"The Black Stallion" by Walter Farley

For several decades, this was my favorite novel.  Although I have now admitted that there are a few other books I now love more than it, this remains in my top ten of absolute favorite books.  I read it aloud to my kids this winter and, although none of them loved it, they did enjoy it.

Alec Ramsay is on his way home to the USA from spending the summer with his uncle overseas when a storm strikes the ship he's on.  Only he and an untamed black Arabian stallion survive the shipwreck.  They both wash up on a deserted island, where they survive on seaweed and fish and form an unbreakable bond.  Eventually, they get rescued, and Alec takes The Black back home to the NYC suburbs.  He boards The Black at a stable near his house.  The stable is owned by a former jockey who recognizes The Black's racing potential.  He trains both Alec and the stallion, and they enter a race against the two fastest horses in the country.

As an adult, I can see a few flaws in this book.  Alec happens to have learned about edible seaweed the year before in school, so he knows he and The Black can eat what he finds.  Their neighbor happens to be a former jockey.  Alec's mom happens to take a trip to Chicago around the same time as the race, and happens to get tickets and be in the stands.  

You know what, though?  None of that ruins the book for me.  It's still a rousingly good yarn of overcoming steep odds, trusting your friends, and using your skills and talents to the utmost.  I still love it.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for a few scary parts when the ship sinks and when there's a big fire.

This is my second book read for #MiddleGradeMarch in 2023.

Top Ten Tuesday: Be Kind, Rewind

This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl is "Rewind: pick a previous topic that you missed or would like to re-do/update."  My pick is a prompt from July of 2018: Books That Are Linked to Specific Memories/Moments In Your Life. 

I link memories to objects.  This is one reason I own so many physical copies of books -- reading one over again often brings back the memories of the previous time(s) I read that book.  Of course, a lot of books just remind me of sitting on my couch or on the swing in our backyard, as those are where I tend to read the most.  But some books remind me very vividly of the place or time when I read them.  Here are ten fifteen of those that cover the past 20+ years:

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes -- I remember reading this while curled up on a fancy couch by a fire in the lobby of a Michigan hotel one winter evening.  Christmas was always a very busy and tiring time for my parents because my dad was a pastor and my mom was in charge of the music for the children's Christmas program at church every year.  So we would often do some kind of overnight getaway a day or two after Christmas as a family.  Just check into a hotel within an hour or two's drive, somewhere with an indoor swimming pool and hot tub.  One night of swimming, a hot tub, and getting to watch an old TV show or two on Nick-at-Night (we didn't have cable at home) really refreshed all of us.  One year, the hotel we stayed at had a fireplace with a real fire going in their lobby, and we all hung out there for a bit, reading and enjoying the ambience.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas -- I remember taking my library copy along to the orthodontist when I was eleven years old, and insisting on taking it into the exam room with me so I could read while waiting for the orthodontist to come in and adjust my teeth.  I had read a radio-play adaptation of just one small part of this book in a literature book for school, and I fell absolutely in love with it.  I convinced my mom to let me check out the real book from the library, and I read the whole thing.  Didn't understand the hashish stuff or some of the other, more adult subtextual matter, but I very much understood the plot, characterizations, and so on.  It's been one of my top favorite books ever since.

The Man in the Box by Marylois Dunn -- I found this book on the shelves in the junior fiction section of our North Carolina library, quite at random, and became somewhat obsessed with it.  In fact, I loved it so much, I wrote a little poem about how wonderful it was and tucked it inside the library copy when I returned it.  I don't know if the librarians didn't notice it, or thought it was sweet and left it in there, but I know that poem stayed inside their copy for years.  I know because I used to check to see if the book was on the shelves whenever I visited the library, and then see if the poem was still inside, and it always was!

The Princess Bride by William Goldman -- Although I'd loved the movie for years by then, I had never read the book until a friend gave it to me for Christmas my first year of college.  I remember reading the book on the plane when I flew home for Christmas break and having such a hard time containing my laughter because I didn't want to annoy my seatmates!

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury -- I first read this book in my family's car on the way back to college to begin my sophomore year.  I quick bought it at a bookstore before we left because I had heard that Mel Gibson was in talks to make a movie version, and I was quite a Gibson girl at that point, so that intrigued me.  I was absolutely enraptured by the book, and it's still really the only dystopian novel I enjoy.

Dracula by Bram Stoker -- I bought a cheap paperback copy of Dracula at a bookstore in Toronto, Canada, while on choir tour in May of 2000.  I'd become obsessed with vampires during my sophomore year of college, thanks to the TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff, Angel, and I decided I really ought to read the most-famous vampire book.  I read it while sitting on our tour bus, driving from one concert stop to the next, then the next, and so on.  I actually didn't care for the book much, but I stuck with it because I didn't have many other books packed.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde -- For four years after we finished college and got married, my husband and I both worked third shift.  I worked at Walmart, stocking shelves all night long.  Because I worked full-time, I got a full hour for my lunch break, and I would spend my lunches in the breakroom nibbling a sandwich and reading.  Reading, reading, reading.  I remember laughing aloud over this book so often there, and how amused my coworkers in the breakroom would be because I found the book so funny.  They used to say I read books the way they watched movies, which amused me because I once had a literature professor tell someone I watched movies the way other people read books.  Those both make sense, though, as I experience stories in both mediums basically the same way.

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King -- That same college professor recommended this book to me, but I didn't have time to read for fun while in college because I took a lot of reading-heavy courses in literature and history.  So I wrote this down in a little book where I kept my list of things I'd like to read someday.  I found it in our small-town Wisconsin library a few years later and was absolutely delighted with it.  But my main memory of this book is buying a copy in a mall bookstore in Connecticut years later and rereading it in little snatches while my toddler sat on my lap to watch his daily dose of VeggieTales Silly Songs on YouTube.  I can't hear "Monkey" without being immediately reminded of this book.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling -- I pre-ordered my copy of the final Harry Potter book, and the bookseller shipped it a week early by mistake!  Scholastic Books offered me a free Harry Potter t-shirt and a gift card if I would agree not to read it before its release date, and I agreed.  I used that gift card to buy a boxed set of the Chronicles of Narnia, and I honored my agreement not to read it before the day it released.  I was still working third shift in 2007, I was pregnant with my first baby, and I had Tuesday nights off.  So when I woke up around 5pm, I started to read, and I read all night long while my husband was away at work, and I finished the book before we went to sleep around 9am the next morning.  It was glorious to just immerse myself so fully in that world.  And then I didn't have to worry about any of my co-workers sharing spoilers when I went back to work the next night!

Middlemarch by George Eliot -- I took this book along to the hospital when I had to have my gall bladder out.  I remember getting wheeled to and from the imaging center so they could take an MRI to see if I really had to remove it or not, and I was just merrily reading this chunkster paperback while they pushed me up one hall and down the next.  The nurses and techs and other hospital staff had a great time teasing me about how I must think I was going to be there a long, long time if I brought such a massive book with me.  It was a cheery touchstone in what was an otherwise unexpected and stressful event.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell -- I basically never stay up past my bedtime reading.  I never pulled a single all-nighter in college.  When I am tired, I sleep.  However!  I took my kids to visit my parents a few years ago, and brought this book along.  It was my first time reading it, and one night when I went to bed, I was about two-thirds of the way through the book.  I figured I would read to the end of my current chapter and then go to sleep.  Except, I just couldn't quit reading, and I ended up staying awake until 3 am and finishing the book.  Which I regretted in the morning when my little ones woke me up at 7am, ready for breakfast and playtime.  The book will forever remind me of my parent's guest bedroom in their North Carolina home.

The Annotated Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler -- I bought this at a really amazing Barnes and Noble in Baltimore and happened to take it along when I visited a podiatrist because I had to have a toenail removed.  I was very glad to have this larger-than-usual paperback along to focus on and shield my gaze from what the podiatrist was doing.

Borden Chantry by Louis L'Amour -- I bought a lovely, battered vintage paperback copy of this at a hole-in-the-wall used bookstore up in the Shenandoah Valley while we were on a family vacation last year, and read the whole thing while cozied up in the cabin we had rented.  Which is now my gold standard for where and how to read a western, to be honest.  They hit different when you're in a cabin built in the 1700s and snuggled up under a soft throw while curled up on an antique loveseat.  

The Black Swan by Rafael Sabatini -- I took this book along to the pool while my kids swam there last summer, when I couldn't swim because I had broken my arm and my surgical incision hadn't healed yet.  If I couldn't splash around in the water, at least I could read about adventure on the high seas!

Beauty by Robin McKinley -- I read this book on the flight home after an idyllic visit to my best friend earlier this month.  I finished it just before landing again, and the happiness of the book's ending got all tangled up with my joy over such an incredible visit and my gladness at being home with my husband and kids again.  

Do you also have vivid memories of where you read particular books?  What did you do for Top Ten Tuesday this week?  Please share!

"Mary Poppins" by P. L. Travers

I liked this book SO MUCH BETTER than I did when I was a kid!  I read two or three of the original Mary Poppins books by P. L. Travers when I was young, and I just didn't find them very fun.  And I found parts of them downright creepy.  Or bizarre.  Or dark and weird.  I much preferred the Disney movie.

Don't get me wrong -- I still love the Disney movie.  But this book makes me laugh aloud multiple times now!  I used to think Mary Poppins in the book was kind of mean, and she IS much sterner and less cuddly than Mary Poppins in the movie.  But now, as an adult, I just see her as a woman tasked with caring for other people's children who has no use for fools and no time to waste.  She's not mean, she's just busy and tired.  And funny, but not in a way that kids would get.

I also love how you can kind of read the magical parts of this book two ways.  You can take them the way Disney does -- as magical events caused by a magical person.  Or you can take them as adding imagination and wishing to ordinary events.  Do they all really have a tea party floating in the air, or did they just have so much fun laughing and telling jokes and laughing some more that they felt like they were floating?  Did Mary Poppins and her friend Bert really jump through a painting and have a free picnic in Fairyland?  Or did they make up a fun "pretend we're doing that" story together because neither of them had enough spare money to go have tea in a shop?  That absolutely fascinated me, and I LOVED IT.

Particularly Good Bits:

"Don't you know," she said pityingly, "that everybody's got a Fairyland of their own?" (p. 32).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG because that part where Mrs. Corry snaps off her fingers and feeds them to children is really creepy, even if you tell yourself she's pretending to do it and giving them cookies instead.

This is my fiftieth book read and reviewed for my third Classics Club list!!!  I am finished again!!!  Look for a wrap-up post about that soon.

"Swallowdale" by Arthur Ransome

Awwww.  This book is just plain charming.  Funny and exciting and real.

I read Swallowdale aloud with my kids over a few weeks, and we all enjoyed it so, so much!  I think we may have liked it even better than Swallows and Amazons, which I read aloud to them last summer.  We all agreed that we wish we could have had childhoods as uninhibited as these kids, sailing and fishing and hiking and getting into a little trouble now and then, but being resourceful and brave and getting out of trouble again without too much help from adults.

This series is such a delight that I'm tempted to read the next book aloud to them this summer too.  I love how the kids in it aren't perfect and aren't horrible.  They aren't unrealistically good at stuff, but neither are they hopelessly bad at it.  They squabble and quibble and rescue each other and are just... absolutely awesome.  I love them.

This book concerns four siblings, aka the Swallows, who camped out on an island the previous summer (in the first book) and eventually made friends with two sisters (the Amazons) who had similar attitudes toward important subjects such as piracy and fairness and adults.  They are all hoping to be reunited for more jolly adventures this summer, but a horrible Great Aunt and a sailing mistake change all their plans and create new kinds of adventures for them instead.

Particularly Good Bits:

...Roger, who took things as they came and was content so long as things kept on coming (p. 91).  (Roger might be my favorite...)

That was Susan's strong point.  She never allowed excitements such as sleeping in the open half-way up a mountain, or a naval battle, or a dangerous bit of exploring, to interfere with the things that really matter, such as seeing that water is really boiling before making tea with it, having breakfast at the proper time, washing as usual, and drying anything that may be damp.  Really, if it had not been for Susan, half the Swallows' adventures would have been impossible (p. 308-09).  (Susan is my spirit animal.  I identify strongly with her pretty much all the time.)

This has been my 44th book read and reviewed for my third Classics Club list, and my 28th read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2022.

"Anne of Green Gables" (Manga Classics) by L. M. Montgomery (original story), Crystal S. Chan (story adaptation), and Kuma Chan (art)

I am enchanted by this manga version of Anne of Green Gables. So enchanted that I can't wait to read more in the Manga Classics series!  And this one has definitely found a home on our shelves.

Obviously, this is an abridgement of the original text.  There are a few chapters that only get one or two pages in this, Crystal S. Chan sets forth all the really key parts in loving detail.  Anne driving through the White Way of Delight for the first time?  Check.  Anne flying into a rage when Mrs. Rachel Lynde twits her about her looks?  Check.  Anne breaking a slate over Gilbert's head?  Check.  And so on.

Kuma Chan's artwork is completely adorable.  Every few pages, I would just stop and marvel at the sweetness and cuteness.  It is every bit as charming as it ought to be.

Now that I've read it myself, I've passed it on to my kids, and my ten-year-old read the whole thing in a little over an hour this afternoon.  She also completely loved it, and she is begging me to get some Manga Classics that retell Jane Austen books.  So look for more reviews of this series to come, because you know I have a great fondness for Jane Austen!

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  G.  Absolutely clean and wholesome.

This has been my 24th book read off my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2022.

"What Katy Did" by Susan Coolidge

What DID Katy do?  Oh, Katy does a lot of things.  Katy and her little siblings play, and sing, and read, and make messes, and get in trouble, and get hurt, and get well again, and rip their clothes, and get scolded... in other words, Katy and her siblings have childhoods.  Full and rich childhoods.

I can't believe I'd never read this book before.  I would have loved it as a kid!  It's got exactly the sort of chummy flavor I've long valued, like the Anne books and the Ramona books.  I would have spent a lot of time imagining I was friends with Katy, like I did with Anne and Ramona, when I was a kid.  Oh well, at least I've read it now!  And I have both sequels waiting on my TBR shelves!

I've seen people compare this to Anne of Green Gables a lot, as if Katy is a sort of proto-Anne, but I think she's a proto-Pollyanna.  In fact, there's quite a lot of Pollyanna in this book, including Katy suffering a terrible accident and having to learn a lot from it about how to handle life.  She struggles with that a great deal, but realistically, and the author doesn't offer either the character or the audience any pat answers on how to endure hardship.  She shows that it takes a lot of patience, learning, and willingness to try over and over.  I was impressed.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  It's totally appropriate for all ages.  

This is my 43rd book read and reviewed for my third Classics Club list -- getting close to that goal of fifty!  It's also my 23rd book read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2022.

"The Railway Children" by E. Nesbit

I loved this book when I was a kid.  Guess what?  I still love it now!  I read it out loud to my three kiddos this month, and they just ate it up.  I read them the Usborne Illustrated Original edition pictured here, and the illustrations by Ji-Hyuk Kim are GORGEOUS.  Especially everything involving the trains.

Three children and their mother have to leave their London home to go live in a small cottage in the English countryside because their father... has had some trouble befall him.  Trouble you don't learn about for a long, long time because the children don't know what it is either.

They live not far from a railway and make friends with the people who work at the local station as well as some of the engineers and passengers.  And they have many adventures involving the train and its environs, including one thrilling day when they actually save a train from being wrecked.  It's an utterly charming book, and I'm not surprised that my kids loved it too.

(From my Instagram account)

Particularly Good Bits:

Grown-up people, even Mothers, often make remarks that don't seem to mean anything in particular, just for the sake of saying something, seemingly (p. 52).

There was a pleasant party of barge people around the fire.  You might not have thought it pleasant, but they did; for they were all friends or acquaintances, and they liked the same sort of things, and talked the same sort of talk.  This is the real secret of pleasant society (p. 215).

However nice the person who is teaching you may be, lessons are lessons all the world over, and at their best are worse fun than peeling potatoes or lighting a fire (p. 351-2).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  G, for it is good, clean, sweet, lovely, and wholesome.

This is my 46th book read and reviewed for my second go-'round with the Classics Club.  Almost to my goal of 50!

"All the Mowgli Stories" by Rudyard Kipling

Ohhhhh, how I love this book.

As a teen, I read The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book over and over and over, mainly skipping the non-Mowgli stories and just reading about his adventures.  Which made reading this collection like a little journey back in time to my teen years, curled up in the basement with Bagheera and Mowgli and Kaa and Baloo.  Bagheera was ever my favorite back then, and he remains my favorite now, all wise and mysterious and sleek and a little mischievous.  I love black cats, and had several as a child and teen, but never named any Bagheera, weirdly enough.  If ever we get a black cat again, I will totally name it that.

Anyway.  There's one story in this, "In the Rukh," that I'd never read before!  That was such a surprising delight!  I learned from the Afterword that "In the Rukh" is actually the first Mowgli story Kipling wrote, and his first published story!  But chronologically for Mowgli, it's the last story, and involves him getting married and more or less settling down, his four wolf brothers still with him.  I really loved that story, as the end of "The Spring Running" is much too sad, with him having to leave the jungle and his wolf family.  And that's what I thought the last Mowgli story was, because it's the last one in The Second Jungle Book.  I'm SO glad that it's not!

Why do I love these stories so much?  Because they're fun, but they've also got a lot of wisdom in them.  Can you find a place to belong and build your own family from beings who are unlike you and unrelated to you?  Will that "found family" last forever?  What if it doesn't?  How does growing from a child to an adult both change a person and solidify who they have been from the beginning?  How do you take advice you don't like from someone you trust and love?  Oh, there's so much wonderful stuff in here.  I almost want to just begin at the beginning and read them all over again right now :-)

Particularly Good Bits:

Everybody knew Bagheera, and nobody cared to cross his path; for he was as cunning as Tabaqui, as bold as the wild buffalo, and as reckless as the wounded elephant.  But he had a voice as soft as wild honey dripping from a tree, and a skin softer than down (p. 7).

"Let them fall, Mowgli; they are only tears" (p. 16).

One of the beauties of Jungle Law is that punishment settles all scores.  There is no nagging afterward (p. 39).

Here there was some little difficulty with the catch of the door.  It had been very firmly fastened, but the crowd tore it away bodily, and the light of the torches streamed into the room where, stretched at full length on the bed, his paws crossed and lightly hung down over one end, black as the Pit, and terrible as a demon, was Bagheera.  There was one half-minute of desperate silence, as the front ranks of the crowd clawed and tore their way back from the threshold, and in that minute Bagheera raised his head and yawned -- elaborate, carefully, and ostentatiously -- as he would yawn when he wished to insult an equal.  The fringed lips drew back and up; the red tongue curled; the lower jaw dropped and dropped till you could see half-way down the hot gullet; and the gigantic dog-teeth stood clear to the pit of the gums till they rang together, upper and under, with the snick of steel-faced wards shooting home round the edges of a safe.  Next instant the street was empty; Bagheera had leaped back through the window, and stood at Mowgli's side, while a yelling, screaming torrent scrambled and tumbled one over another in their panic haste to get to their own huts (p. 88).

"I was rolling in the dust before the gate and dawn, and I may have made also some small song to myself" (p. 89).  (I loved this line so much as a teen, I memorized it.  I still quote it.)

A large, warm tear splashed down on his knee, and, miserable as he was, Mowgli felt happy that he was so miserable, if you can understand that upside-down sort of happiness (p. 145).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for danger and suspense and some violence.

This is my 40th book read and reviewed for my second go-'round with the Classics Club!  Only ten left to hit my goal!  I am really hoping to finish this list by the end of the year... so I can start all over again :-)

"The Indian in the Cupboard" by Lynne Reid Banks

This is one of my absolute favorite books of all time.  I loved it as a kid and I love it now.  I hadn't read it in more than a decade, but I pulled it out to read aloud to my kids, and they loved it too, especially my daughters.

Omri's friend Patrick gives him a little plastic Indian for his birthday.  Omri's brother gives him an old cupboard he found in the alley.  Omri's mother finds him an old, old key that fits the lock on the cupboard, and he's delighted because now he has a place to put things.  Don't we all love places to put things?  I know I do.

Anyway, Omri puts his plastic Indian in the cupboard and locks it and goes to sleep.  And when he wakes up, he discovers that the Indian has come alive.  But is still only a couple inches tall.  But totally alive.  His name is Little Bear, and he is the most demanding, fierce, bossy tiny person you've ever heard of.  But also endearingly brave.

My favorite parts of this book are all about Omri scrambling to provide things Little Bear needs.  A tiny campfire, bark for a longhouse, food, and so on.  I love miniature things, which is a big part of why books like this and The Borrowers appeal to me.  And why I love playing with my kids' Calico Critters with them and keep buying them more for their birthdays.  Anyway, when Omri tells Patrick about this magical event, Patrick wants a tiny person too and sticks a plastic cowboy in the cupboard.  And the cowboy, Billy "Boohoo" Boone, is my other favorite thing about this story.  He's cantankerous and belligerent and softhearted.

I love everything about this book, and I've read three of the sequels too, though I didn't love them as much.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some tiny acts of violence and for taking God's name in vain a few times.

The Seven Question Book Tag

I'm in the mood to fill out blog tags.  And Eva tagged me with this a while back, so I'm going to seize this mood and fill this out!

RULES

• thank the person who tagged you (thanks, Eva!)
• answer the questions given
• create new questions
• tag bloggers to answer your questions

(All pics are mine from my Bookstagramming adventures.)

EVA'S QUESTIONS

What’s the first book you can remember reading?

By myself?  Um.  I have memories of reading this little paperback version of "The Little Red Hen" when I was very small.  Probably some sort of early-reader book, and I was about five.  I also have memories of a comic book someone gave me before I could actually read -- I remember lying in my bed counting squiggles of particular shapes in the speech bubbles, which I didn't recognize as letters yet.  I would've been like three then.

First person or third person POV?

I like both :-)  For years, I only wrote in third person, and some books just require that distance, but I've become better at writing first person with practice.  For reading, though, I like both.

What’s the longest series you’ve ever read? (It can be in terms of page numbers, amount of books in the series, or any other method of calculating.)

For adult novels, the Aubrey-Maturin books by Patrick O'Brian.  There are twenty of those.  (I mean, I've read way more Hardy Boys and Trixie Beldens and Mandie books, but those are not adult books.)

What book world would you least like to enter?

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens depressed me a lot.  Nobody there I want to hang out with.  No desire to travel there.

Do you own any autographed-by-the-author books?

I do!  Several, in fact.  I got my copy of Fahrenheit 451 autographed by Ray Bradbury when I was in college, and I got my copy of The Beekeeper's Apprentice autographed by Laurie R. King about ten years ago.  I also have a couple others that I bought that were signed, and some written by friends who signed them for me.

What is your favorite place at which to buy books?

The 2nd and Charles here in our city is really fun because I can often sell back a bunch of books and movies there in exchange for store credit, and then the new ones I buy don't cost very much.  And I love Mermaid Books down in Williamsburg, VA, and Royal Oak Books up in Front Royal, VA.  So, yeah, used book stores are my jam, but I like new books too.  I love Barnes & Noble -- we have two that are less than an hour away, so I get to them three or four times a year.  If we had a Barnes & Noble here in our city, it would be my favorite, but since they're farther away, they're a special treat instead of a regular place to visit.

Who is your favorite sibling duo/trio/etc in literature?

Boromir and Faramir from The Lord of the Rings.  We never get to see them on page together, but their brotherly bond shines clear even so.

MY QUESTIONS

1.  Villain you wish would turn good so you could like him in good conscience.
2.  Hero you don't think is worthy of the title hero.
3.  Heroine who deserved a better ending.
4.  Sidekick who ought to get a spin-off.
5.  Series that you wish could have gone on for just one more book.
6.  Author you'd like to thank for a book that is meaningful to you.
7.  Dream cast for your favorite book.

I TAG the following bloggers:

Mamahood Memoirs

Meanwhile, in Rivendell...

Movies Meet Their Match

Musings of an Introvert

Play if you want to!

"Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman" by Dorothy Sterling

I got a copy of this from a yard sale when I was a kid, and I read it and read it and read it and read it.  Harriet Tubman was a big hero for me -- I bonded to her stubbornness, I think.

Anyway, I went to see Harriet (2019) this weekend (my review here), and it made me want to re-read this book so that I could reacquaint myself with the truth of her story, since I knew the moviemakers were smooshing things together and reimagining some of her life.  So I re-read it this afternoon, and I loved it all over again.

If you're looking for a good place to start in learning about Harriet Tubman's life, or if you want your kids to know more about her, this is the book for you.  It's awesome.  It touches on the evils of slavery in ways that kids can understand, it shows Harriet's faith in God and her indomitable drive to be free.  And it gives you a great sense of how she wanted freedom for her people so much, she was willing to risk recapture and even death to help as many as she could to reach freedom too.

This is written like a story or novel, not a dry recitation of facts, which makes it very readable and enjoyable.  I loved it as a kid, and I love it now.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for a couple mild cuss words and depictions of violence such as beatings.

"By the Shores of Silver Lake" by Laura Ingalls Wilder

As a kid, this was my favorite of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books.  I think that miiiiiight have had a little to do with the fact that there's a horse on the cover of my copy.  But also, nothing terribly bad happens in this one.  Locusts don't eat up their crops, they don't have to leave the home they built 3 miles too far west, and they don't almost starve.  This one and Little House in the Big Woods were my favorites as a kid, because they were so peaceful, and they're still my favorites now, as I've been reading them aloud to my family, one book a year or so.  Turns out I still love peaceful books that describe everyday life but don't have terrible things happening!

(My best friend is laughing and nodding her head vigorously at that description of my tastes, I just know it.)

My mom used to read these books aloud to us in the car.  I looooooooved them.  So, a few years ago, I took one along to read aloud during the car trip portion of our family vacation.  My husband had never read them, and he and our youngest are very in love with them now too, and they insist I bring one along every vacation.  I am more than happy to oblige.

I was really excited to get to revisit this one this year, and it definitely lived up to my remembered fondness.  Laura starts to grow from a little girl into a young woman, and she makes some really hard decisions, like accepting the fact that she's going to be a teacher in a few years, even though she doesn't want to be one.  That takes a lot of guts and maturity, and I really respect her for being able to accept her parents' requirement like that.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Wholesome family fare.

This is my 35th book read and reviewed for my second go-'round with the Classics Club!

"Caddie Woodlawn" by Carol Ryrie Brink

This book is every bit as fun as I remembered it being!  I chuckled aloud more than once.  And my two oldest kids thoroughly enjoyed it too.  In fact, my 9-year-old promptly read the sequel, Magical Melons (recently retitled Caddie Woodlawn's Family).  My 11-yr-old liked it so much, he said he'd like it if I read it out loud to everyone on vacation this summer.  Warmed my heart!

Also, this solved a semi-mystery for me.  For all of my adult life, the phrase "If at first you don't fricasee, fry, fry a hen" has popped into my head whenever someone says "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."  And I knew it was from some book I read as a kid, but I could NOT figure out which one!  Well, it's totally from this.  Which makes sense, as I read this over and over.

Caddie Woodlawn is a spunky pioneer girl living in the woods of Wisconsin.  Think of 11-yr-old Laura Ingalls Wilder if she was still living in the Little House in the Big Woods and had brothers to pal around with.  Caddie's family moved to Wisconsin when she was very small, and she was a sickly child, so her father convinced her mother to let her run around outside with her brothers until she was ready to be "ladylike."  She has lots of adventures, like saving her Indian friends from being killed by angry settlers, racing her uncle down the river on a raft, and fighting a prairie fire.

I can see now why I loved this book as a kid.  I was also a tomboy.  My dad also let me run "wild" as often as I liked, and I thought the description "ladylike" was a pejorative.  So I know I identified strongly with Caddie.  Also, the whole book is a lot of cheerful fun, and I think it'd be hard not to enjoy it.

I did not know until reading this to teach it to our homeschool co-op that this is basically a true story!  Caddie Woodlawn was really Caddie Woodhouse, the author's grandmother, who really did grow up a tomboy in the Wisconsin woods.  Published in Caddie's lifetime, with her assistance and approval, it won the Newbery Medal, and deservedly so.

Reading this with my 9-yr-old :-)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  G.  Good, clean, cheerful fun!

This has been my 31st book read and reviewed for the Classics Club on my second go-round with them!

"The Four-Story Mistake" by Elizabeth Enright

I know I read this as a kid, but I really didn't remember much of it, except that they had a cupola on their house.  I was kinda obsessed with cupolas as a kid, mostly thanks to the Samantha books from American Girl.  Truth be told, I'd still like one. 

Anyway, this is an utterly charming book.  I chose it for my 3rd-6th graders to read for our homeschool co-op this month, so of course, I had to reread it myself.  And I'm so happy I did.  I read one of the later Melendy books, Spiderweb for Two, a few years ago, and found it delightful too.

In this one, Mr. Melendy sells their home in the city and moves his four children, their housekeeper Cuffy, and the furnace man Willy out to a great big house in the countryside.  It has three actual stories and a cupola on top to be the fourth story, and it is full of surprises and secrets and joy. 

The four kids spend the book having all sorts of adventures.  This takes place during WWII, and they spend a good deal of time and energy thinking up ways to earn money to buy war stamps and war bonds.  They put on a play, one person finds a treasure, two of them get jobs... this is a slice-of-life story at its finest.  And I love that sort of book that just has people living out their ordinary lives in an interesting way.

Particularly Good Bits:

None of them wanted to leave their house.  None of them, that is, except seven-year-old Oliver who always greeted the future as a friend and never gave a hang about anything in the past (p. 6).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  G.  Good, clean, wholesome fun.

This is my 27th book read and reviewed for my second time around with the Classics Club.

"The 100 Dresses" by Eleanor Estes

There are some stories that I think of as Important.  I don't remember the first time I thought of a story that way, but I know that by the time I read this, probably around the age of ten, I already had the idea that some stories were Important.  Capital I, bold letters, and all.  

Important stories are ones that each me to look at some aspect of my behavior or the world around me in a new and different way.  They teach a moral lesson, but without preaching.  It's hard to teach moral lessons without being preachy -- as an author, I know that full well.  But some stories pull it off beautifully.  This is one.

(What other stories have earned the label Important over the years?  To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  A Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter.  Movies like Rebel Without a Cause, Blackboard Jungle, A Gentlemen's Agreement, and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?)

It's a very simple story.  A group of schoolgirls tease Wanda Petronski every day.  She's poor, she wears the same shabby dress every day, and she claims to have a hundred dresses in her closet at home.  Wanda never gets angry about the teasing, never reacts in any way but to eventually walk away.  One girl, Maddie, is self-aware enough to eventually realize that she joins in teasing Wanda because she's afraid if she doesn't, they'll tease her instead.  The book as a whole focuses on Maddie's journey from timid joiner to resolute individual.  It accomplishes this with 78 pages, half of them filled with illustrations.  It's a masterful example of sparse storytelling with nothing extra, nothing unnecessary.  A good story, well-told.  Which is my favorite kind.

Oddly enough, I remembered this book ending differently than it does.  I've been convinced for years that Wanda died at the end, and that's how they discovered the truth about her hundred dresses.  But she doesn't.  I'm really wondering now why I thought that.  Huh.

I read this as part of the 2019 Newbery Read Along hosted on Instagram by @lollipopsandlyrics and @happylittlebirdy.  If you also love classic children's fiction, please join us!

(My bookstagram)

Particularly Good Bits:

Wisps of old grass stuck up here and there along the pathway like thin wet kittens (p. 53)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Appropriate for all ages, though most appreciated by first grade on up, I think.

This is my 25th book read and reviewed for my second go-round with the Classics Club!  I'm halfway there!

"Mr. Popper's Penguins" by Richard and Florence Atwater

I'm afraid I liked this book better as a kid.  It's still cute and fun, but my suspension of disbelief got stretched a little too far for me to totally enjoy it.  Not that it was a huge favorite of mine as a kid either -- I remember reading it and wishing my parents would let us have snow in the house, but that's about all I recall, so I must have only read it once or twice.

I read it now because my 8-yr-old loves penguins.  This is the last book we'll be reading this semester for our homeschool co-op lit course, and I chose it because she would enjoy it.  And she did.  So that's a win, really.  And it only took me a couple of hours to read, so it's not like I was stuck with a book I didn't thoroughly enjoy for very long.

Mr. Popper's Penguins involves a very nice man who wishes he was an explorer instead of a house painter.  Imagine George Bailey from It's a Wonderful Life if he was even poorer.  In fact, James Stewart likely would have made a very effective Mr. Popper if they'd made a movie of this sixty or seventy years ago.

Anyway, Mr. Popper is given a penguin most unexpectedly.  Most of the book involves his family adjusting to life with a penguin.  And then life with many penguins.  They aren't rich, but they never really begrudge those penguins the money they have to pour into keeping them, though Mrs. Popper frets now and then.  Eventually, they find a way for the penguins to earn their keep.  And Mr. Popper's dearest wish comes true -- it's a very, very happy ending.  And I definitely liked that.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  G.  Squeaky clean.

This is my 11th and, presumably, final book read for the Old School Kidlit Reading Challenge.  Don't think I'll have time for another junior fiction book before the end of the year.

"Wonder" by R. J. Palacio

There's a reason this book is super famous and got a movie made of it.  That reason is that it tells a very compelling story about characters you begin to care about quickly.

I am sometimes resistant about very popular, famous books that "everybody is reading now."  I get skeptical and suspicious.  Not sure why -- part of my stubbornly individualistic personality or something.  So it took me a few years to finally read this.  But I'm glad I overcame my inner resistance and read it because it's a very sweet, funny, heart-warming story.  I got tears in my eyes several times, and a few of those spilled down my cheeks at the very end.

Auggie has a rare genetic disorder that caused him to be born with severe facial abnormalities.  Other than that, he's "normal" -- not "developmentally disabled" or physically incapacitated in any way.  He just doesn't look like other people.  His mother has homeschooled him all his life, but when he's ready to enter 5th grade, his parents decide to try enrolling him in a local private school.  Joy and struggles and triumphs and setbacks result.

I loved that this was told from multiple points of view.  Auggie himself was almost a little too perfect to work as a constant narrator, so I was glad that chunks of the story were told by other characters.  It really helped the whole story be more well-rounded and believable.

My son is 11 and in 5th grade, and we homeschool.  So part of the reason this book hit home for me was just imagining if he was Auggie and he faced those same obstacles.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for some instances of taking God's name in vain, a scary/tense scene, and discussions of physical problems that might be hard for little kids to handle or understand.

The Bibliophile Sweater Tag

I wasn't tagged with this specifically -- I found it at The Book Hound, and RM Lutz tagged anyone who wanted to steal it, so... here I am, stealing the tag.  Like a year after it was posted.  Because that is exactly what my life is like right now.

I'm not just busy these days, I am STUPID BUSY.  Like, so busy it makes me stupid sometimes.  I hate it.  I need to unload something from my pile of life, but every time I try, something else jumps on the haywagon and I'm overloaded again.  GRR.  ARGH.

Anyway, here are the rules of the tag, which I am merrily disregarding because... I can.  (Just like I'm ignoring my laundry today...)

1. Give the person who tagged you an endless supply of cookies. (If I knew where she lived, I would.)
2. Answer the questions and use the blog graphic. (Check.)
3. Pass along the tag. (If you want to steal this from me, go ahead.)
4. Wear a sweater. (I only own one sweater, and while it's been cold-ish here again lately, I really don't want to wear it.  I don't like sweaters.)

Fuzzy Sweater -- The Epitome of Comfort

I turn to Rex Stout's mysteries starring Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe whenever I need cheering up.  They always do the trick.  I've collected all of them over the years, but only read about a third so far.  They get their own shelf in my library -- all the ones to the right of the Nero Wolfe Cookbook are the ones I've read and the ones to the left of it are the ones I haven't gotten to yet.

Striped Sweater -- A Book You Devoured Every Line Of

I can't help inhaling The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery when I read it.  I simply can't read it slowly!  I chomp my way through it as quickly as possible because it's soooooooooo delicious.

Ugly Christmas Sweater -- Book with a Weird Cover

I took a pretty picture of it for #AustenInAugust on Instagram, but this copy of Persuasion by Jane Austen has a very weird cover.  Look at the person on the cover!  I assume it's supposed to be Anne Elliot, but WHAT is going on with her clothes?  Her butt seriously cannot be that huge, and bustles weren't a thing during the Regency, so why is this even on this cover?  The more I look at it, the more it bothers me.

Cashmere Sweater -- Most-Expensive Book

I just ordered a used copy of My Lost City: Personal Essays 1920-1940 by F. Scott Fitzgerald on Amazon for $29.95.  I am CRAZY excited about this!  This is probably not the most money I've ever spent on one book, but it's close, cuz I buy a lot of my books used.  But the reason I'm putting it here (and the reason I'm excited) is that used copies of this book usually go for between $70 and $200.  I've been wanting to read this book for ages and ages, but cost prohibited me.  Well, thanks to meandering around my Amazon wish list yesterday, I saw that there was an affordable copy on offer and snatched it up.  I should get it this weekend.  SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Hoodie -- Favorite Classic

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte... but you probably knew that already.  If you've been reading my blogs for more than like a month, anyway.  I even led a read-along of it a couple years ago.

Cardigan -- Book Purchased on Impulse

I'm not a big impulse buyer for books UNLESS I'm at a library book sale or yard sale where books are only a dollar.  This is why I have such high ratings for books on Goodreads -- I don't read books I don't already know something about and think I'll like.  I don't have time to read all the books I WILL like, so why waste my very limited time on books I know I won't?  

But anyway.  I bought Holiday Grind by Cleo Coyle at the library's semi-annual book sale last year, not knowing anything about it except what the cover told me, namely that it's a mystery that involves coffee and takes place around Christmas.  It's been languishing on my TBR bookcase in the basement ever since.  I'm hoping to read it this winter.

Turtleneck Sweater -- Book from Your Childhood

The Black Stallion by Walter Farley was my favorite book from age 7 until I was in my early 30s and finally admitted to myself that I like Jane Eyre and The Count of Monte Cristo better.  It's still my 3rd-favorite book, though.  HUGE part of my childhood.  I used to spend so much time imagining I was Alec Ramsay, marooned on an island, with a horse for my best friend.  Days and days and days living in that world in my head, while my parents just saw me doing my schoolwork and chores.

I re-read The Black Stallion as an adult a few years ago, and while I now can see that much of it is wildly implausable and hinges on massive coincidences... I don't care.  At all.  I still adore it.  And to be honest, my other two favorite books have lots of coincidences in them too.  I don't mind coincidences!

(I read 3 or 4 of the other books in the series and they were meh, in my humble childhood opinion.)

Homemade Knitted Sweater -- Indie Book

Getting so excited for the release of Soldier On by Vanessa Rasanen at the end of October!  I got to read an ARC of it to review for Sister, Daughter, Mother, Wife, and my review will be out in a few weeks!  I'll post about it here too, don't worry.  This book is fantastic -- meaty and deep and about so many of the hard things in life... but the good things, too.

V-neck Sweater -- A Book that Didn't Meet Your Expectations

Longbourn by Jo Baker.  Do yourself a favor and don't read it if you're a fan of Pride and Prejudice and want to keep liking Austen's characters.  Calling it a disappointment is a dire understatement.

Argyle Sweater -- Book with a Weird Format

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, which is told in overlapping circles, like the stories are ripples in a pond, intersecting and widening and changing all the time.  It took me a while to get the hang of it, but once I wrapped my head around the non-linear storytelling, I really dug it.

Polka Dot Sweater -- A Book with Well-Rounded Characters

Middlemarch by George Eliot is breathtaking when it comes to fantastically deep characterizations.

That's all, folks!  Happy autumn to all of you :-)  I'm not tagging anyone with this, so if you want to play, then play!