits to them that it doesn’t really contain her artwork. It actually has a set of vintage autographed movie posters that are valuable for collectors. They were part of an inheritance that she and her aunt shared, and she’s hoping that they will help fund her art school education. Who could have taken the portfolio on the train? Was it the man who actually told them that he collects old movie posters and that he’s hoping to purchase some in California, or maybe the mysterious man who wears sunglasses everywhere on the train? Could Annie’s aunt have paid the porter to retrieve the posters from Annie?

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

My Reaction

Mysteries set on a train are always fun because, like with mysteries set in isolated houses, there is a limited set of possible suspects, and they’re in a situation where people cannot easily enter or leave. We know that the portfolio is still on the train, somewhere, and the thief hasn’t left. It’s just a question of who the thief is and where the thief hid the portfolio.

There are some obvious suspects in this story, but there are a couple of points that make the mystery more complicated. One is that there are unknown relationships between different suspects, some which are easier to guess or figure out than others. Another point is that Annie is keeping secrets from the Aldens. Through the story, she isn’t entirely honest with them about what’s actually going on. There are also some things that Annie doesn’t fully understand. This is one of those stories where the stolen object is stolen more than once, changing hands before they fully grasp what happened to it the first time it disappears.

There are twists to this mystery that keep it interesting, and I love the train setting! The trains they ride on through their trip are real trains, and the experience of the trip is what the actual experience is like. They take two trains, changing in Chicago to the California Zephyr, which is a real Amtrak train that goes from Chicago to San Francisco. I’ve been on train trips before, and if you’re curious, there are YouTube videos people have made, showing their own train trips across the US, like this one showing a trip on the California Zephyr.