Sing in Praise: A Collection of the Best Loved Hymns

Honestly, I did not finish Sing in Praise: A Collection of the Best Loved Hymns. It won the Caldecott Honor Medal in 1947. Written by Opal Wheeler and illustrated by Marjorie Torrey, it is a collection of popular hymns. Each has an accompanying story telling of the possible origin of the work, or the childhood of the composer. It seemed a bit contrived to me. Wheeler and Torrey also collaborated on and won the Honor Medal for Sing Mother Goose.

The Yearling

Finished The Yearling by Marjorie Rawlings. It won the Pulitzer in 1939. Set in the early 20th century, it is the story of Jody, an only child, living with his mother and father. Jody craves a companion. He finds an orphaned fawn and brings him home as a pet. The fawn, named Flag, and Jody grow up together amid the beauty and dangers of backwoods Florida. These dangers include flood, rattlesnakes, wolves, bears and alligators. One bear in particular, Old Slewfoot, is brazen enough to walk off with the family's brood sow and several calves. Jody learns the ways of the woods and how to track and hunt from his father. He and Flag continue to grow until they are both really "the yearling." This book is beautifully written and as with any animal story there is sadness and grief, but I enjoyed it immensely.

The edition I read had color illustrations by N. C. Wyeth, an American illustrator of the Brandywine School. He illustrated many classics including Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Robin Hood, Robinson Crusoe and The Last of the Mohicans.

Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze

Finished Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze by Elizabeth Foreman Lewis. It won the Newbery Medal in 1933. Young Fu is thirteen when he and his mother move from the country to Chungking where Fu will apprentice as a coppersmith. The city is crowded, damp and dirty. There are many things to peak Fu's curiosity and he gets into a number of scrapes that way. However, with guidance from his mother, Wang Scholar and his boss and mentor Tang, he grows up to be a clever, brave and talented man.

The edition I read had an introduction written by Pearl S. Buck who won the Pulitzer in 1932 for The Good Earth. Lewis' backdrop of the turmoil, poverty, war, disease, flood, etc of early 20th century China was so similar to The Good Earth that it made me feel depressed. Eventually these things fell further into the background and Fu's character development became the center of the book. Somewhere around the middle of the book I began to enjoy it very much.

Kathleen

Finished Kathleen by Christopher Morley, one of my favorite writers. A group of undergraduates at Oxford find a letter written by a young woman named Kathleen. They begin a writing project in which they piece together a story about her and her family. Their ardor of Kathleen grows. During a holiday break they travel to the town where Kathleen lives and each devise a way to meet her and ask her to be their guest for Eight's Week. Each man masquerades as something he is not. One an antiquites scholar, one a curate, also a policeman and a gas meter reader. The most outrageous of all is one who dresses up as a woman and poses as a substitute cook for Kathleen's family. Here is a man with experience playing female characters in a theater guild, but no experience in the kitchen. The results of this are so hilarious I found myself laughing out loud. At one point while studying a recipe for stuffed eggs, he sees in the list of ingredients "buttered crumbs" and makes a note to set aside extra time for the buttering of said crumbs since that sounds like a tricky business.

While the book is ultimately a bit silly, it was an enjoyable read. My favorite Christopher Morley book is Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman. My second favorite is Parnassus on Wheels. I recommend both very highly.

The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt

Finished The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt. It is made up of several books that she published over her lifetime, This Is My Story (1937), This I Remember (1949), On My Own (1958) and The Search for Understanding (1961). I am very slow when it comes to reading non-fiction, so it took me many months to read this book. That is no reflection on the book itself.

I think I expected to be captivated by Eleanor's life with FDR, however, they were apart much of the time and she was still evolving into the powerful force for good and change that she eventually became. So it was not until the two books written after FDR's death that I got hooked on her story. The first two, about growing up and life as the wife of a governor and then a president, are filled with polite remarks about meeting various important people and how charming, polite, etc., they were.

The later books document her work with the UN, her travel all over the world and her observations of what she saw. She rarely passes a negative personal remark. She makes no reference to the troubles of her marriage, other than the iron fist of her mother-in-law, she never mentions the alcoholism on both sides of the family. All of those things I learned from a PBS "American Experience" documentary about her.

For twenty-six years she wrote the newspaper column "My Day." Selected articles were published in the book My Day: The Best of Eleanor Roosevelt's Acclaimed Newspaper Columns, 1936-1962. I look forward to reading this someday in daily installments.

The Little Island

The Little Island, written by Golden MacDonald and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard, won the Caldecott Medal in 1947. It describes the changes on a small island that take place when day turns to night or when the seasons change. Golden MacDonald was a pseudonym for Margaret Wise Brown who wrote Goodnight, Moon. Brown and Weisgard won a Caldecott Honor Medal for another book they worked on together, Little Lost Lamb (1946).

The Peppermint Pig

Finished The Peppermint Pig by Nina Bawden. Poll's father is wrongly accused of stealing from his place of work. He loses his job and decides to go to America to try his fortunes there. His wife and children leave their comfortable home in London and move in with Aunts Sarah and Henrietta in the country. Life is different, but not terrible. One day the milkman stops by and offers the family a piglet, the runt, too small to be raised by it's mother. They accept it and Poll and the new piglet, Johnnie, form a very close bond.

As Johnnie grows he becomes housebroken and acts much like a family dog. He follows mother on her daily shopping rounds, plays with all the children and sits and stares pensively into the fire. Before Poll and Johnnie met, Poll was not much of a student, but once she has something to look forward to and to be personally responsible for she becomes more focused and mature and begins to make friends at school.

Time passes and Poll wonders if her father will ever come home. She becomes seriously ill with scarlet fever. It takes her a long time to recover. When she is almost better one of her aunts takes her on a visit where she plays with a basketful of puppies. Her aunt tells her she can take one of the puppies home. Poll accepts the puppy, but is mystified. Her aunt says it's a birthday present, but her birthday has already happened.

Poll enjoys spending time with her new puppy and neglects Johnnie a bit. Johnnie is now huge and slow and not nearly as much fun as the puppy. One day Poll comes home from school and Johnnie is gone. He has been sent to the butcher. Mother owes the butcher money and has been having trouble making ends meet. Poll is stunned. She keeps saying "Everyone said Johnnie was different" and she had taken them at their word.

Poll cannot eat. She does not eat for seven days. One of her aunts takes her to the butcher shop to help her grasp the reality of the situation. Poll takes one look at the hanging carcasses and faints dead away.

This all sounds very cruel when I type it. In context it is not as harsh as it sounds. Poll's character, her thoughts and reactions to things are all so well drawn. It's obvious that Nina Bawden has a very strong memory of what is was like to be a child and feel that the whole world is working against you. Her book Carrie's War is one of my favorites.

The Thirty-Nine Steps

Finished The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. Gee this was a fun book.

Little Lord Fauntleroy

Finished Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was her first novel, published in 1886, long before A Little Princess (1905) and The Secret Garden (1911). It's a lovely, funny book originally published serially in Saint Nicholas Magazine.

Cedric Errol is a seven year old American boy who has been raised modestly by his kind and loving mother. Cedric is handsome, sweet tempered, intelligent, fearless and very sympathetic to those in need. One day a lawyer from England comes to inform his mother that due to the deaths of Cedric's uncles, Cedric himself is in line to be the next Earl of Dorincourt. The current Earl, Cedric's grandfather, wishes to have the boy come to England and be raised in preparation for his new role. He wants nothing to do with Cedric's mother. He was very angry when his favorite son married an American and assumes that she is low and mercenary.

Cedric and his mother travel to England. His mother lives in a lodge on the estate and Cedric lives with his grandfather. The Earl of Dorincourt is a lonely, bitter, difficult old man. No one likes him. Cedric's kindly innocence and generosity towards those less fortunate win him great popularity among the locals. His grandfather is puzzled and amused by these gestures of kindness. They eventually begin to rub off on him. The Earl's life changes far more than Cedric's does. He gains the respect and friendship of those around him. He realizes his mistake in shutting out Cedric's mother and then soon has two loving family members to spend his days with.

The Woman in White

Finished The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. I could not put this book down. It is an intricate tale of deception told in written accounts by various characters in the novel. It is considered the first detective novel written in English. It was published serially in All the Year Round, Charles Dickens' weekly literary magazine. Collins' novel immediately followed the serialization of A Tale of Two Cities, which I just finished last month. This was not intentional on my part, just an interesting coincidence.

The book's villain, Count Fosco, is one of the most wonderful characters I have ever encountered. He is so eccentric, so audacious and yet so well mannered, I cannot help but love him.


At about the same time that The Woman in White was published as a three volume book, Whistler had an exhibition of paintings in Paris and London. One of the paintings, The White Girl, was assumed by critics to be a representation of the title character from Collins' novel. Whistler was very annoyed by this because the painting had nothing to do with the novel. He renamed the painting Symphony in White, No 1. Sadly, today it is often used as cover art for the book.

Betsy in Spite of Herself

Finished Betsy in Spite of Herself, the sixth book in Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy series. Betsy and Tacy are now sophomores at Deep Valley High School. Betsy is invited by their old friend Tib to spend Christmas with her and her family in Milwaukee. Betsy has not seen Tib since she moved away several books ago. At first the girls are shy with each other, but after the first night their shyness disolves.

While Betsy is visiting Tib she decides to reinvent herself. She changes the spelling of her name and takes on airs and mannerisms that surprise her friends when she returns home. While acting the part of the newly invented Betsye, she attracts the attention of Phil, a boy outside of The Crowd. They begin to date. While The Crowd is polite to Phil, they don't care for him very much. Eventually many of Betsy's friends stop dropping by for Sunday Night Lunch. Phil does not want to do things with The Crowd and he resents Betsye spending time working on her entry for the essay competition. This is where Betsy finally realizes that maybe Phil is not the boy for her. Nothing should interfere with her writing. Eventually the two part ways and Betsy goes back to being her garrulous, high spirited self.

I find it interesting the number of books written by female writers that are about girls who grow up to be writers: Lousia May Alcott, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Lucy Maude Montgomery and Maude Hart Lovelace. They all have three names too. Hmmm.....

The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits

Finished The Man Who Invented Christmas by Les Standiford. I am always and forever interested in anything to do with A Christmas Carol, so I was very pleased to receive a copy of this book for Christmas in 2008. Having read many Dickens novels and assorted scholarly takes on them, this book was surprisingly light. It is not meant to be academic and it took me a few days to come to grips with that. It is a light retelling of Dickens' life leading up to the publication of A Christmas Carol, a book that he published on his own, choosing the fabric and lettering for the cover and which illustrations to include. It was something that he took tremendous pride in.

I learned a number of interesting tidbits from this book. One which particularly struck me is the fact that Disraeli was a novelist. Who knew? Disraeli is another Victorian who interests me greatly. I might have to track down a good biography of him as well.

A Tale of Two Cities

Finished A Tale of Two Cities, my 2009 Dickens read. This is a book I should have read in high school. How did I miss it? Bleak and intense, though not entirely humorless, it's by far the most gripping Dickens I've ever read. It was interesting to see him lay out the case for both sides in the French Revolution without always sitting clearly on one side of the fence. Dickens abhorred violence. I think writing this book must have been very taxing for him. History repeats itself over and over. This book should be read as a perpetual warning.

The Provincial Lady in London

Finished The Provincial Lady in London (a.k.a. The Provincial Lady Goes Further) by E. M. Delafield. It's the second book in the series. Life continues to be recorded in diary format beginning with the arrival of a royalty check for the previous volume. Cooks, parlor maids, governesses, tutors and house guests all continue to come and go. The Provincial Lady takes a flat in London to have have a place to write uninterrupted. Just as funny as the first book, but noticeable lack of bowls with bulbs.

Th Bishop's Wife

Finished The Bishop's Wife by Robert Nathan. It's a small book, written in the 1920s. There is something distant and whispery about it. For those who are familiar with the film version, the book is somewhat different. A bishop wishes to build a new cathedral but is having difficulty raising the necessary funds. Michael arrives to assist the bishop with this task. Michael is an angel. He is very open about being an angel, except with the bishop's wife Julia. Neither Michael nor the bishop actually tell her. Julia often misinterprets the meaning of what Michael says because of her ignorance. The book focuses on Michael and his struggle with obligation vs his love for Julia. While in the film version all the fun has gone out of Julia and Henry's marriage, the book is frank about the fact that there was little of that to begin with. Henry seems almost asexual, especially compared to Michael who has a very passionate nature. The book is quiet and rather sad. Nathan also wrote Portrait of Jennie which was made into a strange and beautiful film. If you have not seen the film I highly recommend it.