Wednesday Reading Meme
Apr. 5th, 2023 07:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Onward in the Newbery Honors! I read Julia L. Sauer’s The Light at Tern Rock, a very short book about an older woman and her nephew who end up spending Christmas tending the lighthouse on Tern Rock. Lots of fun if you are into lighthouses (I am into lighthouses). Also interesting in that it has strong religious themes, which show up intermittently in Newbery Honor books in the 1950s, but not really thereafter. What’s curious is that you also don’t see these themes in the 1920s Newbery Honors; I’m interested to see if this is a 1950s aberration (the 1950s being the era of God and Country) or if it will show up in the 1930s and 40s too.
I also finished Jennie D. Lindquist’s The Crystal Tree, the final book in her charming trilogy about Nancy, who is sent to live with her Swedish-American not-actually-grandparents (they’re friends of the family, but, like, emotionally they are grandparents) and has all sorts of good times. In this book, the good times revolve around discovering the history of the little silver house which Nancy’s parents intend to rent; Nancy and her friends start interviewing everyone in town on the topic and hear lots of delightful stories, not only about the house but about all sorts of other things too. Just really enjoyable all around. Someone ought to consider reprinting these.
And I read Annie Fellows Johnston’s Mary Ware’s Promised Land, which is the LAST of the thirteen (!) Little Colonel books, and ends with Mary Ware settled down in wedded bliss with her beloved Phil Tremont, right across the road from her idol Lloyd Sherman (a.k.a. the Little Colonel). What more could a girl want? A career, you say? Well, I am thrilled to tell you that Mary Ware is ALSO going to be pursuing her passion for housing reform, lobbying for legislation to force greedy landlords to update their dwellings so the poor no longer live in windowless rooms with one single spigot for the whole building!
What I’m Reading Now
Mrs. Molesworth’s The Cuckoo Clock, simply because it was mentioned in Jennie D. Lindquist’s The Golden Name Day. (It’s the book the main character is reading on the stairs when the light slants through the stained glass window just right to cast colored shapes on the page.) Delighted to discover that it’s a children’s fantasy book! The cuckoo in the clock is taking our heroine Griselda on magical adventures, starting with a visit to the little room in the cuckoo clock where the cuckoo lives, with the walls all lined in red velvet and two little red velvet chairs. (The edition on Gutenberg has gorgeous illustrations.)
What I Plan to Read Next
Not sure yet... following my whim!
Onward in the Newbery Honors! I read Julia L. Sauer’s The Light at Tern Rock, a very short book about an older woman and her nephew who end up spending Christmas tending the lighthouse on Tern Rock. Lots of fun if you are into lighthouses (I am into lighthouses). Also interesting in that it has strong religious themes, which show up intermittently in Newbery Honor books in the 1950s, but not really thereafter. What’s curious is that you also don’t see these themes in the 1920s Newbery Honors; I’m interested to see if this is a 1950s aberration (the 1950s being the era of God and Country) or if it will show up in the 1930s and 40s too.
I also finished Jennie D. Lindquist’s The Crystal Tree, the final book in her charming trilogy about Nancy, who is sent to live with her Swedish-American not-actually-grandparents (they’re friends of the family, but, like, emotionally they are grandparents) and has all sorts of good times. In this book, the good times revolve around discovering the history of the little silver house which Nancy’s parents intend to rent; Nancy and her friends start interviewing everyone in town on the topic and hear lots of delightful stories, not only about the house but about all sorts of other things too. Just really enjoyable all around. Someone ought to consider reprinting these.
And I read Annie Fellows Johnston’s Mary Ware’s Promised Land, which is the LAST of the thirteen (!) Little Colonel books, and ends with Mary Ware settled down in wedded bliss with her beloved Phil Tremont, right across the road from her idol Lloyd Sherman (a.k.a. the Little Colonel). What more could a girl want? A career, you say? Well, I am thrilled to tell you that Mary Ware is ALSO going to be pursuing her passion for housing reform, lobbying for legislation to force greedy landlords to update their dwellings so the poor no longer live in windowless rooms with one single spigot for the whole building!
What I’m Reading Now
Mrs. Molesworth’s The Cuckoo Clock, simply because it was mentioned in Jennie D. Lindquist’s The Golden Name Day. (It’s the book the main character is reading on the stairs when the light slants through the stained glass window just right to cast colored shapes on the page.) Delighted to discover that it’s a children’s fantasy book! The cuckoo in the clock is taking our heroine Griselda on magical adventures, starting with a visit to the little room in the cuckoo clock where the cuckoo lives, with the walls all lined in red velvet and two little red velvet chairs. (The edition on Gutenberg has gorgeous illustrations.)
What I Plan to Read Next
Not sure yet... following my whim!
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Date: 2023-04-05 11:56 am (UTC)What more could a girl want? A career, you say? Well, I am thrilled to tell you.... Ahahahaa, perfect
Re: your comment about religion in Newbery Books: interesting! It sounds like there could be a whole dissertation in that. My naive view would have been that it started out Lotsa Religion and got less so over the years, and my slightly less naive one would be that religion reared its head in times of strife--but in fact both those look to be incorrect! Very interesting. Looking forward to your discoveries as you work through the 30s and 40s.
I'm thinking what an education you're getting in how to write children's books/how styles and topics in writing for children change. There really is no writing education like reading. ... Not that children's literature is what you write, but still...
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Date: 2023-04-05 03:20 pm (UTC)Children's books were what I first meant to write, years and years ago! I suppose I've just retained an interest.
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Date: 2023-04-06 03:39 pm (UTC)