Wednesday Reading Meme

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

By popular demand, I read Hilary McKay’s A Little Princess sequel, Wishing for Tomorrow, and I’m happy to say I quite enjoyed it! I read the whole thing in one evening: the narrative force tugged me along so fiercely that I almost forwent an ice cream excursion because I wanted so much to keep reading.

I don’t know that it’s quite the future Frances Hodgson Burnett would have given these characters (in particular, I strongly suspect that McKay is more forgiving toward Lavinia and Miss Minchin than Burnett might have been). But McKay’s interpretations are all reasonable extrapolations from the characters’ portrayals in A Little Princess - it fits with the other book (in a way that Maleficent, for instance, doesn’t fit with Sleeping Beauty). And I think McKay did a beautiful job showing that Ermengarde feels lonely and abandoned after Sara left, without villainizing Sara.

My only quibble is that I am pretty sure no one in A Little Princess ever called Ermengarde “Ermie,” and I disapprove very much of the fact that McKay inflicted such an awful nickname on her. Doesn’t Ermengarde have enough troubles without a nickname that rhymes with wormy?

Also Rachel Bertsche’s Jennifer, Gwyneth, and Me: The Pursuit of Happiness, One Celebrity at a Time. I really loved Bertsche’s earlier book, MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend, partly because Bertsche is a very personable writer, but also because I really connected with her topic: making friends is something I struggle with, and it is so validating to read this book and realize that my standards for friendship really aren’t impossibly high.

Anyway. Bertsche is still a very personable writer in Jennifer, Gwyneth, and Me, so I did enjoy the book, but I didn’t connect to it on the same personal level as MWF Seeking BFF. But probably I’ll read her next book when it comes out. (Especially given that the next book might be a parenting book. I have a strange weakness for parenting books.)

What I’m Reading Now

Hilary McKay’s Forever Rose, which is the fifth Casson Family book and is...not quite as charming as the earlier books. I really enjoyed the ensemble aspect of the earlier books, but this one is more all Rose all the time, and while I like Rose...that is really too much Rose.

Also Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Shield Ring. I think I should put Operation Read All the Sutcliff on hold, because I am really struggling to get through this book, and I think perhaps I’m just too accustomed to her narrative tics.

What I Plan to Read Next

I have gone on a Kindle binge in anticipation of my upcoming trip. I have Lia Silver’s Prisoner, and also a whole slew of ancient (well, pre-1923) books that are FREEEEEE. I'm also thinking about getting E. F. Benson’s David Blaize, but it is not FREEEEE, so I’m waffling. Has anyone read it?

Kindle binge!

I am so excited about all my free Kindle books from the days of yore that I could not restrain myself and made a whole post about them. I did my undergrad thesis project about girls’ books from 1890-1915, and I’ve simply had marvellous luck finding books I like in that time period. Recently I even branched out and read a boys’ book from the time period, William Heyliger’s Don Strong, Patrol Leader, which I all but live-blogged at sineala as I read it.

IT IS SO EARNEST. SO EARNEST. It is about boy scouts and it shimmers and shines with earnest, upright scoutliness. “The patrol leader, [Don] thought, should be a fellow who was heart and soul in scouting - a fellow who could encourage, and urge, and lend a willing hand; not a fellow who wanted to drive and show authority.” It’s as if Steve Rogers committed mitosis and became an entire boy scout troop.

Except! Except there is one bad scout, Tim, who is always destroying unit cohesion because he yearns to impress his authority on everyone rather than working as part of the team. Obviously it is Don’s duty as patrol leader to help Tim get in touch with his best self, so he can contribute to the troop! Naturally it ends with a treasure hunt in the woods where they beat each other up and then finally begin to work together.

None of Heyliger’s other books are on Kindle for free. I am so sad about this.

But it’s not like I’m going to run out of reading material. I’ve got like fifteen books stocked, and I have particularly high hopes for these three:

1. Rose of Old Harpeth, by Maria Thompson Daviess. I loved her book Phyllis (you have to scroll down past the Lost Prince review to get to Phyllis), and all Daviess' books, evidently, are set in the same imaginary southern town - a precursor to Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpa County, except infinitely kinder and gentler and with much more emphasis on female friendship and lovely nature descriptions.

2. Georgina’s Service Stars, by Annie Fellows Johnston. I keep meaning to write something about Johnston’s Little Colonel books - suffice it to say that I am sufficiently invested that my mom and I got into a shipping debate about the Little Colonel’s romantic prospects - so I have high hopes for Johnston’s later Georgina duology. Especially because I am pretty sure that Georgina’s Service Stars is a World War I book, and I am so curious to see how Johnson will handle it.

And by curious, I mean that I hope Georgina has ridiculous adventures being a nurse on the Western Front or something like that. In the Little Colonel books Johnston made a twelve-year-old a captain in the American army in the Philippines during the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, otherwise known as pretty much the worst war for a twelve-year-old to join the American army ever. Mostly he spends the books standing around silently. I think Johnson meant his silence to show how manly and stoic he was, but in fact I’m pretty sure he was just way too traumatized to speak ever again.

(The Little Colonel herself, I feel compelled to add, is not actually colonel of anything. Her nickname comes from the fact that she’s just as stubborn and temperamental as her grandfather, a crotchety Confederate colonel who lost an arm in the Civil War. They make friends when she hurls mud on his suit.)

3. I’ve also acquired a couple of Margaret Vandercook’s Red Cross Girls books, although sadly not the direct sequel to The Red Cross Girls on the French Firing Line, so probably I will still be unable to fulfill my desire to learn about the further adventures of Eugenia and the dashing young French captain Castaigne. Eugenia saved his life when they got stuck behind enemy lines together because of his dire wounds.

This book was like crack, crack for me. The hurt/comfort! The delirium! The scene where Eugenia hides Captain Castaigne under a pile of clothes when showing the German troopers through the house. (Captain Castaigne is kind of shrimpy. This is one of his many charms.)

They get rescued! He reveals that he is in love with her! She is all, “What you really feel is gratitude, you’ll get over it and realize you never really loved me, I totally love you but I will never never say it because I don’t believe you really love me back, because how could you when you are so awesome in every way and I am me?”

WILL THESE CRAZY KIDS WORK OUT THEIR FEELINGS? Of course they will, it is that kind of book. BUT I WANT TO SEE IT HAPPEN. I WANT THE GLORIOUS MOMENT WHEN EUGENIA REALIZES CAPTAIN CASTAIGNE’S FEELINGS ARE TRUE.

...Anyway. Vandercook also wrote series about the Camp Fire Girls, the Girl Scouts, and the Ranch Girls, all of which sound like things I need to check out. I can only hope her girl scouts are half as earnest as Heyliger’s boy scouts!