Posted on by TracyC

Princess Megan

The Magic Attic Club

Princess Megan by Trisha Magaw, 1995.

Meg and her friends are planning to perform a short play of Peter Pan at a local nursing home. Her friends chose her to be their director, and Megan is really looking forward to it. Then, her mother does something that threatens to derail the project.

Megan’s mother is a lawyer, and she frequently has to work late. The problem is that, this time, she’s going to have to work on Saturday, interviewing witnesses for a trial. However, that Saturday, Megan’s mother was supposed to be at the high school, receiving donations for a food drive. She asks Megan to take care of the food donations, but the problem is that the play Megan and her friends are supposed to perform is also on Saturday. Helping with the food drive would make it difficult for Megan to get to the play on time. Megan’s mother is tired and in no mood to listen to Megan’s objections that it wouldn’t be fair to derail her project with her friends. Her mother just wants Megan to take care of her obligations for her.

While Megan is fuming about the unfairness of the situation and worrying about what to do, she decides to visit their neighbor, Ellie Goodwin. Megan and her friends have a standing invitation to visit and explore her attic, which has the ability to send them to other places and times when they put on different costumes and look at themselves in the mirror.

This time, Megan tries on a purple princess dress, and she finds herself in a Medieval village in France, near a castle. She meets a peasant girl named Michelle. Michelle tells her that there’s been trouble over the matter of the unicorn and the feast.

When Megan asks what she means, Michelle explains that Lord Claude and Lady Helene are hosting a feast and joust at their castle and that the king (who is supposedly Megan’s father in this world) has been invited as an important guest. At the end of the feast, they want to give the king a unicorn’s horn as a gift, but the problem with that is that they have to kill the unicorn to do that. Alternatively, it is possible to befriend a unicorn and get filings from its horn that also have magical powers, but Lord Claude and Lady Helene want to give the king the whole horn. Michelle confesses to Megan that her mother, who works in the castle’s kitchen secretly released the unicorn that they’d captured for the purpose. If they knew she was the one who did it, she would be in serious trouble.

Megan wants to help Michelle and her mother, and as someone who supposedly has the rank of princess, she should have some authority. However, she’s not entirely sure what kind of influence she can have because she knows that she’s not a “real” princess. Everyone thinks that she’s the king’s daughter, but Megan knows that she’s not. Can Megan find another way to save the unicorn’s life and Jacqueline from punishment, without revealing herself as an imposter princess?

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

My Reaction and Spoilers

Some children’s books that involve time travel have real, historical information for educational value, but this one, and others in the series, are pure fantasy. Megan doesn’t visit real Medieval France. This is a fairy tale version of the Middle Ages with a unicorn and an invisibility cloak. There are a few accurate details for the Middle Ages, like the practice of using straw or other plants on the floors and the fact that intricate tapestries took years of work to complete. However, the focus is definitely on fantasy.

The invisibility cloak is critical to Megan’s plan to save the unicorn and make the king realize the value and beauty of the unicorn before someone can kill it on his behalf. When the king sees the unicorn for himself and reads the note that Megan wrote for him, he accepts the living unicorn and its presence as his gift instead of the horn. The problem with the unicorn is resolved pretty quickly, and so is Megan’s situation with her mother.

At first, I was expecting that the situation that Megan encountered in the fantasy world would have more of a direct parallel to Megan’s situation in her regular life, but it doesn’t really. It mostly serves as its own adventure, although it does highlight that Megan is creative when it comes to problem-solving and can be relied on in difficult circumstances. What Megan really needs to do is to explain to her mother why it would be difficult for her to take over her mother’s project without compromising her own. When Megan finally explains, it turns out that her mother didn’t know about her project with her friends. Handling both of their projects requires some careful scheduling and a little help from a friend, but they manage to work it out.

I really like the pictures in the Magic Attic Club books because they remind me of the ones in the American Girls books. They have a similar quality.

Posted on by TracyC

The Mystery in the Snow

The Boxcar Children

Boxcar Children Mystery in the Snow cover

The Mystery in the Snow by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 1992.

Boxcar Children Mystery in the Snow arrival

The Alden children are disappointed because there is still no snow this winter, and they’ve really been looking forward to snow. Their grandfather tells them not to worry because, soon, they’ll have all the snow they want. A friend of his, Mr. Mercer, owns a ski lodge and has been urging him to visit and bring his grandchildren. There’s going to be a winter carnival there. The children are eager to go and have fun in the snow!

Boxcar Children Mystery in the Snow choosing teams

At the ski lodge, the Alden children meet a boy named Jimmy. Jimmy is a regular visitor to the lodge, but for some reason, he says that his parents never stay. There is also a girl called Freddie, which is short for Fredrica. Her parents aren’t at the hotel, either, because they’re visiting her sister, but she says that they will come later. Freddie could have gone to visit her sister, too, but she didn’t want to miss the fun at the ski lodge. She and Jimmy are both team captains for the winter games, which include skiing, skating, sledding, snow sculpting, and ice carving. Strangely, when the team captains get the box where kids are supposed to submit their names to join the teams, they can’t find the keys. The loss of the keys is worrying because, if they can’t find them, they won’t be able to get into the equipment shop for the equipment they need for the games. They still manage to put together the teams, and the Alden children also join.

Boxcar Children Mystery in the Snow skates

Then, Mr. Mercer discovers that all four of the tires on his truck are flat. Grandfather Alden offers to drive him into town to get a pump for the tires and to talk to a locksmith about getting into the equipment shop.

While the adults tend to that, the kids talk about the try-outs for different events. The Aldens are all excited about different events. Violet notices that one girl, Nan, isn’t enthusiastic about the events at all and doesn’t want to try out for anything. Violet asks her why, and Nan says that joining in the games was her parents’ idea, not hers. They say it will be fun, but she never really enjoys herself at these things. She doesn’t think there are any events she can do, and she’d hate to be the one to lose an event for her team. To encourage her and build up her confidence, Violet suggests that they both sign up for the ice carving event, which doesn’t require a try out. Violet says that she doesn’t know how to do ice carving, and Violet says that’s fine because she doesn’t, either. She says that it would just be fun to try it out together. Nan points out that they would be competing against each other because they’re on opposite teams, but Violet says that doesn’t matter because they’re both equals, neither one of them knowing what they’re doing. Nan is cheered by Violet’s friendliness and signs up for ice carving.

Boxcar Children Mystery in the Snow Watch the dog

Nan isn’t the only unhappy child involved in the games, and the Aldens begin to feel that the focus on competition instead of simply having fun in the snow is partly to blame. A boy named Pete is upset that he didn’t get selected for any of the events he tried out for, and he says he doesn’t want to be the time team’s time keeper, which is the default position. Pete says he no longer wants to be involved in any of it. Freddie is angry because she and Jimmy drew names for their team members at random, and she thinks that Jimmy ended up with most of the really good team members. She wants a way to even things out. When the Aldens ask Jimmy if his parents will come to the awards dinner at the end of the games, he seems upset and doesn’t want to talk about it much. They’re not sure if Jimmy is more upset about his parents not being there than he pretends or if he’s worried about the awards ceremony in general.

Boxcar Children Mystery in the Snow smashed sculpture and footprints

It soon becomes apparent that someone is intentionally trying to sabotage the winter games. Someone smashes the snow sculptures that the Aldens made for their team. Then, someone steals a skier’s skis and ruins the ice sculpture made by the other team. The entire skating event has to be postponed when someone ruins the ice.

Who is doing these things and why? It could be someone who’s trying to make their team win the competition, but the sabotage has been aimed at both teams and at the event in general. Is it a kid who is unhappy with the contest or their position on their team? Jimmy seems eager to cancel events every time something goes wrong. Can the Boxcar Children figure out who is responsible?

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

My Reaction

Boxcar Children Mystery in the Snow skis

There are themes in the story about competition and family. The Aldens aren’t accustomed to thinking competitively about other people because they’re used to doing things with each other cooperatively, as a team. Because they’re accustomed to thinking cooperatively, they are friendly with people on the other teams, like Nan, and they’re more focused on the fun of the events than on winning. That makes them different from some of the other kids, who are concerned about winning, but there are other issues in the book besides competition that matter more.

Boxcar Children Mystery in the Snow knocking on the door

There are indications in the story that the parents of the children in the competition don’t always want the same things that their children want. Nan, for instance, didn’t even want to join contest, but her parents urged her to do it. Also, some of the children aren’t as good at others at conveying to their parents what they really want. When the most troubled child in the group finally manages to say what they really want, many things get straightened out.

I feel like there are many stories where the conflicts revolve around people who don’t really communicate with each other. In this story, there’s a character who blames others for not understanding how they feel, but even they have to acknowledge that they haven’t actually explained their feelings. They’ve just been expecting everyone else to know what they’ve been feeling. Some honest communication straightens out the problem, and that’s a good life lesson for kids and families.

Posted on by TracyC · 2 Comments

North American Indian Sign Language

North American Indian Sign Language by Karen Liptak, 1990, 1995.

This book is going to be one of three I’m planning to cover on the same topic because this book includes a list of recommended reading about North American Indian Sign Language, and I happen to have two other sources from that list in my collection. The other books I have are much older, and I’d like to compare them to this newer book and explain why the newer one does things differently.

To begin with, older books about this topic frequently just use the term “Indian” or “American Indian” to refer to Native Americans. This particular book defines its terms right at the beginning. The author says, “North American Indians are currently called both American Indians and Native Americans. I have chosen the term American Indians to reflect the preference voiced in a recent informal survey at an intertribal powwow in Reno, Nevada, and to help readers find the book more easily. The signs presented in this book are based on the sign language used by the American Indians of the Great Plains.” I appreciate it when authors explain their thinking clearly.

The introductory section of the book explains the purpose and history of using sign language for intertribal communications. It starts with an example of a fictional encounter between two members of different tribes who are strangers to each other. At first, they’re not sure who the other one is and if they’re someone who can be trusted, but when they begin using sign language to signal to each other who they are and what their intentions are, they realize that they’re from tribes who are friendly with each other and that it’s safe to continue communicating.

This particular form of sign language was particularly popular among Native Americans of the Great Plains, including the Cheyenne, Sioux, Kiowa, and Blackfoot tribes to allow communication between tribes that did not share a common spoken language and also within tribes in situations that demanded silent communication, such as during hunting and warfare or when communicating with people who could not hear well. American Indian sign language isn’t commonly used in modern times because there are others more commonly used, but it still appears sometimes at powwows or in Native American ceremonial festivals. This book is meant to present the sign language for fun and education.

It begins by explaining basic hand and finger positions and introducing some basic vocabulary, demonstrating signals for simple words, like “I”, “You”, “Yes”, and “No.” All of the hand signs are shown in drawings with arrows to indicate movement where necessary. It also introduces how to signal that you are asking a question.

The rest of the vocabulary is presented in themed sections, introducing words for family members, counting, seasons of the year, weather, time, food, clothing, feelings. This is different from the older books about American Indian sign language, which had vocabulary words organized alphabetically, like a dictionary. I prefer the approach of the themed sections because they demonstrate related words together and provide information for forming sentences as needed, like how to indicate that a concept is past tense. Later sections build on earlier sections, like when the section about seasons draws on the earlier concepts of counting and how to ask questions to demonstrate how to ask how old someone is or how to tell someone your age.

There are also sections at the back of the book discussing other methods of communication used by Native Americans, including smoke signals, pictographs, and petroglyphs.

The book is part of a series by the same author about various aspects of Native American culture. It’s available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

How to Snoop in Your Sister's Diary

How to Snoop in Your Sister’s Diary by Janet Adele Bloss, 1989.

Lately, Haley has been jealous because her older sister, Lauren, has a new boyfriend and is spending all of her time with him. Haley feels neglected because Lauren doesn’t want to spend time with her any more. Haley resents the new boyfriend and worries about what Lauren and her boyfriend are doing together, so she begins regularly snoops in her sister’s diary to learn the details of Lauren’s relationship with her boyfriend.

However, Haley soon reads something shocking in her sister’s diary. Lauren might be about to do something disturbing and dangerous. But, what can Haley do about it when she wasn’t even supposed to know anything about it? If she reveals what she knows, Lauren will know about her snooping.

It turns out that Lauren already knows about the snooping and is angry with Haley about violating her privacy. Lauren isn’t actually doing anything wrong or even thinking about doing something wrong. She only wrote the shocking section in her diary to scare Haley, sort of like proving the old saying about how people who eavesdrop might hear things that they wish they wouldn’t (although the original saying is about how eavesdroppers might hear bad things about themselves). When Haley finally goes to plead with Lauren not to do what she thinks Lauren is about to do, Lauren reveals the truth, and the girls have an honest talk about what’s really been happening between them.

Personally, I didn’t think that the characters in the book acted in a very realistic manner. The main character didn’t react to certain situations in the way I would have expected, given her age. This is one of those stories which depends on characters holding things back and not communicating with each other openly for much of the story because, if they did, the story would have been resolved right away.