Posted on by TracyC

In the Kaiser’s Clutch

KaisersClutchIn the Kaiser’s Clutch by Kathleen Karr, 1995.

After their father’s death during World War I  (then called The Great War), the Dalton twins’ mother started supporting their family by writing.  It’s the summer of 1918, and Dorothy Dalton is now writing the scripts for a silent movie serial starring the fifteen-year-old twins, Nelly and Fitzhugh.  Times have been tough for them without their father’s support, but the serial means steady work and salaries for all three of them for the entire summer, enough to support them and buy school supplies for the fall, and maybe even enough to buy back some of the things that their mother pawned to keep their family going when they had to move out of New York to a less expensive town in New Jersey.

The movie serial, called In the Kaiser’s Clutch, is about a pair of wealthy American twins (played by Nelly and Fitz) who find themselves battling German spies.  The serial is part adventure story, part American war propaganda.  It’s also a subject that hits close to home.  The Dalton twins’ father wasn’t killed while fighting overseas.  He was in charge of the security force for the piers of Black Tom Island, just off the coast of New York, the port where most of the weaponry destined for the war in Europe was being shipped.  However, a massive explosion destroyed the port at Black Tom and killed Mr. Dalton.  Fitz wishes that he were old enough to fight directly in the war, but failing that, he wants to find the people who killed his father because he is sure that his father’s death was due to deliberate sabotage, not an accident.  However, it’s possible that the saboteur himself is looking for the Dalton family.

Strange things start to happen which the twins realize may have some bearing on their father’s death.  Someone has been spying on the family, listening by the window of their apartment.  Then, the director of their movie serial hires a new, part-time actor to play one of the villains, and this man is oddly similar to the fleeing figure of the man who was spying on them.  This new actor is German, and he seems to have some weird grudge against the twins, muttering insults in German and taking advantage of the stunts they have to perform in the movies to hurt and frighten them.  There are plenty of opportunities for the twins to get hurt on the movie set because each episode of the series has to end with a cliff-hanger scene, and there are no stunt doubles.  (Early silent movies in real life typically didn’t have stunt doubles, and the stunts were difficult and dangerous for the actors themselves.  This YouTube video explain how Buster Keaton, a famous silent film actor, performed his own stunts.)  From fist fights to car chases to quicksand to a cave-in to a giant pendulum with a mysteriously sharpened edge to sudden explosions, the Dalton twins are constantly teetering on the edge of disaster, not all of it planned by their writer mother.

Mrs. Dalton admits to the twins that, shortly before their father died, he told her that he was close to uncovering something that would be a much better story than anything she could make up.  Unfortunately, he never told her what it was.  He did tell her that he was making notes about it, but those notes were never found and may have also been destroyed in the explosion.  The only odd thing that Mrs. Dalton found after her husband’s death seemed like an ordinary shopping list: “cigars, eggs, dumplings, coal, pencils.”  However, Mrs. Dalton realized later that it has to mean something else because her husband didn’t smoke.

Could this somehow be the clue to what her husband was investigating before his death?  Are there real spies operating in the area?  Is there some other clue to their identity that they are now searching for, something that the Daltons still have in their possession?  Will the Dalton twins manage to find the spies before the spies eliminate them?  Will the family finish the serial and collect their salaries?  Find out in this exciting installment!  (There’s only one installment here because this is just a single book, not part of a series, but you get the idea.)

My Reaction

World War I books aren’t quite as common in children’s literature as World War II stories, so I found this interesting, and movie serials are also a fascinating thing of the past.  The movies that the kids are acting in are black-and-white silent films, so there are interesting discussions of the techniques they use to make things show up properly on black-and-white film (makeup, dyeing the water black for Nelly’s near-drowning scene, etc.) and conveying emotion when the actors’ voices will not actually be heard.  It’s a fun and fascinating story with spies, government agents, and the kind of movie stunts that I’m sure a lot of kids wish they could do for their summer jobs!

Posted on by TracyC

The General Store

Historic Communities

GeneralStoreThe General Store by Bobbie Kalman, 1997.

Besides providing 19th century communities with needed goods, general stores were often centers for community life.  Everyone would need to come and purchase or barter for supplies they couldn’t make for themselves, and it was also where mail for the area was delivered and sorted.  People gathered there to pick up what they needed and to exchange news and gossip with other members of the community.  The book explains how general stores functioned, what kinds of goods they carried, and how they helped to build growing communities.

Basically, they were like small department stores, carrying a little of everything that people in the area needed, including food items, dishes and silverware, tools, plant seeds, ready-made clothes and shoes, bolts of cloth, books, newspapers, and medicine.  Store owners had to decide what they would carry in their stores and how much of it to stock.  If they stocked too little of an item everyone wanted, they would run out, and if they had too much of an item hardly anyone wanted, they would either have to sell it at a discount or keep it themselves.  If someone wanted something that the storekeeper didn’t have on hand, they would have to ask the storekeeper to order it for them from a catalog or get it themselves by making a trip to a larger town where they could find what they were looking for.

GeneralStoreDrawersStore owners also had to decide how much they should charge for each item or how much they would be willing to take in trade.  Farmers often bartered for goods with the produce from their farms, and it was common for store owners to use a form of credit to keep track of what their customers owed and what they owed to their customers.  Farmers would typically sell their goods at harvest time, and the store owners would give them a certain amount of credit at their store, based on what they thought the farmers’ produce was worth.  Then, the farmers could use the credit on their account at the store until the next harvest and selling time.  If a farmer ran out of credit before the next harvest, the store owner would usually extend credit at the store to the farmer to allow him and his family to buy some necessities, knowing that the farmer could make up for it when he came to sell his next batch of produce.

To keep their customers from disputing the prices they charged at the store, store owners often used a kind of code to keep track of the amounts they spent to buy each item and the price they wanted the customer to pay in order to make a decent profit.  The codes were usually something like a substitution code, using letters to represent numbers so customers would need the store owner to interpret the price tags and manage their credit account.  This code system became less common after the 1870s because more people were simply using cash instead of bartering for goods, but I thought that it was a fascinating piece of history.

GeneralStoreMailAnother odd kind of code that the book mentions was the kind that people would use on mailed letters.  Instead of the sender paying the postage, as they do now, people receiving letters were supposed to pay for them when they picked them up from the general store.  If a receiver returned a letter unopened, they wouldn’t need to pay anything, so some people would try to cheat the system by writing a message in code on the outside of the envelope so the receiver would know the most important part of what the writer wanted to tell them for free.

People who practiced special trades, such as blacksmiths or printers, would often set up shop near the general store, and that would be the basis for the main street of growing towns.  Later, when railroads connected more towns, more people began ordering what they wanted themselves through catalogs (not unlike the way people have begun ordering more goods through the Internet). Mail started being delivered to individuals’ homes, and general stores were replaced by more modern department stores and specialty shops.

I loved the pictures in the book, a combination of photographs from living history museums and drawings.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

GeneralStoreFun

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Colonial Crafts

Historic Communities

ColonialCraftsColonial Crafts by Bobbie Kalman, 1992.

In Colonial America, everything had to be made by hand.  There were people whose entire profession was to make certain types of things, and this book describes common types of craftspeople, how they learned their skills, the goods they made, and how they practiced their trades.

People who worked with their hands learned their trades directly from others in their profession by serving apprenticeships.  Schools as we know them were less common in Colonial times and were mainly for upper class families, especially the sons of wealthy men.  Girls typically learned domestic crafts such as sewing, weaving, and candle-making.  Girls were mainly expected to marry and be housewives, and boys often learned their father’s trade.  How long an apprenticeship would last depended on the trade, but apprentices usually started performing very basic chores for their masters and gradually worked their way up to more difficult tasks as they learned the trade.  At the end of an apprenticeship, the apprentice would produce a work called the “masterpiece” to show off their new skills.  Then, the apprentice would become a journeyman, traveling around and looking for work in their trade until they earned the money they needed to open a shop of their own.

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Some of the trades covered in the book are cabinetmaker, leatherworker (including related trades like shoemaker and harnessmaker), cooper (someone who makes barrels), wheelwright, blacksmith, silversmith, gunsmith, printer, and milliner (someone who could make and alter clothing and sell fashion accessories).  The descriptions for each profession include not only details about the trade and tools of the trade but interesting facts such as the fact that, in Colonial times, shoemakers did not make shoes different shoes for left and right feet.  Both shoes in a pair were shaped exactly the same because it was easier for the shoemaker and because people thought that the tracks of identical shoes looked neat.  Aside from the professional crafts, the book also explains a little about domestic crafts, the kinds of things that people made in their own homes.

The book is full of pictures of historical reenactors demonstrating different crafts and trades.  It is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

The Secret of the Strawbridge Place

SecretStrawbridgePlace

SecretStrawbridgePlacePic1The Secret of the Strawbridge Place by Helen Pierce Jacob, 1976.

This story takes place in Ashtabula, Ohio during the Great Depression. Kate is frightened of the hobos who pass through town looking for work, but at the beginning of summer, her brother Josh dares her to come with him to spy on the hobo camp. The two of them witness a fight between three hobos, and in their haste to get away, Kate falls and breaks her arm. At first, she is sure that her summer is ruined, but when she considers the place where she fell, she realizes that she has stumbled on an important clue to a secret surrounding the old house where they live.

Locals say that during the Civil War, the Strawbridge family, who lived in the house before Kate’s family, were part of the Underground Railroad, hiding runaway slaves. However, no one has ever been able to find the place where the slaves were hidden. When Kate fell, she discovered the opening to a cave near the river that she never knew was there before.

SecretStrawbridgePlacePic2Oscar, a boy visiting his grandfather nearby, becomes Kate’s friend. Since he was also injured in one of Josh’s escapades (having broken his leg when the kids were fooling around in the haymow), she invites him to join her in the search for the secret. They form a partnership called Cripples Incorporated and have fun inventing code words and writing secret messages about what they’ve discovered. Pursuing the secret comes with some risks, and before Kate can discover the whole truth about Strawbridge Place, she has a serious brush with danger.

It’s an interesting mystery that invites readers to try to figure out the clues along with Kate and Oscar as they ponder the sampler with the strange motto left behind by the Strawbridge twins. Oscar also introduces Kate to Sherlock Holmes stories, one of which provides her with the inspiration to solve the mystery. Kate also develops better feelings for the hobos, who, like the runaway slaves, turn out to be mostly ordinary people just looking for a better life.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.  There is also a prequel book that focuses on the original adventures of the Strawbridge family when the house was operating as a stop on the Underground Railroad called The Diary of the Strawbridge Place.

Posted on by TracyC

Egyptian Diary

EgyptianDiary

Egyptian Diary: The Journal of Nakht by Richard Platt, 2005.

A young boy in Ancient Egypt, Nakht, is excited because his family will soon move to Memphis because a distant relative has offered his father a job working as a scribe.  Memphis is a large, important city, with more opportunities than Esna, where the family currently lives.  Nakht is also training to be a scribe, so he begins writing an account of his family’s journey to Memphis and what they encounter when they arrive.

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The journey to Memphis includes a boat trip down the Nile, past the City of the Dead near Thebes, where pharaohs are buried.  When they arrive in Memphis, they make themselves at home in their new house, which is bigger than their old one.  For the first time, Nakht has a private bedroom of his own, and the wall is decorated with a hunting scene.  Nakht also has a bed to sleep in, although he is still more accustomed to sleeping on a mat on the floor, as he did back in Esna.

In Esna, Nakht’s father had taught him his lessons as a scribe, but in Memphis, Nakht begins attending a school with other boys.  There, he practices his writing as always, although he must also learn the older, more formal hieroglyphic form of writing used on the walls of temples and for public inscriptions as well as the less formal writing used more commonly.  Nakht also receives lessons in building and engineering, which includes calculating the weight of the building stones, how many people it would take to move them, and how much food and drink the workers would need during their time of service).  Sometimes, their teacher also takes the students places for lessons, like taking them to the fields near the river so they can see how to build canals and how farmers water their fields.

There are many exciting things going on in Memphis.  Ships come and go from many places.  When the Nile floods, Nakht describes how the Controller of Granaries sets the taxes on grain for the following year by measuring the highest height of the Nile during the flooding time, which is an indicator of how good the next year’s grain harvest will be.  Nakht and his sister Tamyt witness the funeral procession of a scribe, complete with dancers, paid mourners, and a procession of servants carrying all of the furniture and supplies to be loaded into the man’s tomb for him to use in the afterlife.

EgyptDiaryPic2

Then, Nakht learns that his father and other scribes are investigating tomb robberies in Saqqara.  Nakht and Tamyt have never seen the tombs before, but their father refuses to let them come with him.  Instead, the two of them sneak over by themselves to have a look.  While they are there, they witness the robbing of a tomb!  They get a good look at an unusual ring on the finger of one of the robbers and are shocked to later see an identical ring on the finger of a very important person!

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At the end of the story, when Nakht and Tamyt are rewarded for their role in catching the thieves, it is revealed that the current king of Egypt is Hatshepsut, who is actually a woman.

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Among the other things that Nakht explains about his life are how the doctor treated him when he broke his arm, how grain is harvested, how different types of craftsman work, and how houses are built.  Nakht also undergoes a special hair-cutting ceremony as a coming-of-age ritual.

There is a section in the back that explains more about Ancient Egyptian history and society.  It also explains Egyptian writing, religion, mummies, and tombs.

The book is part of a series of historical picture books.  It is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Castle Diary

CastleDiary

Castle Diary: The Journal of Tobias Burgess, Page by Richard Platt, 1999.

Tobias is an eleven-year-old boy living in England in 1285.  He is from a noble family, and his father is sending him to his uncle to become a page.  As a page, Tobias will learn manners and skills that he will need as he eventually becomes a squire and then a knight.  During the first year of his training that he spends with his uncle, he keeps a diary of everything that happens to him and everything he learns.  Toby is a fictional boy, but his life and family are meant to illustrate what life was like for a young boy from his social level during the Middle Ages.

CastleDiaryPic1

The castle were Toby’s uncle lives is much bigger than his parents’ manor house.  Toby has to learn the roles of all the servants who live there: who is in charge of what and who reports to who.  Not all servants are equal, and some command more respect than others.  Some of them are even from noble families like his, including his aunt’s companion, Isbel.  Toby himself is assigned to do chores for his aunt like running errands, delivering messages, serving food at meals, and holding up the hem of her cloak when she walks outside.

Toby shares a room with the other pages at the castle, all boys of noble families and destined to become knights, just like him.  They have lessons in reading, writing, mathematics, Latin, and scripture from the castle’s chaplain, and he is a harsh disciplinarian.  They practice their lessons on wax tables that can be smoothed out and used again.  The boys also learn manners and start learning archery and about all the weapons and armor that knights use.  When they have time to play, they try walking on stilts and play at being jousting knights by carrying each other on their backs and trying to knock each other off.

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During the course of the year, Toby gets to witness a hunt, a joust, and a banquet with important guests.  At one point, he gets sick and receives treatment from a physician.  He also encounters a poacher on his uncle’s land.  This man is eventually caught (although Toby decides not to turn him in) and put on trial, but in the end, he is not punished because the jurors were sympathetic.  The book ends with a Christmas celebration, after which Toby goes home to visit his parents.

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In the back of the book, there is a section with more information about Medieval society, castles, sieges, weapons, armor, and the changes that eventually brought an end to feudal system that Toby knew.

The book is part of a series of historical picture books.  It is currently available online through Internet Archive.

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Posted on by TracyC

A Year Down Yonder

YearDownYonderA Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck, 2000.

This is the sequel to A Long Way from Chicago. The story takes place shortly after the Great Depression, in 1937.

Times are still hard, and a recession has left a lot of people out of work again. Mary Alice’s father is out of work, and her brother Joey is out west working for the Civilian Conservation Corps. Because her family has to move to a smaller apartment, fifteen-year-old Mary Alice leaves Chicago to stay with her Grandma in the country for the year. Times are hard in Grandma’s small town as well, but Mary Alice’s Grandma is as wily and eccentric as ever.

Like the first book, this book is really a series of short stories about Mary Alice’s adventures with her Grandma during their year together. The stories generally have a hilarious turn as Grandma gets the better of everyone, often in the name justice or a good cause.  (Although, Grandma’s sense of justice is debatable since it involves “borrowing” pumpkins from the neighbors in the dead of night and other questionable activities.)

These stories present a detailed picture of rural life during the 1930s, from pranks played on Halloween to how Armistice Day was celebrated in the years following World War I, when people were still alive who had strong memories of that war. The stories also capture some of the personalities and politics of life in a small town, from a disreputable family of outcasts to the local elite, who have more money than the others and brag about having ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War (which may or may not be so).

Rich Chicago Girl: Mary Alice arrives in Grandma’s small town and is enrolled in the local school.  She meets the class bully, and Grandma helps her to deal with her.

Vittles and Vengeance: At Halloween, Grandma gets revenge against a group of pranksters and raids her neighbors for ingredients to make the school Halloween party better.

A Minute in the Morning: Armistice Day, November 11, has more meaning for people who have actual memories of The Great War (World War I).  Grandma makes sure that those who can afford it pay what they owe to the veterans of that war and shows Mary Alice the price that some soldiers paid for supporting their country.

Away in a Manger: Mary Alice is picked to play Mary in the school’s Christmas Nativity play.  The baby Jesus turns out to be a surprise for the whole town, and Grandma arranges a special surprise for Mary Alice.

Hearts and Flour: The head of the local branch of the DAR pushes Grandma to make cherry tarts for their annual tea in honor of George Washington’s birthday.  Since she will neither allow Grandma to join the DAR (because Grandma doesn’t have the proper lineage) nor pay Grandma for her work (she thinks Grandma should ‘volunteer’ her services as part of her patriotic duty), Grandma insists that if she bakes, she must host the tea as well . . . with a couple of special surprise guests.  Meanwhile, a handsome new boy named Royce joins Mary Alice’s class at school.

A Dangerous Man: An artist working for the WPA rents a room from Grandma, treating Mary Alice and Royce to a scandalous but hilarious sight when his subject matter gets out of hand.

Gone with the Wind: A tornado sweeps through the town, and Grandma and Mary Alice go to check on residents who live alone.  Mary Alice also prepares to return home to her parents in Chicago.

Ever After: The final story in the book is about Mary Alice’s wedding, years later, toward the end of World War II.

This book is a Newbery Award winner.  There are multiple copies currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 1 Comment

Mandie and the Forbidden Attic

MandieForbiddenAttic#4 Mandie and the Forbidden Attic by Lois Gladys Leppard, 1985.

Mandie is unhappy because her mother and Uncle John are sending her to a boarding school in Asheville. It is the same school her mother attended years ago, and her grandmother lives in the same town. Mandie is upset about leaving all of her friends and family behind, but Uncle Ned says that he will still visit her.

By the time that Mandie arrives at her new school, everyone else already knows each other, and none of them seem interested in making friends with her. One girl in particular, April Snow, takes a dislike to Mandie, which is difficult because they have been assigned to the same room.

Things change when Celia Hamilton comes to the school. She and Mandie become best friends, and Mandie is allowed to share a room with her. Then, strange things start happening. Mandie and Celia keep hearing strange noises during the night from the attic floor above them, and some of Mandie’s clothes disappear. At first, they suspect that April Snow may be playing a mean trick on them, but it turns out that she is not actually at fault. There is someone at the school who doesn’t belong, but finding this person may get Mandie and Celia into trouble.

This adventure requires Mandie to meet with her grandmother again.  Mandie is nervous about seeing her grandmother because her grandmother helped break up her parents’ marriage and sent her away with her father when she was a baby. Surprisingly, Mandie’s grandmother seems to like her and her friend Celia. She admires their spirit and even says that Mandie reminds her a little of herself when she was young.  This meeting helps the granddaughter and grandmother to make peace with each other and the past.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Mandie and the Ghost Bandits

MandieGhostBandits#3 Mandie and the Ghost Bandits by Lois Gladys Leppard, 1984.

Mandie and her family are going to proceed with the plan to create a hospital for the Cherokees with the gold that they found in the cave. To do that, they need to take the gold to a bank in Asheville.  They decide to take the gold secretly on a train. Uncle Ned stays in the baggage car to watch the gold as they set out on their journey.

When the kids decide to leave their car to go visit him, strange things begin to happen. They see riders dressed as ghosts out the window. Then, the car with Uncle Ned and the gold inside is disconnected from the rest of the train, crashing into a ravine. The train comes to a stop, and the kids jump off to see if they can help Uncle Ned.

Before they can find him, the train starts up again, leaving them behind, and they are taken prisoner by the mysterious ghost bandits. They are after the gold in the baggage car, but how did they know it was there when Mandie’s family tried so hard to keep it a secret? Mandie and her friends must escape and find the others before it is too late!

In some respects, I would call this more of an adventure story than a mystery, although there is still the question of how the bandits knew where the gold was in order to steal it.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Mandie and the Cherokee Legend

MandieCherokeeLegend#2 Mandie and the Cherokee Legend by Lois Gladys Leppard, 1983.

Mandie is going to visit her Cherokee relatives with her mother and Uncle John. Mandie is eager to meet her relatives, and she hopes that they all like her. The Cherokees all knew her father well, and most of them are eager to meet her. All except for her cousin, Tsa’ni, that is.

Tsa’ni knows the stories of how white men have oppressed the Cherokees and forced them to move off of their land years ago, and he resents all white people because of it. The others tell him that he is wrong to hate all white people because of what some of them did in the past and that Mandie and her Uncle John are good people. However, Tsa’ni doesn’t listen to them, and he plays a mean trick on Mandie, Joe, and Uncle Ned’s granddaughter, Sallie. He offers to show them a cave, but then he abandons them inside.

The three kids have to find their own way out, but they discover a fortune in gold nuggets in the process. First, the children have to make it back to Uncle Ned’s house after a frightening night in the woods. Mandie, Joe, and Sallie accidentally stumble onto a still (machinery for making alcohol) that belongs to a white couple while they are wandering around in the woods after leaving the cave. The couple are worried that they will tell people about their illegal still, so they hold the kids prisoner.

Although the kids manage to escape, they must return to the cave to find the treasure again (while dodging Tsa’ni’s tricks to foil their efforts) and keep it safe (from the still operators and anyone else who might want to steal it) until they can decide what to do with it. As far as Uncle Ned and the other Cherokees are concerned, gold is bad luck because it was the discovery of gold which forced the Cherokees out of their old homeland. However, the origin of this gold may help to change their minds.

This book is one of the Mandie Books.  It is currently available online through Internet Archive.