Posted on by TracyC

Silver Days

silverdaysSilver Days by Sonia Levitin, 1989.

This is the second book in the Journey to America Saga.

Escaping from World War II Europe was only the first step for the Platt family. Now that they are reunited in the United States, survival is still a struggle. They have very little money, and Lisa’s father struggles to find work and a permanent place for his family to live. Along the way, they encounter people who are prejudiced against them, some because they are Jewish and some because they are German, and are forced to confront certain prejudices that they hadn’t realized that they held as they settle into their new country and learn to live alongside people from different backgrounds who live very different lives.

Lisa describes her family’s day to day struggles and adventures with understanding. In Germany, her father had his own business, selling coats, but he has to struggle to get into the clothing business in America. Her mother, who had once had her own servants in Germany, is forced to take a job as a maid to help make ends meet. Besides the basic problems of learning a new language, dealing with a lack of money, and trying to find work, she also describes the parts of American culture that take her family by surprise. There are religious issues because most of the people around them are Christian, and Lisa’s mother is upset when her youngest daughter, Annie, ends up getting a role in her school’s Easter play. Her mother also isn’t sure what to make of the Japanese family who lives next door when Annie makes friends with their daughter.

Meanwhile, the war that they had feared is becoming a reality. People in the U.S. are starting to support the war effort, collecting materials that the army can use, starting Victory Gardens to help support themselves during food rationing, joining the army, and volunteering as nurses. The Platts also experience survivor’s guilt as they hear reports of friends and family who weren’t lucky enough to escape the Holocaust.

The Platt family is realistic, and they have their arguments as the stresses of all these changes take their toll on them. But, they are a loving family and continue to support each other through everything. The title of the book comes from a song, “Golden Days”, about looking back on happy times. When Lisa’s little sister Annie asks her if these are their “golden days”, Lisa tells her that she doesn’t think so, but she thinks that they might be silver ones, days leading up to happier times ahead.

In some ways, the children of the family have an easier time dealing with all the changes than their parents. In the beginning, they are aware that they don’t quite fit in, although they desperately want to. However, they do manage to make new friends, and Lisa and her older sister, Ruth, even find their first loves. While the world around them is changing, the three sisters also change, growing up, finding new interests, and learning more about themselves and the kind of lives they want to live in their new home.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 2 Comments

Journey to America

journeytoamericaJourney to America by Sonia Levitin, 1970.

This is the first book in the Journey to America Saga.  Like her heroine, Lisa, Sonia Levitin also fled Germany with her family during World War II, and her stories are semi-autobiographical.

Twelve-year-old Lisa Platt lives with her family in Berlin in 1938.  But, with the rise of the Nazis, events have taken a frightening turn for Jewish families like theirs.  There has already been violence toward Jewish people, and travel is restricted.  Lisa’s father fears for their family, and their mother believes that war is about to break out.  Reluctantly, her parents have decided that the only thing to do is to leave Germany and try to start over somewhere else.

Because of the travel restrictions, Lisa’s father has to leave secretly, pretending that he is only going on vacation.  In reality, he and Lisa’s uncle will go to America and try to get established before sending for the rest of the family.  But, it isn’t safe for Lisa, her mother, and her two sisters to stay in Germany, waiting for word from them.  Instead, they pretend that they are joining Lisa’s father for a holiday in Switzerland.  They can only take a little luggage with them, as if they were really just going on vacation, and very little money.

journeytoamericapicBut, getting on the train out of Germany is only the first step of their long journey.  Lisa and her mother and sisters live as refugees in Switzerland, waiting for her father to help arrange for their passage to America.  Often, they have too little to eat because they don’t have much money.  There are some people who help them, and they make some new friends, but the long wait is difficult.  Meanwhile, they must face the frightening events taking shape around them, around the people they left behind, and their own uncertain future.

There is something in the stories that I’d like to describe a little more because I didn’t quite understand it when I first read this book as a kid, but I can explain it better now.  At one point in the story, Lisa’s grandmother suggests that her mother send the girls to England because other families are doing it and it would ensure that the children get safely out of the country.  Later, in Switzerland, Lisa gets a letter from her friend Rosemarie that says she and her sister are now in England without their parents because their father didn’t didn’t feel like he could leave Germany.  What they’re describing is the Kindertransport, a rescue effort started by Jewish, Quaker, and British government leaders to transport unaccompanied Jewish minors, from babies to age 17, from Germany and German-controlled countries to England for safety after the events of Kristallnacht made it clear that Jews were in serious danger in Germany.  When the children reached England, they were placed in foster homes, schools, and anywhere else willing to take them, similar to the way children evacuated from London to avoid the bombings later would be placed in foster homes or on farms.  Grandmother Platt points out that this could have been an option for her grandchildren when she discusses the possibilities with their mother, but since, neither the mother or father of the family wanted to stay in Germany, the family decided that they should all leave together.  The Kindertransport program ended when war actually broke out, but by then, about 10,000 children had been brought to England.  Although parents who sent their children to England on the Kindertransport hoped to reunite with them in England, most of the Kindertransport children who went to England never saw their parents again because their family members who stayed behind in Germany were killed in the Holocaust.  I had lessons about the Holocaust in school in Arizona, but they never mentioned the Kindertransport because it wasn’t something that really affected the area where we lived.  I did see a Holocaust survivor who came to speak at my high school in the early 2000s.  There were Holocaust survivors living in my area of Arizona then, and there still are as of this writing because I heard that they were among the first to be vaccinated during the coronavirus pandemic in early 2021.  This video from the BBC Newsnight and this video from the University and College Union explain more about it and have interviews with people who were brought to England on the Kindertransport as children.  Rosemarie and her sister would probably be very much like the people in those interviews years later.

Although there are sad parts of the book, there are lighter moments, too, and the characters are realistic and engaging.  There is only one illustration in my copy of the book, a drawing of Lisa and her sisters getting their pictures taken for their passports.  Other editions of the book have different illustrations.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive (multiple copies, in different editions).

Posted on by TracyC

Mystery of the Golden Horn

goldenhornMystery of the Golden Horn by Phyllis A. Whitney, 1962.

Vicki Stewart doesn’t mean to get into trouble. However, with her mother in the hospital with a back injury and Vicki in the care of her unsympathetic aunts, she has allowed her schoolwork to slide to the point where she cannot go on to the next grade. Faced with the prospect of admitting her failure to her friends, Vicki decides that she would rather leave school early and skip summer camp. Instead, she will join her father in Turkey, where he has been teaching at a girls’ college. The prospect of going to a new country and facing her father after her humiliating failure isn’t pleasant, either, but Vicki sees it as her only path to a fresh start. Indeed, her life will never be the same.

Vicki’s father rents his rooms from Mrs. Byrne, an American living in a palace that once belonged to a pasha along with her son, Ken, and her distant cousin and ward, Adria. Adria is about the same age as Vicki, and she has problems of her own. Adria’s parents are dead, and she has not been happy living with the Byrnes. Adria is something of a mystery to Vicki. She’s a dreamy, unpredictable girl who believes in magic spells and fortune-telling. A gypsy friend of Adria’s has told her that her fortune is to be found with a mysterious “golden horn,” and Adria’s single-minded pursuit of it has a tendency to get her into scrapes.

Unfortunately, Adria also tends to drag Vicki into trouble, partly because she is convinced that Vicki’s fortune is intertwined with hers. Vicki resents these complications in her life that add to her “problem child” reputation. However, she sincerely wants to help troubled Adria. Strange things are happening in the house, particularly in the spooky, disused haremlik, but not all of the strange things are Adria’s fault. As Vicki puzzles over these strange things and Adria continues her search for the golden horn, the girls gain new perspectives on their lives and their problems. The solutions aren’t as far-away and mystical as they think, but the girls will have to rely on themselves and each other to see them.

Phyllis Whitney’s books are wonderful for their colorful settings and insights on human nature. Vicki’s disappointment and embarrassment over her failure are true-to-life, and her struggle to change and redeem herself is something that everyone has experienced at some point. It’s a touching and reassuring story about how to deal with failure and life’s problems. The mystery is subtle (up until the end, you’re not quite sure how much of the trouble in the house is Adria’s doing and what her motivations are), and the setting is vivid and engaging. Whitney has also included interesting historical details about Turkey and comparisons between the past and present (by 1960s standards) culture.

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Secret of the Tiger’s Eye

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

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

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

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

My Reaction

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

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

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

Posted on by TracyC · 2 Comments

Mystery on the Isle of Skye

mysteryisleskyeMystery on the Isle of Skye by Phyllis Whitney, 1960.

Cathy MacLeod has lived with her grandmother for years, ever since her parents died when she was very young.  Now, her grandmother is very ill and will probably have to live in a nursing home.  Cathy needs to find a new place to live, and her relatives are debating about who is going to take her.  So far, the only relative who has offered her a home is Aunt Bertha.  Cathy isn’t enthusiastic because Aunt Bertha only has a tiny apartment where she lives alone, and she’s only offering Cathy a home out of duty, not real affection.  Aunt Bertha hasn’t spent much time around children and doesn’t really understand them.

But, there is one other prospect.  Cathy’s other relatives, the Corbins, are taking a trip to the Isle of Skye, where Cathy’s grandmother came from originally, and her grandmother has arranged for Cathy to go with them while Aunt Bertha is on a business trip.  Uncle Jerry (Cathy’s mother’s brother) and Aunt Lila Corbin have two boys of their own, Don (who is about Cathy’s age) and Humphry, who goes by the nickname of Punch.  Cathy is happy about the chance to go with them to visit the island that her grandmother has told her so much about.

At first, Cathy feels a little awkward around the Corbins because she doesn’t really know them, and they don’t know her.  Aunt Lila is warm and welcoming to Cathy, but Uncle Jerry is a tease.  Don is a tease as well and very impatient with the whole idea of the trip.  He doesn’t care about the history or legends of Skye as much as Cathy does.  His only real interest is in photography.  Young Punch is friendlier, sharing the excitement of the trip with Cathy.

Before they left on the trip, Cathy’s grandmother gave her a mysterious box to take with her.  Cathy doesn’t quite understand it at first, but the box contains several smaller packages with instructions to open them at different times during the trip.  Some of the instructions are vague and force her to rely on other people to tell her when to open them and what to do with the contents.  The packages are part present, part “spell.”  Thanks to them, Cathy makes new friends in Skye and goes on an adventure that she will never forget.

My Reaction

There is no real magic in this story, no real magic spells, and there actually isn’t much mystery either, except for the mystery Cathy initially feels about what’s in the packages and what their real purpose is.  Cathy’s grandmother has a love of legend and mystery, and these special gifts are meant to serve special purposes: to acquaint Cathy more with her past on the Isle of Skye and share some special memories, to heal Cathy’s sadness, to help draw her closer to her other relatives, and perhaps, to help her find her way to a brighter future than the one she currently thinks is waiting for her back home.

The packages help Cathy to bond with her aunt, uncle, and cousins.  They’re meant to be a shared activity.  She has to open certain packages with certain relatives, and they have to take her to certain places to do certain things with the contents.  These shared experiences help draw them closer to each other.

Although this story doesn’t follow the traditional mystery format and it can’t even be called fantasy or pseudo-fantasy, it’s enchanting because of the subtle hints of mystery and fantasy surrounding Cathy’s surprise packages.  Readers get to wonder alongside Cathy what’s in them and where they’re going to lead her.  It’s a little slower and more subtle than most modern children’s books, but I find it refreshing and magical for those reasons.

Posted on by TracyC

The Twenty-Four Hour Lipstick Mystery

24hrlipstickmysThe Twenty-Four-Hour Lipstick Mystery by Bonnie Pryor, 1989.

Cassie Adams, who is eleven years old, has never been happy with her looks, and now that her friends are starting to shave their legs and get interested in boys, she feels plainer than ever. One day, she sees an ad for Mrs. DuPrey’s School of Beauty and Charm and thinks that it might help her improve her appearance and develop confidence. The only problem is that she doesn’t have the money for it, and her parents won’t give her any. She decides that she needs to look for odd jobs in the neighborhood to help raise the money that she needs.

By coincidence, old Mr. Murdock’s granddaughter has recently moved into the old family house, which is huge and reputed to be haunted. In spite of the creepiness of the old place, Cassie finds a job there, helping Miss Murdock with cleaning and unpacking. Miss Murdock’s father made his money in cosmetics, and Miss Murdock employs a secretary named Victoria Presser, who used to be a model. Cassie admires Vicky for her beauty and elegance and looks forward to picking up some beauty tips from her. She also makes friends with Jason, a new boy in town, who also works for Miss Murdock, helping the gardener fix up the grounds. However, it isn’t long before Cassie, Jason, and Cassie’s younger brother, Danny, begin noticing that there is something odd about the old Murdock house.

lipstickmysterypicDanny is the first to notice that there is an octagonal window in the wall of the house, but none of the rooms has a window in that shape. Sometimes, lights can be seen through this window at night. Also, Cassie finds what looks like lab equipment among Miss Murdock’s boxes. Is Miss Murdock involved in something illegal? Does it have something to do with the burglaries that have been occurring around town? Why is the grumpy old gardener sneaking around? Just what is in that hidden room?

The book is currently available online through Internet Archive.

My Reaction

This is a good mystery for tween and early teen girls, who can identify with Cassie’s worries about being beautiful and popular. The moral of the story is that appearances are deceiving, and in the end, Cassie reconsiders what beauty really is and develops more confidence by appreciating the good qualities she already has and developing new interests.  While some of the other girls try to show how grown-up they are by looking grown-up, Cassie really grows up by taking responsibility for her life and the direction she wants it to go, making decisions about what she wants and who her real friends are.

Posted on by TracyC

The Valentine Star

The Kids of the Polk Street School

valentinestar#6 The Valentine Star by Patricia Reilly Giff, 1985.

Emily Arrow and Sherri Dent have been fighting ever since Emily refused to play a game with Sherri at recess.  It wasn’t because Emily didn’t like Sherri.  She was just having too much fun running around with her toy unicorn, Uni.  But, Emily made the mistake of running up on top of that huge snow pile near the school fence, the one that the kids aren’t supposed to play on.  Then, Sherri told on her to Ms. Rooney.  After that, it becomes a game of tit-for-tat, each of the girls telling on the other for little things.  While Emily is acting as room monitor while Ms. Rooney is out of the room, Sherri gets out of her seat to get a book instead of doing her work, so Emily writes her name down and tells Ms. Rooney.  Sherri promises that she’ll get even.

Around the same time, Ms. Rooney’s room gets a new student teacher, Ms. Vincent.  Ms. Vincent is very pretty and nice, and Emily likes her immediately.  The kids are making rhyming Valentine’s Day cards for each other because Valentine’s Day is just a few days away, and Emily wants to give a special one to Ms. Vincent.

valentinestarpic1But then, Emily and “Beast” (Richard Best) make a serious mistake.  It was hot inside at lunch, and they couldn’t resist the urge to run outside in the snow for just a couple of minutes without their coats.  Then, they got locked out and had to get Beast’s sister to let them in a different door.  They thought no one saw them, but a neighbor did and contacted the school.  Now, Emily is afraid of what will happen if their teacher finds out that it was her and Beast.  Will the school be angry enough to hold them both back a grade or maybe worse?  Maybe Emily will be spending Valentine’s Day in the school office instead of at the party, watching Ms. Vincent enjoy her special valentine . . . especially if Sherri happens to know what they did.

Many of the The Kids of the Polk Street School books are about the little problems that kids get into but that seem big because they’re young and inexperienced.  Ms. Vincent’s kindness and understanding help Emily and Sherri to work out their differences, and a President’s Day lesson about the honesty of both Lincoln and Washington help Emily and Beast to realize that tattling on yourself makes you a better person than tattling on others.

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

Posted on by TracyC

Valentine Blues

valentinebluesValentine Blues by Jeanne Betancourt, 1990.

This book is part of the Aviva Granger Stories series.  (It’s the only one I have in the series right now.)

In the last book, Aviva’s best friend, Josh, came to live with her, her mother, and her step-father.  Josh was living in an orphanage before that, and since he and Aviva were close, her mother and stepfather thought that it would be natural to invite him to be part of the family.  At the time, Aviva thought that it was a good idea, but being friends with someone doesn’t mean that it will be easy living with them, and Aviva’s family life is already complicated!

Aviva’s parents are divorced, and both her mother and father are already in new relationships.  Her mother has remarried, and Aviva not only has a stepfather but a half-sister (college age) and half-brother (baby) living in the same house.  Aviva’s father has a girlfriend, Miriam, and Aviva doesn’t get along well with her.  Miriam would like it if she and Aviva’s father had a child of their own.

When Josh comes to live with Aviva’s mother and her family, Aviva realizes that sharing a family and house with him makes things even more complicated.  He takes too long in the bathroom and makes her late to school.  He’s one more person for her mother to pay attention to, so Aviva gets less attention.  Even her dog seems to like Josh better now!

Then, shortly after Valentine’s Day, Aviva overhears Josh and his friend Ronnie Cioffi talking about girls and giving them ratings based on their looks.  Out of 10 points, Cioffi rates Aviva as a 2, and Josh agrees.  Josh has a crush on Louise, a girl they know from school, and she has a much better figure.

It isn’t that Aviva is in love with Josh, who she sees more as a friend/brother, but it hurts that he seems to be taking her place in the family and doesn’t even really appreciate her, joining in with his friend in making fun of her body.  With her time divided between two households, two parents who hardly seem to have time for her these days, and Josh moving in and taking over, Aviva worries that maybe she doesn’t really belong anywhere or to anybody.

It takes a night when Aviva sleeps out in the barn without telling anyone where she is to make the people closest to her realize how much she needs them.  A sleepover at Louise’s house (where the girls candidly discuss their own ratings for the boys they know) and Aviva’s anonymous question in sex ed class also help to put the rating system into perspective for all the kids.

The book has some Christian themes because the children go to a Catholic school, although this book mostly focuses on family life and girls’ and boys’ perceptions of each other.  The kids are eighth graders, and there is also some talk about sex ed.

Posted on by TracyC

Number the Stars

numberstarsNumber the Stars by Lois Lowry, 1989.

Annemarie Johansen is ten years old and living in Copenhagen in 1943.  Denmark is now occupied by the Nazis, and she and her little sister Kirsti have become accustomed to the sight of German soldiers in the streets and the food rationing and curfews that have come with the war.  But, there are still worse changes to come in their lives. Jewish people like Annemarie’s best friend, Ellen Rosen, are in danger.  The Germans have been closing businesses owned by Jews, and worse still, some Jewish families simply . . . disappear.

Annemarie comes to understand the disturbing truth behind many of the things that have been happening around her, including the sudden death of her older, grown-up sister, Lise.  Although she had earlier been told that Lise had been killed in an accident, what happened to Lise was no accident.  Lise and her fiance, Peter, were both part of an underground Resistance movement, working against the Nazis.  Peter is still part of the Resistance, and he calls upon Annemarie’s family to help him save not only Ellen’s life but the lives of other Jews who are in danger.

When the Johansens learn that the Nazis are looking for Jews from the register at the Rosens’ synagogue, Annemarie’s family takes in Ellen and pretends that she is their third daughter, Lise, while Peter helps to hide her parents make preparations to get them out of the country.  They journey to the seaside, where Annemarie’s Uncle Henrik prepares to help take the Rosens and others to safety on his fishing boat.  At first, Annemarie is angry that the adults are telling her things that she knows aren’t true and keeping secrets from her about their plans, but they tell her that it is for her own good not to know too much because they don’t want her to be too frightened with the details.  She soon comes to see their point because, as they set their plan into motion, Annemarie must perform an act of bravery for it to be successful.

Besides being an historical novel, this is partly a coming-of-age story as Annemarie goes from being an innocent young girl to being more fully aware of the problems and dangers surrounding her, her family, and her friends.  The title of the book comes from a Biblical quotation about how God “numbers the stars” and Annemarie’s thoughts as she considers her situation and the danger everyone is in.  Ellen’s mother said that she doesn’t like the sea because it is too big and too cold, and on a starry night in the middle of their peril, it strikes Annemarie that night sky and the whole world is like that, too: too big and too cold.  Annemarie thinks that sky is full of more stars than anyone can count, and the world situation and its complexities seem too great for Annemarie to fully grasp.  The immensity and  dangerous nature of it all frighten her.

Annemarie’s older sister, the grown-up child in their family, understood the complexities and dangers of the world and risked her life to fight for their country’s freedom, ultimately losing her life in the process.  Annemarie’s younger sister is still largely unaware of the risks her family is taking to save their friends, still thinking in her innocence that the explosions from the destruction of the Danish naval fleet when the Nazis invaded were “fireworks” for her birthday.  At the beginning of the story, Annemarie is between her two sisters: more aware of what is going on than Kirsti is but not aware of what her older sister did or knew.  By the end of the story, Annemarie has moved to a more grown-up understanding but uses her innocent, little-girl appearance to fool the Nazis into thinking that she is just an ignorant child so they will be less suspicious of her.

Although this story is fiction, similar incidents happened in real life when people took great risks to help Jewish people escape from the Nazis. In the back of the book, there is an Afterword that explains more about the historical events behind the story.

This book was a 1990 Newbery Award winner.  It is currently available online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC · 2 Comments

Soup

soupSoup by Robert Newton Peck, 1974.

This is the first book in a series about the author’s childhood best friend.  His friend’s real name was Luther Wesley Vison, but he always hated that name.  Because Luther refused to come home whenever his mother called his name for dinner, his mother took to just yelling, “Soup’s on!” when she wanted him to come home to eat.  After that, everyone else just started calling him “Soup”, which he liked a lot better than “Luther.”

Together, Soup and Robert had a reputation for getting into scrapes in their small town in Vermont.  The book is a series of short stories about the funny things they did as kids, like how they got revenge on the school nurse for asking embarrassing questions, how Soup got punished for breaking a window other than the one he’d actually broken, how Soup talked Rob into rolling down a hill in a barrel, and how Robert’s aunt let him tie her to a tree right before a lightning storm.

souppicSome of the stories are laugh-out-loud funny, and some of them have kind of a moral lesson to them, like the time when Rob realized that he didn’t have the heart to lie to his mother even if it would allow him to escape punishment for talking back to the school nurse, the time when Soup and Rob tried to cheat Mr. Diskin out of some money so they would have enough to go to the movies but ended up feeling guilty, and how the boys made themselves sick by attempting to smoke cornsilk.  Others are just stories of childhood events and friendship, like the story of how Rob and Soup played football and how Soup loaned Rob his new shoes when his were ruined.  Even though Soup often got Rob into trouble, he really was a good friend and went out of his way to make Rob feel better when he needed it the most.

Although it is a short chapter book that is easy to read, a couple of the stories might require some further explanations for young children reading them, like the one where the boys smoke cornsilk using homemade pipes and the one where Soup says that someone told him it was all right to cheat Mr. Diskin because he’s a Jew (a belief that they come to rethink when they feel guilty for cheating someone who was always fair with them and was kind to them even when he discovered the deception).  They deal with older practices and prejudices and can be the start of discussions about the lessons people learn by making mistakes. Other than that, these stories present a fascinating look at what it was like to grow up in the country during the 1920s.

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