Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

DELIGHTED to inform you that fadedpage.com now has W. E. Johns’ fifth Worrals book, Worrals Goes East, both for its own sake and because it suggests that someone is systematically adding the Worrals books one by one and we will someday have all ten. THANK YOU MYSTERY PERSON, YOU ARE A SCHOLAR AND A GENTLEMAN.

Less delighted by the fact that this is set in Syria and the author is not very racially sensitive (although he DOES kindly inform us that his Evil Tribe, the Zogorites, are Not Real Arabs, both in the sense of being Bad and in the sense that he made them up for this book), but this is just what you get when you read old books.

I am however continually delighted by how wholeheartedly Johns took up the “Biggles but girls” premise. Not only are Worrals and Frecks exactly the sort of resourceful, venturesome lasses you’d want on an adventure, but they tackle male chauvinism head on. “If we’ve to start fighting male prejudice as well as the Nazis, then we are in for a tough time,” Worrals comments, and when (in classic adventure hero fashion) they’re forced to strike out on their own without informing the Authorities, it’s in part because they know these particular Authorities won’t let them take the necessary risks because they’re girls.

I also read Newbery Honor book Ramona and Her Father, which I may have read before? I know I read some Ramona books as a child, but the only one I know for sure is Ramona’s World, and that’s because it disappointed me. (It came out when I was in fourth grade, and Ramona was also in fourth grade, and IIRC I felt that Ramona was Out of Touch with the experience of fourth grade in the 1990s.)

Anyway, this is fun! I particularly enjoyed the sequence where Ramona’s big sister interviews an elderly neighbor about games she used to play, and the neighbor mentions making tin-can stilts (out of big two-pound coffee cans, not your average itty-bitty can) and Ramona and her friend Howie make some and tromp around the neighborhood singing “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall!” at the top of their lungs.

What I’m Reading Now

Moving right along with the Newbery Honor books of the 1970s! I’m listening to James Lincoln Collier & Christopher Collier’s My Brother Sam Is Dead. I saw this book on the bookshelves MANY times as a child and never read it because, well, that title. Possibly too much truth in advertising! Anyway, Sam is not quite dead yet, but he HAS stolen his father’s gun and run off to fight in the Revolutionary War, so no doubt it is coming.

In Dracula news, Renfield has eaten all his birds, feathers and all (gross, Renfield), Lucy is walking in her sleep (I’m sure it’s nothing! Everything is fine!), and we have had no news of Jonathan Harker for some weeks. Probably fell off the castle while trying to escape and we shall ne’er see him more. :( :( :(

What I Plan to Read Next

Laurence Yep’s Dragonwings, yet another Newbery book from the 1970s. Distrait to learn that if I am going to finish the Newbery Honor project I will have to interlibrary loan… seventy-two books… Okay MAYBE it won’t be that many, because by the time I reach the 1930s some of those books may be out of copyright and therefore available online, but STILL. SO MANY.

Comments

[philomytha]

Ooh, more Worrals! Though from the synopses, I think most of the remaining ones are set overseas and are likely to be full of unpleasant racial stereotypes - there are places where you can see WEJ is trying to be sensitive, there’s a bit in Biggles in the Orient in India when Biggles carefully explains to his squadron that it’s rude to call Indians ‘natives’, and ‘men of the country’ is the polite usage of the day - but there are a lot more misses than hits. But his take on Worrals and Frecks fighting Nazis and chauvinism simultaneously is great.

[osprey_archer]

Oh, dear... Well, I guess we just can't have everything. Worrals and Frecks fighting Nazis and chauvinism is great, though!

ETA: You wonder if Johns didn't want to get the girls away from England so he could get Worrals away from her boyfriend so he didn't have to write anymore soppy bits. "My readers are not here for sentiment. They're here for derring-do!"

[philomytha]

I do like the way Worrals orders Bill around :-). But giving Worrals a boyfriend safely back home means that he doesn't have to have any worries about romances with any other characters, but also doesn't have to write any more of the gooey bits!

[oracne]

"Biggles but girls" is a compelling pitch!

[osprey_archer]

I would say "hard to go wrong" but honestly I can imagine MANY ways that a mid-twentieth century male author could go wrong with that premise, which makes it all the more impressive that Johns nails it!

[regshoe]

Perhaps I should try reading these Worrals books! I'm always complaining about how I can't find the sorts of stories and dynamics I like with female characters, and 'thrilling exciting adventure novels, but about girls' sounds right up my street—and there aren't so intimidatingly many of them as with Biggles, hmm...

[osprey_archer]

One of my friends calls these books f!Biggles and she's not wrong. It's very much a "hero and his best mate" dynamic, except girls.

And yes, the fact that there are only ten (only ten! Ten is still so many... except when you compare it to a hundred) makes the series way less intimidating than Biggles.

[rachelmanija]

I'm excited to dive into Worrals!

What I mostly remember about Ramona and her father is NOSMO KING.

[osprey_archer]

Worrals is so much fun! I really hope that whatever good angel put up the first five keeps up the good work.

I love the NOSMO KING sign. That's such an elementary school thing to do, running out of space on the paper and skipping down to the next line. Cleary is so good at observing things like that.