reading

High, Dry, and Occasionally Very Wet : More About the West

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It is not unusual for people who come to live in the Western states to acquire books about their new home. Fortunately there are many wonderful writers willing to interpret what it means to be part of this land and how to love it properly. The four books here are at the top of my stack. Their yellowing pages are crossed with underlining and their covers are creased and ragged, all signs of repeated readings. If you are meeting any of these writers for the first time, you youngish readers, I envy you your first acquaintance.

Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs : Living and Writing in the West by Wallace Stegner c1992

Frightening signs warning you of blinding dust storms and severe weather greet you on your first trip between Salt Lake City and Boise. There are few trees to seek shelter under out there beyond Rattlesnake Pass. The hills go on for miles and miles. It takes some time for an Easterner to learn to appreciate the openness. Here are the author’s words:

“You have to get over the color green; you have to quit associating beauty with gardens and lawns; you have to get used to an inhuman scale.”

From, “Thoughts in a Dry Land” included in Wallace Stegner’s collection of essays which make up “Where the Bluebird Sings..” The western landscape is not friendly, but people come from all over the world to walk around in it. They are not prepared for the heat or the lack of water. They frequently don’t take warnings from locals seriously. In some places that might cause inconvenience, out here, it can be deadly. Life is defined by the sparseness of water in the West. John Wesley Powell warned about it early on, but we don’t seem to be listening. Reading Wallace Stegner is going to help you get over the color green, and teach you indispensable truths.

The author’s words: “If there is such a thing as being conditioned by climate and geography, and I think there is, it is the West that has conditioned me. It has forms and lights and colors that I respond to in nature and in art. If there is a western speech, I speak it; if there is a western character or personality, I am some variant of it; if there is a western culture in the small-c, anthropological sense, I have not escaped it. It has to have shaped me.” It is these built in sensibilities that make Stegner’s the strong voice for thinking realistically about the West that his became.

There are personal stories of Stegner’s family, his “Letter, Much Too Late” to his mother is heart breaking and lovely. He writes about the western authors he admires. You will come away from this book with a longer reading list. If you want to learn about the real American West, Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs is a very good place to start.

The Land of Little Rain by Mary Austin. First Published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company c1903. This edition Warbler Press Classics c2020.

No introduction I can give will beacon you in to read this book better than the authors words in her prelude:

“The real heart and core of the country are not to be come at in a month’s vacation. One must summer and winter with the land and wait its occasions. Pine woods that take two and three seasons to the ripening of cones, roots that lie by in the sand seven years awaiting a growing rain, firs that grow fifty years before flowering,–these do not scrape acquaintance. But if ever you come beyond the borders as far as the town that lies in a hill dimple at the foot of Kearsarge, never leave it until you have knocked at the door of the brown house under the willow-tree at the end of the village street, and there you shall have such news of the land, of its trails and what is astir in them, as one lover of it can give another.”

The desert region of which Mary Austin writes is the Owens Valley in California. It is surrounded by the Eastern Sierra Nevada and White Mountain Ranges. Death Valley and the Mojave Desert also make up the region. Her voice was one of the first to praise the beauty to be found in this desert, and to speak of the unusual animals and plants that manage to survive in such extreme aridity and heat. She includes stories about the human inhabitants, the Paiutes, Shoshones, Mexican and Chinese immigrants, miners, stagecoach drivers and others who eke out a precarious existence in this very dry land. Nobody else has described the desert who has had such a close and affectionate acquaintance with it. Her words are illuminating and poetic, old fashioned and painstakingly descriptive. You forget you are reading a work of non-fiction when you enter Mary Austin’s world.

The author’s words:

“The shape of a new mountain is roughly pyramidal, running out into long shark-finned ridges that interfere and merge into other thunder-splintered sierras. You get the saw-tooth effect from a distance, but the near-by granite bulk glitters with the terrible keen polish of old glacial ages. I say terrible; so it seems. When those glossy domes swim into the alpenglow, wet after rain, you perceive how long and imperturbable are the purposes of God.”

The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko c2013 Scribner / Simon and Schuster : New York

Here comes the “occasionally very wet” part of today’s story. In 1983 a massive snowpack in the Rockies melted too quickly and floodwaters threatened to take out the Glen Canyon Dam and drown everything downstream with the entire contents of Lake Powell. Plywood flashboards atop the dam were holding on, for the moment.. While federal officials were busy figuring out what to do next, three Grand Canyon river guides launched their wooden dory The Emerald Mile into the wildest ride imaginable down the ferociously churning waters of the Colorado River. There are Youtube videos of that river in 1983 showing where beaches used to be, and wreckage of river running boats that didn’t get out of the way in time.

Kevin Fedarko tells this true story with all the facts and all the excitement in a well paced tale of adventure and natural forces out of control. All the people involved have their moments, and the reader is taken along on a very, very wild ride. It is history and legend combined for people who remember and for the grandkids who ought to know this story.

The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig c2006 Harcourt Books

As much as I usually don’t like the film versions of books I have loved, I can’t help saying that if anyone asked me, this would be THE book I would choose to make it to the big screen. Montana requires a big screen already. This is the story of a Marias Coulee, Montana homesteading family in 1909. The narrator Paul, his brothers Damon and Toby, and their father are living and housekeeping as best they can in the first year since their beloved wife and mother; Florence Milliron died. When the other students at their one-room school find out that Father has hired a housekeeper, name of Rose Llewellyn, to travel to Montana and take on the household chores, there is no end to the teasing and speculation about this new arrangement.

Ivan Doig creates characters so real and memorable you think you must have known them yourself. The main character Paul as an adult school superintendent is tasked with closing down the one-room schools in his territory. He looks back on his years in just such a school with fondness, humor, and a spot-on depiction of school age children in their training-up state. There are bullies and tattle-tale girls, fights, smart students, slow students, and a small girl who has to ride five miles to school with no companion but her horse. The Milliron household is about to change with the arrival of Rose Llewellyn and a few surprises. You do not need to be a fan of historical fiction to appreciate this book. Times change, but authors who can treat the human condition with understanding and clever storytelling never go out of style. This is one of Ivan Doig’s most loved novels. Join the fan club.

Once Upon a Time: A Family Headed West

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Today is Pioneer Day where I live. There is a grand parade with the theme: “Like, Learn, Love Pioneers”. The celebration is in honor of the Mormon pioneers led by Brigham Young who arrived in the valley in 1847. Today’s post is dedicated to my elementary school teacher Rhea Guild, who grew up in Midway, Utah and came to New England where our paths crossed in my second grade classroom. Her family history included her pioneer Swiss ancestors who first settled in northern Utah. I remember her telling us stories of rain storms that began with enormous hailstones and I believe she introduced my class to today’s book.

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder Originally published in 1935, this edition illustrated by Garth Williams c1953. HarperTrophy Edition c1971.

The West That No Longer Exists might be the second title for today’s blog. Laura Ingalls Wilder understood that the world she knew as a child was already gone, and that future generations would not know what it was like to wrest a living from the land the hard way, clearing a place for crops, building your own simple house, keeping your family fed through long winters with no Safeway in sight. It is a bit startling to realize that Mrs. Wilder was still alive when the generation of baby boomers began to be born. Garth Williams met with Laura Ingalls Wilder when he began work on the illustration for the Little House Books.

Mrs. Wilder’s books became controversial in 2018, when the ALSC, a branch of the American Library Association removed her name from the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, an award for lifetime achievement which was named after her and which was first presented to her in 1954. The ALSC said they were concerned about racist and stereotypical elements in the books. They couldn’t very well ban her books, since ALA sponsors Banned Books Week every fall. Little House on the Prairie is perhaps the worst offender in their eyes, since characters, including young Laura herself said, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian” several times. In another chapter Laura is surprised that the doctor who finds them and saves their lives when the whole family is taken ill is black.

Should you read or allow your children to become acquainted with these books? Is not an effective way to learn about attitudes and thinking of the past to read books written by contemporaries? There are statements in Little House on the Prairie that we would not say today. Today we are also not intending to vacate the former Indian Territories. Children deserve the whole story. Is the Pioneer experience not a part of the American Story?

In re-reading Little House on the Prairie, I found evidence of sympathy for and a will to understand a bit of the lives of the Osage people that were the Ingalls’ neighbors. When some of the settlers fear a massacre because they hear drums and war cries coming from the creek bottoms nearby at night, Pa is told by an Osage leader that his people were against attacking them and the tribes that disagreed were leaving the area. “No matter what Mr. Scott said, Pa did not believe that the only good Indian was a dead Indian.” Yes, Ma feared the Indians, but Pa takes Laura and Mary to see an abandoned Indian camp and shows them how food was cooked and interprets moccasin tracks in the sand. At the end of the book the Ingalls family watch a daylong passage of Osage stream by, heading west. Here again are the author’s words:

“It was dinner-time, and no one thought of dinner. Indian ponies were still going by, carrying bundles of skins and tent-poles and dangling baskets and cooking pots….Then the very last pony went by. But Pa and Ma and Laura and Mary still stayed in the doorway, looking, till that long line of Indians slowly pulled itself over the western edge of the world. And nothing was left but silence and emptiness. All the world seemed very quiet and lonely.” The end of an era was witnessed here and it leaves a quiet feeling of sadness with the reader.

There are many events young readers can appreciate in Little House on the Prairie. What would it feel like to make a dangerous river crossing with no other people along? If the Ingalls’ wagon had foundered nobody would ever have known what happened to them. Mr. Scott narrowly escapes death from gases that formed at the bottom of the well he was digging. Pa is surrounded by wolves while riding home, a bit different from being stuck in traffic today. Jack the valiant dog has a great part to play in the story, don’t want to give his big moment away! Do keep this book on your reading list, and give your readers credit for understanding that they are learning about the past. I think the author had that in mind.

Telling Our Story, Year 250

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The American Spirit by David McCullough c2017 Simon and Schuster : New York

Who better to turn to on this American anniversary than our esteemed historian and eloquent speaker; David McCullough. In this collection of his speeches, Mr. McCullough reminds us of the stories that made us, and the qualities we should strive to keep and encourage in our children, the future of America. Here is an excerpt from a commencement speech at Union College in Schenectady, New York :

“John Adams read everything—Shakespeare and the Bible over and over, and the Psalms especially. He read poetry, fiction, history. Always carry a book with you on your travels he advised his son John Quincy. “You will never be alone with a poem in your pocket.”

“Read. Read. Read! read the classics of American literature that you’ve never opened. Read your country’s history. How can we profess to love our country and take no interest in its history? Read into the history of Greece and Rome. Read about the great turning points in the history of science and medicine and ideas.

Read for pleasure, to be sure….But take seriously-read closely-books that have stood the test of time. Study a masterpiece, take it apart, study its architecture its vocabulary, its intent. Underline, make notes in the margins, and after a few years, go back and read it again.

Make use of the public libraries. Start your own personal library and see it grow. Talk about the books you’re reading. Ask others what they are reading. You’ll learn a lot.”

This advice is lovely to hear if you think our continued liberty depends on our being literate and informed Americans. The speeches in this book include stories about presidents, members of congress, and individuals like the Marquis de Lafayette, Abigail Adams, John Trumbull whose painting of the signing of The Declaration of Independence is familiar to most of us. Meet Benjamin Rush, Charles Sumner, Reverend Manasseh Cutler and many other Americans who all made contributions to building a better life for people then and now. Do consider this book for any recent college grad of your acquaintance.

How About An Adventure? Summer Reading to Take You Away.

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Weslandia by Paul Fleischman Illustrated by Keven Hawkes c2002 Candlewick Press

Some children spend summer vacation at soccer camp or on a family trip, but Wesley has a plan. Why not create your own civilization? Instead of hanging around with the schoolmates who torment him, Wesley tends a new crop of strange plants from which he creates special ink for writing a new language, uses the fibers to create cool and comfortable clothing, builds himself a shelter, and names his world Weslandia. New and challenging games are to be invented and creative possibilities present themselves each day. No boredom can exist for long in this fascinating and colorful neighborhood.

Wesley assesses the growth of his flourishing plants.

Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson Originally published by Macmillan Children’s Books : London c2001

Orphan Maia never dreamed she would be leaving her comfortable London boarding school to live with relatives in Brazil. When her relatives who live on a rubber plantation turn out to be unpleasant and unkind and have no interest in learning about the world of the Amazon river that surrounds them, Maia is very unhappy. Sometimes those who have courage and strength during difficulties are rewarded. New friends and a boat journey on the largest river system in the world bring Maia in touch with new possibilities. Eva Ibbotson takes her readers on an unforgettable trip.

Call it Courage by Armstrong Sperry c1940 Currently available from Simon & Schuster

Teenager Mafatu has always been afraid of the sea. He has been teased and made to feel an outsider by the people on his South Pacific island of Hikueru. In order to redeem himself and make his father, the chief, less ashamed, Mafatu sets out to sea on a small boat with his dog as his only companion. He hopes to conquer his fear once and for all.

This is not a long book, but the story is one of those that lives long in the hearts of readers. It is perfect for ages 9 to 12 and it is an excellent choice to read aloud at home or at school.

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown Young readers edition c 2015 by Viking Books for Young Readers also available from Puffin Books

The true story of the team that rowed to victory for America at the 1936 Olympics. No one expected that a crew of young men from Washington State would outperform the Ivy League teams from the Eastern US, let alone win at the Olympics. The story of how they got there is inspiring and uplifting and belongs on any list of books for students. I played the footage of the actual boat crossing the finish line for my classes when I book talked this at book fairs. It is always a winner!

Endurance by Alfred Lansing c1959 by McGraw-Hill Book Company : New York

The story for which the word EPIC was invented! Most junior high readers can enjoy this true tale of survival under extreme conditions during a Polar expedition to the Antarctic in 1914. That 28 men could live through the loss of their ship without any of the modern technologies we know today is one of the most remarkable survival stories of all time, and a testament to the difference good leadership can make. Expedition leader Ernest Shackleton made the men get rid of most of their possessions when they prepared to take to the ice as their ship began to be crushed, but he kept the banjo. He knew his crew would need every possible help to take their minds off the dire situation they were in. He also knew that in the days leading up to WWI, nobody was going to be interested in coming to their rescue. They had to save themselves. This is the story of how they did it. If your teenagers do not know this story, why not get them acquainted with Shackleton and his brave companions?

The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn and Hal Iggulden c2006 by HarperCollins

A classic How-To book that covers building a treehouse, skimming stones, the five knots every boy should know, identifying fossils, basic fishing skills, and more ideas for enjoying life outside. There are also many useful lists and documents such as baseball’s most valuable players, a Navajo code talkers dictionary, The Declaration of Independence, and the Ten Commandments, least we forget a few. This book will help your young lads adventure well this summer.

Lost on a Mountain in Maine by Don Fendler and Joseph Egan Original c1939. Republished in 2013 by Harper Collins

Another true survival story. When he was twelve years old, Don Fendler became lost during a hike on rugged Mount Katahdin and managed to survive alone until he was found on day nine. Mount Katahdin is famous for being the northern endpoint of the Appalachian Trail. It is a strenuous and difficult hike with extreme weather changes, not a good place to lose your way. This book is a good companion to the Dangerous Book for Boys. Be prepared, as the scouts say.

The River by Gary Paulsen c1991 Dell Publishing / Random House Children’s Books

The first sequel to Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. Brian returns to the wilderness with a psychologist to teach survival skills, but must navigate a raft downriver after his companion is injured in a storm. Gary Paulsen is THE young person’s wilderness adventure writer. The Hatchet series is probably the best known of his books, but there are shelves more to be enjoyed. I have given his book Winterdance : The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod to outdoor fans in my family. Mr. Paulsen ran the Iditarod twice, and his tale of that experience as a rookie is enlightening, and a bit crazy.

Grump Is His Name… The Midsummer Tomte and the Little Rabbits

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The Midsummer Tomte and the Little Rabbits by Ulf Stark with illustrations by Eva Eriksson English edition c2016 by Floris Books : Edinburgh

Grump is a house tompte. He lives in a dog kennel converted into a cozy home just the right size for a small being, and he looks after a cottage long empty of its happy family. His best friend is a bumblebee. Here are some of the author’s words:

“His friend the bumblebee was flying around looking for flowers that had come into bloom. It swooped over the nettles beside the pigsty.

“Soon it will be time to leave and find a home of my own,” thought the bumblebee.

Every time it mentioned leaving, Grump grunted and said it was too soon for that. “What are you thinking of, you bumblenoodle? There aren’t enough flowers yet. You’ll starve.” Then Grump sighed. “No, I’ll have to put up with you a bit longer, you nuisance.”

The bee looked down at the tompte and wondered, “How will I have the heart to leave the old crosspatch? He saved my life once. I don’t want to make him sad.”

Grump and Bumblebee have a serious chat. Illustration by Eva Eriksson

Grump knows that a house tompte should be a bit grouchy, but sometimes he forgets and ends up doing very kind and thoughtful deeds. A large and noisily happy rabbit family nearby has benefitted from having Grump in the neighborhood, and this summer will be no different.

Father Rabbit is very proud of his top hat and wonders if an event called Midsummer might provide a chance to show it off, if only they knew how to celebrate it. Barty wonders if a tree is decorated. Grandfather wants to know if there are speeches given or poems written. Mother thinks dancing would be nice. Everyone hopes there will be tasty food to eat. Owl warns them that Midsummer is “Full of magic and love and mystery, so it’s best to watch out!”

So much can happen in the long days leading up to Midsummer’s Eve. There are storms, lots of time to play rabbit games, Grandfather’s lessons, perhaps even time to fall in love….There are 21 short chapters in this lovely book, perfect for reading one each bedtime right up to Midsummer’s longest day. Warm and gentle humor and scenes from happy family life are found throughout this story. It doesn’t matter that the family might be rabbits or mice. The characters are so like people you might know. Eva Eriksson’s pictures and page decorations make this a beautiful book to own.

Grandfather Rabbit teaches a lesson on plants, edible and otherwise. Illustration by Eva Eriksson

Grump turns to his “one and best book” In Praise of Solitude for solace when his friend leaves and learns that becoming attached to things leads to disappointment when they leave. Perhaps he will change his ways, or maybe the future will be better than he thinks. Better read this book and find out. The Yule Tomte and the Little Rabbits by the same two collaborators will be waiting for your young readers come Advent season. That is good news indeed.

Poetry for Children : Begin Here!

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A Child’s Books of Poems Illustrated by Gyo Fujikawa Originally published by Grosset and Dunlap c1969 This edition c2007 by Ronald K. Fujikawa, Sterling Publishing Co. Inc.

This large format book of poems lovingly illustrated by Gyo Fujikawa is a perfect introduction to classic poetry for children. Young readers will meet Christina Rossetti, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Blake, Robert Louis Stevenson, Emily Dickinson, Lewis Carrol, and many others. Each page of black and white illustrations is followed by a gorgeous double spread in full color. Poems are indexed by titles and first lines to help you find your favorites. I was very happy to see this collection back in print and it was offered at all my book fairs. It deserves a place in your family library. Other titles by Gyo Fujikawa are available from Sterling Publishing in reasonably priced hardcover editions.

Who Has Seen the Wind by Christina Rossetti, illustrated by Gyo Fujikawa.

Climb Into My Lap: First Poems to Read Together Selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins and Illustrated by Kathryn Brown c1998 Published by Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers : New York

Here is another tall book with 80 pages of poems by Mary Ann Hoberman, David McCord, Charlotte Zolotow, Nancy Willard, Lee Bennett Hopkins and others. Each page is colorfully illustrated and ready to be studied by the youngster on your lap. Lee Bennett Hopkins created many wonderful poetry anthologies for children and most of them should be available at your local library. Check one out soon.

Page from Climb Into My Lap by Lee Bennet Hopkins. Illustration by Kathryn Brown

Side by Side : Poems to Read Together by Lee Bennett Hopkins with illustrations by Hilary Knight c1988 by Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers.

Another great selection of poems from Lee Bennet Hopkins! You know Hilary Knight from his illustrations for Kay Thompson’s Eloise and the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books by Betty MacDonald.

Put Down that “100 Most Important Books of the 20th Century” list and Smile, Pardner: HOW TO TALK ABOUT BOOKS YOU HAVEN’T READ by Pierre Bayard

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How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard. c2007 Published in the US by Bloomsbury USA Translated from the French by Jeffrey Mehlman

This was not the book I meant to talk about this week, but during a long overdue dusting, sorting and culling of my books, this one fell out on my foot. I don’t remember when I bought it, and somehow I had not read it. It was love at second sight! I still remember the day I was treated to a shocked silence in the bookstore where I worked, when I admitted to a co-worker that I had not read Ulysses by James Joyce. “But, it is a seminal work!”, I can hear the tone yet! I am sorry, people in Dublin, but after that I have been determined NOT to read it. You have a list in your head of books that you “should” have read but haven’t. Do you think that list will be posted on your gravestone? Mr. Bayard will set you free in this discussion of our current reading culture and how to navigate social or professional literary conversations around books you have not read or have forgotten.

The author’s words:

“There is a tacit understanding in our culture that one must read a book in order to talk about it with any precision. In my experience, however, it’s totally possible to carry on an engaging conversation about a book you haven’t read—-including, and perhaps especially with someone else who hasn’t read it either.”

“If we wish, then, to learn how to emerge unscathed from conversations about books we haven’t read, it will be necessary to analyze the unconscious guilt that an admission of non-reading elicits. It is to help assuage such guilt, at least in part that is the goal of this book.”

Analyze and assuage he does. Mr. Bayard is a literature professor and a psychoanalyst. His book is full of examples of types of non-reading from famous writers, ideas to ponder, and strategies to help you speak about books you haven’t read without shame.

Oscar Wilde, as quoted in the front of the book: “I never read a book I must review; it prejudices you so.”

Do read this book, really.

In the High and Far-Off Times… The Elephant’s Child

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” The Elephant’s Child” from ” Just So Stories” by Rudyard Kipling originally published 1902. This edition Puffin Classics c2016

The Author’s Words:

“By and by, when that was finished, he came upon Kolokolo Bird sitting in the middle of a wait-a-bit thorn bush, and he said, ‘My father has spanked me, and my mother has spanked me; all my aunts and uncles have spanked me for my ‘satiable curiosity; and STILL I want to know what the Crocodile has for dinner!’

Then Kolokolo Bird said, with a mournful cry, ‘Go to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, and find out.’ “

The Elephant’s Child had only a short, blackish, bulgy nose, and he left an untidy trail behind him of items he dropped because he had no way to pick things up. How he meets a crocodile and is given a new, much more useful appendage is a favorite Just So tale.

For richness of language, Kipling is your man. Has anyone enjoyed playing with words or reveled in the sounds of words more? “The Elephants Child” is fantastic fun to read aloud. Kipling’s words roll off the tongue, and adhere to the brain. I have had “The great grey-green, greasy Limpopo,etc.” phrase floating around in my mind since I first heard the words read aloud by my fifth-grade reading teacher. With a Kipling-enhanced brain, one can drift away to wonder what fever-trees look like and imagine the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake and his scalesome, flailsome tail. There are picture book versions of this story, but perhaps something is lost if the listener is distracted from the charm and inventiveness of the language.

Reading the “Just So Stories” is reading for the ear. The listeners you share them with are introduced to poetry, exotic words and locations, and of course, all the fabulous origin stories. Try “The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo” and “The Cat Who Walked by Himself”… “The wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.”

Hans Christian Andersen–The Essential Dane

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Illustration from The Nightingale by Hans Christian Andersen, retold by Stephen Mitchell and Illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline Published by Candlewick Press c2002

Can we see ourselves with eyes glued to our cell phones just as this Emperor is gazing fondly at his mechanical nightingale? Anybody warning us about being overly beguiled by things artificial today?

Andersen’s tales still have a place in our world, and young readers have many options for encountering them. There seems to be always a new collection of his fairy tales in the works and there are also the ballets, plays, and films inspired by them. I remember adoring Liza Minnelli as the true princess in Faerie Tale Theatre’s TV production of The Princess and the Pea. Good one to share with the grandchildren some evening…

I sold an inexpensive hardcover edition of” The Emperor’s New Clothes”, illustrated by Virginia Lee Burton at book fairs. You know Virginia Lee Burton from” Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel”, and” The Little House”. There is probably an edition of “The Little Mermaid” for every taste and budget. My favorite collection is “Seven Tales by H.C Andersen” translated from the Danish by Eva Le Gallienne with pictures by Maurice Sendak. published in 1959. I have the 1991edition by Harper Trophy.

Illustration from “The Princess and the Pea” by Maurice Sendak from “Seven Tales by H.C. Andersen”

“The Ugly Duckling” was an important story to me as a child. I played that part in a school play, think the teacher sensed I needed to have the hope of a swan transformation in my future. Hans Christian Andersen’s tales are good companions. He put life in inanimate objects, and gave those lives meaning. A collection of his stories IS a home library essential.

Medieval Flavored Fantasy: The Letter for the King

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by Tonke Dragt. Publisher: Pushkin Children’s Books c 2017

Tonke Dragt’s “The Letter for the King” was first published in 1962, but readers of English had to wait until 2015 to get their hands on a translation of this splendid adventure story. Thanks to Pushkin Children’s books, ” The Letter for the King” and its sequel “The Secrets of the Wild Wood” are both available in fresh, attractive editions. They are fat books in which a young reader can dwell for a good length of time. The vocabulary is not difficult, and the story is divided into eight sections with short chapters that make it perfect to read aloud in a classroom. There are illustrations by the author at the start of each section. A map on the inside cover invites readers into this tale of two Kingdoms.

The story begins as five young men are keeping a vigil the night before they will become official Knights of King Dagonaut. They are to remain awake all night, without food or drink, and reflect on the task ahead. No one is allowed to enter their chamber, and the door must remain locked. Tiuri, son of highly respected Tiuri the Valiant, is the youngest at age sixteen. Daylight will be long in arriving and each of the young men know a knock on the door might tempt them to give up their chance at knighthood if they answer it. When a low voice at the window pleads, “In the name of God, open the door!” Tiuri’s mind is in turmoil. Can a knight pledged to defend and protect refuse to acknowledge a cry for help?

Tiuri accepts the responsibility of delivering an important and secret letter to a person known only as “The Black Knight with the White Shield”. The letter is meant to be delivered by the Black Knight to the king in the city of Unauwen, which lies on the other side of the Great Mountains. It should have been possible for Tiuri to put the letter in the correct hands and return by morning, but adventures never happen when things follow plans…

When I began to refresh my memory a bit with this book before writing my review, I got caught up in the story again. It really it is a page-turner! The author’s ability to create suspense will hold the reader completely. That is what I was looking for when I purchased this book with reluctant 7th grade boy readers in mind. Each of the challenges Tiuri faces, from traveling alone in strange places, to imprisonment in a castle, to loss of his companionable horse, are met with plenty of action. Helpful and honorable characters appear as well as a proper number of untrustworthy scoundrels. Tiuri bravely keeps his mission secret and wins respect from older, battle-tried knights. Yes, there are sword fights. These two richly satisfying books deserve a place in any royal banqueting hall or library serving Jr. High to Teen readers.

Tonke Dragt was born in Jakarta, Indonesia in 1930. When she was 12, her Dutch family began 3 years internment in a Japanese camp. She and a friend managed to produce her first book during that time. The family returned to the Netherlands after the war. The Letter for the King and its sequel have won awards and have had a loyal following in sixteen languages.