Plumfield Moms

Diane's review of Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss. You may read the review here.

In this episode of Monday Morning Book Review, Sara talks about The Incredible Journey by Shelia Burnford. You can find the web version of this review here at our website: www.plumfieldandpaideia.com. The Boy Book List mentioned in this episode can be found here: http://plumfieldandpaideia.com/books-boys-love/ The Animal Book List mentioned in this episode can be found here: http://plumfieldandpaideia.com/animal-stories/

Diane's review of Alan Jacobs' book The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. You may read this review at plumfieldandpaideia.com. You may buy the book here.

“What poetry does is represent nature. That can be handy because nature is big and changing and various and hard to look at. Whereas with somebody with a great eye and a big soul, they could explain it to you.” I heard Dr. Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, say this in a lecture shortly after I had finished reading N.D. Wilson’s Leepike Ridge. “Yes!” I thought. “That is exactly what I was trying to express to myself while reading the first chapter.” Wilson has such a great eye. As with anything large seen from close up, the size of his soul has to be assessed by walking around in his story, getting close, stepping back, changing perspectives. I knew exactly where I was from the very beginning. I already knew a lot about Thomas Hammond, our hero, because of Wilson’s skill in giving me elements with which I could identify. Possibilities: “Once upon a time” might be happening right in Tom’s little valley. I grew up believing that was possible in ours. Conflict: Tom doesn’t like watching his mother cook for a man who isn’t his father. His father has been dead for three years. Mine isn’t dead, but I know the feeling, nonetheless. Impetus: I think every child needs to experience a refrigerator box like Tom’s in some capacity. Ours didn’t come with a raft-sized piece of styrofoam, but it was big enough for my three sisters and me to camp in until it rained. That could have been the start of an adventure. I also know Tom because I have sons and grandsons. “Thomas Hammond, who was down by the stream with a red plastic cup full of leeches, heard them [the refrigerator delivery men] and turned to watch . . . When the truck had gone and the dust had settled, Tom dumped forty-seven confused leeches onto the bank, where he thought the birds would find them and be pleasantly surprised.” “Tom found the box easily enough. He danced around it, picked his spot, and then kicked it back toward the base of the stairs. He liked the sound it made, and he liked how far one kick could send something so big.” “Tom tried not to think of Jeffrey or the way he smiled at his mother . . . Instead, he focused on finding rocks he could throw at the foam.” “Wait for the rest of the story, and you will know him better when I am done.” Just an ordinary boy who ends up in an extraordinary situation with people even more extraordinary; some extraordinarily bad and others extraordinarily courageous. Thence, a story. My students and I enjoyed this book so much that I don’t want to spoil it for you. I will tell you that the story involves intrigue, desperate treasure seekers, underground caverns, plot twists, danger to life and limb, cowardice, heroism, despicable, and admirable characters. I do want to include a caution. One of my more sensitive students suffered some anxiety over a weekend because we had to leave off in an intense spot. She needed resolution. I’m not advising you against reading this book with sensitive children. I’m simply warning you that you may need to plan on a reading binge once the action really gets moving. I’m truly grateful to Wilson for giving us such a compelling story that one of my most reluctant readers could hardly bear for our class time to end. How refreshing to discover modern fiction I’m excited to recommend to anyone who asks, and to some who didn’t know they needed to ask. Sara Masarik, who has read almost everything Wilson, says that he keeps getting better with each successive book. With a first book this good, I must say, “Bravo!” For Cautions: https://plumfieldmoms.com/plumfield-moms-book-reviews/leepike-ridge

I feel almost silly trying to write a review of The Awakening of Miss Prim by Madrid writer Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera when Joseph Pearce’s piece in The Imaginative Conservative is light years better than anything I would write. Please understand that my attempt here is not to match his eloquent review. Instead, I hope to draw more attention to this remarkable book by giving it a home on our site as well. “Wanted: a feminine spirit quite undaunted by the world to work as a librarian for a gentleman and his books. Able to live with dogs and children. Preferably without work experience. Graduates and postgraduates need not apply.” The Awakening of Miss Prim was recommended to my bookclub about two years ago. Most of us knew next to nothing about this international bestseller when we scampered off to Amazon to fill up our shopping carts. Since then, I have purchased three or four more copies of this pretty paperback. All of which were purchased to replace copies that were being loaned out. Each time a new group of friends decided to fall in love with San Ireneo, I would make the trip with them and would need a copy to read. “…this mysterious prosperity was the result of a young man’s tenacity and an old monk’s wisdom… San Ireneo de Arnois was, in fact, a flourishing colony of exiles from the modern world seeking a simple, rural life.” In my first reading of this book, I felt like I was having a homecoming. Prudencia Prim is an old soul who was born in the wrong time. “Few could admit to being the victim of a fatal historical error, she told herself proudly. Few people lived, as she did, with the constant feeling of having been born in the wrong time and in the wrong place.” Like many of us women today, she finds her inner femininity to be irrepressible despite embracing the progressive lie that she needs to be androgynous, cold, calculating, precise, and somehow that will empower her feminine genius. The work of maintaining that dehumanizing balance is, in fact, anything but empowering for Miss Prim. I confess to struggling with a similar strain when I was coming of age. When Miss Prim arrives in San Ireneo, she is flabbergasted by the antiquated and narrow-minded prejudices of her employer, The Man in the Wing Chair. In a play on Pride and Prejudice, much of the book teases out the tension between these two opposites. Miss Prim is irreligious, well-read, but through a progressive lens, and an advocate for modern feminism. The Man in the Wing Chair is a scholar of the classics, a daily mass Catholic with fervent religious convictions, and gentlemanly in his old-fashioned manners. At first blush they appear to be total opposites, but Fenollera renders more complex characters than that. Miss Prim doesn’t resent gentlemanly manners, she is just suspicious of The Man in the Wing Chair. When she isn’t feeling insecure, she appreciates being treated with old-fashioned respect. The Man in the Wing Chair is not quite the picture of perfection. While most of his prejudices are grounded in beautiful traditions, some are just errors in judgement. The more we learn of each of the characters, the more perfectly imperfect they become. As Prudencia settles into the community of San Ireneo, we meet a cast of characters who are refugees from the dehumanizing, fast-paced, tradition-less, progressive modern world. Each has retreated from the world they believe debases the human experience, frays the nerves, and seeks to alienate man from his Creator. The community, built near a monastery, by The Man in the Wing Chair, is a fictionalized version of what many Benedict Option communities are seeking to build. When Rod Dreher was working on his new book, The Benedict Option, someone suggested Miss Prim to his wife. In this post, Dreher explains that his wife told him that Fenollera had captured in fiction the essence of what he had been writing about for years. Ultimately, Miss Prim is stretched. So too is her employer. More importantly, both realize that they are heading towards the precipice of romance. Unlike Pride and Prejudice, The Man in the Wing Chair, has truly good reasons for not allowing that to happen. While Lizzie Bennet’s situation was materially objectionable, Miss Prim’s is spiritual. When we read this book in our book club, a number of readers thought that the book was unsatisfying because most of the supporting characters are mere caricatures. Initially, I half-heartedly agreed them. It is true that we never get much to feast on by way of the individual characters. I think, however, that that is because the community itself is one character. I think this is by design. Each person Miss Prim interacts with is just an expression of the community. In his review, Joseph Pearce quotes Evelyn Waugh. “Conversion,” Waugh wrote, “is like stepping across the chimney piece out of a Looking-Glass world, where everything is an absurd caricature, into the real world God made; and then begins the delicious process of exploring it

"Every book tells a story and every book has a story. The best books become part of your story. Discover books for the people and moments that matter most." - Biblioguides In this week's Plumfield In Person episode, Diane and Sara chat with Tanya Arnold and Sarah Kim of Biblioguides.com about their dynamic and evolving reader's database. It was a lot of fun and just the first of many conversations we hope to have with them about the best books. Books Mentioned in this Podcast: Books and Links: But No Elephants The Paper Bag Princess The Pilgrim’s Progress The Practical Princess Jay Williams Jan Bloom Sabbath Mood Homeschool Let’s Learn About Mushrooms Join the conversation: Biblioguides Webpage, Facebook Page, Instagram Biblioguides Free Mighty Networks Group (Plumfield Reads is there too!) Plumfield Facebook Page, Instagram, Podcast Page We are a Partner Guide at Biblioguides because we really believe in what they are doing. You can find our Partner Guide here. We are curious how many people are discovering Biblioguides through our podcast and so we have a signup link. It is not an affiliate link. We do not receive anything if you use it. But if you do use it, you will have a free 7 day trial.

When Bethlehem Books was having their big summer sale, I combed through their catalog for books that would captivate my reluctant boy reader. My nine-year-old son is a much better reader than he gives himself credit for, but he is easily intimidated by long or text-heavy books. I knew that Bethlehem Books would have some books that would be appealing to boy interests, be short enough to not be terribly intimidating, and potentially have some illustration to aid the reader. Good Old Archibald was highlighted in their catalog as being just such a book. Absolutely wholesome but totally hilarious it was enjoyed by everyone in our family! I purchased Good Old Archibald to put in my son’s independent reading basket. I thought that to get him interested I would read a chapter or two aloud and then put it in the basket in the hopes that he would go to it himself. A funny thing happened, however. No one was content for me to put it down – including myself. Good Old Archibald started off with some engaging humor and an intriguing story line. Within two chapters were we on the hook. Within five chapters we were finding excuses to pick it up whenever we could and sneak in a few more pages. Smart, creative, funny, wholesome, and interesting, it is a fair bit like Henry Huggins or the Ramona books – just more 1950s than 1980s. If you were to take Cheaper By the Dozen (book or original movie) and merge it with a more wholesome version of The Sandlot into a book for middle grade readers, you would get something like Good Old Archibald. Set in mid 20th century Middle America, it has a timeless small town feel, a huge boyish family with endearing parents, a smart and sweet great aunt, a baseball subplot, and a happy ending. The story is very predictable in some places and quite unexpected in others. A little Frindle, a little Homer Price, a lot Henry Huggins, and all delightful, it is ideal for the middle school boy crowd or a family read aloud. The principle characters are in 5th and 6th grades. Ethelyn Parkinson, the author, is from Oconto, Wisconsin which is just 30 minutes from our home. It was no leap at all for us to see that she was writing about 1950s Green Bay, Wisconsin. For us, it was a delightful series of rabbit trails to see how she got her names for things. For example, in one scene the boys are going to Sensenbrenner Grocery. Probably no one but a local would know that Sensenbrenner is an important name. Frank J Sensenbrenner (1864-1952) was a major player in the paper industry that defined northeast Wisconsin economy for a century. What is interesting is that Sensenbrenner’s first job as a teen was in a grocery store. Parkinson was clever! At the opening of our story, good old Ralph, the star of the baseball team and an all-around good guy has left their economically depressed town just a few weeks before their annual rivalry baseball game. The new kid, Archibald, is the exact antithesis of good old Ralph. Ralph’s family moved due to lack of industry in the town. Archibald has moved to town to live with his great aunt while his mother is in long term medical care and his wealthy father is out scouting locations for a new factory. Ralph arrives at school in “best” clothes, a gold watch, and highbrow manners and vocabulary. When Archibald occupies “Good Old Ralph’s” seat, the boys of the sixth grade class are distraught. The story is classically boy: wrestling in the backyard, sliding down clothing chutes, and lots and lots of baseball. This girl and my daughter, however, loved it just the same.

The podcast version of this book review can be found here. “When Mendal was already the far-famed and much-hated rabbi of Kotzak, he once returned to the little town in which he was born. There he visited the teacher who taught him his alphabet when he was a child and read five books of Moses with him. But he did not go to see the teacher who had given him further instruction, and at a chance meeting the man asked his former pupil whether he had any cause to be ashamed of his teacher. Mendal replied: ‘You taught me things that can be refuted, for according to one interpretation they can mean this, according to another, that. But my first teacher taught me true things which cannot be refuted, and they have remained with me as such. That is why I owe him special reverence.’” – Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidism (reprinted in Tending the Heart of Virtue) Several years ago The Chosen was recommended to me through an educational group which was trying to nurture parents in their vocation of cultivating a lifelong learning environment in their homes. I had never heard of the book, the cover was forgettable, and I was terribly unimpressed by the first chapter. In the second chapter, things became more interesting but almost painful to read. Because I was resigned to the task of reading it, but wasn’t excited about it, it became my mission to read the book as quickly as possible so as to be done with it and move on. While every chapter improved upon the chapter before it, that first reading experience was quite challenging for me. In fact, through much of the book, I felt an oppressive heaviness weighing down on the characters and my soul as I read. And then, just as it was ending, it all came together. Not unlike Brideshead Revisited and Till We Have Faces the end contextualized everything that came before it. My first reading was complete and I knew that I needed to re-read it again immediately. I have been re-reading it every year, ever since. I am always learning something new, always delighting in some idea better understood, and always wishing there was even more there so I could stay in the story a little longer. The educational group was not wrong. This book is about cultivating a well-ordered love of learning. It is also about mentoring and parenting. It deals deftly with deeply human questions of identity. And, it is a sublime window into Orthodox Jewish culture in the United States and in Europe. The more I read this book, the more convicted I am that my children’s education will be incomplete if they do not encounter this at least once in their high school career. Like any classic, this story has many layers. In the first layer, we have a tale of friendship. Two unlikely friends become confidants through a crisis. While both are Orthodox Jews, the subculture they live in is extremely divided. Essentially, it is only with the blessing of the rabbinical leadership that Danny and Reuven are permitted to cross traditional lines and share the journey with each other. Central to their friendship, however, each boy’s relationship to the other boy’s father. Each boy fundamentally loves and respects his own father, but has intellectual and spiritual needs that only the other father can address. This makes the story of friendship complex and fascinating. In the second layer of the story, we have two young men who are coming of age in a world that is recovering from war. When the story opens, WWII is in its final stages. Not long after the celebration of V-Day, the atrocities of the death camps are discovered. When the boys cross the traditional cultural lines to become friends, they are echoing the hope and joy that Americans feel as the war resolves. As the world contends with the shocking realities of the holocaust and the devastating effects on the Jewish people as a race, American Jews become polarized in their responses. Potok uses the undulating emotions of the American Jews to cause a unique tension in the friendship of the two boys. In one moment their fathers are unified in their shared contempt for the death camps, in the next their fathers are at odds over the appropriate Jewish response. This pushing together and pulling apart gives the story momentum and authenticity. In a third layer of the story, we have a collection of vignettes which are quilted together by the blossoming friendship between Danny and Reuven. As an example, Reuven’s hospital stay feels isolating even when the young man is sharing a room with other uniquely interesting characters. Potok uses Reuven’s eye injury and fear of blindness to bind him to other characters who are vastly different than he is, but who are similarly challenged. In doing it this way, Potok guarantees that we will care about all of the characters regardless of how small a role they play because we are learning about the main characters and their internal struggles through their relationships with the minor characters. The ways in which Reuven and Danny are ble

Marks & Co. 84, charing Cross Rd. London, W. C. 2 England Gentlemen: Your ad in the Saturday Review of Literature says that you specialize in out-of-print books. The phrase “antiquarian booksellers” scares me somewhat, as I equate antique with expensive. I am a poor writer with an antiquarian taste in books and all the things I want are impossible to get over here except very expensive rare editions, or in Barnes and Noble grimy, marked-up schoolboy copies. I enclose a list of my most pressing problems. If you have clean secondhand copies of any of the books on the list, for no more than $5.00 each, will you consider this a purchase order and send them to me?Very truly yours, Hélène Hanff (Miss) Hélène Hanff What an introduction to a story! From the first lines of this slender spine, we have a sense that this is going to be a healthy mix of intrigue, love, and quirkiness. As a bibliophile myself, I can appreciate Helene’s predicament. Her desire for worthy copies at every man prices is familiar to most lovers of books. Generic and impersonal “Barnes and Noble grimy, marked-up schoolboy copies” connote a disrespect for the soul of a beloved story and a lack of relationship with the reader. Collectors of stories know that it is hard to not form an attachment to the books we love, and so, therefore, we want a spine that is worthy of our love. As a child, my mom introduced me to a delightful old movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Ann Bancroft about a brassy, sassy, and delightfully funny paradox of a woman and her true story friendship with a buttoned-up, prim, and proper London bookshop. Helene is a New York woman author in 1949, who is looking for specific books which are nearly impossible to come by in American bookshops. Her above letter opens up a transatlantic correspondence that spans twenty years (and beyond). In her brassy and sassy way, she endears herself to Frank Doel and the rest of the shop clerks and secretaries at Marks and Co., 84 Charing Cross Road, London, England. I loved the movie. I loved the epistolary relationship. I loved the way they all grew to care for each other. I loved the respect for good and great books that was celebrated throughout. I loved the spunk and humor and character. I loved all of it even more when I realized that it was a movie based on a book and a true story. This was an example of a movie remaining perfectly faithful to the book. The movie came about only after multiple stage adaptations – all overseen by Helene and scrupulously careful production experts. In this charming story, Helene’s big personality is perfectly balanced by her generosity and affection. The staff at 84 Charing Cross Road appreciated her sincere love of excellent books, self education, lifelong learning, and good taste. Helene appreciated their care for her orders, their reasonable prices, and their work in preserving good books. It was a romance of ideas, and a love affair of books. In the early 1950s, war was over but rations were still on. Helene had a British friend in her apartment building from whom she learned how poorly the Londoners were eating. Appalled, she found a whole series of excuses to send them food packages with real eggs, real meat and other things that that were so scare. It is impossible not to cry when you read the letters that the bookshop sent to her in thanks: “Now then. Brian told me you are all rationed to 2 ounces of meat per family per week and one egg per person per month and I am simply appalled. He has a catalogue from a British firm here which flies food from Denmark to his mother, so I am sending a small Christmas present to Marks & Co.” – Helene, December 8, 1949“I should just like to add that everything in the parcel was something that we either never see or can only be had through the black market. It was extremely kind and generous of you to think of us in this way and we are all extremely grateful.” – Frank Doel, 20th December, 1949 “Where is Leigh Hunt? Where is Oxford Verse? Where is the Vulgate and dear goofy John Henry, I thought that they’d be such nice uplifting reading for Lent and NOTHING do you send me. You leave me sitting here writing long margin notes in library books that don’t belong to me, some day they’ll find out I did it and take my library card away. I have made arrangements with the Easter bunny to bring you an Egg, he will get there and find that you have died of Inertia.” – Helene, March 25, 1950 “I have to thank you for the very welcome Easter parcel which arrived safely yesterday… I am sorry we haven’t been able to send you any of the books you want…” – Frank Doel 7th April, 1950 “We were all quite dazzled to see the meat. And the eggs and tins were so very welcome.” – Megan Wells, 5 April 1951 This across the sea and back again banter and friendship just grew and grew, leaving the reader with a very acute sense of loss when the little volume ends. Easily read in a lazy afternoon, it is the perfect length. Digested in one

https://plumfieldmoms.com/plumfield-moms-book-reviews/the-guernsey-literary-and-potato-peel-pie-society Buy on Bookshop.org Buy on Amazon View on Biblioguides Once upon a time, in a book club far, far away some friends got together and read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I must confess that I instigated the request for the book. I had read it a while before, and was positive they would also like it. I love to read stories regarding World War II, and with a name like that, is HAS to be good, right?? Well, it is. Guernsey begins about a year after the end of World War II. The main character, Juliet Ashton, spent most of the war years writing uplifting newspaper articles to help her fellow countrymen keep stiff upper lips and a smiles on their faces. Now that it’s all over, her works have been made into a book, and she has set about on a tour of bookstores and guest appearances at clubs, to promote the book. She is excited for the book’s success, but it is exhausting, sometimes thankless work. She longs to be able to put the war and her literary character, Izzy Bickerstaff, behind her and write something that has nothing to do with the war. Enter a letter from a pig farmer on the Isle of Guernsey, which is in the English Channel between England and France. He has somehow acquired a copy of a book by Charles Lamb that used to belong to Juliet, and he is hoping she will be able to put him in touch with more books by this same author. Her question to him was, “I wonder how the book got to Guernsey?” and with that, began an unusual pen pal relationship. With every note and letter from Dawsey Adams (the man on Guernsey), Juliet becomes more interested in his life and life on the island, especially after she learns they endured German occupation for five years. How did they exist? What did they do for fun? How did they steer clear of the Germans? Life in London at the same time pretty much occupied all of Juliet’s thinking, leaving little time for any thought of an island in the Channel. She learns how Dawsey and his friends were invited to a secret pig roast, stayed out too late, and, in order to avoid arrest, made up their “literary society.” They had become so engrossed in their book discussions (so they said) that they completely lost track of the time. That bit of seat-of-the-pants thinking was the brainchild of Elizabeth McKenna, who showed no fear, could think on a dime, and walked them all away from the soldiers as if it were a walk in the park. The next day is a frenzy of rounding up the other supper participants and as many books as they can lay hands on in order to look like a real book club. Several join under protest, but as time wears on, and the war seems never to end, it becomes a lifeline for them all. As time and letter-writing progresses Juliet becomes acquainted with the members of the GLPPPS. She wants to write an article in The Times focusing on their wartime experiences. Juliet wants to intimately learn of each member, and how they fit into the group. There are several characters who are pioneers of the group; all from as various backgrounds as you can imagine. Each of these members, and a few others that are heard from later in the book, have one main, binding character, and that is Elizabeth. She is the Guernsey equivalent to Juliet. It seems there is nothing she can’t do, and none of it is ever done for her own glory or personal gain. In the midst of such evil going on around them all, Elizabeth is the epitome of grace under fire; and it is that loving, giving heart that gets her into trouble. “A warning (reminder) from the dead to the living.” By the time Juliet meets up with the islanders, there have been some significant changes in the dynamics of the members; so now, on top of writing more for her stories, she wants to know what happened. Now this is the part that might become a sticking point for some. A beloved character who has engaged in an affair outside of marriage, a child born out of wedlock; there are mentions of a couple of characters in the book who are homosexuals, but they are only mentioned by way of explanation, they are not glorified for their bent, there is minimal swearing, and it is not for shock value or to add words to a page. It is usually used in a form of disbelief at something that has happened that wasn’t expected. No matter how war is presented, it is not pretty. People do and say ugly things. That is a byproduct of war. This is to inform you, to make you aware that though this is not a terrible story, it IS a terrible story! The practices of the Germans during the occupation were downright ugly. You don’t have to read much to find that out in any other book about the war. Though horrible things are talked about in this book, they are done so tastefully that you should not be offended by their telling. It is a truth that needs to be remembered when the world tries to scream that it never happened. Last year I got to spend two weeks in Europ

Besides loving L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables because it’s a great story with a timelessly loveable heroine, it is special to me because it is one of the few books my mom introduced me to that she had loved when she was young. Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon is special to me because my daughter and I discovered her together. I still feel a bit of a traitor because . . . I like Emily better. As I read Emily again recently, I tried to pay more attention to what about her appeals to me. I realized that she makes more sense to me than Anne does because Emily is more like me. Shortly after my Emily reread, I read L. M. Montgomery’s The Alpine Path: The Story of my Career, a short work that was published in installments in a women’s magazine in 1917. This was about six years before Emily was published. Several comments in this little story made me think, “Aha, Emily is more like Montgomery as well.” Montgomery includes some of her own family history in Emily’s, and incorporates a relative or two of her own into Emily’s family circle. Some seemingly less significant aspects of her childhood also make it into Emily’s story, such as Montgomery’s wish to go to school barefooted and being forced to wear an ugly apron to school. She says of herself, “I dared not attempt to use verses and hymns in current conversation [like a girl in a story she had read]. I had a wholesome conviction that I should be laughed at, and moreover, I doubted being understood.” This is a repeated theme in Emily. The charge I often hear that Emily is darker than Anne is, perhaps, just. The story certainly deals with certain aspects of life more starkly. Montgomery was almost fifty when Emily was published. Maybe she was working out some of her own darkness in this story. When the story opens, Emily lives with her loving, understanding father. Her mother has been dead since Emily was very small. She knows her father isn’t well, but doesn’t realize just how sick he is until he dies. Her mother’s family descends on the funeral, and they draw lots to see who will take Emily in. No one really wants her, but the Murray Pride will not allow for her ending up in an orphanage. Her father’s death turns Emily’s life upside down. She has to go live with Aunt Elizabeth, Aunt Laura, and Cousin Jimmy, whom she had never met before. She has to choose between her two beloved cats because she is only allowed to take one to New Moon. Her father had taught her at home, but at New Moon she is immediately sent to school. There she experiences the usual challenges of adjustment. Because she is from New Moon, the other girls assume she will think herself above them, so they tease her and play a mean trick on her. Her teacher is a nasty, sarcastic woman. Emily also makes one very good friend, Ilse, and the hired boy at New Moon becomes a protector. For me, seeing Emily orphaned at the beginning of the story, witnessing a little of the happiness she loses, and watching her struggle with the aftermath, add depth to her plight. She is not a naturally outgoing, bubbly person. She has to work at happiness. She makes few friends, but those friends are fiercely loyal, as she is in return. Much of the darkness comes from frequent references to the deaths and peccadilloes of neighbors and ancestors. Occasionally Emily accidently overhears these, but she also has relatives to whom it doesn’t occur to soften these for Emily’s ears or to make sure she isn’t listening. In one instance, Emily goes to look at an abandoned well on the neighbor’s property where two brothers had quarreled and one killed the other by hitting him over the head with a hammer. While visiting Aunt Nancy, Emily hears what is supposed to have happened to Ilse’s mother. She disappeared when Ilse was small, and everyone assumes that she ran off with a man she knew before she married Ilse’s father. One day Emily slips off a cliff by the shore and is trapped. While she waits and hopes for help, she thinks about what will happen if no one ever finds her. “The crows or the gulls would pick her eyes out.” The way Emily and Ilse discuss their attempts to work out what they believe about God may be troubling to some readers. Ilse’s father has entirely neglected her upbringing. His reaction to his wife’s disappearance is, among other things, to decide not to believe in God, so Ilse doesn’t either. Emily sometimes refers to her father’s God as opposed to Aunt Elizabeth’s God. he doesn’t believe there are two Gods, but she is trying to sort out what he must be like when her father’s God is so loving and Aunt Elizabeth’s is so stern. As part of Ilse’s ever-developing belief system, at one point she decides to believe in God, but to call him Allah because it sounds nicer. This is a passing comment rather than a concept that is developed in the story. The questions about God feel like realistic musings of children who have questions the adults in their lives are not equipped to answer. Toward the end of the book, th

https://plumfieldmoms.com/plumfield-moms-book-reviews/freckles-a-girl-of-the-limberlost “The scene was intensely attractive. The thickness of the swamp made a dark, massive background below, while above towered gigantic trees. The men were calling jovially back and forth as they unharnessed tired horses that fell into attitudes of rest and crunched, in deep content, the grain given them. Duncan, the brawny Scotch head-teamster, lovingly wiped the flanks of his big bays with handfuls of pawpaw leaves, as he softly whistled, ‘O wha will be my dearie, O!’ and a cricket beneath the leaves at his feet accompanied him. The green wood fire hissed and crackled merrily. Wreathing tongues of flame wrapped around the big black kettles, and when the cook lifted the lids to plunge in his testing-fork, gusts of savoury odours escaped.” –Freckles Now isn’t that a fine start to a story!? This third paragraph of the first chapter of Freckles brilliantly sets the tone for the story that is about to unfold. Sure, we know little of the story itself, but this paragraph in all of its sensory description invites us into a scene pregnant with life and natural beauty. Not only is Duncan singing in accent, but the cricket accompanies him. The large hard-working bays are dwarfed in size by the enormity of the gigantic trees surrounding them. The cooking fires are fierce and untamed like the thick surrounding swamp, which is anything but safe. In all of this, Duncan, the man, is taming the wild by using those tree leaves to rub his horses down, and the cooks are using the fire to make something savory and delicious for the teamsters to eat. This is the way Gene Stratton-Porter writes. A daughter of the Limberlost, she is captivated by the beauty and the wild and wishes for her readers to be so also. Her stories are as much about the natural things as they are about the human ones. So often in stories, authors attempt to describe the scenic beauty of their story setting. In the really good books, these scenes can be well done. Rare is it, however, that such scenes are intrinsically connected to the story. Something more than window dressing, but not really something entirely of its own, this kind of description is usually applied to enrich the story. In the case of Porter, however, it is the other way around. Her stories are often the vehicle through which we are invited into the natural scene. Instead of being where the story is set, they are the inspiration for the story itself. To Porter, the Limberlost (or any of the other natural settings she writes about) was a vibrant and exciting living thing. She saw the swamp as a character onto itself. In this article I must review Freckles and A Girl of the Limberlost together. While each story is capable of standing on its own, and Girl is not exactly a sequel to Freckles, the two stories are part of a set. For some reason, many booklists recommend A Girl of the Limberlost for teenage girl readers and Freckles for teenage boy readers. I suppose this is because the title characters are respectively, a girl and a boy. But I think this is a serious miscalculation. These two books are a set and probably should be read as such. Also, readers of Girl will have some of Freckles ruined for them if they read out of order. When Girl opens, Freckles has left the swamp, his success is well known, and his specimen box and “Cathedral” are left in the care of Elnora. Later in the story, his future life is revealed. While I do not love the ending of Freckles, I would not have wanted it ruined for me by reading these books out of order. Also, Girl is a darker and harder book. If you are reading with young people, it is so much better to approach it with the happy memories of Freckles in your heart. I lead a book club for young readers in my local community. This summer we read Freckles and Girl together in August. Our discussion was exciting! This particular club was for girls 10-16. Half of the girls strongly preferred Freckles and half cherished Girl. All universally agreed that the ending to Freckles was cheesy, but that we all loved seeing Freckles and The Angel in Girl. Nearly two-thirds of the girls thought Elnora was “too perfect” and unbelievable. One-third had a soft spot for her and understood that, like Emily of L.M. Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon, Elnora was living in a hard situation that demanded her to be as perfect as possible. All of my girls thought Porter’s writing was something like Montgomery’s and Alcott’s, and they are eager to read more. Freckles is an orphan with one maimed arm, an Irish lilt to his speech, and no proper name. Not much more than a boy, he is friendless, homeless, and hungry. But while the world rendered him incomplete, God preserved the character and hope that were Freckles’ defining characteristics. And, as the story unfolds, that is really all that matters. When the story opens, Freckles uses all of his Irish stubbornness and his God-given good character to convi

https://plumfieldmoms.com/plumfield-moms-book-reviews/rose-campbell-books “Keep good company, read good books, love good things and cultivate soul and body as faithfully as you can…” -Rose In Bloom My friends and readers of this blog are likely to know that I consider Louisa May Alcott to be in my list of very favorite authors. I say very favorite even though Diane would remind me that the word “very” rarely adds anything of substance to a statement because in this particular case I think that we bibliophiles are apt to have “favorites” and “very favorites.” Very favorite to me means an author I cannot live without. While some consider her old-fashioned, preachy, unrealistic, and strident, I find her to be a balm for this world-weary mama’s heart and a friend to the innocent tender-hearted young people in my life. In Rose In Bloom, I think she demonstrates particular skill as an inspirational and sophisticated storyteller. “It does seem to me that some one might write stories that should be lively, natural, and helpful tales in which the English should be good, the morals pure, and the characters such as we can love in spite of the faults that all may have.” ―Eight Cousins In a format that is similar to the Jo March books, Alcott wrote a pair of books about Rose Campbell and her seven male cousins. Eight Cousins is easily compared to Little Men and is at least equally charming. Shy and sickly Rose Campbell is an orphaned heiress. After the death of her parents, she moves to the “Aunt Hill” – a neighborhood of houses occupied by aunts, great aunts, and cousins while she waits for her guardian, Uncle Alec, to return from foreign travel. Because of a family estrangement, Rose barely knows her extended family, and her grief is compounded by the strangeness of her new situation and so many family members to know and try to please. Very quickly, however, Uncle Alec returns home to set things to rights and all is more than well. “If she really had any doubt, the look in Dr. Alec’s face banished it without a word, as he opened wide his arms and she ran into them, feeling that home was here.” ―Eight Cousins When the reader enters into Eight Cousins, Rose has been living with her great-aunts for a year. She has been smothered with their strong Victorian notions of girlhood and generally finds her situation to be suffocating. A submissive child, she is docile and complies with all of their whims, but she is sickly and painfully shy. She fears the day that Uncle Alec will return because she hardly knows him and worries that she will not be able to adequately please him. “If you dear little girls would only learn what real beauty is, and not pinch and starve and bleach yourselves out so, you’d save an immense deal of time and money and pain. A happy soul in a healthy body makes the best sort of beauty for man or woman.” –Eight Cousins Alcott spares us any anxiety on this point. Uncle Alec enters the scene quickly and with as much genuine charm as any character, Alcott has ever written. Uncle Alec loves and respects his aunts and sisters, but he, a doctor, quickly surmises that they have been ruining the poor child. He asserts his rights as guardian and prescribes for Rose a classic Alcott regimen: healthy exercise, nourishing food, good and beautiful books, lovely adventures, and hearty play with her cousins. He also goes to war with the aunts over Rose’s “costume,” freeing the girl from the constricting corset, the unsuitable fabrics, and any garment which dresses Rose up to look older than her youthful age. Without apology, Alcott is giving us a clear prescription for social and educational reform in the way in which Uncle Alec tailors Rose’s experiences. Due to exciting and creative circumstances, he also gets to try his hand at helping Phoebe (the little maid similarly aged to Rose), and cousin Mac. “What do you want?” and Rose looked up rather surprised.“I’d like to borrow some money. I shouldn’t think of asking you, only Mac never has a cent since he’s set up his old chemical shop, where he’ll blow himself to bits some day and you and Uncle will have the fun of putting him together again,” and Steve tried to look as if the idea amused him.” ―Eight Cousins My children were in fits of giggles throughout the story and moped around for two days after it ended because they missed the Campbell cousins. Alcott loves boys! She writes about boyish antics with so much joy and humor that it is impossible not to love them all. The girls have plenty of fun too. By the time the story is over, the characters feel real to the reader and we are sorry to see the curtain come down on the play. “Uncle, I have discovered what girls are made for,” said Rose, the day after the reconciliation of Archie and the Prince.“Well, my dear, what is it?” asked Dr. Alec…“To take care of boys,” answered Rose, quite beaming with satisfaction as she spoke.” Phebe laughed when I told her, and said she thought girls had better learn to take care of the