Posted on by TracyC

In the Circle of Time

In the Circle of Time by Margaret J. Anderson, 1979.

This is the second book in the In the Keep of Time Trilogy. There are a couple of characters from the first book that appear in this one, but most are new.

Robert lives on his family’s farm outside of a small town in Scotland.  He loves to draw, but his father doesn’t think much of Robert’s art.  He wants Robert to take over the family farm when he’s grown, especially since Robert’s older brother, Duncan, disappeared two years earlier.  Everyone assumes that Duncan just got tired of the farm and ran off to the city to find work, but Robert has trouble believing that.  Duncan always loved Robert and looked after him, and Robert can’t believe that Duncan would just run off without even telling him.

One day, Robert goes to the ancient circle of stones that stands near his town, known as the Stones of Arden, to draw before school.  There, he happens to meet Jennifer, an American girl who has recently moved to the area because her father is working in the nearby city.  Jennifer has an interest in archeology, and she points out to Robert that there are depressions where there used to be stones in the middle of the circle that aren’t standing anymore.  She persuades Robert to help her do a little digging to see if they can find them.  As they dig, a strange fog comes in, and Jennifer sees a vision of dark-haired people also digging.  However, no one is really there because the ground where they were digging is undisturbed.  Robert doesn’t see the people, but he believes Jennifer when she tells him what she saw.  There are a lot of strange stories about the stones, and Robert has heard many of them from his grandfather.

Jennifer, although spooked by what she saw, refuses to believe any superstitious stories.  She persuades Robert to come back to the stones with her so that she can take another look at them.  However, when they do, the strange fog comes, and the kids suddenly find themselves many years in the future.

The kids learn where (or when) they are when they meet a boy named Karten, who was digging in the spot where Jennifer had seen him digging in her earlier vision.  He tells them that the year is 2179 (two hundred years after the book was written).  The kids can suddenly hear the sound of the ocean from the stones when they couldn’t before, and when they ask about it, Karten tells them that the polar ice caps melted in the 21st century, raising the level of the ocean and bringing the water much closer to the stones.

The future is a harsh place, and Karten fears the people he calls “the Barbaric Ones.”  The Barbaric Ones are people from “across the sea” who, as Karten and his people explain, “have retained the ways of people who lived long ago. They are interested in wealth and machines and factories.” The problem is that resources are in short supply, so the Barbaric Ones kidnap people to use as slaves, gathering as much of the scarce resources as they can to sustain their standard of living.  Karten and his people don’t want to fight the Barbaric Ones if they can avoid it because they have lost people who tried to fight them and because they believe in the values of love and trust above all.

Jennifer is quick to insist that she and Robert return to the stones where they entered this strange and disturbing future, but Robert persuades her to stay awhile and meet more of Karten’s people. Karten particularly tells them about an older woman who told him before about other people from the past who came to their time (the kids from the first book in the series), and Robert is hopeful that this woman will not only be able to tell them how to get home but maybe also what happened to his brother, Duncan. Robert has started to suspect that when Duncan suddenly disappeared, he may have come to the this time period the same way he and Jennifer did and may still be there.

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

My Reaction:

I don’t generally go in for dystopian novels because I find them depressing. The real world has enough problems without trying to imagine new and worse ones. However, I do find it interesting that this book, which was written a few years before I was born, has a vision of the future that specifically addresses things that are of major concern to people in the early 21st century. It imagines that the polar ice caps have melted and the sea level has risen. Many of the old coastal cities are gone, and there are new cities and communities in areas where there weren’t before.

Because of what’s happened, the world’s population has separated into two parts that have different ways of coping with the situation. The “Barbaric Ones” are much more technology-oriented, but what makes them barbaric is the way they exploit other people to serve their purposes and support the lifestyle that they want to maintain, which is much harder to maintain in this new future. Karten’s people, on the other hand, have developed a more old-fashioned, communal style of living. In fact, it’s unusually communal, to the point where young children are raised collectively by the adults of the community, nobody really knowing or caring about who their birth parents are. When children are nine years old, they select families they want to join, usually because of similar interests they have, and are raised as children of that family. Karten also likes art, and so he joined a family of artists.

These two types of societies are extreme in their views and lifestyles, polar opposites of each other, and neither is really the sort of society that Jennifer or Robert want to be part of. Jennifer is unnerved that people in Karten’s society don’t really know or care who their parents are and just kind of pick families for themselves without attachment to their birth parents. It just seems unnatural to her. Karten explains that their view is that children belong to the community as a whole. If everyone is part of the same big community, what does it matter who they live with? Their concept of marriage or partnership is never fully explained, but there don’t seem to be any rules or even social conventions about who can live with whom. One girl, called Lara Avara, tells Jennifer that her chosen parental figures/mentors are a pair of women, which surprises Jennifer, who thinks of family in terms of mothers and fathers, one of each per family. However, the future people have a different concept of family that seems to be centered more around sharing personal interests, with no particular conventions around how the family should be shaped. The chosen parental figures/mentors raise the younger members who chose to join their family, teaching them skills and professions they have mastered, according to their interests. It is not explained in the story if these older women are or were married or lovers, and it doesn’t seem to be important to any of the characters in the story, either. Lara Avara just tells Jennifer, “There cannot be rules deciding whom you love and from whom you learn.” I see one disadvantage to not knowing who one’s parents and full-blooded siblings are because there would be no way to ensure against incest, which is worrisome because that tends to bring out certain genetic health problems and weakens the genetic pool of the community, especially if it goes on for generations (unless this society has thought of that and just doesn’t mention their solution during the course of the story – maybe the elders of the community who remember who has the same birth parents and who doesn’t will intervene if siblings try to match up with each other). In some ways, Robert is attracted to this style of life because it would make things easier for him. In his own time, his family undervalues his artistic gifts and his unpleasant, temperamental father forces him to do hard physical labor on the family farm. There are times when Robert would love to exchange his problematic family for one that would help him hone his craft and appreciate his personal talents.

For awhile, Jennifer worries that Robert likes these future people so much that he wants to stay there, and she’ll be stuck in the future with him. Unlike Robert, Jennifer is close to her family and happy in their time, and she wants to go home. The two of them are accidentally separated from each other when a character from the previous book in the series (Ollie) brings Robert back to their own time without Jennifer, through the tower that the previous set of characters had used for their time travels. As Robert figures out how to rescue Jennifer from the future, he discovers the truth about Duncan, who has not traveled through time at all (although it looked like that was the way the story was going to go) but really did run away from home, as people thought he did. Like Robert, Duncan was also unhappy about their home life. Although Duncan is better suited to the farm work than Robert, he also found life there stifling, constantly having to work for their father and deal with his angry moods. Their father’s attitude problems are what makes the farm life difficult for both boys, and Duncan also seems to have been feeling overworked and unappreciated. Although life as a teenage runaway has been difficult for Duncan, he has at least managed to find work (paid, unlike the farm work he was doing for his father, and payment is a monetary form of appreciation as well as providing the worker with a living) and the freedom to begin building a life of his own.

Rescuing Jennifer means returning to the stone circle where their time travels began. After Jennifer returns home to their time, she and Robert talk about their experiences. They feel badly that they were not able to help the future people more with their problems and dangers, but Robert says that maybe what’s important is what they’ve learned from the experience themselves and how it’s changed them. Their problems (just like Robert’s brother, Duncan) have always been in their own time, and they have to live their lives in the present. What they do in the present may also change the future and help make it a better place. By the end of the book, Duncan returns to his family’s farm to tell his parents that he’s all right. Duncan will not work on the farm again, as he once did, but he decides to take a new job nearby and help out on the weekends, which will make things easier for Robert. Their family has some healing to do. A talk with Robert’s grandfather also reveals that other members of Robert’s family have traveled through time in the stone circle, and although Robert’s grandfather did his time traveling many years earlier, the vision he got of the future was actually after Robert and Jennifer’s adventures. They can tell that it was further along in time by the people and things he saw, and it reassures them that their future friends will be all right in spite of everything.

Posted on by TracyC

Ramona Forever

Ramona Forever by Beverly Cleary, 1984.

Ramona is in third grade now, and there are new changes coming in her life. At the beginning of the book, she and her sister Beezus still go to Howie’s house every day after school so Howie’s grandmother can look after them because both of their parents work, although lately Beezus has been finding other places to go after school, like her friend’s house and the library. That’s how Ramona knows from Howie that his rich Uncle Hobart, who has a job in the oil industry, will be coming to visit soon from Saudi Arabia. Ramona mentions it one night at dinner when her Aunt Beatrice is visiting. Aunt Beatrice says that she remembers Hobart from when they were kids and went to the same school, but she hasn’t seen him in years.

When Uncle Hobart comes, he brings a couple of small camel saddles for Howie and Willa Jean to play with. He also gives Howie a unicycle and Willa Jean a small accordion. When he meets Ramona, he embarrasses her by calling her Howie’s girlfriend and singing a verse from an old song about a woman named Ramona (links repaired Nov. 2023), and Ramona takes an instant dislike to him. She flat out tells him that she doesn’t like adults who tease (Neither do I, and I’m in my 40’s.), and he promises to reform, although Ramona thinks that he’s still joking around and isn’t satisfied.

Uncle Hobart takes Howie outside to learn to ride the unicycle, and Willa Jean and Ramona try the accordion. When neither of them can figure out how to use it, little Willa Jean gets frustrated and sits on it, breaking it. Howie’s grandmother, Mrs. Kemp, gets angry at the girls, and Ramona thinks that the accordion was a dumb present to give to a little girl who wouldn’t be able to use it properly for years. Mrs. Kemp tries to shame Ramona to Uncle Hobart, blaming her for the incident. (As if Ramona was the babysitter instead of Mrs. Kemp, who incidentally, is being paid by Ramona’s parents to watch her as well as watching her own grandchildren. Ramona didn’t think of this, but I certainly did.) Ramona never really liked being watched by Mrs. Kemp, but the blaming and shaming makes her realize that Mrs. Kemp actually doesn’t like her and wants to make her feel bad, which is a disturbing feeling from someone who is supposed to be taking care of her. Ramona decides right then that Mrs. Kemp will never look after her again.

When the family talks about the situation at dinner that night, Beezus supports Ramona’s assertion that Mrs. Kemp doesn’t like them, saying that’s the reason why she’s been trying to find other places to go after school. Ramona’s mother asks her if she ever thought that maybe Mrs. Kemp would rather not be a babysitter at all, for either her grandchildren or Ramona, but women of her generation were only brought up to take care of their homes and children, and that’s all she knows how to do, whether she likes it or not.

Personally, I think this is true, but also irrelevant. Mrs. Kemp has a job to do, one that she’s being paid for, and if she’s taking the money, she also needs to take responsibility. Mrs. Kemp blames Ramona for not watching Willa Jean when that was her job, not Ramona’s, and Mrs. Kemp also has a responsibility to Ramona herself because that’s what she’s being paid for. Ramona is Mrs. Kemp’s babysitting charge. She’s a child, the child of paying customers who are specifically paying Mrs. Kemp for childcare. Ramona is not Mrs. Kemp’s personal servant or the babysitter for her granddaughter. Ramona is especially not Mrs. Kemp’s personal therapist or caregiver, who needs to help her manage her emotions or life decisions. Ramona is a child who is only with Mrs. Kemp for the purpose of being cared for by her, so let’s keep it straight who has a responsibility to whom in this situation. Besides not liking adults who tease like bratty children, I also don’t like adults who try to make kids be responsible for things that they should be responsible for themselves. Seeing Mrs. Kemp accepting money in exchange for irresponsibility and a bad attitude about her own general life choices that she takes out on her childcare charges is that much worse. Mrs. Quimby’s insights, while probably true, are also completely unhelpful to the situation. Mrs. Kemp is what she is, and what she is does not make her a good caregiver. Ramona and Beezus are correct to call her on it. Mrs. Quimby is concerned about hurting Mrs. Kemp’s feelings, but I think that should be the least of her concerns in this situation since Mrs. Kemp doesn’t seem to care about the children’s feelings and she’s in a position of trust over them. She is demonstrably not doing the very thing she is supposed to do, which care for the children she is paid to provide with childcare. You have one job, Mrs. Kemp, just one job! Mrs. Kemp is an adult, more than old enough to know better about how to behave and take responsibility for herself and the young children in her care, and she should choose to act like it or be prepared to face the consequences, not continue to get paid and thanked for work she’s not even willing to do, making her young charges miserable every single day. She’s taking advantage of the Quimbys’ desperation for child care, and that’s not right. I wished Mrs. Quimby would step up and support her daughters’ efforts to stand up for their well-being instead of enabling Mrs. Kemp’s bad behavior and making excuses for it, as if it were somehow Ramona’s fault that Mrs. Kemp doesn’t like being a babysitter and that eight-year-old Ramona actually has the power to solve Mrs. Kemp’s life problems. I can only suppose that the reason why Mrs. Quimby doesn’t is that she just doesn’t know where else to find someone willing to watch the girls after school.

Mr. Quimby asks Ramona what she thinks she should do about the situation, and Ramona hates being asked that because she wanted help from the grown-ups, not the responsibility of figuring out the problem with her adult caregiver by herself. Again, I really have to side with Ramona here. It’s not her job to be the adult in this situation, and the older I get, the less patience I have for irresponsible adults. I hated them when I was a kid Ramona’s age (and I ran into plenty of them, too), and I don’t feel any better about them 30 years later. If you want the authority of saying that you’re an adult, you have to take the responsibilities that come with that authority, taking the adult actions and making the adult decisions, not expecting the kids to do your job for you. That’s my attitude. I honestly don’t know what response Mr. Quimby was even looking for from Ramona, either. What can Ramona do if Mrs. Kemp is unhappy about her life choices and doesn’t treat her well because she doesn’t want to be her babysitter? Get some books on psychology from the library and turn into a therapist or career counselor at the age of eight to help Mrs. Kemp work through her emotional issues? Invent a magic potion that will age her to 58 so she can be Mrs. Kemp’s new best friend and they can go out for champagne brunches together instead of Mrs. Kemp babysitting her? What solution are you imagining here, Mr. Quimby? Ramona is an eight-year-old, and what what she thought she should do about this bad situation was talk to her parents, who hired Mrs. Kemp to take care of her in the first place, and get their help. How was she supposed to know that you didn’t want to help her, either? If I were one of the parents in this situation, I’d say that I understood the problem and that I’d think over some other after school possibilities for the girls, maybe look into some temporary care for the girls, possibly in the form of some kind of after school lessons in art or music or sports, paid for with the money that I would have given Mrs. Kemp for babysitting, especially since I already know that the Quimbys are already considering some coming changes for their family that will change their childcare situation. Of course, all of this is setting the stage for what happens next in the story.

Ramona asks if she can just stay home alone after school because some kids do, but her parents don’t like that idea. Beezus says that she could stay with Ramona because she’s in middle school and old enough to babysit. Ramona worries a little that Beezus will be bossy and that they’ll fight with no adults around, but Mr. and Mrs. Quimby agree to let the girls try it for a week while Uncle Hobart is visiting so Mrs. Kemp can spend more time with her son. If the arrangement works and the girls behave themselves, they can keep doing it after Uncle Hobart leaves.

Ramona asks Beezus why she’s so willing to look after her after school, and Beezus explains that things haven’t been to pleasant at her friends’ houses lately. Mary Jane needs to spend a lot of time practicing her piano lessons, and she got into a fight with Pamela because Pamela was acting like a snob and giving her a hard time about her dad’s work situation. Mr. Quimby has had a series of different jobs, and now, he is working only part time and going back to college to train to become an art teacher. Pamela has been bragging to Beezus that her father has a real job and that Mr. Quimby should “stop fooling around and really go to work.” (This is one of those snide kids’ comments that you can tell really came from Pamela’s parents and that she’s just repeating what they say to sound big. Pamela’s parents have probably been bad-mouthing the Quimbys behind their backs to talk themselves up because their employment has been more stable and some people need to look down on someone in order to feel good about themselves. I’ve seen that type before, too. By this point in the story, I had the feeling that the Quimbys seem to know a lot of people who are real jerks in one way or another, and I think it’s time that they made some new friends.) Beezus can’t take it anymore, so she’s stopped speaking to Pamela, which is about all you can do in a situation like that.

Beezus worries about their family’s future because she’s heard that schools are laying off teachers, and she fears that her father might not find a job when he’s done with his degree. She also think that their mother is probably pregnant because of the way that Aunt Bea keeps asking her how she’s feeling and a few months ago, she seemed to be suffering from morning sickness. If that’s true, she probably won’t be able to work much longer because she’ll have to take time off to have the baby and look after it. It make things difficult when the family is already concerned about money, although Beezus says that she wouldn’t mind helping to look after a baby because she likes babies. Ramona worries about the new baby and why their parents would want another child when they already have her and her sister, and she doesn’t like that the adults seem to be keeping important secrets.

The girls try to be extra good and responsible when they’re home alone together so they’ll be allowed to continue staying home alone, but they get into a fight one day when Howie comes over and offers to let Ramona ride his bike because he’s going to practice riding his unicycle. Beezus is afraid that Ramona will get hurt riding the bike and she’ll be considered responsible, but Ramona wants to go ahead and do it anyway because she’s been waiting for Howie to agree to loan her his bike. Ramona likes riding the bike, but she does fall off and scrape her elbow. Beezus refuses to help Ramona clean up afterward because Ramona insulted her before she went bike riding, and Ramona is angry with Beezus. In spite of that, the girls decide not to tell their parents about what happened because they don’t want to go back to Mrs. Kemp and their father specifically tells them not do anything to worry their mother, another sign that she’s probably expecting a baby.

Then, one day after school, the girls discover that their cat, Picky-picky has died, probably of old age. At first, they don’t know what to do, but remembering that they’re not supposed to upset their mother, they decide to bury the cat themselves. The girls are upset, but they manage to bury the cat, and they also make up with each other after their earlier fight. When their parents come home and find out about the cat, they feel badly that the girls had to handle the situation on their own. Mrs. Quimby says that, after they handled this difficult situation, she knows that they can be trusted on their own and that there’s no need for them to go back to Mrs. Kemp.

The girls’ mother finally admits that she’s going to have a baby, and the family begins talking about the new changes that they’ll have to make when the baby comes. The girls wonder who will have to share a room with the new baby, and they come up with ideas for names. Ramona worries about being a middle child now and not the youngest, but her mother reassures her that she still loves her. The Quimbys also consider that they may have to move in order for Mr. Quimby to find a teaching job, although Beezus and Ramona don’t like the idea of moving.

However, there are still more changes to come. Aunt Bea and Uncle Hobart announce that they are getting married! Ramona still doesn’t like Uncle Hobart and doesn’t really want him for an uncle, and after they’re married, they’re planning to move to Alaska because Uncle Hobart will be working in the oil industry there.

Changes aren’t always easy, but the girls enjoy taking part in their aunt’s wedding, and at the end of the book, their mother has the new baby, who turns out to be a girl. They call her Roberta, for a twist on her father’s name. Ramona begins to feel happy and comfortable with the changes in her life because she realizes that she’s growing up.

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

Posted on by TracyC

Ramona and Her Father

Ramona and Her Father by Beverly Cleary, 1975, 1977.

It’s September, and second-grader Ramona Quimby is already making out her Christmas list. However, Christmas this year might not be what Ramona expects. Her father comes home and explains that he’s been laid off from his job because a larger company bought the company he worked for and laid off the extra workers. Mrs. Quimby has a part time job, but it doesn’t pay much. Everyone in the Quimby family soon becomes worried about money.

Mrs. Quimby finds another job that’s full time, but Mr. Quimby still struggles to find work. Ramona doesn’t like to see her father so worried and stressed, and she tries to think of some way she could also earn money. When her father comments about how much money a boy on a television advertisement must have made, Ramona sets herself to memorizing various advertising phrases and repeating them, hoping to be discovered and hired to make an ad herself. Unfortunately, things that people say on ads don’t work in real-world settings, especially when you tell your teacher that her wrinkled stockings look like elephant skin.

The family has to eat food that they don’t particularly like in order to save money, and they start buying cheaper cat food for their cat. Picky-picky refuses to eat the cheap cat food, and before Halloween, he eats part of the girls’ jack o’lantern in desperation. Beezus, upset at the idea that their cat is apparently starving and desperate, angrily asks her father why they can’t afford Picky-picky’s usual cat food when they seem to have enough money for his cigarettes. (It’s a valid question. During my first semester of college, I totaled up a classmate’s expenses on cigarettes and realized that what she spent on them for a year was about the same as full-time student tuition at our community college, by early 2000s standards.) Her father tells her that’s none of her business, and Beezus retorts that it is her business. Cigarettes are harmful, and Mr. Quimby is spending money on them that the family desperately needs.

Ramona is worried because this is the first time that she’s heard that cigarettes are bad, although Beezus says that she learned it in school. Ramona tries to ask her father if what Beezus said is true, and he just says that he expects to be an old man someday, the kind that tells reporters on his hundredth birthday that he owes his longevity to cigarettes and whisky. This joke doesn’t reassure Ramona. Ramona decides that she’s going to get her father to stop smoking.

Ramona gets Beezus to help her make anti-smoking signs. At first, their father tries to ignore the signs, and then he starts getting annoyed with them. Ramona worries that she’s been mean to her father and upset him too much, but he later admits that she was right and that he’s going to try to quit smoking. Ramona takes him at his word and throws his cigarettes away, although he said that he would rather have cut down gradually. Still, his wife and daughters are happy about him quitting. For awhile, Mr. Quimby is edgy and irritable as he tries to get used to not smoking as well as still looking for a job.

As Christmas approaches, the girls’ Sunday school begins preparing to put on a Nativity play. Beezus gets cast as Mary, which pleases her because Henry Huggins is going to play Joseph. Ramona is so excited about the play that she wants a creative role for herself, and after the shepherds are cast, she says that she wants to be a sheep to go with the shepherds. The Sunday school teacher says that sounds like a good idea, but they’ve never had any sheep in the play before and don’t have a costume for her. Ramona says that her mother could make her one, and other children also say they want to be sheep.

However, as Beezus points out, now that their mother is working full time, she doesn’t really have time to sew a costume. Their mother also says that they can’t afford to buy new cloth for a costume, and the best she can do is an old white bathrobe that she might be able to alter into costume. Ramona’s father snaps at her that she’s been inconsiderate for expecting her to do something like this without asking first. Ramona feels badly and overhears her father calling her a spoiled brat. With his irritability, he’s been picking at her for various things, and one day, Ramona argues with him when she comes home from school and smells cigarette smoke.

Ramona’s father reassures her that he hasn’t purchased any new cigarettes. He just found an old one in a pocket that he forgot that he had and decided to smoke it to see if it would help him feel better. The two of them have a heart-to-heart talk about Ramona worrying about why they can’t be a happy family. Ramona’s father tells her that their family is happy. It’s just that no family is perfect and nobody’s life is perfect, and everyone goes through hard times now and then. The people in Ramona’s family still love each other and do their best for each other even when things are hard and they don’t always get along.

Things improve for the Quimbys as Christmas approaches. Mr. Quimby finally finds a new job. Ramona almost backs out of the Nativity play because her mother didn’t have time to make her a full costume, and she feels silly with what she’s wearing, but she changes her mind with the help of three older girls who were recruited to replace the Three Wise Men who backed out of the play.

One thing that kind of surprised me in the story was that Ramona’s parents seemed mildly scandalized when Ramona and Howie sang “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” Beezus, who learned the song at summer camp and taught it to Ramona says that the neighbors will probably think they’re beer guzzlers after hearing Ramona and Howie sing it all up and down the street. It struck me as weird because I remember that everyone knew that song when I was a kid in the 1980s and 1990s, and nobody thought anything of it. I certainly never heard of anyone being scandalized by it. It’s just a silly counting song, and nobody really thought that any kid singing it had ever had beer. In fact, it was a common song for parents to get their kids to sing on long car trips because it takes a long time to finish, and during that time, the kids aren’t complaining or asking, “Are we there yet?”

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

Posted on by TracyC · 2 Comments

The Hundred Penny Box

The Hundred Penny Box by Sharon Bell Mathis, 1975.

Michael’s great-great-aunt, Aunt Dew (short for Dewbet), has moved in with him and his parents because she is one hundred years old and no longer able to live on her own.  It has been a big adjustment for the entire family, but even though Michael has had to give up space in his room for her, he is glad that she has come to live with them because the old woman fascinates him.  She is (apparently) extremely absent-minded, often calling Michael by his father’s name, John, although some of that seems to be deliberate because she wishes that Michael’s parents had named him after his father.  Other times, she seems to forget that she’s no longer living in her old house or just starts singing an old spiritual song, forgetting what she was talking about before.

John is extremely fond of his elderly aunt because she raised him after his parents died in a boating accident, and she loves him like a son.  Aunt Dew’s own sons are long grown and gone.  However, Michael’s mother, Ruth, finds Aunt Dew’s presence in the house difficult.  Ruth thinks that Aunt Dew doesn’t appreciate some of the nice things that she does for her, and she thinks that Aunt Dew doesn’t like her.  It’s not completely true, but Aunt Dew does seem more comfortable around Michael after spending many years of her life raising boys, and Aunt Dew admits to Michael that she finds it difficult to talk to Ruth because they don’t know each other like she and John do. Aunt Dew and Ruth also have a conflict over some of Aunt Dew’s old possessions.

Aunt Dew is upset that Ruth got rid of some of her old things after she moved in with them.  Michael thought it was a mean thing to do, and Aunt Dew misses these objects.  When Michael argues with his mother about these objects, Ruth explains to him that she’s not trying to be mean.  Ruth compares Aunt Dew to a child, like Michael, saying that she “Thinks she needs a whole lot of stuff she really doesn’t.”  Ruth sees it as just clearing out things that are old and worn out and no good in order to make room for newer, nicer things, comparing it to when Michael got old enough to realize that he didn’t need his old teddy bear that was falling apart and was willing to get rid of it along with some other things in order to make room for Aunt Dew to move in.  Ruth sees clearing out old things as a way to move forward in life and thinks that it’s important to help Aunt Dew adjust to her new life with the family.  However, a lot of Aunt Dew’s long life and past are tied in with some of these objects, and as a one-hundred-year-old woman, Aunt Dew has more past behind her than future life to make room for.  Michael helps her to hide some of them in her closet to keep them from being thrown out, but he’s particularly concerned about her hundred penny box.

When Aunt Dew’s husband was alive, he started a penny collection for her with one penny to represent every year that Aunt Dew has been alive.  After his death, Aunt Dew continued to collect pennies, putting another penny into the box every year to represent her age.  Michael loves the pennies in the box because, when he counts them with Aunt Dew, she will stop him at certain years and tell him stories about things that happened during those years, telling him a lot of family stories.  Michael’s mother isn’t interested in taking the pennies, but she thinks that the old box they’re in is too worn out and should be replaced with something else.  However, Aunt Dew sees that box as being like herself: old and worn and holding all of the years of her life.  To throw it out would be almost like throwing out Aunt Dew herself.  Michael’s mother doesn’t see it that way, but Michael sees the connection.  To try to save the box, Michael hides it from his mother.

The conflict about Aunt Dew’s things isn’t really resolved by the end of the story because Michael’s mother still doesn’t understand how Aunt Dew feels, and we don’t know if she will come to understand or if the box will remain hidden or not.  I found parts of the story frustrating because Ruth doesn’t seem to want to listen to either Aunt Dew or Michael, discounting them as the kid and the old lady.  Even though Ruth is frustrated with Aunt Dew, I think that part of it is her fault for not really listening or trying to understand how she feels. This may be part of the reason why Aunt Dew feels like she can’t really talk to Ruth. To be fair, Ruth doesn’t mean to be mean, but at the same time, she kind of is because she’s too stuck on what she thinks is best and that idea that she knows better than a young boy and an old woman to consider that her ideas might not be what’s best for her family and family relationships and that she needs to give a little. My guess is that she’ll understand how Aunt Dew feels when she’s also an old woman, with more past than future ahead, but with a little imagination and empathy, I think she could see that decades sooner.  I remember reading this book when I was a kid and liking it for the concept of the hundred penny box and the old woman’s stories, but I find the lack of resolution a little frustrating now.  It’s one of those books that makes me want to sit the characters down and explain a few things to them, but I can’t.

Besides the concept of the penny box, I’m also fascinated by the name Dewbet, which I’ve never heard anywhere else besides this story.  The pictures in the book are also unusual, and there’s a note in the back of the book that explains a little about the art style.  The pictures, which are in sepia tones, are painted with water colors, and the light areas were made with water and bleach.

This is a Newbery Honor Book, and it is currently available online through Internet Archive.

There is also a short film version that is available to buy or rent from Vimeo. Teachers Pay Teachers has lesson plans for this book. If you would like to see a reading and discussion with the author of the book, there is a copy on YouTube.

Posted on by TracyC

Tomorrow’s Wizard

TomorrowsWizardTomorrow’s Wizard by Patricia MacLachlan, 1982.

In a way, this story is a collection of shorter stories, but they are all tied together. In the beginning, Tomorrow’s Wizard (that’s actually his name, he’s also called Tomorrow) has just been given an apprentice wizard named Murdoch. Their job is to listen for important wishes to grant. Each of the shorter stories in the book involves a different wish and how Tomorrow and Murdoch grant it.

The First Important Wish – Rozelle is a pretty girl but wild and given to fits of temper. Her parents had her later in life and never disciplined her, so she has never had a reason to learn to control herself. However, her tantrums drive everyone else crazy. Rozelle’s father, acknowledging how difficult it is to deal with Rozelle, wishes that he could find a man who was willing to marry her. Tomorrow hears the wish and sends a variety of suitors to meet Rozelle, but she doesn’t like them, and none of them really like her, either. Then, another possibility occurs to the wizards: the villagers have been complaining that they are afraid of a nearby giant. Tomorrow knows that he giant is really harmless and gentle, just lonely. Could it be possible that Rozelle is the company that he needs?

Three-D – Miller Few and his wife, Mona, are nasty people, two of a kind. Because he’s the only miller in town, Miller Few (known to his neighbors as Three-D for Dreadful Dastardly Demon) freely cheats his customers. He and his wife have no friends because they’re so awful. Then, one day, Three-D saves Murdoch’s life. To reward the miller, Murdoch agrees to grant him a wish. The miller and his wife decide that they want a nice, sweet child who would do their work for them. The child Murdoch grants them is indeed sweet. A little too sweet. Not only does little Primrose look pretty and do the housework, but she helpfully reminds the miller about his debts and the other things her parents do wrong. The miller and his wife become more careful and agreeable and gain new friends because of Primrose, but they aren’t very happy. They aren’t really being themselves, and they’re tired of being on their best behavior all the time. But, perhaps there is one thing that can stop Primrose from being overly sweet: the miller’s old cat, Clifford.

The Comely Lady and the Clay Nose – Geneva is a very beautiful young woman and has many admirers, but she knows that they are more in love with the way she looks than with who she is. It worries her, and she wishes for someone who would love her for the person she is. To help solve her problem, Tomorrow makes an ugly clay nose for Geneva to wear, telling her that it will help her to find the person she is looking for. When she puts it on, her former admirers flee, and for awhile, Geneva is very lonely, but she perseveres and ends up finding the love that she is looking for.

The Perfect Fiddle – Bliss, the fiddle-maker, is ironically an unhappy man. The reason is that, no matter how good his fiddles are, he can never make one that’s completely perfect. After Bliss tries several crazy schemes to capture perfection in his fiddles, Tomorrow goes to visit Bliss’s wife, Maude. Like Tomorrow, Maude has seen the problem with Bliss’s approach to his fiddles and finally asks Bliss the question that makes him reconsider whether perfection should be his goal.

The Last Important Wish – Although Tomorrow is impatient with his apprentice, Murdoch, he does like having him live with him, and he has also grown attached to the horse that lives with them both. However, he has come to see that the life of a wizard isn’t the one that Murdoch is really suited for. More than anything, Murdoch wants the experience of being born and living among humans. The horse, too, wishes for a kind master and a family. Tomorrow sees that it’s time to grant both of their wishes, giving the horse and Murdoch (as a baby) to a kind farmer with a wife and other children.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Four Dolls

FourDolls

Four Dolls by Rumer Godden, 1983.

This is a collection of four stories about different, special dolls.  Each of the stories is from the perspective of the dolls themselves, talking about their owners and their adventures.  A common thread through all four stories is the bond between the dolls and their owners and how they make a difference in each other’s lives.

Even though the collection of stories is from 1983, each of the individual stories in the book was written separately, in different years.  You can find each of these stories as their own individual books as well as part of other collections.  I give the original years of each story next to their titles.

The pictures in the book are wonderful, some of them in black and white and some in full color.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

The four dolls and stories are:

Impunity Jane (1955)

FourDollsJane

The word “impunity” basically means freedom from harm, and it’s an apt nickname for the doll Jane.  She’s a very sturdy little doll, the kind that can stand up to the rough play of children and last for a long time.  From the time when she is first bought, she stays with her original owner’s family, passed down through the generations and enjoyed by various girls in the family.  However, they mostly keep her in the family doll house and play with her in different ways.  One girl likes to sew clothes for her and another, who wants to be a teacher, gives her lessons.

There is just one problem: Jane is frequently bored.  More than anything, she wants to be a pocket doll, carried around in her owner’s pocket, seeing the world and experiencing everything.  She doesn’t get much excitement in the doll house where the girls keep her, and her latest owner doesn’t seem interested in playing with her at all.  But, unexpectedly, a boy in the family comes to her rescue, the younger cousin of her current owner.  Although most boys aren’t interested in playing with dolls, Gideon likes to use Jane as his “model”, taking her outside, carrying her around in his pocket, and giving her rides in his toys, giving Jane the adventurous life she’s always dreamed of!

At first, Gideon borrows the doll without his cousin’s permission, and Jane dreads the day that he will give her back, even though she hates to see Gideon feel guilty.  Fortunately, when Gideon does take her back, it turns out that his older cousin is getting rid of a lot of her old toys because she’ll soon be heading off to boarding school. She tells Gideon that he can have anything he wants, so he keeps Jane, who continues being Gideon’s model and good luck charm.

The Fairy Doll (1956)

FourDollsFairy

Elizabeth is the youngest of her siblings and feels like she can’t do anything right.  She’s always making mistakes and can’t even ride a bicycle.  Everyone is used to telling her what to do, and she receives a lot of criticism from teachers and parents and teasing from other children, giving her poor self-confidence.  She is clumsy and break things, she forgets things, and she is frequently punished for every little thing she does.  The more they all scold her, the more mistakes she makes, and they can’t seem to figure out why.

(It’s painfully obvious while reading it – Elizabeth’s family makes her live in a constant state of nervousness, and she’s afraid of really trying many things because they keep telling her that she can’t do anything.  Her siblings seem more outright abusive rather than simply teasing, and her parents seem clueless, not punishing the older siblings for their terrible, bullying behavior.  I think that the family is meant to seem merely impatient with Elizabeth because they forgot how much younger she is than the other children and perhaps thoughtless to the effect that they’re having on her, but it seriously looks like they’re actually gaslighting the poor kid, purposely and systematically undermining her self-confidence for their own sick amusement, even the girl’s father.  Seriously, I hated all of them (except Elizabeth, whose only real problem is being a little kid) before I was very far into the story.)

However, the Fairy Doll that has been passed down in their family seems to have a kind of magic effect on Elizabeth.  No one knows quite where the doll came from because it’s been around for so long, although they use her as a Christmas decoration every year, at the top of the tree.  Only Elizabeth’s mother and great-grandmother seem concerned about Elizabeth at all, and it is at the great-grandmother’s insistence that Elizabeth be given the Fairy Doll to play with all year, after Elizabeth accidentally breaks a crystal bowl. (Which she only did because her bratty sister Josie shoved her from behind while she was holding it. Why did the parents never notice and properly punish the little brat Josie like they should?  I’m telling you, they’re clueless and useless, and possibly gaslighting her.  It really looks like that.  The father even makes a big deal about what use it is to give Elizabeth Christmas presents like the other children when she doesn’t ride the bike he gave her. Look, she’s just a little kid, and it takes some kids longer to learn to balance than others.  What a weird, oddly vindictive father.)

The Fairy Doll seems to suggest things to Elizabeth.  When Elizabeth doesn’t quite know how to do something, the Fairy Doll gives her hints.  When Elizabeth is in danger of forgetting something, the Fairy Doll reminds her.  In other words, the Fairy Doll does what a family is supposed to do and what her family could do if they weren’t so busy bullying her. The Fairy Doll offers Elizabeth help, support, and guidance.  Elizabeth is only seven years old at the oldest in the story, and Elizabeth’s family is too busy yelling at her for doing little things wrong or not knowing things to properly teach her anything.  They say that they tried to teach her to ride a bike, but I wonder how much “teaching” actually happened and how much it was really just yelling and mocking her for not already being able to do it.  I think they also get kind of a kick out of seeing Elizabeth look bad because they think it makes themselves look better. 

(The father in the story seriously disturbed me.  What kind of father is that hateful just because a very young child has some trouble riding a bike? Also, what’s the hurry in her riding it right away? Bikes don’t come with an expiration date, so it’s still going to be there when she grows a little more and learns to balance better.  Taking a little while to learn to ride a bike is hardly a sin, but Elizabeth’s father makes it clear that he does not care about Elizabeth’s feelings at all.  She has to buy his affection by . . . learning to ride a bike?  Because only bike riders are truly worthy of love?  Elizabeth’s family is really useless and weirdly vindictive.  I still hate them.  They are that horrible, just hearing about them.)

Little by little, Elizabeth’s small successes add up, and Elizabeth slowly crawls out of her shell, becoming more confident while her nasty, bratty, horrible siblings (yeah, I’m still angry, and I wonder if the father’s favorite little darling is the little psycho Josie) marvel at how she changes.

Little by little, Elizabeth comes to realize that she can do more than she thinks she can.

The Story of Holly and Ivy (1959)

FourDollsHollyIvy

Holly the doll doesn’t like being in the toy shop.  Abracadabra the owl frightens her, and she wishes that someone would buy her and give her to some girl as a Christmas present.

Meanwhile, Ivy is a troubled orphan who dreams of a new home with a grandmother who could take care of her.  When other children from the orphanage are taken to spend Christmas with families and Ivy is left behind, she tries to take matters into her own hands and find a family for herself.  Is there someone who could make wishes come true for both Holly and Ivy?

I worried about Ivy during this story, even though I knew that she and Holly would eventually end up together and okay.  She is lucky that she didn’t freeze to death.  Abracadabra the owl is also kind of a disturbing character, but they also get rid of him by the end of the story.  Apparently, the assistant in the toy stop doesn’t like him, either.

Candy Floss (1960)

FourDollsCandyFloss

Candy Floss the doll belongs to Jack, who runs a carnival game, a “coconut shy,” where people try to throw balls at coconuts to knock them down and win a prize.  She enjoys living with Jack and his dog.  Jack has a special music box with a little horse on top, and Candy Floss sits on the horse while the music box plays and Jack’s dog begs nearby.  In this way, Candy Floss and the dog earn a little extra money.  When Jack is done working, he takes his dog, Cocoa, and Candy Floss the doll with him to see the rest of the carnival, and both of them enjoy it.

One day, a spoiled girl named Clementina attends their carnival.  Although Clementina is from a wealthy family, and her parents give her all sorts of things, she finds that she is frequently bored and unhappy.  When Clementina sees Candy Floss, she wants her, too, and is angry when Jack says that she can’t have her.  It’s the first time in her life that anyone has said “no” to Clementina about anything.  Clementina steals Candy Floss just to prove the point that when she wants something, she gets it.

However, Candy Floss wants to return to Jack.  She refuses to accept Clementina as her new “owner,” resists Clementina’s efforts to play with her (much to Clementina’s surprise), and finds a way to teach Clementina a lesson about greed.

In the end, Clementina not only returns Candy Floss but helps Jack to run his carnival game for awhile.  Part of Clementina’s unhappiness is caused by the fact that, even though she has many toys to play with, she doesn’t have much to do that is really meaningful to her.  She is surprised when she discovers how good it can feel to really earn something, like the coins that Jack gives her for helping him.

One of the cute things about this story is that it includes the music and words for the tune in the music box.

The book, which contains all four of these stories, is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret

MeMargaretAre You There, God?  It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume, 1970.

This is one of the more controversial children’s books because parents raised concerns about the discussions of religion and puberty which are central to the story, and it has been banned or challenged in some libraries.  (Read to the end and see the spoilers before you decide if you agree with that.)

I wouldn’t recommend this book for young children because they wouldn’t understand the issues the story discusses, but it does speak to the concerns that pre-teen girls typically have about growing up, finding their place in the wider world, and fitting in with their friends as well as that haunting fear kids often have that they aren’t normal, compared to everyone else.  This isn’t a spoiler for the story (although there are plenty of those later on because I can’t really describe my thoughts about this book without them), but I just have to say that, in my experience, by the time people are done with college, maybe even by the time they’re done with high school, most of them come to realize that nobody out there is completely “normal.”  Some are just better at giving that impression.  Everyone out there has their quirks or issues, so if you think you’re a little odd in one way or another, or if you think your family is a little weird, you’re in pretty decent company.  Generally, it’s best not to worry too much about it and just get on with life.  In a way, I think that does fit in with the ending of the book.  But, I’ll talk a little more about my personal opinions about the controversial parts later.

When Margaret Simon is eleven years old, her parents decide to move from New York City to a suburb in New Jersey.  Margaret is accustomed to living in an apartment in a big city, and her new town and house seem a little odd to her.  She isn’t sure that she’s going to like her new home, and she knows that part of the reason why her mother wanted them to move was that she was worried that Margaret was becoming too close to her grandmother in New York and too easily influenced by her.

Margaret’s family is a little unusual in that her mother is Christian but her father is Jewish. (This is a little more unusual for when the book was first written than now because marriages of mixed religions are more common now than they were before, although they can still be complicated.)  The religious differences between her parents caused conflicts in their family even before Margaret was born.  Neither side of the family really approved of the match, so Margaret’s parents had to elope to get married.  Margaret’s mother’s parents disowned their daughter because of her marriage and haven’t seen or spoken to the couple in years or met their granddaughter.  However, Margaret’s father’s mother (his father is deceased) continues to spend time with the family, although she admits that it’s mostly for Margaret’s sake.  Margaret’s only close grandparent likes to spoil her and pays for her education at a private Jewish school, which is why her mother has become concerned that Margaret is influenced by her too much.  Margaret’s mother wants some separation so that she and Margaret can become closer as mother and daughter. The move and Margaret’s new friendships in New Jersey raise a number of troubling questions for Margaret about growing up, both physically and spiritually.

Because of the family religious conflicts, Margaret’s parents purposely raised her without a religion, telling her that she could choose for herself when she was old enough.  Until now, Margaret was not terribly concerned about it, but the move, the new friends she makes in New Jersey, and her increasing awareness of how religious differences have influenced her relationships with her family and other people cause her to question the choices she must make and what she really believes.  Throughout the book, she prays frequently in a casual, conversational fashion, telling God about the things that are happening in her life, the questions and problems she has, and what she really wants most.  Sometimes, she gets angry with God or disappointed when things don’t work out well, but the story makes it clear that her relationship with God is evolving, just as Margaret herself is changing as she grows up.  At one point, Margaret worries that, at age twelve, she is too old already to choose a religion and wishes that her parents had just given her one when she was little so she wouldn’t have this uncertainty.  However, growing up is a long process that Margaret is only beginning to appreciate.

The first new friend Margaret makes is a girl her age who lives next door, Nancy.  Nancy is eager to grow up and not at all shy about talking about things like boys, periods, bras, kissing, and even sex.  Sometimes, Nancy talks like she knows a lot about such things, although more mature people (and, eventually, Margaret) would realize that she doesn’t.  She introduces Margaret to two other girls, Gretchen and Janie, and the four of them form a kind of club that they call the Pre-Teen Sensations (PTS for short).  They give themselves secret names and hold meetings, talking about boys, people they know at school, and concerns that they have in their lives, especially related to growing up, periods, and sex (no one has any in the story, but the girls are fascinated by the idea).  One of the requirements of this club is that each of the girls has to wear a bra, and they feel each other’s backs at the beginning of each meeting to make sure.  Up until then, Margaret didn’t have a bra, so she has to buy her first one.  The girls worry about their breast size (none of them has much yet), and they try exercises to see if they can improve it (which is ridiculous, but it is the kind of thing that some pre-teen girls believe).  At the beginning, none of the girls has had their first period yet, and they’re looking forward to it with nervousness and anticipation, wondering what it’s going to be like.  They agree that whoever gets their period first has to tell the others about what it’s like.  Margaret nervously worries that she’ll be the last one to get hers or that she’ll turn out to be “weird” and never have one for some reason, although her mother assures her that it’s not likely and that it’s really just a matter of time.

Meanwhile, Margaret has some awkwardness at her new school, getting to know new people, sometimes making mistakes in the ways she relates to others, and figuring out which boys she likes the best. (She doesn’t get a boyfriend, just crushes.)  Her new teacher is also a little awkward because he’s young and this is his first teaching assignment, and he seems self-conscious that male teachers aren’t as common as female teachers.  Even adults can worry about being accepted by others.  He seems to be a good teacher, however, and he asks the students questions about themselves in an effort to get to know them better.  He learns early on that Margaret doesn’t have a religion and that it bothers her.  When he tells the students to choose a topic for a year-long research project into something that they care about, he allows Margaret to choose the topic of religion.

Margaret decides that her project for the year will be to learn about different religions and to finally choose one for herself.  Her focus is mainly on trying to decide between Judaism and Christianity because that’s what the two sides of her families are, that’s what most of the people her community are, and she says at one point that she doesn’t know anyone who is Muslim or Buddhist, so she can’t talk to them about their religions.   People in this community tend to belong either to the local YMCA or the Jewish community center, and Margaret thinks that if she figures out if she should be Christian or Jewish, she’ll be able to join one of those herself and fit in better.  Her friends help her in her project, some of them letting her come to church with them.  Each of the PTS girls is a different religion.  Janie is Jewish, and Nancy and Gretchen each attend a different Christian church.

Margaret’s friends aren’t particularly concerned about which choice Margaret will eventually make.  They find the story of her parents’ elopement romantic and are sympathetic to Margaret’s feelings.  However, Margaret notices that other people react differently to her project.  It seems like some of them view the idea of winning her to their side as some kind of personal victory for them, which hurts because she realizes that this is how her grandparents view her, even her beloved grandmother.  When her mother’s parents decide to visit them for the first time, there is an ugly scene where the family conflicts over religion come to a head, and Margaret feels so overwhelmed that she wants to give up on God and religion completely.  However, Margaret’s story isn’t over yet.  She’s really just started growing up, and whether she believes it or not at first, God hasn’t given up on her.  Getting what she wants most is really just a matter of time and patience.  Everyone grows up eventually.

So, what’s my overall opinion?  Generally favorable.  I read this book when I was about Margaret’s age and had the same concerns she did (or very similar, no two people are alike) and my friends and I were talking about the same kinds of things she and her friends were.  I think the key to this book is age-appropriateness.  Like I said, girls younger than about ten or eleven years old probably would not understand Margaret and her concerns because they just don’t share them.  It’s like Margaret and her friends themselves: they talk about the concerns that they all share, growing up and their new interests in boys and the idea of first periods.  If the reader isn’t a girl at that phase of her life, she just wouldn’t understand and connect with the story, and a few years later, those girls would likely move beyond all of that and on to other concerns (like whether or not they should go to college, what their major or career should be, etc. – life is full of things to figure out).  The things that seem so new and mysterious at age eleven, like real signs of growing up, later won’t matter so much because they’ve already lived it and found out that it’s not such a big deal.  Girls eager to get their first period or start shaving their legs at age twelve because they want to feel grown-up often start thinking of these things as hassles when they’re older and it’s all just become part of the routine of life.  They groan when a period starts on the day they want to go swimming or wear long pants on days when they’re too busy or just don’t want to bother shaving.  The novelty wears off, and you never look at it the same way again.  When older girls and women enjoy this book, it’s mainly as nostalgia for when they were Margaret’s age and still figuring things out.

The reason why this controversial story still remains popular even decades after its original publication is because it pretty accurately captures the thoughts and feelings of that pre-teen phase of life, when girls are just starting to grasp the complexities of life and the changes that lie ahead, alternately worrying about them and eager to get on with it and grow up.  It speaks to girls who are currently in that phase.  Reading it again as an adult, it reminds me of a time when I was in a similar place in life, although part of me now wishes that I could take young Margaret aside and tell her a few things that she eventually will come to realize:

  • That her friends are still finding their own way in life, just like she is, and even the ones who act like they know a whole lot really don’t (especially Nancy).
  • That growing up doesn’t end when you get your first period or even when you hit 18 or 21 because change is a life-long process and people mature at different rates, mentally as well as physically.
  • That many of the questions she’s struggling with are ones that everyone wonders about.  Some of them, like the religious issues and her own identity, are life-long struggles, even for people raised in more religiously-conventional households.  What human being can say that they thoroughly understand God and the mysterious ways in which He works?  It’s a worthwhile struggle, but not one that people resolve with complete certainty, certainly not by age twelve (Margaret’s age at the end of the book).  Margaret is far from being too old to consider these issues.  Philosophers and theologians have spent entire lifetimes on that subject.

But, even if I could say some of those things to young Margaret, they probably wouldn’t help completely because some things just have to be lived to be understood, which is the main reason why I would say banning the book is a mistake.  The issues Margaret deals with in the book are just common issues that come up in daily living, and the questions she asks about what she believes and what’s ahead for her are things that girls think about anyway and talk about with their friends, whether they read about them or not.  There’s no point in trying to get kids to stop thinking about these things because, at some point, they just have to because it’s a part of life, growing up, and the world around them.   Until they do consider some of these issues, it is difficult to move on to other, even more complex aspects of life, so I think it’s better to face them directly when the subjects come up instead of trying to dodge the subjects or put off thinking about them.

I think that Margaret’s elders were somewhat unhelpful in their approaches to Margaret’s religious life.  Her maternal grandparents are clearly selfish in their motives, caring only about winning the argument for their side, not really taking any interest in getting to know Margaret personally or caring about her feelings.  In fact, they only decide that they want to meet Margaret when they realize that she will be their only grandchild by blood, and even then, they make it clear that they expect the relationship to be on their terms alone.  Margaret’s paternal grandmother is better in her approach, nurturing Margaret from an early age in the hopes that she will grow up in the way she thinks best, but she endangers her relationship with her granddaughter when it seems like her previous nurturing and attention had the same selfish motive, wanting to win the argument in the same way that her other grandparents did.  Margaret wants them to like her for the person she is, not for what she might become or the ego boost they might get from her agreeing with their point of view.  Margaret’s parents are more interested in allowing her to develop her religious side on her own terms, loving her no matter what she chooses. However, Margaret might be correct in that they should have started discussing the issue honestly with her earlier in life, being a little too hands-off in order to avoid trying to win the argument or influence her too much one way or the other.

Even if the adults in Margaret’s life aren’t always the most helpful, children also learn the things that they don’t want to do from their elders.  Margaret at age twelve thinks that she’d like to raise any children she might have with a religion early in life so they won’t have to deal with the uncertainty and conflicts that she has, but she still has a lot of growing up to do, so anything can happen in her future.  Margaret’s future children (if any) will depend in equal measure on who Margaret’s eventual husband turns out to be and what he believes.  Life is a long journey, but Margaret seems headed for good things.

Many of Margaret’s growing-up issues will, like her first period, resolve themselves in time, and when she’s more experienced, part of her will look back and wonder why it all seemed so big and serious back then.  But, that’s just the phase of life she has to live through first.  Her religious issues will probably take a lot longer than physically growing up, but I think it’s important for readers to remember (as well as Margaret herself or anyone in a similar position) that Margaret is still young.  At the end of the story, Margaret still doesn’t know what religion she will choose (if any), but she’s still growing and changing, her life is changing, she’s becoming more aware of the larger world, and her mind may change many times with maturity and experience (like how many of us change majors about two or three times in college and then eventually end up in a completely different career).  Anything could happen in her life, and the range of possibilities in her life are part of the real magic of being young.  Because Margaret is a thoughtful person who seriously wants to understand the bigger issues in life, I think that she will probably be okay in the long run and that her personal relationship with God will continue to develop even if she finds it difficult to connect to an established religion.  That might not seem ideal to many people, but Margaret does the best she can with what she has in life, her circumstances and her understanding, and I think that’s a good sign.

Later editions of this book were revised to reflect new details of modern life, including how women and girls handle periods.  I’ve never actually seen the old belt-style of period pads that Margaret describes in the original version of the book, and later versions of the book describe the ones that are common today.  There is a movie version planned.

Posted on by TracyC

Under Copp’s Hill

UnderCoppsHill

Under Copp’s Hill by Katherine Ayres, 2000.

This book is part of the American Girl History Mysteries series.

The year is 1908, and eleven-year-old Innocenza Moretti lives with her relatives in Boston.  They are immigrants from Italy.  Innie, as her family calls her, is an orphan.  According to the story that her grandmother told her, she was the only one of her parents’ children to survive infancy, her siblings being born prematurely and dying shortly after birth.  Innie’s mother was so grateful that Innie survived that she promised her to the Holy Mother at her baptism.  Then, Innie’s parents died in a fire in their tenement building when she was about two years old.  Innie and her grandmother, Nonna, survived the fire only because little Innie had started crying in the night, and she took her outside to walk her around so that she wouldn’t wake her parents.  Because of that experience, Nonna is deathly afraid of fire and also has become convinced that the Holy Mother must have spared Innie (as well as herself).  She thinks that Innie is destined to become a nun and has continued to promise her to the Holy Mother in prayer, repeating the promise regularly.  Although Nonna thinks that the miracles surrounding Innie’s life are signs of a future life in the Church for Innie, her grandmother’s promises in prayer terrify Innie.

Innie feels trapped by her grandmother’s expectations for her, expectations that the rest of her family don’t even know about.  She doesn’t want to be a nun, but her grandmother is sure that she will be.  Because of her fears that her grandmother may force her to become a nun when she grows up, Innie is never on her best behavior.  She thinks that if she gets a reputation as a trouble-maker, the Church will decide that she is unsuited for a religious life.  Unfortunately, Innie’s long-practiced habit of ignoring rules and her problem child reputation lead her to be suspected of something worse than just minor misbehaving.

Innie’s family owns a boardinghouse where they provide food and lodging for young immigrant men.  Innie and Nonna live on the ground floor, and Innie’s aunt, uncle, and cousins live above them.  Innie spends a lot of time with her cousins, especially Teresa, who is about her age.  Her older cousin, Carmela, persuades both Teresa and Innie to join a library club at a new settlement house with her.  The settlement house helps girls and young women from immigrant families by teaching them work skills and aspects of American culture that they can use as they become American citizens in exchange for some of the work that the girls do on behalf of the settlement house.  Carmela has taken a new job as a pottery painter there and tells her parents that it will be good for Teresa and Innie to go there as well because they will receive help with their schoolwork and they will also have classes to teach them skills like sewing, knitting, and pottery, that they can use to make money later.  However, the real attraction of the club for the girls is that they get to listen to music, have dancing lessons, read books, and socialize with other girls about their age.  The prospect of sewing classes isn’t appealing for Innie, but she loves books and looks forward to borrowing some from the settlement house library.

At the settlement house, Innie meets a variety of girls from other immigrant families, not just Italian ones.  In particular, Innie makes friends with a girl named Matela, who is a Jewish girl from Russia.  As the girls talk about a recent, large fire in town, Matela talks about the czar’s soldiers burning things back in Russia and how she misses her grandfather, who is still there.  Innie understands Matela’s feelings because she knows what it’s like to miss someone.  She doesn’t really remember her parents, but she feels the lack of them in her life.  Teresa also becomes friends with Matela, but the three girls agree to keep their friendship secret because each of their families prefers them to associate with girls from backgrounds similar to their own.  Innie’s uncle wants the girls to spend time with other Italians, and Matela admits that her father prefers her to spend time with other Jewish girls.  The adults don’t really understand the cultural mix at the settlement house.

However, from the very first day that the girls begin going to events at the house, strange things start happening.  Things disappear or are oddly moved about.  Food disappears.  A silver teapot belonging to the ladies who run the settlement house is stolen.  Then, someone steals some pottery and a shawl.

To Innie’s horror, she ends up becoming the prime suspect for the thefts because she was caught snooping in an area of the house where she didn’t belong and because she accidentally broke one of the pieces of pottery that the others girls made and tried to sweep it up without telling anyone.  When she and her friends snoop around and try to find the missing objects, Innie discovers one of the missing pottery pieces.  However, instead of being happy for the clue, the ladies who run the house just think that Innie must have broken more of the pottery and tried to cover it up, like she did before, by hiding the rest of the set.  After all, if she was doing some things she shouldn’t have been doing, it’s plausible that she could be a thief, too.

If Innie is going to remain a member of the library club (and continue to have access to books that she can read), she’s going to have to prove her innocence.  In fact, proving her innocence may also be important for Carmela, who is supposed to have a citizenship hearing soon.  If Innie’s bad reputation causes problems for her at work, she may lose her job and be denied American citizenship!

Matela thinks that the thief could be a ghost from the nearby Copp’s Hill graveyard, but Innie is sure that it must be a human being.  There are secrets at the settlement house that even the ladies who run it are unaware of and someone who desperately needs help and can’t ask for it.

Teresa and Matela continue to help Innie, and in the process, Innie confesses to Matela her fears about becoming a nun.  It is Matela who helps Innie to find the solution to her problem, urging her to step outside of the small community of Italian immigrants that her family clings to and to seek advice from a priest in the Irish area of the city.  As a priest, he has the knowledge that Innie needs to understand her faith, and because he doesn’t know Innie’s family personally, he has the objectivity to help Innie to see her grandmother’s promise in a new light and to understand that her future destiny is still in her own hands.  No one can speak for another person or make important promises on their behalf.  A religious vocation is a serious decision that only a mature adult can make for herself, or not make, as the case may be.  The priest tells her that, as young as she is, Innie should focus on learning to be a good person, and then she will see what direction life leads her.  With that knowledge, of course, Innie realizes that she will have to put more effort into behaving herself, but it’s a relief to her to realize that she doesn’t need to purposely misbehave in order to control her life.

Eventually, Innie’s aunt also learns about the grandmother’s promise and Innie’s worries and reassures her that, although her grandmother can be an intimidating woman with what she wants, Innie’s family loves her and that she shouldn’t be afraid to come to them with her questions and concerns. Innie has thought of herself as parentless, at the mercy of her grandmother’s wishes and expectations, but her aunt says that she loves Innie like she does her own daughters and that Innie is as much a part of their family as they are.  If Innie has problems, her aunt will be there for her, helping her find whatever answers she needs.

There is also a subplot about how girls in immigrant families (at least, in ones like Innie’s family) aren’t as highly-regarded as boys.  When the family is discussing important matters, Innie often tries to comment on what she thinks, but her grandmother keeps telling her to be quiet because it isn’t a girl’s place to comment on business that men should handle and her male cousins sneer at her because they don’t think she knows anything.  However, when Innie’s uncle is worried about the legal papers he has to sign in order to open his new grocery business because his English still isn’t good enough to understand them, Innie points out that Carmela’s English is the best of the family because of all the books she had to read and the paperwork she had to complete when she was applying for citizenship and that she would be the best person to study the paperwork.  At first, her grandmother makes her try to be quiet and her male cousins laugh, but Carmela speaks up and says that she can help her father, if he wants her to, and her father agrees, on the condition that she act as translator and adviser and let him make the final decisions about the business.  Carmela is happy because the arrangement allows her to use her skills without taking her away from the pottery painting that she loves.  The point of this part of the story is about acknowledging the talents that people possess and not disregarding them because they are outside of the usual roles and expectations.  It fits in with the subplot about the grandmother’s expectations for Innie’s future, which are not really in keeping with either her talents or character.  The young people in the story are growing up under different circumstances than their parents, and they will have to learn to find their own way in life, using the abilities they have and the education they can find.

In the back of the book, there is a section with historical information about Boston in 1908.  The fire that happens around the time that the story takes place was a real event.  The settlement house with its library club was also real, and the ladies who run the settlement house, Miss Brown and Miss Guerrier, were also real people.  The book explains more about what life was like for immigrant families like Innie’s and about what the future held for girls like her.  Many of the girls who attended the library clubs later became librarians and teachers themselves, which may be Innie’s eventual destiny when she grows up.  The book also mentions that the area of Boston where Innie’s family lived still has many Italian restaurants and groceries that were started by immigrant families like Innie’s, so we can imagine that the grocery store that Innie’s uncle wants to open will be successful.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Daily Life in a Victorian House

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Daily Life in a Victorian House by Laura Wilson, 1993.

The book begins by giving some background on the Victorian era, which lasted from 1838, when Victoria became Queen of England, to Queen Victoria’s death in 1901. It was a time of expansion and colonization for the British Empire. Society was becoming increasingly industrialized and urban, although there was still great inequality about who had voting rights, and there were great gaps between rich and poor people.

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To explain what a typical day might be like for people living in the Victorian era, the book introduces a fictional upper middle class family, the Smiths. It explains some of the background of the Smith family and the members of the Smith household. Mr. George Smith, the head of the household, is a lawyer. His wife, Florence, does not need to work, so she spends her time overseeing the household servants, managing the household accounts (how much money is needed for household expenses such as food, clothes, and supplies), visiting friends, and shopping. Mr. Smith’s income is good enough to afford for the family to have a cook, two maids, and a nurse to look after the youngest children in the family.

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The Smiths have three living children. One of their daughters died in infancy, which was sadly common for that era. The eldest boy in the family, Albert, spends most of his time away at boarding school. The two youngest children, Alice and John, are cared for by their nurse. When John is old enough, he will go away to boarding school, like Albert, but Alice will probably be tutored at home. Their parents spend surprisingly little time with them, even in the general course of a day.

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There is a map of the Smiths’ house, and then the book begins explaining what each of the members of the house do at different times of the day. Each day, the servants are the first to get up because they need to light the fires to heat the house and start cleaning and making breakfast, which would be a large meal.

Something that I thought was interesting was that the cook typically purchased food from tradesmen who sold their goods door-to-door. This was also important to the maids, who are in their teens, because they worked such long hours that they really wouldn’t have had time to get away and met young men in any other way. Their suitors would likely be the young tradesmen. Of course, the young tradesmen would have met many young female servants at all of the households they visited during their daily rounds.

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The maids would have spent their days cleaning, tasks that would have been more time-consuming without more modern inventions. Vacuum cleaners were invented toward the end of the era, in 1899. Cooking was also a time-consuming job, although the book does explain some innovations for the Victorian kitchen. Because Mrs. Smith had servants to do all of her cooking and cleaning for her, she never even went into her own kitchen at all. It was considered improper for a lady with servants to handle menial tasks herself, and the servants wouldn’t have welcomed her interference in their work.

I liked the sections of the book that explained about the lives of children in the Victorian era the best, although I was surprised at how little time children from well-off families would have spent with their parents. Generally, young children would see their parents in the morning for prayers and spend about an hour with their mother in the late afternoon. Other than that, they would spend most of their time in the nursery with their nurse, who would take care of them and didn’t welcome much parental interference any more than the cook would welcome the lady of the house supervising her work.

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I also liked the sections about toys and games and entertainment as well as the description of what young Albert’s life would have been like at boarding school. The book also explains what life and childhood were like for less fortunate people during the Victorian era.

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Overall, I really liked this book. It’s a good introduction to Victorian history and life, and it does one of the things that I really wish adult books would do more often: have pictures. Pictures really are worth a thousand words, and actually showing the objects that people of this time would have used in their daily lives is far more effective than pages of lengthy descriptions of them in words only.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

A Hugga Bunch Hello

HuggaBunchHello

A Hugga Bunch Hello by Phyllis Fair Cowell, illustrated by Ron C Lipking, 1985.

Bridget likes having her grandmother living with her and the rest of her family. Her grandmother always has time for her and is willing to give her a hug. Her parents are often too busy, her brother thinks hugs are just for girls, and her Aunt Ruth is too fussy.

Then, Aunt Ruth tries to persuade everyone that Bridget’s grandmother should go live in a nursing home. Bridget doesn’t want her grandmother to leave, but she doesn’t know what to do about it.

While she worries, a strange little person steps out of her bedroom mirror. This little person is Huggins, one of the Hugga Bunch. She says that she knows about Bridget’s problem and thinks that she can help. She invites Bridget to come with her to Huggaland.

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In Huggaland, the Hugga Bunch take Bridget to see the Book Worm, who may have the solution that Bridget seeks. Both the Hugga Bunch and the Book Worm say that aging can be slowed by affection and “the knowledge that they are needed,” but Bridget thinks that the only solution is to find a way to actually make her grandmother young again.

The Book Worm says that if that’s what Bridget wants, then her grandmother must eat fruit from the Youngberry Tree. Unfortunately, the tree is in the territory of the Mad Queen of Quartz. Although the Hugga Bunch are afraid of her, Bridget is willing to face her for her grandmother’s sake.

Getting there involves going through a few obstacles, including walking sideways on a sideways sidewalk and facing a frightening beast who turns out to be a baby elephant who was under a spell. When they reach the tree, the mad queen takes them prisoner and turns Bridget into a statue. Fortunately, the others manage to break free and save her.

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Bridget is happy at being able to bring the Youngberries to her grandmother, but as she passes through the mirror into her room, she accidentally drops them, and they disappear.

Not knowing what else to do, Bridget runs to give her grandmother a hug before she leaves, encouraging her brother to do the same. Bridget’s father wasn’t happy about her grandmother leaving, either, and seeing how much the children will miss her, he declares that she should stay.

This book was made into a made-for-tv movie.  It is currently available on YouTube.  It follows the plot of the book pretty closely.