Posted on by TracyC

Six Crows

Six Crows by Leo Lionni, 1988.

A farmer in the Balabadur Hills (the book doesn’t explicitly say that this story takes place in India, but it’s implied) has a good farm, but he also has a problem with the crows who live nearby. Whenever his wheat is ripe and about ready to harvest, the crows come and eat it.

Chasing the crows away doesn’t work because they always come back. The farmer decides to try building a scarecrow instead. It does frighten the crows, but with an unexpected result.

The crows decide that they must make their own scare-person, a kite that looks like a big, fierce bird, to scare away the scarecrow. When they fly over the field with their scare-person kite, the farmer gets scared and decides that he needs a bigger, scarier scarecrow.

The situation escalates, with the birds building an even bigger and scarier bird kite to scare the farmer.

Meanwhile, an owl who has been watching all of this unfold decides that it’s gone far enough and goes to talk to the farmer and the crows about the situation. The owl persuades both sides to speak to each other and work things out.

When they talk, the farmer and the crows realize that they don’t want to fight with each other. The crows depend on the farmer’s wheat for food, and the farmer realizes that he actually enjoys having the birds around. The owl fixes the mean-looking scarecrow to have a happy and friendly look.

I’m not sure that this is really a traditional fable because the book doesn’t provide any background information on the story and the author isn’t credited as doing a “retelling”, but the story is told in a folktale or fable format about conflict resolution. When the farmer and the crows are feuding, they continually escalate the situation with bigger and scarier “weapons” until the owl convinces them that the only way out of the situation is to talk it out and come to an agreement.

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

Posted on by TracyC

There’s a Body in the Brontosaurus Room!

Our Secret Gang

There’s a Body in the Brontosaurus Room! by Shannon Gilligan, 1992.

This is the last book in the Our Secret Gang series. This story takes place in a museum, and at the beginning of the book, there are maps of the interior of the museum, which help in keeping track of the action. Members of the detective gang in the story take turns narrating different books, and this one is narrated by Davey.

The fifth and sixth grade classes at the kids’ elementary school are having a camp-in at the Museum of Science in Boston. When the kids are getting on the school bus, Tim notices that a teacher is reading a copy of a newspaper with an article that says the police have received a tip that there will be a jewel robbery at the museum they’re visiting because there is a visiting exhibition of valuable gems. The kids think that they may have found the next case for their detective gang, and they’re glad that they brought some of their equipment with, like their walkie-talkies.

When they stop for dinner at a pizza place, they learn that students from Longmeadow Middle School will be joining them for the camp-in at the museum. By coincidence, Jeanine knows one of the boys from Longmeadow, Jeremy, because she takes horseback riding lessons from his mother. Jeremy ends up joining the others for dinner. Even though Davey rolls his eyes at his little sister’s jokes that Jeanine is his girlfriend, he feel unexpectedly jealous at the way Jeanine blushes around Jeremy.

While they’re having dinner, Tim notices a boy who is all by himself and crying. Jeremy says that he’s a new boy at his school named Matthew. Kids have been trying to make friends with Matthew, but Matthew never seems interested.

As they’re getting ready to leave, Jeanine makes plans to meet up with Jeremy and hang out at the museum. Davey gets angry because he wants the whole gang to investigate their possible mystery, and he doesn’t want Jeremy being forced on the group. Davey and Jeanine have an argument about his jealousy, and Jeanine separates from the group at the museum to hang out with Jeremy. Davey worries that this will split up Our Secret Gang or at least that they’ll lose Jeanine.

To make matters worse, Davey sees Mr. Berrar, the headmaster of the special school for science and mathematics that his parents and school principal wanted him to attend, at the museum because he is one of the museum trustees. Davey’s secret is that he is a genius at mathematics, and his parents and school principal wanted to send him to a special high school, skipping multiple grades, even though he didn’t feel ready to do that. Davey managed to persuade his parents that he would be happier remaining in a normal school with his friends, but he dreads other kids finding out and teasing him for being a nerd.

While Davey and the other kids are looking at the gem exhibit and talking about the security features they’ve noticed, still considering whether someone could be planning to rob the museum, Davey spots Jeremy in an area that’s marked “Private-Museum Staff Only.” What is he doing, sneaking around an off-limits area?

The rest of the detective gang, minus Jeanine, solves a small mystery for a girl from another school who lost her retainer, Lorraine. It only earns them $3 in detective fees, but Davey decides to hang out with Lorraine for a while and see if Jeanine gets jealous of them like he was of Jeanine and Jeremy, which she does. Davey thinks it’s only fair that Jeanine feel some of what he’s been feeling, and since she’s been giving him the cold shoulder and not helping with the detective activities of the group or joining her friends in looking at the exhibits, she deserves it.

Just as all the students are getting ready for bed, a girl starts screaming that there’s a body in the brontosaurus room! She says that it was lying right underneath the dinosaur, but when everyone rushes to look, it’s gone. Then, Matthew apparently has an attack of appendicitis and is taken away in an ambulance. Something about the ambulance strikes the kids have peculiar, but they have trouble thinking what it is at first. By the time they realize what was wrong, things have already started happening in the museum. The guards are missing, and security devices have been turned off. It seems that the robbery rumors were true. What can the kids do to stop it?

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

My Reaction

I first read this book as a kid, and one of the things I liked about it most was the title. I still think about when I’m at a museum with dinosaur exhibits. I never went on one of those camp-ins at a museum when I was a kid, but it’s something that I would have liked, especially if there was a mystery involved!

The romantic bickering in the story is juvenile, but I remember similar incidents from when I was about the age of the kids in the story. Some adults still do things like the kids in the book do, like seeming to flirt with someone else to make a partner jealous and get their attention. It’s never a good idea. It just adds another person to an already-complicated and highly emotional situation without resolving whatever was behind the initial problem.

As an adult, I thought that Jeanine was a little thoughtless and rude for ditching her friends to hang out with a guy she seems to have a crush on. When you already have plans with a group of people, suddenly tossing them aside to make plans with someone else and ignore them is rude. However, Davey’s jealousy and possessiveness is also inappropriate, and his behavior is part of the reason why Jeanine broke off from her usual group instead of just having her other friend join them. If Davey had either allowed Jeanine’s friend to join their activities or simply told Jeanine that he was hurt that she seemed to be abandoning the group and their latest project to pay attention to this other guy, his behavior would have been more reasonable. Part of the problem with simply inviting a new member on short notice is the secret nature of the group. To invite Jeremy to join them, the whole group would really have to agree on it, and that’s difficult in the public setting of the story. I think Jeanine should be a little more aware of the awkwardness of the situation because she knows why their group and its activities are secret, but it still doesn’t excuse Davey’s behavior. A large part of the problem is that Davey hasn’t given much thought to his real feelings about Jeanine, and he’s having trouble coping with the realization that he feels more strongly about her than he’s been willing to admit. The two of them sort things out when they have an honest talk with each other about their feelings.

One of the things that I particularly remembered about this book was the controversy over whether the brontosaurus is really an apatosaurus. Some of the thinking about the brontosaurus has changed in recent years.

Posted on by TracyC

Mystery of the Inca Cave

Mystery of the Inca Cave by Lilla M. Waltch, 1968.

Thirteen-year-old Richard Granville has been living in Peru for the last two years. His family moved from California to a mining town in the Andes because his father is a manager for a mining company. Richard enjoys living in Peru because he’s developed an interest in archaeology and the history of the Incan civilization. Richard feels like the mountains are a connection to the distant past, and he loves the historical feel of the place. His parents don’t understand how he feels and would rather see him work harder at his schoolwork instead of spending all of his time exploring the mountains. Richard’s father tells him that he won’t become an archaeologist if he doesn’t apply himself to his studies, and his mother worries that something could happen to him in the mountains. They think he should finish school first and then decide if he wants to go into archaeology or not, but Richard’s mind is already made up, and he doesn’t want to waste this golden opportunity to do what he loves most right now. Richard feels hurt that his parents don’t really listen to him, don’t share his interests, and don’t appreciate the finds he’s already made.

Richard loves to explore the area with his friend, Todd Reilly, and see if they can find pieces of Incan relics. They’ve found some interesting bits of pottery and broken tools, but one day, they make a particularly exciting discovery – an ancient stone road mostly covered with grass. Although Richard knows that there are many other remains of Incan roads, this one is particularly tantalizing because it seems more hidden than most. Richard is fascinated with how neatly the stones of the road fit together so precisely without mortar, and he wonders where the road leads.

The boys explore the old road further, but they discover that at least part of the road was buried in a landslide. Todd doubts that they’ll ever be able to find where the road leads, but Richard wants to keep trying. When they return to the spot to try again, Richard spots the remains of an ancient building! Richard is sure that the building was once a chasqui station (also called tambos), which was a place where Incan messengers could stop, rest, and trade off with other messengers, who would continue to carry messages along the route, like the members of the Pony Express used to trade off with each other. Richard knows that stations like that were placed about 2.5 miles apart along roads, so there might be other stations located along this route.

The boys go a little further and find a stairway leading up the side of a cliff to a cave. On the stairs, Richard finds a small doll. The doll is puzzling because Richard isn’t sure if it’s an Incan relic that somehow managed to survive or if it’s a more modern doll made by the South American Indians in the area. He has trouble believing that any more modern person could have been at this spot recently because it’s pretty isolated and rough territory. It looks like other landslides could happen. He can’t tell his parents about his discovery because they probably wouldn’t let him return to the area to explore it further if they knew how dangerous it was, and he can’t bring himself to abandon the most exciting discovery he’s ever made.

On a trip to the marketplace, Richard and Todd spot a mine foreman, Jeb Harbison, yelling at a boy in Quechua. He stops as soon as he sees the other boys watching, and they wonder what that was about. Then, the boys spot a merchant selling dolls that are similar to the one they found at the ruins. They ask the merchant where the dolls came from and who made them, and he gives them the name of the doll maker, a woman named Deza. Todd thinks that the most likely explanation for the doll they found is that some young girl living in the area got a doll from the same doll maker, and she lost it while playing around the cave. However, Richard doesn’t think that’s likely because the cave is such an out-of-the-way place, not somewhere a young child could easily reach alone.

On another visit to the area of their discovery, the boys find a mine shaft that doesn’t belong to the company their fathers work for, even though it’s on land that they know the company owns. There are signs that someone is actively mining there, but who?

The boys also discover that the activity at the cave is connected to the mine when they see some men there, breaking up rocks and stuffing them inside of little dolls, like the one they found earlier. It seems like the miners are smuggling gold or other minerals in the dolls, but when the boys talk to Richard’s dad about what they’ve seen, the situation points to a possibly larger conspiracy.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive. The book was originally titled Cave of the Incas.

My Reaction

The first thing that I liked about this book was the pieces of information about the ancient Incas. Our knowledge of ancient civilizations has increased since the 1960s, but the information in this book is still good. I liked the book’s descriptions of Inca building techniques, how they used closely-fitted stones instead of mortar, and how their system of messengers was organized. There are also points where the characters notice parallels between the way the ancient Incas lived and the way their descendants live, such as their system of cooperative farming.

However, this story is also about human relationships as well as adventure, mystery, and ancient civilizations. Through most of the book, Richard is troubled about his relationship with his parents, especially his father. His parents are frustrated with him because he is absorbed by his interest in archaeology and exploring the countryside and isn’t applying himself to his schoolwork. At the same time, Richard hates it that his parents don’t understand what interests him and only seem to want him to focus on what they want. They’re having a clash of priorities.

When I was a kid, I hated homework with a vengeance. That might be a surprising revelation about an adult who willingly does what are essentially book reports on a regular basis as a hobby. Reading is fun. Research produces interesting information. I like knowing things and writing to other people about them. Basically, I was always good at the skills necessary for homework, so that wasn’t the problem. The problem is that there were many other things I wanted to do, and homework got in the way. I didn’t always get to read about what I wanted to read about in school because someone else was always choosing the school material for me, and I frequently hated their choices. Even the arts and crafts weren’t always the ones I wanted to learn, and I was usually told what to make instead of getting to make what I wanted. Because I was a good student, I ended up in the honors classes, so I always had more homework to do than everyone else. I was proud that I was a good student, but at the same time, I also hated it because I found it stifling. I’ve always been interested in many different subjects and handicrafts, but all through my childhood, I felt like I could never just take up all the different projects I wanted to do because I had to do my never-ending supply of homework first. Everything I wanted to do always had to wait. Even after I graduated, it was difficult for me to shake off the feeling that I had to wait on things I wanted to do , which was also kind of irritating.

I could sympathize with Richard’s attitude toward his own studies. He knows what he really wants to do, and he finds it infuriating that his parents want him to put it off and finish his homework and his education first. There is something to be said for making the most of finding himself in the very place he wants to be with direct access to what he knows he wants to study seriously. The move to Peru was an enriching experience for Richard that gave him a direction and life ambition, and I think he would regret it forever if he didn’t use this opportunity to explore it as much as possible. At the same time, though, my adult self knows that there is truth to what Richard’s parents say about his explorations in the mountains. The mountains are dangerous, like Richard’s mother says, and even Richard knows it. Also, Richard’s father is correct that if Richard seriously wants to be a professional archaeologist, he’s going to have to finish his education.

Nobody in modern times becomes a serious, professional archaeologist without a college degree, and even archaeologists need to study things beyond their specialist field. Archaeology isn’t just wandering around, digging, and seeing what you find. You have to recognize what you find, study its context, understand its significance, and know how to treat it to preserve it. You can’t study past lives and interpret artifacts without having real life and world knowledge. Archaeology is also where science and history intersect. Archaeologists need to know mathematics, geology, and how humans are affected by climate (which can and does change over time, for various reasons) and access to resources. There are legal and ethical principles to archaeology that Richard will also have to understand. Archaeologists can also benefit from learning drawing and photography to record and interpret finds and perfecting their writing skills to present their findings to the world. Richard has made a good start in his field of interest, but to get serious about it, he will need more education and greater depth and breadth of knowledge.

As annoying and stifling as homework feels, the skills it imparts are necessary for doing many more interesting things. Getting through the studying phase can be a pain, but sometimes, you really have to lay a solid foundation before you can build something solid on it. I still think that my past school assignments could have been more interesting and less stressful if I’d had more flexibility about them and more time for personal projects in between. However, I have realized over the years that, once you’ve really learned something, you will use it, even if you only use it indirectly as part of something else. I don’t regret learning the things I learned because, as hard as it was along the way, I have used things I learned in more interesting ways later in life. I’ve also realized that, if I had spent less time and emotions complaining about how stifling my homework situations were, I also could have used the time I spent lamenting about homework and procrastinating about it to accomplish some of the other things that I complained that I never had enough time to do. Not all of them, but more than I did when I was too busy being upset and resentful about homework. That’s also a lesson that Richard learns in the story.

At one point, Richard talks to Todd about his relationship with his own father, and Todd says that they get along pretty well. Richard realizes that Todd and his father don’t fight over his studies because Todd is an easy-going type who doesn’t mind doing his homework much and takes care of things without making anybody nag him to do it. Todd just accepts that there are some things that just need to be done, so he doesn’t waste time complaining or procrastinating about them. That’s harder for Richard because he feels the strong pull of what he really wants to do.

Todd admits that he and his parents don’t always get along perfectly because he doesn’t always do what he’s supposed to do. There are times when he leaves messes or physically fights with his brother or talks back to his mother, and his parents get angry or irritated about it. When Richard asks Todd what he does in those instances, Todd says that, eventually, after the initial argument, he typically apologizes or cleans up his mess or does whatever he needs to do to fix the situation. Todd’s reasoning is that, while people aren’t perfect and don’t always do what they should, “when you’re wrong, you’re wrong.” He accepts that, sometimes, he screws up and needs to do something to fix it without getting too overwrought about having been in the wrong. He sees it as just a normal part of life. When it happens, he can correct himself and move past it.

In the case of Richard and his father, each of them has to admit to being a little wrong and accept that the other is partly right. Both of them have to do some work to fix their relationship. Richard has to admit to his father that he does need to continue his education and apply himself to getting his work done. In return, his father needs to try harder to understand Richard’s interest in archaeology and allow him some time and opportunities to make the most of his time in Peru, getting the firsthand knowledge and experience he needs for the future he really wants and that won’t come from the standard classes he’s taking.

Through their adventures in the course of the story, Richard and his father come to a better understanding of each other and have an honest conversation about how to manage the conflicts in their relationship. Richard’s father admits that he needs to stop looking at his son as being just a younger version of himself and to see Richard for the independent person he is, with his own interests and goals in life. Meanwhile, Richard connects somewhat to his father’s interests through their investigation of the illegal mining operation he and Todd discovered.

This mystery story is a little unusual for children’s books, where kids often investigate mysteries on their own, having adventures without the adults, because Richard’s father joins the boys in their investigations and he stands up for them and what they’ve discovered when their discovery is challenged. The shared adventure becomes a bonding experience for Richard and his dad. At the end of the story, Richard’s father helps Richard connect with a museum curator, who helps the whole family to see the true value and significance of Richard’s archaeological finds. The curator also emphasizes to Richard that, while he has the potential to excel in his chosen field, he’s going to have to study and move on to higher education to get where he wants to go. Richard agrees, now having a greater understanding of its importance and satisfied that his parents understand the direction he’s chosen for his life.

Posted on by TracyC

The Little White Horse

The Little While Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, 1946.

The year is 1842, and Maria Merryweather is on her way to her family’s ancestral home, Moonacre Manor. Thirteen-year-old Maria is an orphan. Her mother died when she was a baby, and now, her father has died. Their house in London had to be sold to pay his debts, and now, Maria is going to live with a distant cousin, Sir Benjamin Merryweather, in the country. She is traveling with her nurse, Miss Heliotrope, who has taken care of her since she was little and is like a mother to her, and her dog, Wiggins. Maria and her father were never really close. Maria isn’t sure that she’s going to like living in the country because she is accustomed to city life and the luxuries that come with it. She fears that life in the country will be rough and full of deprivation.

Maria begins to feel better when she actually sees Moonacre. It’s a lovely, romantic, castle-like manor house. The manor also gives her an odd feeling of home because so many Merryweathers have lived there for so long. Sir Benjamin welcomes her, and she likes him immediately. Oddly, Sir Benjamin refers to has as “one of the silver Merryweathers”, saying that she was born during a full moon. It’s true that Maria has unusual silvery gray eyes. Sir Benjamin says that he’s a “sun Merryweather”, born at midday, but that’s okay because moon Merryweathers and sun Merryweathers get along well. He does have a rather warm, sunny appearance.

Sir Benjamin shows them around the manor and to their rooms. The furnishings are a little shabby, but they’re quite comfortable, and they like their new rooms. Maria is charmed because her room is in a turret, and it has a very small door that’s really only big enough for a small girl like her to get in. Miss Heliotrope is worried that she won’t be able to get into Maria’s room if she is ill and needs her, but Maria is sure that isn’t going to be a problem. She loves the room because it just seems so perfect for her. Wiggins even seems to be getting along with Sir Benjamin’s big, old dog, Wrolf, although Maria has some doubts that Wrolf is actually a dog because he doesn’t look like any dog she’s ever seen before.

At dinner that evening, Sir Benjamin talks about giving Maria riding lessons, saying that he has a little gray pony who would be just right for her. Maria mentions a beautiful white horse that she saw from the carriage as they were approaching the manor, but Miss Heliotrope didn’t see it and thinks she just imagined it. Miss Heliotrope thinks that Maria imagines things all the time, like the little boy named Robin, who had a feather in his cap and was a childhood playmate, but Maria insists that the boy really did exist and so does the little white horse. Thinking about Robin makes her wish that he was here to keep her company at Moonacre, but she hasn’t seen him for a couple of years and doesn’t know where he is.

There are a few odd things that Maria and Miss Heliotrope notice about Moonacre, though. Aside from the odd dog, Wrolf, Sir Benjamin seems oddly evasive about who and where the servants are. They never see them, yet someone has been doing the cooking and cleaning and making fires in the fireplaces. There’s even a fire in Maria’s room, but she can’t figure out how anyone got in to make one since the door is too small for even an adult Miss Heliotrope’s size.

The next day, a riding habit appears in Maria’s room. It’s very nice quality, even though Maria can tell that it’s second-hand because it’s an older style and a little worn and has the initials LM on it. Maria like it, but who used to own it, and who put it in her room? In the parlor attached to her room, Maria also sees an old painting that contains a white horse and an animal that looks something like Wrolf, although she’s still not quite sure what kind of animal it is. (What’s that “brave-looking” animal that has a tawny mane and a tuft on its tail? I’m sure if we think about it, it will come to us.)

Sir Benjamin tells Maria that she shouldn’t wander the countryside alone, but she is free to explore as long as she’s with her pony Periwinkle or Wrolf. The one place he doesn’t want her to go is Merryweather Bay because there are rough fishermen there. He refers to Maria as a “princess” and the area around Moonacre as her “kingdom,” and from the way he says it, it seems that he somehow means that literally. Even the local people seem to have some kind of awe and respect for her.

Maria finds the nearby village of Silverydew charming. The Old Parson introduces her to the children of the village, and they tell her about the mysterious “Black Men” (because they all wear black, not their race) who hang out in the woods and by Merryweather Bay. They set traps for animals and steal livestock from the locals, and everyone is afraid of them.

Maria also discovers that Robin is here in the village of Silverydew, and he rescues her from an encounter with the Black Men. Robin tells her that her ancestor, Sir Wrolf, who founded the Merryweather family, was the one responsible for making the Black Men as evil as they are, and because of that, his soul has been unable to enter Paradise. Locals say that his spirit rides around nearby Paradise Hill, weeping because of what he did, and he will continue to do it until someone finds a way of solving the problem he caused.

Maria asks what exactly Sir Wrolf did, and Old Parson tells her the story of Sir Wrolf and how he acquired the lands around Moonacre. At first, Sir Wrolf just owned the land where the manor house sits, but he wasn’t satisfied with that. Although he was known for being brave and jovial, he was also a greedy and selfish person who thought that he was entitled to take anything he wanted from anyone. First, he kicked the monks out of the monastery on Paradise Hill and used the monastery for a hunting lodge. A fierce lightning storm made him abandon it later because he believed that it was sent by the monks as punishment. Then, he decided that he wanted the woods and bay around Moonacre for hunting and fishing, but they belonged to another nobleman called Black William. He tried various ways to take those lands from Black William, including direct warfare, but he was unsuccessful. Then, it occurred to him that Black William had a lovely daughter, his only child, and if he married her, he would share in her inheritance. Sir Wrolf put on a show of apologizing to Black William and demonstrating that he had mended his ways so he could win the affection of Black William’s daughter. The daughter, who was called the Moon Princess because she was as fair and lovely as the moon, believed that Sir Wrolf was sincere and married him. Sir Wrolf did end up falling in love with his bride, and they had a child together, but the lands he expected to acquire through her were still on his mind. Then, Black William suddenly remarried, and his new wife gave birth to a son, who replaced the Moon Princess as the heir to Black William’s lands. Sir Wrolf was outraged by this reversal of fortune, and while he ranted about it, he let slip how he had married his wife in the hopes of getting her lands. The Moon Princess was shocked and hurt, and although her husband insisted that he had come to love her even though he had married her for selfish reasons, she no longer believed him. She grew to hate him for his deception and even turned against the son they had together. She wanted no part of Sir Wrolf’s life anymore. Then, worse still, word reached them that Black William had mysteriously disappeared and his young son was dead. Although there were no indications of foul play, and it was possible that neither of them had really died at all, the Moon Princess came to believe that her husband was a murderer. One day, she rode away on the little white horse that her husband had given her when they married, and she was also never seen or heard from again. With Black William and his son and daughter gone, Sir Wrolf finally had possession of the lands he had coveted for so long, but he was no longer happy. He genuinely missed his wife and felt guilty for what he had done, and he couldn’t enjoy his prize.

The Old Parson explains that the sins of the past still affect the present and will continue to do so until someone makes them right again. The Black Men who now inhabit the disputed lands are probably the descendants of Black William’s supposedly dead son. The Old Parson believes that the boy’s mother probably feared what Sir Wrolf might do to the boy when his father left them, so she pretended that he was dead already. Every generation of Merryweathers since then have tried to push the Black Men out of the disputed lands, but they’ve never been successful. Also, every generation, a young woman very much like the Moon Princess comes to Moonacre, and she gets along well with the sun-like Merryweathers, but so far, a quarrel has always separated them. Maria worries about that because she likes her cousin Sir Benjamin and doesn’t want to leave Moonacre. Old Parson tells her that part of the legend of Moonacre is that, some day, there will be a Moon Princess who will come and will not leave. The legend states that she will right the wrongs of the past and make peace again, but only if she can get over the prideful nature that all Moon Princesses have and love a poor man who is below her station. The townspeople are in awe of Maria because they hope that she will turn out to be that Moon Princess.

Maria adopts the mission of righting past wrongs, reconciling old quarrels, and bringing peace to the valley once again, but she’ll have to be careful. Not everyone is ready for peace yet, and she has to guard against falling into the same bad habits that others have before her. Before she can complete her destiny, she must speak directly to the Black Men in their castle and when she does, they make a bargain with her. They agreed to end their poaching and thievery if she can prove that Black William wasn’t murdered by Sir Wrolf and if she will restore not only their lands but the pearl necklace that belonged to the original Moon Princess. However, that necklace has been missing since the first Moon Princess disappeared. How can Maria give them something that she doesn’t have and doesn’t know how to find?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies, including one in Chinese). There is also a movie version of the story called The Secret of Moonacre.

My Reaction and Spoilers

I didn’t read this book as a kid, but it’s one that I’ve been meaning to read for some time. I saw the movie version years ago, and I was curious about what the book was like. The movie and the book set up a somewhat different situation for the quarrel between the two families. In the movie, the quarrel was about the fabulous pearls owned by the first Moon Princess and not about land. Also, Loveday and Robin were members of Black William’s family in the movie, which they weren’t in the book, changing the dynamics of their relationships with Sir Benjamin and Maria.

This story is an enchanting light fantasy. The setting by itself is magical, and Maria’s rooms in the manor are like every little girl’s dream! The story also includes odd, seemingly intelligent animals with unusual capabilities, such as the Zachariah the cat, who takes messages for people and lets them into the manor house or guides them around, and Wrolf, who is clearly a lion, even though everyone calls him a dog. The fact that Wrolf is a lion dawns on Maria toward the end of the book, and Robin confirms that’s true, saying that they all keep calling him a dog because it sounds less scary, and they don’t want to alarm anyone.

Maria’s family history is not something to be proud of, as Old Parson points out. Her ancestors were not the greatest people, in spite of their land-ownership and high status. People are looking to Maria to be better than the others who came before her and to make past wrongs right.

From Robin’s mother, Loveday Minette, who also becomes like a mother to her, Maria learns a little more about what it means to be one of the Merryweather “Moon Princesses.” Gradually, it is revealed that Loveday was the last Moon Princess before Maria. She was in love with Sir Benjamin, and the two of them were going to be married, but like all Moon Princesses and Merryweather men, they had a stupid quarrel and parted. Loveday married someone else and had Robin, but even though she has remained near Moonacre and secretly helps the household, she has been careful not to see Sir Benjamin ever since. Over the years, she has come to realize that she made a terrible mistake with Sir Benjamin and regrets it, but like other Moon Princesses, she has too much pride to admit that she was wrong and apologize. She is more mature now, and she sees that, in some ways, she was aggravating to Sir Benjamin and provoked him, and having provoked him to anger, because Moon Princesses tend to love men with tempers (one of the curses of the Merryweather men), was too proud to make up with him. By the same token, Sir Benjamin was legitimately disrespectful of her and her feelings, and when he attempted an apology, it was a half-hearted effort that attempted to preserve his pride more than demonstrate care for Loveday’s feelings, which is why Loveday didn’t feel like she could accept it.

Members of the Merryweather family and the people they marry have a tendency to attach enormous importance to and emotional investment in small things (geraniums, the color pink, etc. – they either passionately love these things or are violently or oppressively against them), and then they blow up at each other when their partner doesn’t feel exactly the same way about them, taking it as personal insult if someone likes something they don’t like or doesn’t like something they do like. (Like in the Internet meme, “Stop liking what I don’t like!”) They don’t know how to tolerate interests they don’t share, not sweat the small stuff, or live and let live. I would say that a lot of it has to do with poor relationship skills and, ultimately, a lack of respect for other people, even the people they love. They don’t respect each well enough to find out why the other person cares so much about something that seems small and annoying. They are self-absorbed in their own feelings, seeing situations only from their own point of view and putting their own feelings first. They see every conflict as some kind of contest about who’s right, with the drive to win against each other, which puts them both in a position of being on opposite teams instead, where one of them has to get the better of the other in some way, instead of on the same winning team. The result is that neither of them ever really wins, and even if one of them defeats the other in something, they ultimately end up losing their whole relationship, so it’s a net loss for everybody.

This is the cycle that has repeated for generations in this family. Loveday realizes that, for this destructive cycle to end, the Moon Princess has to learn not to provoke the one she loves as well as overcome her sense of pride. Also the Moon Princess’s love (it’s pretty clear to everyone that it’s going to be Robin, in this case) has to learn to control his temper, not respond to things as if they were some kind of personal attack, and consider the well-being of others, especially his princess. Both of them need to learn caring and consideration for others and how to put aside pride and self-interest for the sake of peace, both in their personal relationship with each other and for the sake of the wider community. Loveday emphasizes to both Maria and Robin that they must not quarrel with each other. People are depending on them to put things right in the area, and their own future happiness depends on learning to get along with each other.

The things Loveday and other adults emphasize for the children are personal skills that real people do need to learn in order to have relationships with other people and be mature members of a peaceful, stable community:

  • Don’t aggravate people. You can’t have peace if you’re always teasing or provoking people, and picking fights.
  • Choose your fights carefully, and wherever possible, avoid turning small disagreements into big fights. Remember that any battle comes with a cost, and the costs of petty fighting are higher than the rewards.
  • Be considerate of other people’s feelings and respectful of their property. You don’t have the right to do what you want with other people’s property just because you want it or it bothers you that they have it.
  • Understand that nobody is perfect, including you.
  • It is not your partner’s responsibility to please you in every way or give you everything that you want. It is your responsibility to deal with your own emotions and control your own choices and behavior.
  • Sometimes, you really are in the wrong, and you can’t always have everything you want. Accept both of these facts with maturity and take responsibility for your choices.
  • Being wrong can be embarrassing, but not nearly as embarrassing or destructive as not dealing with situations that need attention or problems that need to be solved.
  • The problems you cause affect more than just you, and problems do not go away when they are ignored.
  • Whatever the circumstances, no matter who or what you’re dealing with, it’s never just about you.
  • The word “responsible” has two meanings. The first is being at fault. (Sir Wrolf was responsible for the situation in the valley and the problems it caused.) The second just means taking charge of a situation and doing what needs to be done, sometimes because you’re the only one who can or is willing to do it. (Maria didn’t cause the problems, but she was responsible because she fixed the problems.) The second type of “responsible” is necessary for successful relationships, no matter who the first type applies to.
  • Love requires understanding and accepting each other and allowing each other to be their own person with their own likes and dislikes.
  • Caring means making each other a priority, working as a team, and doing what’s best for the team, even if it requires some compromise and self-sacrifice.
  • Building a shared life or solving shared problems is team effort, not a competition with each other. There is no “winning” unless it’s a shared victory. Otherwise, everyone loses.

It’s not exactly a spell, but the children’s mission is based around learning to function as a couple and to control their tempers and personal behavior. Magical things do start to happen when they learn to consider others’ feelings and not just their own.

There does seem to be some magic in the story. Robin later explains to Maria that the reason why nobody else could see him playing with her in London when they were younger is because he was always in or around Silverydew or Moonacre. He says that he traveled to London to play with her when he was asleep, so he wasn’t physically there. It’s like a form of astral projection or out-of-body experience. Also, like Sir Benjamin’s “dog” turns out to be a lion, the “little white horse” turns out to be a unicorn.

I couldn’t help but notice that all of the known Moon Princesses since the first one and the men that they seem to love before before they quarrel with them seem to be cousins of each other. Loveday Minette and Sir Benjamin were cousins of each other because their fathers were brothers, and Maria and Robin are more distant cousins of each other because their grandfathers were brothers. The idea of marrying a cousin or even loving them romantically seems odd for modern times, but that did happen in noble families in the past, so it might not seem so odd for the characters and others in the story.

This book also taught me what a mangel-wurzel is. They just mention it in passing, like readers should know what it is. It has such a strange name that I had to look it up. It’s a kind of beet, and apparently, it has also been used to make “punkies” or jack o’lanterns in areas where people didn’t grow turnips, before people adopted pumpkins for the purpose. Just an odd bit of trivia.

Posted on by TracyC · 2 Comments

The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble with Friends

The Berenstain Bears

The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble with Friends by Stan and Jan Berenstain, 1986.

“When making friends,
the cub who’s wise
is the cub who learns
to compromise.”

Brother and Sister usually play pretty well together, but Brother is two years older than Sister, and he doesn’t always want to play girls’ games like tea party and house. Brother likes to hang out with Cousin Freddy, but Sister doesn’t have a friend who lives close enough to play with her after school.

Then, one day, a new family moves in down the road, and they have a girl who’s Sister’s age. The new girl’s name is Lizzy, and she likes to do many of the things that Sister likes to do. The girls start playing together right away. Sister thinks that Lizzy is fun, but a little bossy … kind of like Sister herself.

Later, Sister takes some of her stuffed animals to Lizzy’s house so they can play school. However, the girls argue over who is going to play the part of the teacher. Both of them want to play the teacher, and during their argument, they break Lizzy’s pointer stick.

Sister goes home angry, but Mama Bear reminds her of the reasons why she might want to make up with her new friend. Getting along with people can be difficult, but there are many things that are difficult to do alone. Having friends can be a lot of fun, certainly much more fun than sitting home and being lonely. If Sister wants to make up with Lizzy, she needs to accept her for the person she is and recognize that she can be a bit bossy herself sometimes. Both of the cubs need to give a little, let each other have their way sometimes, and care about each other’s feelings.

Lizzy drops by to return Sister’s teddy bear, which she left behind. She remembers what Sister told her about her teddy bear and why it’s important to her, showing that she does care about Sister’s feelings. The girls make up and agree to compromise and take turns being the teacher when they play school. Both the girls realize that getting along with friends means considering each other’s feelings and being willing to compromise.

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

Posted on by TracyC

Mystery Behind Dark Windows

MysteryDarkWindowsMystery Behind Dark Windows by Mary C. Jane, 1962.

Recent years have brought misfortune to the formerly wealthy Pride family.  First, Tony and Ellie’s father was killed while on a business trip on behalf of the family’s mill.  Then, the workers in the mill went on strike, and the children’s grandfather died.  Their Aunt Rachel blames the strikers for putting stress on her father while he was still grieving for his son, thereby causing his death.  Because of that and because she doesn’t believe that she can handle the running of the mill herself, she has closed down the mill, putting all of the workers out of a job.

The townspeople of Darkwater Falls struggle to get by without the mill and are angry with the remaining members of the Pride family for the lay-offs, but Aunt Rachel thinks that their suffering is earned and so does nothing to help.  If Aunt Rachel would be willing to sell the mill to someone who would put it back into good use and employ people, the community’s problems would be solved, but Aunt Rachel can’t bring herself to do that, in spite of the offers she’s received and the urging of the family lawyer, Mr. Ralph Joslin.  She has high hopes that Tony might revive the mill one day when he’s grown up, and in the meantime, she wants to punish the strikers with unemployment and underemployment.  However, Aunt Rachel, absorbed in her personal pride and bad feelings, is ignoring some serious issues.  The taxes on the disused mill are costing the family dearly, the equipment is rusting, and Tony isn’t even sure that he wants to go into the family business.  Tony and Ellie are unhappy with their family’s situation, their aunt’s bitterness, and the way many of the townspeople now look at them, but they’re not sure what to do about it.

MysteryDarkWindowsMillSearchThen, one night, Ellie goes out to look for her aunt’s missing cat and hears someone in the old, supposedly empty mill.  When she tries to tell Tony, he doesn’t take her seriously, but Ellie knows what she heard.  Ellie later goes back to the mill to take another look at the place, and she sees Jeff, a boy from Tony’s high school, hanging around.  Later, she confides what she’s heard and seen in Hank, an old friend who lives on the other side of the river, and Violet, another girl from her class whose family has suffered since the closure of the mill.  The two of them start helping Ellie to investigate.

Some people in town have become concerned about children in the area getting into trouble, and they think that maybe some of the local youths have formed a gang.  Ellie worries about Tony, who has started sneaking out of the house at night to hang out with friends.  Is he now part of a gang?  Are he and his friends the ones who were sneaking around the old mill? Or could it be some of the disgruntled townsfolk, bitter about the mill remaining empty and not providing much-needed jobs?

While the kids have a look inside the mill, they discover that someone has been using the place as a hideout.  A fire at the mill reveals a number of secrets and sheds light on a town and a family caught in a cycle of bitter feelings and revenge.  Aunt Rachel is stunned when some of the townspeople accuse her of setting the fire herself in order to get insurance money for the mill.  The fire was clearly arson, and since Aunt Rachel has gone out of her way to make life difficult for people in town, many of them would be ready to believe just about anything of her.  It’s up to the young people to put the pieces together and reveal the true arsonist before the mill, the town, and the Pride family are completely destroyed.

Many of Aunt Rachel’s decisions are guided by a mixture of grief and anger, but she is also stubborn and prideful.  The Pride family was aptly named.  Although they have suffered misfortune, their privileged position as the (former) main employer of the community has given Aunt Rachel the sense that she and others in her family could do no wrong.  Aunt Rachel is absorbed in herself, her own feelings (which she places above others), and the past to the point where she feels justified in deliberately causing harm to her community and the people in it, failing to see the consequences of her actions, even the effects that her attitude has on the orphaned young niece and nephew in her charge.  Ellie feels like they don’t have a real family because her aunt’s bitter feelings prevent her and her brother from getting close to their aunt.  Her aunt’s actions have also made it difficult for her and Tony to get along well with other members of the community, further isolating them from comfort in their own grief.

In a way, the fire brings Aunt Rachel back to reality, forcing her to see the consequences of her actions (and inaction).  It comes as something of a shock to her that, while she felt fully justified in her bad feelings for the town, they are also fully justified in feeling badly about her.  Somehow, it never occurred to her how someone, doing the things she’s been doing and saying the things she’s been saying, would look to the people she deliberately set out to hurt.  For most of the story, the only feelings that were real to Aunt Rachel were her own.  Even when she thought about how people hated her, she didn’t think that what they thought would matter until she began to see how it was affecting Ellie and Tony as well as the other children in town.  Ellie can see that many things would have been resolved sooner if both her aunt and her brother could open up and discuss things honestly, both within the family and with other people.  Although neither of them set the fire, their secretiveness and self-absorption at first create the impression that they did.  Ellie’s eventual outburst at her aunt and the real guilty person force both of them to acknowledge the reality of their actions and motives.

I was somewhat fascinated by the motives of the arsonist, who understands the effects that Aunt Rachel’s bitterness and revenge have been having on the young people in town, even her own nephew, better than she does.  This person was wrong in the path he tried to take to fix the situation, but he does correctly see that unemployed men not only lack the money they need to properly take care of their families but may also set a bad example for boys and young men, either through the habits and attitudes that they let themselves fall into or by becoming too absorbed in their difficulties to see what’s happening to their own children.  I also agree with his assertion that those responsible for putting people out of their jobs bear some responsibility for the results of their actions, something which resonates in today’s economy, where many people are still unemployed or underemployed.  The Pride family’s previous high standing in the community was directly because of their ability to employ people and improve the lives of others.  When they began making life hard for others and refused to use their ability to help people, they lost that standing.  Aunt Rachel was just the last to realize it, which was part of the reason why she was surprised to discover just how badly the town thought of her.  She didn’t have a good reputation because she had done nothing to earn one, no matter what her family used to do.  She was no longer using their powers for good, so she turned herself into a villain.  However, it’s important to point out that the arsonist isn’t really in the right himself because, as Ellie points out, the spirit behind his actions isn’t much different from her aunt’s.

Ellie is correct in pointing out that both her aunt and the arsonist were wrong, not just because of what they did, but because of the feelings and motives behind it.  In their own way, each of them set out to deliberately hurt others because they had each been hurt.  Which of them was hurt first or hurt worse ultimately doesn’t matter.  Their mutual desire for vengeance against each other not only hurt the people around them but kept each of them from doing what they needed to do in order to heal their own wounds.  That is also a message that resonates today, in these times of political division, with two large parts of society trying to one-up each other and even actively harm one another, largely because they can’t stand the idea of someone wanting something or believing something that they don’t.  Whatever the circumstances, when people focus on winning on their own terms, no matter what the cost, everyone loses in the end.

Toward the end of the story, as Aunt Rachel and the arsonist begin making grudging apologies to one another and reluctant steps to fix things, Ellie decides that grudging and reluctant aren’t good enough and finally gets up the nerve to tell them what she really thinks, what they most need to hear:

“Just selling the mill won’t make things better . . . It’s the way [they] feel about it that’s wrong. That’s what made them act the way they did in the first place. They just wanted to get even with people, and hurt people, because they’d been hurt themselves. And they feel the same way still. You can see they do.”

How much can people help what they feel? It partly depends on what people choose to do about their feelings.  Actions guide feelings, and feelings guide actions.  Aunt Rachel and the arsonist indulged their bad feelings, nursing them, amplifying them, and making them their first priorities, the guiding force of their actions.  As long as they keep doing that, Ellie knows that the problems aren’t really over, and everyone will remain trapped in this bad cycle.  Ellie’s honest outburst finally breaks through to both of them, showing them what they really look like to others and making them reconsider their feelings and priorities.

One of my favorite characters in this story was Mr. Joslin, the lawyer.  Although he looks a little suspicious himself for a time, he is actually a good man, who looks after the family’s interests and genuinely cares about them as well as about the town.  He is the one who convinces Tony to be honest with his aunt about the friends he hangs out with and helps persuade Aunt Rachel to see things from others’ point of view.  He loves Aunt Rachel, in spite of her faults, and is honest with her about those faults, telling her what she needs to hear.  Of all the characters, with the exception of Ellie, he seems to have the most insight into other people’s feelings and situations.  He supports what Ellie says, quoting Lord Bacon, “A man who studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.”

Posted on by TracyC

Secret of the Tiger’s Eye

tigerseyeSecret of the Tiger’s Eye by Phyllis A. Whitney, 1961.

Benita Dustin’s father is a writer, just like she hopes to be one day. When her father announces that they will live for a year in South Africa with his Aunt Persis so that he can do research, it sounds like a grand adventure. The trouble is that her father’s editor has given permission for her son, Joel, to accompany them because she thinks the experience would be good for him, too. Benita’s little brother, Lanny, gets along well with Joel, but Benita and Joel fight and tease each other almost constantly. Benita gets annoyed with Joel’s obsession with facts and information, and Joel thinks that Benita’s stories and flights of fancy are silly.

Aunt Persis’s house is wonderful with a beautiful tower room where Benita is allowed to stay. There is even a fantastic story about the ghost of a tiger that Aunt Persis’s husband shot years ago in India haunting the grounds of the house and the little cave in the garden. Although Joel scoffs at the idea of a tiger ghost, Benita is captivated by the story, especially when strange things begin to happen around the house. Benita learns about the tragic death of Aunt Persis’s adopted son, Malcolm, and the strange theft of the emerald diadem that Aunt Persis received from the rajah that her husband saved from the tiger years ago. However, she will need Joel’s help to make sense of the situation, a difficult prospect at the best of times but almost impossible to ask for after Joel plays a cruel joke on Benita and tries to get Lanny to help gang up on her.  Then, Benita’s father tells her something that changes everything, and all the time, someone with sinister intentions is watching and waiting . . .

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

My Reaction

Besides the mystery, there is also a subplot about the nature of hate and prejudice. In South Africa, at the time the story was written, apartheid was still in force. Benita makes friends with a girl of mixed race called Charis, and they talk about racial issues in South Africa and the U.S. during the 1960s. Although Benita wouldn’t think of being prejudiced against anyone on the basis of race, she finds it harder to understand people with different personalities, like Joel.  Although the story focuses on Benita and the lessons she learns, I personally found Joel and his mistakes harder to accept.  Both Joel and Benita need to learn to be more understanding of each other, but in a way, I think Joel is worse because of his deliberately cruel pranks and because he already knows a couple of things that Benita doesn’t which should have influenced his behavior. Joel is deliberately trying to pick fights, and the book never really explains what he expected to accomplish by that.  Everyone needs a motivation, and Joel never really explains his, so he comes off seeming like he’s just there to be a mean character for no real reason.

I also wish that the parents in the story had more frank and straight-forward discussions with the kids.  As a professional writer and a professional editor, they should have been able to settle the kids’ arguments about imagination vs. facts or at least put the situation into perspective by explaining what they do in their jobs.  After all, Benita’s father is going to South Africa specifically to do research.  In other words, even fiction writers need to have a nonfiction background and real facts to use as a basis for their fictional stories.  Realistic backgrounds give stories the grounding they need in order to feel real to readers.  (Although that does depend somewhat on the type of story.  Fantasy stories don’t need to be based on real life, although they do have to have a consistent logic within the story so readers feel like they can understand the world in which the stories take place and the rules by which the magic in the story works.  If the story is meant to be surreal, the internal logic can be more loose.)  Editors, like Joel’s mother, fact check stories as well as ensuring that they are compelling for readers, helping to make decisions about where fictional stories need to be factually correct and where the author can depart from the facts for the sake of the story.  I think that Benita and Joel really should have had a better grasp of their parents’ professions and the balance between fact and imagination in fiction.  Of course, if they did, there would be less conflict in the story.

Fortunately, Benita and Joel work out their differences while confronting the mysterious situation and become friends when they learn to allow each other to be themselves and to appreciate each other’s good points.