Posted on by TracyC

The Vanishing Pumpkin

The Vanishing Pumpkin by Tony Johnston, pictures by Tomie dePaola, 1983.

An 800-year-old man and a 700-year-old woman live together in a little house. One day, they realize that it’s Halloween, and that means that it’s time to make pumpkin pie. However, when they go to get the pumpkin from their garden, it’s gone! Who could have taken it?

They set out in search of the pumpkin thief. The first person they meet is a ghoul, and they assume he’s the pumpkin thief. They demand to know where the pumpkin is. The ghoul looks all over the place, but doesn’t see any pumpkin. The old man threatens to do him a trick, and the ghoul says he wants to see him do one. The old man turns the ghoul so thin that he can look right though him, but the ghoul doesn’t have the pumpkin.

The old man and old woman set off again to look for the pumpkin thief, and the ghoul comes along to see more tricks. The next person they encounter is a rapscallion. When they ask him where the pumpkin is, the rapscallion looks around and can’t find any pumpkin, so he offers them a mushroom. The old man does another trick, turning the rapscallion upside down, but no pumpkin falls out.

The group, including the rapscallion, sets off in search of the pumpkin thief again. The next time, they encounter a varmint, and the old man turns him into a black cat with fleas. Yet again, the varmint doesn’t have the pumpkin, so they all set off again.

The pumpkin pursuit finally ends with the person who actually has the pumpkin. The wizard has turned the pumpkin into both a jack-o’-lantern and a pumpkin pie!

My Reaction

I remember someone reading this book to me when I was a little kid. I think it might have been the school librarian, but I’m not completely sure now. We don’t really know the story behind the 800-year-old man and 700-year-old woman, who is presumably his wife. They seem to be magical because of their ancient age and the fact that the old man seems capable of magic, but they aren’t described as being a witch and wizard or anything specific. It’s just left to readers’ imaginations. I think, when I was little kid, I assumed that they were witches or something similar.

The story is just for fun. It’s one of those repetition stories, where the characters encounter more people/creatures, similar things happen each time, and each new person/creature joins the group, until they finally figure out who has the pumpkin. Part of the fun of the story is the unusual people and creatures the meet. Most of them are not typical Halloween creatures, like a witch, a ghost, and a monster, although they are Halloween-ish. The words that describe them are real words – ghoul (which is a mythological creature), rapscallion, and varmint – but at the same time, it’s not entirely clear what type of creatures they are, and the book doesn’t explain. We can only go by what they look like in the pictures. The “varmint” looks like a large rat, the “ghoul” is a little green guy in a top hat, and the “rapscallion” is a little guy in a dark robe and hood.

Posted on by TracyC

House of Many Ways

House of Many Ways cover

House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones, 2008.

This is the third book in the Howl Trilogy. The Howl books are a loose series. Although the wizard Howl, his wife Sophie, and the fire demon Calcifer are the main characters in the first book and appear in all of the other stories, they are not the main characters in the other stories.

When her Great Uncle William, who is a wizard, has to go away for treatment for a health condition with the elves, Charmaine’s Aunt Sempronia volunteer her to house-sit for him. When Aunt Sempronia goes to tell Great Uncle William that Charmaine will be looking after his house, he asks whether Charmaine knows anything about magic. The aunt says that she doesn’t think so. Charmaine spends all of her time reading and doesn’t usually help much with the housework at home. Her aunt thinks this responsibility would do her good. Great Uncle William is a little concerned because his house is not an ordinary house, and he says that he had better take some precautions.

Although Charnaine could be annoyed at being volunteered for this chore without her permission, she is actually grateful for this opportunity to get away from her parents. Her parents are overprotective of her, and they never allow her to do anything that is remotely daring or doesn’t seem completely respectable. She feels stifled, and she wants the chance for a little independence. One of her first acts of independence is to write to the king, telling him that, more than anything, she would like to help catalog his library. She knows that the king is cataloging it himself with the help of his daughter, Princess Hilda (which was established in the previous book in the series), but Charmaine loves books more than anything and she has always dreamed of being an assistant librarian in the royal library. Her parents would think that she was being too cheeky by asking for this position.

In the meantime, Charmaine can prove herself capable and enjoy further independence in Great Uncle William’s house. When she arrives there, Aunt Sempronia tells her that living in a wizard’s house is serious business. Charmaine doesn’t know much about magic because her parents would never let her study it. They didn’t think magic was very respectable.

When Great Uncle William meets her, he seems pleased by her and starts to tell her that he has taken precautions for her stay in the house. Charmaine is about to tell him that she doesn’t know any magic, but they are interrupted by the elves, who come to take Great Uncle William away for his treatment. Charmaine asks the elves how long Great Uncle William will be gone, but they just say “as long as it takes.” Although Charmaine finds herself alone in the house, she hears Great Uncle William’s voice telling her that she will have to tidy the kitchen and apologizing for leaving so much laundry. His voice also says that there are more detailed instructions in the suitcase he left behind.

Before looking at the detailed instructions, Charmaine decides to take a look around the house and get herself unpacked. The kitchen is a horrible mess, and there are enormous bags of laundry. To her astonishment, there are no water taps in the kitchen sink, but there is a water pump outside. This is going to make her job harder. She is tempted to put her nose in a book and forget all her troubles and chores in the house, but she left the job of packing her own bag to her mother, and her mother didn’t include the books she had sitting out. Charmaine realizes that she should have packed her bag herself. This house-sitting job is going to be an education in responsibility as well as independence for Charmaine.

Charmaine also discovers that there’s a dog in the house that nobody told her about. Great Uncle William’s voice tells her that the dog is called Waif, that he used to be a stray, and that he’s afraid of everything. Charmaine was always afraid of dogs because of her mother’s worries about them, but Waif is so timid that she doesn’t worry about him and shares her food with him.

Charmaine realizes that she has led a very sheltered life, partly because of all of the things she was never required to do and also because of the things her parents wouldn’t let her do. It helps that anytime she asks a question out loud, Great Uncle William’s voice gives her the answer.

As Charmaine starts learning her away around the house, she discovers both that she has her work cut out for her and that it’s incredibly easy to get lost in the house. She also discovers that Great Uncle William’s study has many books in it. A note that her uncle left for her in the study says that he could be gone for about two weeks to a month and explaining more about the spoken instructions he left for her as well as the instructions in the suitcase. The note says that she can use the books in the study, but it warns her to be careful of the difficult spells. Charmaine is very appreciative for the books, although she finds them difficult to understand because they are all about magic. There are also many letters in the study written to her uncle by other wizards, including one from the wizard Howl. Many of the letters are from people asking Great Uncle William to take them on as apprentices. Charmaine thinks that her letter to the king probably sounded as pathetic as some of those letters to her great uncle.

Because Charmaine has never been allowed to try any magic before, she can’t resist trying one of the spells from one of her uncle’s books. She chooses one that looks pretty easy, but because the book’s pages turn every time she leaves to get more ingredients, she ends up putting bits and pieces of different spells together. Her spells does what she intends it to do, but the full results take some time.

Things get complicated when Charmaine has a terrifying encounter with a creature called a Lubbock while picking flowers in the mountains near the house. The Lubbock claims that it owns all the land around and everyone in it … including Charmaine. She has a narrow escape, getting away from the creature!

After she returns to the house, she meets a new arrival: Peter, Great Uncle William’s new apprentice. This unexpected guest gives Charmaine an extra responsibility. Peter is still pretty inexperienced with magic and often gets left and right mixed up, but even though he’s almost as inexperienced with everything as Charmaine, he is still company for her in this strange house. He recognizes that the reason why the house is so confusing and rooms seem to move around is that Great Uncle William has cast a spell on the house to bend space and include extra rooms in the house.

When Charmaine tells Peter about her encounter with the Lubbock, he is alarmed. The two of them research Lubbocks in Great Uncle William’s books, and what they learn is horrifying. Lubbocks need human hosts to reproduce, and those hosts die. The Lubbock offspring are also evil. While a full Lubbock looks like a purple insect, a human and Lubbock hybrid will have purple eyes. Charmaine and Peter reassure themselves that neither of them shows any sign of being part Lubbock. However, even with her aunt and mother coming to check on her, Charmaine isn’t prepared to let her fear of the Lubbock ruin her first experience with independence.

To her surprise, the king also accepts her application to work in the royal library! The cataloging work in the library isn’t quite as much fun as she had imagined it would be because much of it is routine documents, but Charmaine learns that the king and his daughter are searching for some very important documents. Before he went away, Great Uncle William was also helping them. Now, the princess has called in an old friend of hers, Sophie Pendragon, wife of the Royal Wizard Howl of Ingary. There is a plot against the royal family which has kept them poor. Not all of the royal family is what they seem to be, and some of the secrets of the past are hidden in Great Uncle William’s unusual house.

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

My Reaction

Some of the characters in this book other than Sophie, Howl, and Calcifer were introduced in the previous book in the series. The elderly princess was one of the princesses kidnapped by the djinn, which is how she met Sophie. The king’s cook, Jamal, and his dog were also introduced in Castle in the Air. However, Charmaine is definitely the main character of the story, along with Peter as her sidekick and main helper. The other characters are there for support. Howl and Sophie help Charmaine by providing her with information that she wouldn’t have had otherwise, and Calcifer destroys some of the threats because only a fire demon is powerful enough to do it. Howl is in the castle in disguise because, as one of the royal wizards of another country, it wouldn’t be right for him to seem to be working for the royal family of another country. Unlike in Castle in the Air, though, readers know right away what Howl’s disguise is, and it’s played for comedy. The villains of the story aren’t too difficult to spot once they appear. What is more mysterious is what the king is searching before and what happened to it.

Charmaine’s self-discovery is a major part of the story. Charmaine knows from the beginning that she has lived a very sheltered life because of her mother’s standards for what is “respectable” and proper for a young girl like her. She has already decided that she doesn’t agree with all of her mother’s ideas and that she wants some independence. To her credit, although she does resent some of the routine chores she has to do while taking care of Great Uncle William’s house, she is determined to learn what what she has to learn to achieve some independence and do some of the things she really wants to do. Peter knows more about some things than Charmaine does, like how to do dishes and laundry, so he is some help to her, but he has only recently left home to take up his apprenticeship, so there are things that he doesn’t know, either. Neither one of them knows how to cook, so they turn to Charmaine’s father for advice and recipes. Charmaine’s father is more broad-minded than her mother, so he is willing to help. Charmaine also gradually learns to get along with Peter, and they learn how to consider each other’s feelings and allow each other their own learning opportunities. At one point, Peter tidies up Charmaine’s room as a favor to her, but she is annoyed and tells him not to do that anymore because she wants to take care of her own things for herself.

From her own experimentation and from what her father tells her, Charmaine discovers that she has a natural talent for magic. She inherited her magical talent from her father, who admits to her that he has secretly been using his talent for making things in his bakery. He never tells his wife about his magic because she wouldn’t approve.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Usborne First Book of Nature

Usborne First Book of Nature designed by David Bennett, 1980.

I remember getting this book as a present from my grandmother as a child because my grandmother was an amateur naturalist. Although it’s a nonfiction book, I’m sentimental about it for that reason.

The book is divided into four sections covering different types of plants and creatures (each of which has its own book in the Usborne collection, but this book is a compilation):

Birds

This chapter explains about the parts of birds, like the different shapes of beaks and feet different birds have, aspects of birds lives and behavior, and how birds fly.

Trees

This chapter explains the parts of trees, like how roots and twigs grow and the differences between different types of leaves, tree flowers, and seeds.

Flowers

This chapter explains the parts of flowers and about pollen and seeds. It also points out the creatures that like to visit flowers, like bees and hummingbirds.

Butterflies and Moths

This chapter explains the similarities and differences between butterflies and moths and what their life cycles are like.

One of the best parts of this book is that it is designed to be interactive as well as informative. Some of the activities are explained at the beginning of each chapter, and there’s a puzzle or game at the end of each chapter. The upper right corners of each chapter have images that are meant to be used as a flip book. In the bird section, readers can quickly flip the pages to watch a bird fly. In the tree section, a leaf bud opens. In the flower section, a flower opens. In the butterfly and moth section, a butterfly opens and closes its wings.

Each chapter also has a game where you hunt for different creatures within the pages of that chapter and see how many you can find, and then, there’s another game or puzzle at the end. At the end of the bird chapter, there’s a picture puzzle where you have to find all the birds hidden in a black-and-white picture. At the end of the tree section, you have to find how many products are made from or come from trees in a busy market scene. At the end of the flower chapter, you have to match up different types of fruits with their flowers. The butterfly and moth section doesn’t have a game at the end.

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

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Dragons, Dragons, and Other Creatures that Never Were

Dragons, Dragons, and Other Creatures that Never Were by Eric Carle, 1991.

This is a collection of poems and quotations about various mythical creatures from around the world. The poems and quotes come from various sources. Some are by famous authors and some are nursery rhymes and pieces of folklore. The quote about the leviathan is from The Book of Job.

The illustrations are what really make the book interesting. They are bright and colorful, and the middle section of the book folds out to reveal a particularly long picture of a Chinese dragon.

Although there are common mythological creatures, like dragons, unicorns, yetis, the phoenix, there are also less common ones that some children may not have even heard of, like the giant bird called the roc, the two-headed amphisbaena, the kappa, and the bunyip.

Most of the descriptions of the creatures are in the poems themselves and in the accompanying pictures, but there is a glossary in the back that explains more about what each creature is and where it is from.

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

Posted on by TracyC · 5 Comments

Encyclopedia of Legendary Creatures

LegendaryCreatures

Encyclopedia of Legendary Creatures by Tom McGowen, 1981.

This book is organized into brief encyclopedia-style entries, describing legendary creatures from around the world.  Everything is in alphabetical order, not organized by country or any other over-arching categories.

There are two things that I particularly like about this book.  One is that the mythological creatures in the book aren’t just limited to the common ones, like giants, vampires, werewolves, and unicorns (although they each have entries of their own); there are also some lesser-mentioned creatures like the Hulder Folk and the Abatwa People.  The Hulder Folk, who come from Norse folktales, look like ordinary humans, but they have tails like cows.  According to the book, they love to sing and dance, but their songs are always sad, which makes me think of country music.  They also can intermarry with humans, although their marriages are usually unhappy, which also, oddly, makes me think of country music.  The Abatwa People are part of the folklore of the Zulus in South Africa.  They are tiny people, but fierce warriors, and they get offended if people don’t treat them like they are the same size as humans.  (There are also real people in Africa called Abatwa who are pygmies.  The legendary people in this book may be connected to old legends about them, exaggerating their shorter-than-average height.)

LegendaryCreaturesNisse

The other thing that I really like about this book is the pictures.  There are many books about mythology and folklore that don’t have pictures of the creatures, and it really makes a difference being able to see what something looks like (or supposedly looks like, since these are legendary creatures) as well as read a description.

As a side note, there is an episode of the kids’ cartoon show, Arthur, where his friend, Sue Ellen, who isn’t usually frightened by scary stories, hears a strange noise that makes her think about various mythological monsters that she’s heard about in the different countries that she’s visited with her parents.  These unusual monsters, like Baba Yaga, Kappas, and Bashees, which most of her friends haven’t heard about before, do frighten her.  When I saw Kappas described in this book, it reminded me of that.