Second Fiddle, by Rosanne Parry

Second Fiddle is a story of adventures in exotic locales. From the outside it may seem that this is always true of military family life. It is accurate that I have lived in six countries and four states. And I have the annoying habit of being able to trump just about anyone’s extreme temperature stories, having lived in both one of the hottest cities in the world, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and one of the coldest, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. But the appeal of exotic travel chronicles only part of the experience. The constant moving of military families is an important theme in Second Fiddle and the book does a great job of capturing the sense of loss, while at the same time, even the thirteen-year-old characters appreciate that they are also receiving a gift.

As the main character, Jody says near the beginning, “The upside of being a military kid was that you got to see a lot of cool places. The downside was that every time you made a friend, you had to move away.” And her friend Vivian adds, “My mother thinks I’m having this great international experience, but changing schools all the time is just the same horrible experience over and over.”

Jody and her two friends Giselle and Vivian live on an American Army base in Berlin in 1990, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. They are brought together by their love of music and they travel by train each week to music lessons in East Germany with Herr Muller. They are scheduled to attend a music competition in Paris and they all know it will be their last time to perform together as they are all moving away. On their way home from a music lesson they witness an attempted murder and the adventure begins, sending them across international borders as they desperately try to save the life of a young man.

Without their musical connection the three would not have been friends at all, as Giselle’s father is a general and the base commander, while Jody’s father is enlisted. Jody feels she can’t invite the general’s daughter over as even the adults in the enlisted housing area wouldn’t like it. Of course, parents’ ranks shouldn’t make a difference to the children, but this book accurately reflects that they do.

Author, Roseanne Parry based Second Fiddle on her own life experiences as she says that she moved to Germany in 1990 with her soldier husband. While the details of girls’ adventures can at times seem melodramatic, the book does a wonderful job of capturing the feel of military life. She mentions details that I recognize or have heard from my children and other people. For example, impending doom in the smell of moving boxes; the constant absence of Jody’s Dad; Jody not minding moving so much when she was younger; finding the question of where are you from impossible to answer; living in one place for three years for the first time and feeling unnatural in knowing her way around; and also remembering the time of an event in your personal history from where you lived (“I was seven so it must have been Missouri”).

Second Fiddle is an exciting older children’s adventure that sneaks in some history about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Cold War. Try it if you are interested in the military lifestyle and the people who lead it.  I also recommend it for military families, both older children of around ten and up and their parents. It will be a great start for conversations about the lifestyle.

Check the WRL catalog for Second Fiddle.

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Spirited Away

I don’t usually watch Anime, but my daughter enthused about Spirited Away, so we sat down on the couch to watch it together on her laptop. That became a nudging, pushing, “Turn the screen this way” experience for  both of us, so I was very pleased to discover that my library owns it on DVD. The library copy usually has several holds, so I had to wait. But it was worth it! This movie proves that a great story is a great story, no matter its format.

Ten-year-old Jahiro is unhappy about moving to a new house in a new town with a new school. As they are driving to their new home her father decides to take a short cut and the road ends at a strange, abandoned building. Jahiro doesn’t want to enter, but her parents seem strangely compelled. A short while later, without realizing it, they have entered a new world, peopled with odd, grotesque spirits. Jahiro is terrified, but her parents are unaware that anything is wrong and are soon trapped. From here the story gets compelling and creepier and creepier. Jahiro will need help to navigate this world and save her parents. But who is really her friend, and who is pretending to help her for their own ends?

I enjoyed the snippets of Japanese culture, that may have been so ingrained in the creators’ minds that they didn’t realize that they were showing something that might be different in other places. For example, on several occasions I noticed that in the midst of drama and action and danger, the characters stop to take off their shoes before going inside. Even in an emergency they can’t imagine running into a bathhouse with their shoes on.  Other details were also intriguing, such as the night clothes and driving on the left.  To me this shows that the creators were portraying what they saw around them, and not what an outsider might think a place is like.

This movie was animated the old-fashioned way with drawings, rather than being computer generated. I found the animation painterly, rather than the gaudy, flashing, flatness of some Disney movies. I loved the details – I could even recognize the bushes in the background and name hydrangeas, daphne, camellias and rhododendrons (not a quality appreciated by my family in the middle of a movie!).

My library’s double disk set included a Japanese documentary about the making of the movie. At the time the documentary was made in 2001 Spirited Away was the highest grossing film in Japanese history. It was dubbed into English without changing the original animation at all, which is unusual.  The English language version won the Academy Award for an animated feature in 2003. The director, Hayao Miyazaki had his sixtieth birthday while Spirited Away was being made, but he still wrote,  drew and directed for it. The documentary shows a meeting when they are working on a scene where Jahiro needs to give a pill to a dragon to save it. Miyazaki asks, “Has no one given a pill to a dog?” When it turns out only one person has even owned a dog, he mutters, “Pathetic!” and takes them all to a veterinary hospital to see all sorts of dogs dosed. I think this attention to detail shows all the way through this gripping, exciting and usual movie.

I recommend Spirited Away for everyone! It is suitable for children, but the gripping story, creepy events, great art and wonderful music will entertain young and old, even those who never watch this sort of thing.

Check the WRL catalog for Spirited Away

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Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, by T.S. Eliot

To continue last week’s leitmotif of books of cat poetry, I have gone back to what many people consider the original and the best. Rather than a series of poems from the cats’ own perspective, like I Could Pee on This, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats is a series of narratives and how-tos about cats. It was first published in 1939 and has been in print ever since. Our library owns several versions with black and white drawings. We also have a winsomely illustrated version with only three of the poems called Growltiger’s Last Stand.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats is based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. I have never seen the musical and can’t quite picture how it would work as a musical, but I know it was hugely popular on the stage and is available at our library to borrow on DVD.

In some circles T.S. Eliot is most famous for his serious poetry like “The Waste Land” or “The Hollow Men.” Many students of English literature are familiar with these poems (willingly or not). And many of these same students of literature are surprised that the mind that produced the dark and cynical lines of his serious poems could also produce his light and lilting poems about cats.
Compare this gem from “The Waste Land”:

“I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.”

And from “The Hollow Men”:

Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

To the rollicking:

Macavity’s a mystery cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw –
For he’s the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the flying sqad’s despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime — Macavity’s not there!

And

Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer were a very notorious couple of cats.
As knockabout clowns, quick-change comedians, tight-rope walkers and acrobats

T.S. Eliot’s skill and dexterity with language show through in both cases, lilting or dark. These are great read-aloud poems that roll off the tongue. Some of our copies of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats are shelved in the children’s section, and the poems are certainly suitable for and loved by children, but I also recommend them for cat lovers and lovers of language.

Check the WRL catalog for Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

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The Bagthorpe Saga, by Helen Cresswell

Have you ever wondered how British humor can be so consistently different from American humor? After all, the two countries share a language and much culture. Re-reading the Bagthorpe Saga by Helen Cresswell, I suspect the difference may persist because the training starts very young in dry, witty, ridiculous British humor.

The Bagthorpe Saga started in 1977 with Ordinary Jack. It continued for over 20 years with ten books chronicling the bizarre, but highly entertaining Bagthorpes, including Bagthorpes Abroad (1984) and Bagthorpes Haunted (1985). It was made into a T.V. series in 1981, which is looking dated now, but the books are still hilariously funny.

Eponymous Jack is certainly ordinary, far too ordinary to live in his overwhelming and extraordinary extended family. His three siblings are “genii” with multiple talents they call Strings to their Bows. His prima donna father writes scripts for the BBC while his mother writes an Agony Aunt column for her Problem people. His only ally is his mongrel dog, Zero, although he sometimes collaborates with his foppish Uncle Parker. Capricious and stubborn Grandma, Selectively Deaf Grandpa, along with precocious and out-of-control cousin Daisy round out the family. Other characters, like the put-upon cleaning lady Mrs. Fosdyke come in and out of the stories. Helen Cresswell managed to take the mickey out of over-scheduled children and helicopter parents before the terms were invented, because Ordinary Jack is the hero and the rest of the Bagthorpes are obnoxiously pretentious.

The humor is both dry and slapstick and relies a lot on wordplay. These books manage to be laugh aloud hilarious and also make comments about human nature.

I was surprised to discover that my library owned this older British series at all, and I was delighted to discover that we own three of the series on CD. I was even more delighted with Clive Mantle’s dry delivery. His sonorous and grave voice was a wonderful foil to the books’ over-the-top humor. In fact, I often thought he sounded like a commentator for a BBC nature documentary—ponderous, serious and reverberating.

Try Ordinary Jack or any of the Bagthorpe Saga for a quick and light read that may make you laugh out loud. Although it is a children’s series, I recommend it for fans of the absurd British wit of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or Monty Python.

Check the WRL catalog for Ordinary Jack in book form.

Check the WRL catalog for Bagthorpes Unlimited in book form.

Check the WRL catalog for Ordinary Jack in CD form.

Check the WRL catalog for Bagthorpes Unlimited in CD form.

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The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I was listening to Unbroken : a World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption in my car for my book club, and like many people I was shocked and horrified on many occasions.  I knew I needed to listen to The Secret Garden next to regain my equilibrium, even though it is a book that I have read at least six times.  I listened to the audiobook on CD.  The reader, Flo Gibson, wasn’t who I would have picked as she has an American accent and a kind of scratchy voice but I soon settled into the old story like sliding down into a warm bubble bath.  I had previously come to the conclusion that many of the children’s books that I enjoy reading over and over are “cozy,” so I was surprised to discover when I started working in this library that “cozy mystery” is an official designation.  It makes sense, as sometimes we all need a cozy and comforting read.

In The Secret Garden Mary Lennox is a neglected and spoiled child  who has spent her entire ten years being over-indulged by Indian servants.  After her parents die in an epidemic she is sent to another dysfunctional household, the home of her uncle at Misselthwaite Manor on the Yorkshire Moors.  There she meets the sturdy Martha and Dickon, representatives of a family of fourteen.  She makes friends with an elderly and crabby gardener, Ben Weatherstaff, through her interest in a friendly robin.  There are also also mysterious noises and howlings down the corridors of the huge house.  And of course, she discovers a hidden and secret garden.

In this story, the Yorkshire Moors themselves, as well as the Secret Garden, are characters just as much as the people.  As the season changes from winter to spring and on into summer, Mary changes, the garden and the Moors change, and so too does everyone at Misselthwaite Manor.

This book was first published in 1911 and what I find intriguing 100 years later is the psychology of Mary and other characters.  Despite Dickon and Martha’s material poverty they are well loved and looked after and it shows in their steady, kind ways.  Mary, on the other hand, starts the book emotionally impoverished but gains a purpose and learns to love and live under the influence of attention.  The book is also full of gentle humor, especially in the character of Ben Weatherstaff.

One aspect of The Secret Garden that I missed as a child and can see as an adult is the Christian symbolism, for example, when they recite the Doxology while sitting in a circle with a fox and a lamb.  Other aspects are less overtly Christian as when  the children call the life force that helps them to heal “Magic.”  The Magic makes the Moors and garden change for spring, and when the children and other characters allow it, the Magic also changes them. Towards the end one previously stunted, but blossoming character announces,  ”Being alive is the Magic!”

When I was talking about cozy children’s books, a colleague at the library recommended an out-of-print book, The Golden Name Day by Jennie D. Lindquist.  It captures the joy of being a child, that many adults are yearning to regain.  “Oh, anything can happen in this world, just anything. That’s why life is so exciting,” says Nancy towards the end of that book.  Other out-of-print (and sometimes obscure) books in this category that I love include: World’s End series by Monica Dickens, Green Smoke by Rosemary Manning, The Blow and Grow Year by Margaret Potter and Longtime Passing by Hesba Brinsmead.

For those who have read The Secret Garden before, perhaps years ago as a child, I highly recommend a second look through the eyes of an adult.  For those who have never tried it, it is a deeply hopeful story about redemption through the natural world and redemption through love.

Check the WRL catalog for The Secret Garden in book form.

Check the WRL catalog for The Secret Garden on audiobook CD.

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The Little Silver House, by Jennie D. Lindquist

The book from my childhood that I would most like to see reprinted is The Golden Name Day, published in 1955 by Jennie Lindquist. Lindquist was a librarian and an editor of Horn Book, and she wrote this charming, quintessential little girl’s book by drawing on stories from her Swedish immigrant parents. Nine-year-old Nancy, whose mother is in hospital, spends a summer in the country with the Bensons, Swedish immigrants to New England. Each of the girls she befriends–Sigrid, Elsa, and Helga–celebrate not only a birthday but a “name day” as laid out in a calendar of names and dates in the Swedish Almanac. But as much as the little girls enjoy these special celebrations, there’s no “Nancy” in the almanac. Threaded through their season of picnics, animals, flower crowns, and May baskets is the story of how Nancy’s friends provide her with a name day of her own.

Sadly, our library doesn’t own The Golden Name Day, but we do own its sequel, which is even more fitting for this time of year, as it takes Nancy and her friends through the autumn, Advent, and the “Long Swedish Christmas.” In The Little Silver House, an abandoned, boarded-up house captures the girls’ imaginations, especially when the portrait of an old-fashioned ten-year-old girl is discovered in its attic. With this mystery in the background, it’s the celebrations of occasions great and small that give the book its charm. Gift-giving is the theme of the season, and the girls’ “random acts of kindness” include planting bulbs along the roadside for “traveler’s joy” and giving up some of their most treasured possessions for a special care package. Lonely newcomer Ben and others are brought into the circle of the Bensons’ warm hospitality and good food. Oh, how I wanted to be Swedish! My generic American family seemed so dull by comparison—no special traditions and not a chance that my mother was going to let me put lighted candles in a wreath on my head for St. Lucia’s day. The holidays continue with hand-wrapped karameller given to visitors, the Long Christmas Dance, Dipping Day, and “Second Christmas,” which made me wonder whether the Swedes are related at all to the hobbits.

Finding a book like this on the library shelves is as close as we come to time travel. Nancy’s yellow rose wallpaper! The horses, Whoa-Emma and Karl the Twelfth! For a nanosecond, I was nine years old again. Illustrated with the feathery pencil drawings of Garth Williams, so familiar from his work on the Little House series, these warm-hearted books will appeal to the same girls who enjoyed the Christmases of Laura and Mary Ingalls, whether those girls are nine years old or, ahem, somewhat older.

God Jul.

Check the WRL catalog for The Little Silver House.

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Lizard Music, by Daniel Pinkwater

Yesterday, I wrote about James Thurber, whose writing blends a love and mastery of language with a healthy sense of the absurd. A more contemporary writer who shares Thurber’s skill in both these areas is Daniel Pinkwater. The New York Review of Books has re-released Pinkwater’s wonderfully odd book Lizard Music, and I was glad to be able to add that to my shelves.

Young Victor, a fan of Walter Cronkite and TV news in general, is all alone at his house for the week—his parents are having a rough time and have gone off on a trip to reconnect, while his older sister who is supposed to be watching him has headed off with her hippie friends to the Cape. It is a typical start to a coming of age story, isn’t it? Where Pinkwater takes you from here, though, is anything but ordinary. Victor falls asleep while watching the news and wakes to stumble across a late-night TV show featuring human-sized lizards playing music. He heads off to the nearby city of Hogboro, and keeps running into an old man with a chicken on his head, to say nothing of constant references to lizard musicians. Suffice it to say that things only get odder from here on out.

Pinkwater’s deadpan delivery and comic timing make this a perfect read for pretty much anyone. Victor is an appealing lead character, and he does learn some things about himself throughout the course of the book. But it is the surreal humor and the pleasant oddness that characterize Pinkwater’s writing that really are the attractions here. If you like this one, there are lots of other Pinkwater books to choose from (I would recommend The Hoboken Chicken Emergency; Pinkwater has a way with chickens!).

Check the WRL catalog for Lizard Music

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The Thirteen Clocks, by James Thurber

The New York Review of Books is a superb journal, and I have been a long time subscriber.  I enjoy their extended book reviews and essays that explore art, politics, government, ethics, and many, many other topics.  The library has a subscription at the Williamsburg Library building on Scotland St.  if you want to take a look.  In addition to publishing the journal though, the NYRB also has been republishing some classic works of literature for both adults and children.  It is great to see these books back in print, and last time I was at a library conference I purchased two of my favorites.

The first purchase was The Thirteen Clocks, by James Thurber, who has long been one of my favorite writers.  Thurber made his name with his witty, though sometimes dark, short fiction and essays as well as with his wonderfully idiosyncratic drawings, many of which found their way into the New Yorker in the magazine’s early days. However, Thurber also wrote some wonderful books for younger readers.  Thurber’s  joy in language and absurd humor keep these books as fresh and interesting today as when they were first published.

The Thirteen Clocks is a fairy tale, with the standard characters–a fair princess who is enchanted by an evil duke, a handsome young prince in disguise who must complete an onerous task to win the princess’s hand, comical rustics, and a dread monster.  What makes this book special is the playfulness that Thurber brings to the story.  Only a master of English could move as easily and seamlessly as Thurber does from alliteration to metaphor to rhyme to metonymy in short fashion.  It is a pleasure to read this book aloud and to let the words roll off the tongue and into the ear.

Here is a sample, trying reading it out loud.

From the sky came the crying of flies, and the pilgrims leaped over a bleating sheep creeping knee-deep in a sleepy stream, in which swift and slippery snakes slid and slithered silkily, whispering sinful secrets.

So take a turn down the path that leads to the “gloomy castle on the lonely hill” where the cold Duke has frozen time and only true love can break the spell.

Check the WRL catalog for The Thirteen Clocks

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Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery

I am reviewing this book in honor of my grandmother who loved it. She died nineteen years ago, but had she lived she would have turned 100 this June. Anne of Green Gables is well-known, but I will try to convince you why it is worth another look for adults who may have been put off by the saccharine TV series and movies associated with the books.

My Grandmother gave me her Anne of Green Gables books shortly before she died and I have been dragging them around the world with me ever since (sadly, not to their great benefit). In these days of e-books I especially appreciate these books as objects.  When I hold one of her books in my hand, without even starting to read it, it tells me a lot. It is a well-worn hard cover, yellowed and spotted, with a cup ring on the front. The spine is starting to sag and the thick, soft pages are getting brittle. In the front is written, “Gwenyth, 31/10/38” and her address. This is the address that I loved to visit as a child and the book still faintly smells of her house. As an adult I know that in 1938 my grandmother had one small child and was mourning the loss of a stillborn son, the memory of whom brought tears to her eyes fifty years later. It was the tail end of the depression and the uncertainties and fears of World War II were looming. For my Grandmother money was not abundant so the book represented a precious and much-wanted prize possession.

The story is set around the turn of the last century and centers on Anne Shirley, an orphan who is mistakenly sent from her orphanage to work on a farm. Aging brother and sister Marilla and Matthew wanted a boy to help with the farm work, but they keep Anne anyway. After this inauspicious start they grow to become a family. Anne is a unique and independent soul, who accidentally dyes her hair green, gets her best friend drunk on raspberry cordial, but saves a neighbor’s baby who gets croup. When she is dared to walk the ridge pole of a roof, she feels she must because “My honor is at stake.” After the inevitable fall the girls have the following conversation:

” Anne are you killed?” shrieked Diana, throwing herself on her knees beside her friend. “Oh, Anne, dear Anne, speak just one word to me and tell me if you’re killed.”

To the immense relief of all the girls…Anne sat dizzily up and answered uncertainly:

“No, Diana, I am not killed, but I think I am rendered unconscious.”

“Where?” sobbed Carrie Sloane. “Oh, where, Anne?”

Anne is a literary character who feels real. She has felt like a friend to thousands, perhaps even millions of people, like my grandmother, who have loved her over the last hundred years. Anne of Green Gables is undoubtedly old-fashioned, but there are good reasons that it has stayed in print since it was first published in 1908. Also with good reason,  it has been made into over a dozen screen adaptations, starting with a silent movie in 1919 and including a Japanese Anime in 1979. Canada’s Prince Edward Island now has an Anne of Green Gables festival every July. To many of us Avonlea and the surrounding imaginary towns on Canada’s Prince Edward Island feel like our real home,  where we really belong.

So, if you read Anne of Green Gables a long time ago, try it again. Or if you have never tried it or have only met Anne Shirley through a TV series or movie, I urge you to check out one of our many copies and enjoy some soul-nourishing summer reading. You never know, you might make a new friend.

Tomorrow I will be blogging about the eighth book in the Anne of Green Gables series, Rilla of Ingleside.

Check the WRL catalog for Anne of Green Gables.

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The Pinhoe Egg, by Diana Wynne Jones

I have decided to take a risk and recommend one of my favorite books ever. It has a satisfying story, strong characters who are learning about themselves, magic and magical creatures, a magnificent horse, evil elderly relatives, a castle, and children who are better people than the adults around them. How could any book need more? In fact, my enduring ambition is to live in Chrestomanci Castle (they do have a librarian; it says so in the book!).

The Pinhoe Egg is shelved in the children’s section and is certainly enjoyed by children, but it is also a marvelous book for adults to relish. If you guiltily enjoyed the early Harry Potter books for their humor, magic, and “Englishness” you will probably love The Pinhoe Egg and the rest of the Chrestomanci Series.

Marianne Pinhoe lives in a quiet English country village. The school holidays are starting and she is looking forward to having free time and working on her story about romantic Princess Irene. Unfortunately for Marianne, her family has other plans. Marianne is to run errands for her ailing grandmother, Gamma, while her older brother Joe is to go to work as a boot boy at nearby Chrestomanci Castle and report back what he learns (to spy, in other words!). On Marianne’s very first morning at Gamma’s house things start to fall apart as the old woman is visited by members of the Farley family from the next village and Marianne’s Gamma appears to go mad. The entire, overwhelming, extended family gather round to look after the old woman and decide that they need to clear out her house to sell. The attics are forgotten, and one day in search of Gamma’s constantly straying cat, Nutcase, Marianne discovers a strange spherical object covered with strong “don’t notice” spells. Thinking that it is useless, Marianne gives it to Eric Chant (or Cat) from the Castle, unknowingly betraying her family’s Sacred Trust. What is the spherical object? Could it be an egg? And what is the Sacred Trust and has Marianne done a bad thing in breaking it, as her father says, or a good thing as the people at the Castle claim?

(Note that the object is clearly described as round and mauve with speckles, and not gold and hen’s-egg shaped as it is shown on this cover.)

This book can be enjoyed on its own, but readers of Diana Wynne Jone’s other Chrestomanci books will recognize plenty of characters. I enjoy series like this which include the same characters, but are told each time from a different person’s perspective. We get to see how our favorite characters are seen by other people in other situations–sort of like seeing your teacher in their tatty track pants in the supermarket during the weekend.

Although I have read The Pinhoe Egg several times, I have just listened to it on CD during my commute. Diana Wynne Jone’s wry humor and Gerard Doyle’s engaging narration have seen me looking like a fool and laughing out loud (those familiar with I-64 know that smiles are not necessarily easy to come by on this stretch of Hampton Roads).

Sadly, Diana Wynne Jones died on March 26, 2011 after a literary career spanning four decades. Her first children’s book, Witch’s Business, was published in 1973 and her last children’s book, Earwig and the Witch, was published this year. She won numerous awards including the Carnegie Medal. As Neil Gaiman said in his online journal about her “She was the funniest, wisest, fiercest, sharpest person I’ve known, a witchy and wonderful woman, intensely practical, filled with opinions, who wrote the best books about magic, who wrote the finest and most perceptive letters…” He adds, “… there was only one Diana Wynne Jones, and the world was a finer one for having her in it.”

Check the WRL Catalog for The Pinhoe Egg

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Toad Rage, by Morris Gleitzman

A misfit is a great subject for literature, because the character’s life story creates inbuilt dramatic tension before the plot even begins.

And what a misfit we meet in Limpy the cane toad!

He lives in Queensland, Australia, where introduced cane toads are an ecological disaster and Australians are attempting to exterminate them.  As a misfit Limpy not only is a member of a hated species, he also has a “crook leg” that was run over on purpose by a truck, which makes him hop around in circles when he gets excited.

At first Limpy doesn’t believe that humans hate cane toads and it takes numerous attempts on his life before he believes it.  He notices that humans do love some animals, especially the three Olympic mascots: the platypus, the echidna, and the kookaburra.  To further his ambition of cane toad/human harmony Limpy and his cousin, Goliath, go on a madcap adventure to the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, to try and become mascots as well.  Along the way they meet many quirky characters, from talking mosquitoes and rats to a kind human athlete (who, unfortunately, doesn’t understand what they say).

The humor is exaggerated and slapstick, but Limpy is an anti-hero that many people will be able to relate to.  He is basically a decent person (cane toad?) in a world that doesn’t appreciate his inner beauty.

Since I come from down under, I especially enjoyed “having a squiz” at the glossary of Australian words.  I can attest that the words are accurate as my grandmother used to say many of them (dubious looks from my American colleagues notwithstanding).

Although it is a children’s book, Toad rage is a quick and funny read for adults.  And you never know, you may just learn some bonza new words!

Check the WRL catalog for Toad Rage.

For a rib-rousing movie on this type of reptile, check out the blog’s 2009 review for the DVD Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, and check the WRL catalog for it here.

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And Picasso Painted Guernica, by Alain Serres

For most of my working hours, I catalog children’s non-fiction books. I get to see books that teach a little about a subject in clear, easy language, often illustrated with lots of pictures. One of these books was And Picasso Painted Guernica, written by Alain Serres and translated from the French by Rosalind Price.

Serres tells the story of Guernica by first offering a brief biography of Picasso. He adds historical details—Edison invented the light bulb the year Pablo Picasso was born, a Zeppelin flies over Switzerland when Picasso is nineteen—to help readers understand the times. Early drawings and paintings of Picasso’s, reproduced beautifully, show his development. His early works, including doves he drew when he was eight, and portraits of his parents he painted as a teen, are remarkably life-like.

When Picasso was a young artist living in Paris, he and fellow artist George Braque turned away from creating life-like reproductions and developed a style of painting eventually called Cubism. “They painted people and objects from many different viewpoints, as if they could see every surface at the same time.” Serres shows examples of Picasso’s colorful cubism on pages with bright colored background.

But then the war comes. General Franco and a section of the Spanish army launch a coup d’etat. The civil war has begun. The pages are now black, white and grey, just as Guernica is black, white and grey, reflecting the horror of the time.

This is an oversized book. Guernica is an oversized painting. The size of Picasso’s masterpiece—eleven feet tall by 25 ½ feet wide—makes it more effective than if it were on a smaller canvas. The size of this book, likewise, makes the book more effective.  There is a reproduction of Guernica as a fold-out, allowing the reader to examine the details close-up. Serres asks questions of the reader. “How to make an image more powerful than the blast of 50 tonnes of bombs? How to make it live on, long after the dust and debris has [sic] settled? How to make it linger in the mind’s eye, even when people have stopped looking?” He shows sketches Picasso tried before committing them to the canvas. He focuses on details. “Picasso throws back the mother’s head, and her child’s. He shatters the familiar image of Virgin and Child. Shows the world upside-down, like the child who dies before it can live, like the rain of steel that dreadful day. Like those eyes, those nostrils, made of tears. Like the mouth of the child that makes no sound, and the mother’s that cries out, that screams….”

After a thorough examination of the painting, enhanced with photos taken by a friend of Picasso’s while he was working, the pages again become brightly colored. Life goes on. “After 35 days and many nights of dedicated work on Guernica, Picasso puts away his pots of black, white and grey. Colour reappears in his paintings. … In life, death always brings transformation.” Serres shows paintings, sculptures and other art forms—some very light-hearted—created later in Picasso’s life.

This is a powerful book about a powerful painting and a magnificent artist. It doesn’t take long to read, but you’ll want to examine the sketches and the details. You’ll want to feel the questions Serres asks to understand better how Picasso created his most famous work. This book may be shelved in the children’s department, but adults will be affected by it as much as, or even perhaps more than, children will be.

Check the WRL catalog for And Picasso Painted Guernica.

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Ooka the Wise: Tales of Old Japan, by I.G. Edmonds

Without meaning to, I seem to have found a great deal of my recent reading taking place in a single setting, much like several of my recent posts.  This time around I wound up in Japan, reading about very different times and across a spectrum of behaviors.  To finish this week before Christmas on a light note, I’d like to share with you a collection of folk tales from 18th century Japan.

Ooka Tadasuke was a real magistrate, well respected for being incorruptible and for striving for justice despite the wealth and status of the parties before him.  A body of folktales grew up around his rulings, so it is difficult to tell which, if any, are real stories that have been enshrined.  One, “The Case of the Bound Jizo or Suspect Statue”, has what I think is the best claim.  In it, Ooka arrests a statue for not properly guarding a man’s property, and during the trial arrives at the truth in a simple way.  Since the statue still stands and is still visited for justice, maybe it is a relic of Ooka’s wisdom.

This collection of 17 tales all illustrate Ooka’s cleverness at using the fine points of human psychology to trick tricksters and reward the honest in his role as judge.  But he also applies his thoughtful nature to problems that present themselves in daily life: cruel merchants, a precocious grandchild, ambitious nobles, and an impulsive ruler.  In each, Ooka’s blend of quick thinking and precise wording combines with his desire to overlook the letter of the law in search of its spirit.

I’m also interested in folktales from around the world, and Ooka’s cases often have the same themes as stories about magistrates, tribal chiefs, rabbis, and respected elders who must decide on disputes between members of their communities.  Some, especially the stories of the Mullah Nasruddin, can depict the judge as either wise or foolish, but in all cases the stories convey both cultural truths and entertainment.  So why are they always shelved in the children’s area?

Anyway, the holiday season is a perfect one for sharing stories, whether your own or stories you’ve heard from others.  Give it a try!

Check the WRL catalog for Ooka the Wise

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Greek Gods and Heroes, by Alice Low, illus. by Arvis Stewart

There are many Greek mythology books out there to choose from, but Greek Gods and Heroes is my favorite and has been since I received it as a gift for my 5th birthday. Not that I could read it all by myself back then, but the stories were fun to listen to and the pictures are great. I have since reread this book numerous times, and the myths are just as enjoyable on the tenth or twentieth read as they were the first time around. These versions of the classic stories are written to be easily understood by both children and adults just looking for the basics.

Low hits all the high points in this volume: Mother Earth and her Children, The Gods and Goddesses of Mount Olympus, Prometheus, Pandora, Persephone, Pygmalion, Perseus. And those are just the Ps! The stories of Heracles, Jason, and Odysseus are also included, as well as others too numerous to list. Stewart mixes color illustrations with black and white drawings which really add to the storytelling and which are, in my humble opinion, much better than those found in the more well-known D’Aulaires’ volume.

So, look for this book if:

• you’d like to introduce your children to the Greek myths
• you’d like to know the origin of such terms as “narcissist” or “opening Pandora’s box,” know why there are echoes and changing seasons, or learn the stories behind some of the constellations
• you are reading a book by Rick Riordan and need a refresher.

Check the WRL catalog for Greek Gods and Heroes.

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Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott

I’m completing a run as Professor Bhaer in a local theater production of My Jo, a musical based on Little Women. I just wouldn’t have felt like a good librarian or actor if I didn’t get familiar with the source material, so despite being a man in my early 40s, I decided the time had come to crack Louisa May Alcott’s classic. I don’t regret any of the time I spent with the March family.

The Marches, of course, stand in for Alcott’s own family, and her experiences growing up in Concord, Massachusetts in the years during and following the Civil War. While she was tasked with writing an inspirational tale for girls in the mode that Horatio Alger stories took for boys, the realistic underpinnings of her story and Louisa May’s independent (and somewhat moody) character make Little Women much more than just a morality tale.

The book that we now know as Little Women was originally published in two parts. Little Women came first, and its immense and immediate popularity led to the publication of Little Wives only six months later. In the first half, we are introduced to the four March sisters and follow them through various adventures created by their own foibles and quirks. I won’t recap the story in detail– most of you know it– but what makes these girls and their young male friend Laurie Lawrence delightful is that despite the moralistic tone, they are not instantly reformed by any of their experiences. They behave like real young people with real spirit. In the first half of the book, the absence of their father (based on Bronson, Louisa’s philosophical father, who was reform-minded but often thoughtless about his own family’s welfare), who has volunteered in the Civil War, creates many obstacles for his poor but vivacious and bright wife and daughters.

While I love the characters established in the first half, the real treasure for me is Little Wives, the second half of the story. You can tell that Alcott was feeling empowered by her recent success, dropping the morality tales for more complex dilemmas that resonate even more deeply with modern readers. It’s here that we encounter (spoilers coming, if that’s possible with this frequently retold tale) Jo’s rejection of Laurie’s courtship, Beth’s tragic decline and death, Laurie’s awkward but earnest connection with little sister Amy, and Jo’s unusual relationship with the older German professor Friedrich Bhaer. This is not conventional children’s material, so this is a book to be treasured by readers of any age, and Jo is such an original that she jumps off the page 140 years after the book’s publication. An iconoclast for any era, Jo will appeal to any reader with an independent streak. Alcott’s vividly detailed language and humor also hold up well.

This is not a book to read in isolation. I strongly recommend enjoying it in combination with a biography of Alcott, such as Harriet Reisen’s 2009 biography, Louisa May Alcott: The Woman behind Little Women. The story in Little Women is even more powerful when you know how it softens the tragedies of Alcott’s real life.

I also recommend several of the films, the 1933 edition for Katharine Hepburn’s great portrayal of Jo, the 1949 version for my favorite all-around cast, or the 1994 Winona Ryder vehicle for the best handling of the story’s more sophisticated and realistic aspects. Finally, you might continue to Alcott’s two sequels, Little Men and Jo’s Boys, which follow Jo and Fritz Bhaer’s school, sons, and students through various adventures. While I haven’t read them yet, most agree that these later works are lesser creations (probably because they are much more fictionalized and plot-driven), but still worthy of a read.

Check the WRL catalog for the book Little Women (if this isn’t available, there are many other editions)

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Clan Apis, by Jay Hosler

When we first meet Nyuki the honeybee, she is still a sightless, shapeless larva, but soon she will transform into a mature worker. To begin the transmogrification, she must enter a cocoon, which she will build by producing silk from the spinnerets in her mouth and mixing it with her own feces.

It’s just amazing the things you learn in the course of this graphic novel, though I promise that most of them aren’t as gross as that silk-and-poo thing. You”ll learn about hive construction, bee swarming, pollination, reproduction, predation, defense, territorialism, and lots more.

And then more on top of that. And then a bit more. Author and illustrator Jay Hosler can’t help himself. He’s a honeybee neurobiologist.

He’s also a wonderful storyteller. You’ll get a thorough education in honeybees, but you won’t even notice it happening because you’ll be caught up in Nyuki’s life story. The science-y bits blend seamlessly with Nyuki’s adventures, from her romantic matchmaking efforts on the behalf of two flowers to her near-death encounter with a praying mantis.

I’m choosing to think of the book as whimsical nonfiction, though you could call it fiction with a whole lot of facts thrown in. I’m also choosing to think of it as an adult book, because I am an adult and I really liked it, but it’s quite suitable for teens and older elementary students. The crisp black-and-white drawings will appeal to all ages, and the drama will make you put the book down and sniffle in private. I, uh, heard. That didn’t happen to me or anything. Nope.

Check the WRL catalog for Clan Apis

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The Chrestomanci Series, by Diana Wynne Jones

Diana Wynne Jones was writing funny, imaginative books about British schoolkids with magical abilities when J.K. Rowling was still in grade school. The Chrestomanci books are a series loosely connected by their shared universe—a spectrum of alternate worlds that can be visited by the magically gifted—and the office of the Chrestomanci, a nine-lived enchanter responsible for policing magic users (in Harry Potter’s world, he’d be the Minister of Magic). The books can be read in pretty much any order, though I enjoy them in direct correlation to how much Chrestomanci they have in them, and skip the ones in which he has only a cameo appearance.

Chrestomanci himself is a flashy, almost maddeningly confident fellow, who can sweep in and out of a room “like a very long procession of one person,” but the viewpoint characters in a Diana Wynne Jones book are young, and have grown up in such odd and neglectful households that they’re easy prey for sinister relatives and swindlers who just want to take advantage. In Charmed Life, young Cat Chant is packed off to Chrestomanci Castle, where even the gardeners and boot-boy are minor enchanters, when his parents perish in a steamboat accident. His sister Gwendolen is a talented young witch, destined for great things, while Cat is, mostly, towed around in Gwendolen’s wake. Unfortunately, the magical establishment isn’t nearly as impressed with Gwendolen as they ought to be, and she embarks on a campaign to show off her skills, one nasty trick at a time.

The Lives of Christopher Chant is a prequel, and adds interesting layers to several of the characters in Charmed Life. The cool, elegant Chrestomanci that so awes Cat starts out as a lonely kid in a well-to-do but chilly household. (His parents communicate via barbed notes carried by the butler.) Christopher regularly travels to other worlds in his sleep, and doesn’t think it’s anything out of the ordinary until his uncle takes interest and employs him to carry parcels between universes. Then he’s yanked out of boarding school to become the Chrestomanci-in-training, heir to a severe, humorless old gentleman whose job Christopher doesn’t envy and doesn’t want. Worse, he’s beginning to connect those odd jobs he does for his uncle with rumors of a nefarious gang trafficking in illegal magical supplies.

With their English sensibility and mix of the magical and mundane, these are a great choice of classic fantasy for kids moving on from Harry Potter or Narnia.

Check the WRL catalog for Charmed Life or The Lives of Christopher Chant.

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The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Before switching to the euro, the paper currency in France was the franc. Featured on the fifty-franc bill was a picture of The Little Prince.

Here in the United States, our fifty-dollar bill features Ulysses S. Grant.

I mean no disrespect toward our eighteenth president, but geeze. It’s no contest. France totally wins. A culture that favors a character from a children’s book over a president is doing something right.

M. Saint-Exupéry wrote and illustrated his novella in 1943, and it is still going strong. It has been translated into a ton of languages and has been adapted into movies and plays—which can be said for many books, but not many books can claim the distinction of having an asteroid named after them. It is entirely suitable for adults, teens, and young children, and in its original tongue, it is excellent for non-native speakers who are learning French.

The story is simple. The Little Prince is on a journey away from his bite-sized planet, where his vain but beloved rose is growing. Along the way he meets different people on different planets, including a pilot on our own Earth, but he never forgets his rose. In the final chapter he finds a way to return to her, but not without wrenching the heartstrings of the readers who’ve faithfully traveled with him to this point.

It’s amazing that this modest and unassuming story delivers so much. There is a charming story with lovely illustrations for younger readers, and emotional depth and philosophical insight for us adult readers (but grownups beware: we are not presented in a very flattering light). And it’s a really quick read, so to celebrate Bastille Day, I recommend you grab a copy to read today, by yourself or with a child.

Check the WRL catalog for The Little Prince

Parlez vous français? Nous avons aussi Le petit prince en français!

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