Book Review: West of the Moon, by Margi Preus

Recommended for ages 8-12

In this mash-up of fairy tale and historical fiction set in mid-19th century Norway, 14-year old Astri is sold by her aunt to a horrible (and lecherous) goat-herder to serve as his servant and more. Astri manages to not only escape but also rescue her younger sister, so that they can try to get to America,  where her father has emigrated. With the goatman in pursuit, they must travel west of the moon, and east of the sun in this masterful story in which a 19th century immigrant's story is seamlessly mixed with Norwegian folklore and mythology.  The novel features a terrific feisty, no-nonsense heroine very loosely based on the author's own ancestors.  

Women's History Month Book Review: Dare the Wind: The Record-Breaking Voyage of Eleanor Prentiss and the Flying Cloud, by Tracey Fern (Margaret Ferguson Books, 2014)

Recommended for ages 7-12.

In this picture book for older readers. Tracey Fern tells the little-known story of Eleanor Prentiss, an extraordinary woman who not only navigated a clipper ship but also set a record for the fastest time from New York to San Francisco, navigating around Cape Horn in a record-breaking 89 days, 21 hours.

If you're an avid movie-goer like I am, you may have seen the two major films this year set at sea, Captain Phillips and All is Lost.  Such movies always make me think about the "olden days," when sailors navigated by the stars and a sextant.  Doesn't it seem incredible?  Even more incredible (but true) is the life of Eleanor Prentiss, born the daughter of a sea captain in 1814 and taught everything about ships, including navigation, by her father, perhaps because he had no sons.  Certainly this education was highly unusual for a 19th century girl. The sea was in Ellen's blood, and, not surprisingly, she married a sea captain, who took her along on his merchant ships as her navigator.

When Ellen's husband was given command of a new, super-fast clipper ship, Ellen seized the opportunity to get as quickly as possible from New York to the tip of South America to San Francisco and the Gold Rush.  Speed was of the essence for those looking for riches in the gold fields of California.  The book portrays the considerable dangers of the voyage, including a period when the ship was becalmed (no wind, no movement!) and also the perilous stormy waters of the Cape. Fern does a terrific job of capturing the excitement of the journey, and Ellen's triumph when she sets a world record for the fastest time for this 15,000 mile voyage.  The book is greatly enhanced by the beautiful water-color paintings of Caldecott-winning artist Emily Arnold McCully.  The seascapes, and particularly the scenes of storms, are particularly effective.  Back matter includes an author's note with further historical information, and suggestions for further reading, both books and websites, a glossary, and end pages which show a map of the Flying Cloud's 1851 Voyage.

Highly recommended for Women's History Month and for those looking for stories of strong, heroic women and girls!

Women's History Month Book Review: Florence Nightingale, by Demi (Henry Holt, 2014)

Women's History Month began on Saturday, March 1.  You can learn more about outstanding children's books on women's history by following the 4th annual group blog which I co-organize with fellow blogger/librarian Lisa Taylor, Kidlit Celebrates Women's History Month, Once again we will feature posts from distinguished authors, illustrators, librarians and bloggers, and we invite you to participate in the conversation.  This year's contributors will include authors Tonya Bolden, Sandra Neil Wallace and Gretchen Woelfie, librarian Penny Peck, and many others.  In addition to the blog, you can also access our content on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.  While new content is published only in March, the blog is available all year long as a resource for librarians, parents, and educators.  Please join us in our 4th annual celebration!  

Here at the Fourth Musketeer I will also be highlighting books about women in history this month.  Today I will be reviewing Demi's newest book on Florence Nightingale.  Demi has published over 150 books during her long career, many of them large format biographical picture books aimed at elementary school-aged students.  In addition to their informative text, Demi's biographies showcase her unique artistic style, which features a strong Asian influence, traditional materials, intricate patterns, and vibrant, glowing colors.

 

When I was a girl in the 1960's and '70's, Florence Nightingale would have been one of the only women from history you would have been likely to find a book on in the children's biography section of your local library, although I would be reasonably certain that I could not have found a biography as beautifully illustrated as this new one.  On the end pages and title page, we see Florence as the iconic Lady of the Lamp.  The book unfolds in a traditional linear narrative, beginning with Florence's birth and girlhood.  She was born into a very wealthy British family, where she had all the advantages of an upper class upbringing.  But her interest in nursing and helping others began at a young age; Demi shows us Florence as a little girl playing hospital with her dolls.  Her interest in nursing intensified on a family trip to the Continent when in addition to seeing the tourist sights, she visited hospitals and charities.  Her parents were opposed to her becoming a nurse, but eventually relented when they saw her commitment.  

Demi's text and artwork show Florence's career progressing from working at a hospital for indigent women to her groundbreaking work nursing soldiers in the Crimean War, where she arranged for patients to get healthy food and water and stressed the need for cleanliness.  We see Florence wandering the wards at night with her lantern, earning her nickname, The Lady with the Lamp.  

Florence worked herself to exhaustion and suffered ill health later in her life.  Nonetheless, she continued to work for the poor and downtrodden in society, and inspired the founding of the International Red Cross.  

Demi's book not only provides an outline of Florence Nightingale's remarkable life but also considers her legacy as an extraordinary woman in history.  Back matter includes a timeline and suggestions for further reading.

This slim but powerful volume is a must for school and public libraries. 

Book Review: Dear America: Down the Rabbit Hole, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti (Scholastic, 2013)

Recommended for ages 8-12.

The heroines in Scholastic's Dear America series seem to have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  In this new release, our heroine, Pringle Rose, moves from Scranton, Pennsylvania to Chicago right before the great Chicago fire of 1871.  Pringle and her younger brother, who is disabled, are orphaned when their parents are killed in a mysterious carriage accident.  Her father is a rich industrialist who has left her a fortune, but when Pringle overhears that her relatives are planning to institutionalize her brother, the two of them flee by train to a family friend in Chicago.  Not only does the author weave a suspenseful story about the fire and its aftermath, she weaves in a number of other social history themes:  the rise of the labor unions and labor unrest; women's rights; the treatment of disabled children at that period; and even the beginning of the animal rights movement.  As usual with this series, there is extensive back matter with more historical background, historical illustrations, photographs, maps, and in this instance, even recipes.

In this newest round of Dear America releases, Scholastic has contracted with some of our best writers for young people, and this particular volume is written by Newbery honor-winning author Susan Campbell Bartoletti.  Bartoletti is best known for her many nonfiction works on American and European history, including her most recently published historical work, They Called Themselves the KKK:  The Birth of an American Terrorist Group (2010).  She has also written a number of historical novels for young people as well as some picture books.

While critics often give short shrift to series books, the Dear America series is an example of one series in which the quality continues to be very high and the educational content well integrated into the narrative.  I hope Scholastic will continue to offer new entries in this series in the coming years.

Book Review: Victoria Rebels, by Carolyn Meyer (Simon & Schuster, 2013)

Release date:  January 1, 2013

Recommended for ages 10 and up.

Carolyn Meyer's series The Young Royals has examined the youth of many of history's most prominent royal female figures, including Queen Elizabeth I, Marie Antoinette, and Cleopatra.  It's perhaps inevitable that she would turn her attention to the most important female queen of the 19th century, a figure so prominent she gave her name to an entire historical period, Queen Victoria.  The book spans from 1827, when Victoria was eight years old, to 1843, by which time Victoria was a young queen with three children.

Meyer tells her story through diary entries based on Victoria's own diaries, which she began keeping at the age of thirteen.  (Note:  in 2012, the entire contents of these diaries were made available online).  T  As Meyer explains in an afterword, these diary entries were written in the knowledge that they would be read, at first by her mother and governess, and later by historians.  Meyer uses her imagination (and research of course) to describe what  Victoria is really feeling, but incorporates many of Victoria's stylistic quirks, such as an affection for writing in all capitals or underlining dramatically, to give the feel of her actual diaries.  

I really enjoyed this novel, and felt it did a terrific job of capturing Victoria's strong personality and opinions, both as a young girl and as an adult. We learn many details of Victoria's daily life, from her strained relationship with her mother and her advisor, Sir John, to her attachment to Dash, her mother's King Charles Spaniel.  Even when you're a privileged princess, you don't necessarily get your way, and Victoria's wishes are often thwarted by her mother or court intrigue.  Even when she becomes queen, her struggles with her mother are not over, although Victoria takes control of many aspects of her court, including her personal household.  In addition to dealing with all the intrigues of court life, Meyer also takes us into Victoria's confidence as she is wooed by and eventually weds her cousin Albert, the love of her life.  Even with Albert, however, there were inevitable conflicts, as the young couple tried to adjust to their different roles--queen, sovereign, wife, and mother, and prince consort, husband, and father.

An afterword provides additional information on the rest of Victoria's life and other historical notes, as well as a bibliography and a list of related websites to visit.

Those who read this novel should certainly get a copy of the DVD of The Young Victoria, the beautifully realized 2009 film starring an elegant Emily Blunt as the young monarch.  Another appealing novel for young readers with the young Victoria as a prominent character is Prisoners in the Palace by Michaela Maccoll (Chronicle, 2010).

Disclosure:  advance copy provided by publisher.

Book Review: Hope and Tears: Ellis Island Voices, by Gwenyth Swain (Calkins Creek, 2012)

Recommended for ages 9 and up.

Author Gwenyth Swain brings stories of Ellis Island vividly to life through text and photographs in the beautifully rendered Hope and Tears:  Ellis Island Voices.  She uses poetry, monologues, and dialogues combined with a selection of archival photographs to help us imagine Ellis Island at various stages of its existence, beginning in the late 1500's with a poem by a native Lenni Lenape boy.

Prose introductions provide background on each period of Ellis Island's history, from the processing of its first immigrant in 1892 to its busiest period in the early 20th century and beyond.  In moving free verse, Swain chronicles all aspects of Ellis Island's life, from the arrivals, complete with their hopes and dreams, to the dreaded inspections, in which families could be separated and detained in hospital's on the island or even sent back if they were deemed "likely to become public charges."  She doesn't forget the various workers on the island, from the nurses and aid workers to the clerks, cooks, and Salvation Army volunteers, who are pictured handing out doughnuts to hungry immigrants.

In the 1920's, when Congress put limits on immigration, Ellis Island became a place mostly used for deportation rather than immigration, and eventually was abandoned after 1954.  But in the preparation for the nation's bicentennial, interest in Ellis Island as an important historical landmark surged, and in 1990, after many years of renovation and fundraising, the island reopened as an immigration museum. Additional poems mark this more recent period of Ellis Island's history as well, ending with a poem from a National Park Service employee, who remarks about the many visitors:

...maybe they feel what I feel./The sense that,/after all these years,/spirits live here,/along with all their hopes and tears.

This book would be perfect for a class performance as part of a unit on family history and immigration.  There are many parts for boys and girls and only simple costumes--or no costumes at all--would be required.

Back matter includes source notes, a bibliography which includes websites, films, books, articles, and interviews, an index, and suggestions for going further in exploring the themes of this book.  Swain's website will also offer an extensive teacher's guide (available soon).

Book Review: Mira's Diary: Lost in Paris, by Marissa Moss (Sourcebooks, 2012)

Recommended for ages 9-14.

Author-illustrator Marissa Moss has two excellent new historical fiction novels for young people out this fall:  Mira's Diary: Lost in Paris and A Soldier's Secret.  Today I will be reviewing the first of these, and a review of the Civil War historical thriller A Soldier's Secret will be coming next week in my blog.

In Mira's Diary, Moss creates a time travel story melding the exciting artistic world of 19th century Paris with the shocking political intrigue and anti-Semitism of the infamous Dreyfus affair.  Although the Dreyfus affair is well known to those interested in French history, it's certainly not a topic most young people in the U.S. will be at all familiar with, and I applaud Moss for choosing to set her story around this important tale of corruption and scapegoats.

Our story begins when young Mira receives a strange postcard of a gargoyle from Notre Dame in Paris from her mother, who has been missing without any explanation for many months.  Not only is the black and white postcard very old-fashioned looking, so is the faded French stamp.  And "who sends postcards anymore?," wonders Mira.

With the postcard their only clue, Mira, her father, and her 16-year old brother take off to Paris, hoping to find her mother.  They check into a quaint hotel in the Marais, Paris' historic Jewish quarter, before going off to explore the famous cathedral.  Mira can't help looking everywhere for her mother, but it's not until she touches a gargoyle on the top gallery of the cathedral that she realizes she's been looking in the wrong century!  Magically transported to April, 1881, Mira not only befriends a good-looking young man who turns out to be an assistant to the famous French artist Degas, she also finds herself embroiled in the Dreyfus affair, a political scandal that involved the French army and virulent anti-Semitism in the French military and society at large.  Mira spots her mother several times, and receives several mysterious and secret notes from her.  It's clear that her mother is in danger, and Mira must step up to try to keep Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer, from being unjustly punished as a traitor.

This novel manages to mix very serious topics such as prejudice and anti-Semitism with an up-close look at late 19th century Parisian artistic life, letting us visit Giverny, Montmartre, the Impressionists Exhibition, and Parisian salons populated by famous artists such as Degas, Monet, Seurat, and Mary Cassatt.  Moss even throws in a hint of romance between Mira and Degas' handsome young assistant Claude.  Although readers will learn a lot about history and art through this book, they will also be entertained by the suspenseful story featuring a likable heroine who finds herself in a difficult--and certainly unusual--situation.

In the manner of her Amelia's Notebook series and her historical journals, Moss gives this new book the feel of a real journal or diary, from the cover with its mock journal binding to the charming small pencil sketches distributed liberally throughout the novel and the endpapers decorated with Mira's notes to herself, a map of France, and French vocabulary.

An extensive author's note provides a detailed explanation of the complexities of the Dreyfus affair (geared for tween readers) and the military corruption and anti-Semitism it exposed in 19th century Paris.  Moss also provides brief notes on Paris in the late 19th century, the impressionist art movement, and author Emile Zola, who wrote the famous "J'accuse" newspaper article in favor of Dreyfus.   A bibliography lists other resources and books consulted by the author.

Book Review: The Academie, by Susanne Dunlap (Bloomsbury, 2012)

Recommended for ages 12 and up.


Susanne Dunlap is a favorite author of mine for YA historical fiction with a romantic flair, books that will realistically appeal much more to girls than to boys.  This is her fourth YA title (she has also written historical fiction aimed more at adults) and the first set in France.

In this new novel, Eliza, the young daughter of future U.S. President James Monroe, is in France with her mother, where she is left behind in a chic boarding school just outside the city that's run by a former courtier to Marie Antoinette, Madame Campan.  The school is attended by France's finest young ladies, including Caroline Bonaparte, the youngest sister of the up-and-coming French general, as well as Hortense Beauharnais, the daughter of Napoleon's wife, Josephine.  The book is set in the turbulent year 1799, the year in which Napoleon overthrew the French Directory and took power for himself as First Counsel, leading of course to his eventually crowning himself Emperor (although not in the course of this novel).

The book alternates between four different narrators:  Eliza, Hortense, Caroline, and Madeleine, the mixed-race--and of course entirely unsuitable--daughter of a cruel, drug-addicted Paris actress. Eliza quickly picks up on the bad blood between Hortense and Caroline at school, wondering what role she will play in the school's hierarchy of students.  All the girls seem much more concerned with their love lives than any studying, not too surprising since their primary curriculum seems to be learning how to talk prettily to young gentlemen, including the lads from the nearby boys' school who sometimes visit for training exercises.  But the school's far from boring.  There seems to be plenty of intrigue, with Caroline whisking innocent young Eliza off to a clandestine party in Paris when they're supposed to be asleep in bed.  All the girls develop crushes on the wrong sort of man--Hortense on a music teacher, Caroline on a general that her brother doesn't want her involved with, and both Eliza and Madeleine, the actress' daughter, on Hortense's handsome brother, Eugene.  Will anyone wind up with the man of their dreams?  You'll have to read on to the shocking ending to find out.

And in the middle of all of this romantic drama, there's a political drama behind the scenes, a possible coup, one that the girls are determined to witness, even dressing up as soldiers to sneak off and see what's going on.  Not to mention Eliza's trying to come to terms with her racial attitudes from growing up with slaves on a Southern plantation.

Although I greatly enjoyed The Academie, I can't say it's my favorite of Dunlap's novels.  I found it occasionally confusing switching back and forth between the different narratives, and I found it hard to suspend my disbelief at some of the girls' dangerous antics, which seemed a bit far fetched for young girls in this setting.

An author's note explains that while all three of her main characters (Eliza, Hortense, and Caroline) indeed attended the same boarding school, they were probably not all three there at the same time and the author admits to taking some liberties with the actual timeline in structuring her story.  Nonetheless, the real Eliza and Hortense remained friends and Eliza even intended Napoleon's coronation as emperor in 1804.  And the rivalry between Napoleon's family and Josephine and her children is a well-established historical fact.

This novel is set at a time period we don't see portrayed much in historical fiction--after the French Revolution, but before Napoleon fully takes power.  For that reason alone, I would recommend this book.  I think young people, particularly girls, will enjoy the romance and political intrigue that Dunlap skillfully portrays in this school setting so different from today.

Tweens and teens wanting to learn more about the real Napoleon might enjoy the lavishly illustrated
Napoleon:  The Story of the Little Corporal, by Robert Burleigh (Abrams, 2007)

Teens might also enjoy Betsy and the Emperor, by Staton Rabin (Margaret K. McElderry, 2004), which tells the story of a young girl who gets to know the famous man while he is a prisoner on St. Helena.

HARD TO BELIEVE, BUT TRUE:  I was stunned to read in the LA Times (see link below) recently that there are plans afoot in France to make a Disneyland-like theme park based on Napoleon, complete with snowy battle re-enactments and a ride on Napoleon's hat. What will be next?  An amusement park with a pretend guillotine where you get your head cut off and then reattached???

• You: Struggling France reembraces Napoleon (latimes.com)

Book Review: May B. by Caroline Starr Rose (Schwartz and Wade, 2012)

Author Caroline Starr Rose describes her striking debut novel in verse for middle grade readers as "part Hatchet, part Little House on the Prairie, part Out of the Dust.  It's a story of courage and hope."

Set on the Kansas frontier, this novel tells the story of May, who's just twelve years old when her pa pulls her out of school and hires her out to a couple who've recently moved out to the endless Kansas prairies.  "I won't go," is the book's poignant first line, but of course she has no real choice, in the way of all children in that era.  She'll bring in some extra money for her family, and it will just be until Christmas, her ma promises her.

May hopes to be a schoolteacher one day, a surprising goal given that she has trouble learning at school.  "What sort of teacher can't read out lessons?" she wonders.  Yet she perseveres, bringing a book and her slate with her.  When the couple she's sent to live with leave her alone in their sod house, at first she's sure they'll be returning.  But when the days pass, she realizes she's been left to fend for herself, miles from any other settlers and with no help in sight.  With the harsh Kansas winter coming, she must find food and fuel if she's to survive, summoning every bit of her courage and knowledge to make it through alive.

I particularly enjoyed the author's use of free verse in this short novel, which is accessible to even reluctant readers.  The author's poetry is particularly evocative in describing the vastness of the Kansas prairies:  "grass/always grass,/in different shades and textures/like the braids in a rag rug."

This novel deals with several different themes; on the one hand it is an exciting survival/adventure story, much in the spirit of books like Hatchet, in which May must survive on her own, with no adults to help her.  The author also portrays the harsh realities of life on the prairie for settlers, a less warm and fuzzy environment than what we'd encounter in classics such as the Little House series.  Moreover, May B. is also a poignant story of a child trying to overcome a disability; in this case dyslexia.  Of course no one understood dyslexia at that time, and often children with this disability were simply seen as stupid or not trying hard enough.  We see one teacher, Miss Sanders, who's sympathetic to May and doesn't force her to read aloud, and another, simply known as "Teacher," who humiliates her by seating her with the youngest children.

May B. received starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus.  It's an excellent historical fiction choice for upper elementary and middle school students.

A study guide for May B. is available here.

Book Review: Crow, by Barbara Wright (Random House, 2012)

Recommended for ages 8-12.

Another excellent choice for Black History Month, this historical fiction novel for middle-grade readers, takes a little known race riot and coup d'etat that occurred in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1898 as the inspiration for creating a compelling story of eleven-year old Moses and the destruction of the middle-class African-American community in which he lived.

It's just one generation after the end of slavery--Moses' own grandmother, Boo Nanny, was born a slave, but in the years since Emancipation, Moses' family has risen into the middle class.  His father is college-educated, works for the local black newspaper, and is also a town alderman.  When the editor of the black newspaper writes an editorial in which he suggests that it's no worse for a black man to be intimate with a white woman than for a white man to be intimate with a black woman, "big trouble's a-brewing" in Wilmington.  Will Moses and his family escape the ensuing violence that erupts?


Creating a compelling voice for young Moses, author Barbara Wright has created a moving and shocking story about the Jim Crow South that received well deserved star reviews from Kirkus, Publisher's Weekly, School Library Journal, and Horn Book.  You can read an excerpt at her website.  Her website also offers resources for teachers, including a teacher's guide from Random House.  This book is a must-have for school and pubic libraries!

Book Review: Behind the Masks: The Diary of Angeline Reddy, Bodie, California, 1880 (Dear America), by Susan Patron (Scholastic, 2012)

Recommended for ages 8-12.

Newbery-award winner Susan Patron turns to the Wild West in the newest entry in the re-launch of Scholastic's popular Dear America series.  Set in the frontier town of Bodie, California, at the height of its  Gold Rush boom, this novel introduces us to plucky fourteen-year-old Angeline, who doesn't believe that her father, the town's criminal lawyer, has been murdered. In fact, she's willing to sneak into the town's funeral home to take a peek in the casket just to prove it's not him.  When her hunch proves right, she's the one who has to investigate the mystery this book revolves around:  just where is her Papa?

But it's not easy to get to the truth in this practically lawless gold rush town; Angeline is just plain "weary of the recklessness and danger of Bodie," a settlement filled with Chinese immigrants, saloons, brothels, miners, vigilantes, and a troupe of actors known as the "Horribles."   In order to find her father, she get some help from several friends, Ellie and Ling Loi, an American-born Chinese girl, Ling Loi, who's been raised in a brothel by the proverbial prostitutes with a heart of gold.  There's a hint of romance, too, between Angeline and an attractive bank-clerk-detective-actor, and even a ghost story revolving around a long-dead child.  The story is written in the first-person diary format of the other books in this series, but differs from other Dear America novels that I have read in that I would call it more of a mystery than traditional historical fiction.  The author provides plenty of colorful historical details of life in a frontier town, from the awful realities of a trip to the dentist to the petty small-town prejudices and gossip.  It's an action-packed, rip-roaring tale that should appeal to girls as well as boys and makes a good addition to school and/or public libraries.

Like all the Dear America books, this novel includes an epilogue of what happened to the characters and a section with historical notes about the town of Bodie in 1880, historical photos and maps. Back matter also includes a section on how to make a 19th century style mask from strips of muslin.  An author's note from Patron explains how she became interested in the history of Bodie after visiting the town, located near Yosemite.  The "ghost town," which at the height of its boom in the 1880's had 10,000 residents, is now a National Historic Site and a California State Historic Park.

Disclosure:  review copy provided by publisher.

Nonfiction Monday: Saga of the Sioux: An Adaptation from Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dwight Jon Zimmerman (Henry Holt, 2011)

Recommended for ages 10 and up.

Unfortunately I've never read Dee Brown's iconic Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, the best-selling history of the American West from the point of view of the Native Americans that was first published in 1971.  In this new book written for younger readers, Dwight Jon Zimmerman has adapted Brown's 500+ page book for a younger audience, adroitly simplifying but not "dumbing down" the complex and interwoven stories of the different Indian tribes in the original by concentrating on the Great Sioux Nation.  As Zimmerman explains in his preface, the Sioux's epic fight against the white man represents the struggle of all the Indian nations in many ways, and includes the stories of some of the most famous warrior chiefs in Indian history, among them Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, as well as some of the most famous battles and events.

Zimmerman condenses and abridges Brown's work to concentrate on the Sioux' story, but also adds a first chapter providing background on the Sioux people as well as an epilogue discussing what has happened to the Sioux since the infamous massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, and their attempts through the U.S. courts in modern times to get their sacred lands, the Black Hills, returned to them.

I must comment that I found this an incredibly difficult book to read; not because of complicated vocabulary or poorly written narrative, but because of the tragic nature of the material.  In fact, the book made me think about how many narratives of the Holocaust I have read, and yet how this tale of the white man's betrayal again and again of the Native Americans was so hard for me to digest.  That's perhaps a topic for another blog post, but even in stories (whether fiction or non-fiction) of the Holocaust there's a few good people who tried to rescue Jews or otherwise help them, whereas it doesn't seem like any of the white people appreciated the Indians' culture and lifestyle at the end of the 19th century.  Undoubtedly there must have been some more forward looking whites, but where were they?  Putting the Indian children into boarding schools to train them to be "white", it seems.

This narrative starts in the years leading up to the Civil War, in which the Sioux of Minnesota agreed in treaties to surrender nearly all their land, thus having to learn to farm like white men and depending on annuities from the government, and covers the story of the Indian Wars that ensued over the next thirty years.  Over and over again the Sioux were betrayed by the U.S. government, who would appear to negotiate treaties in good faith that they seemed to have no intention of keeping.  The narrative is magnificently illustrated with many full page photographs of various Sioux chiefs as well as American leaders, maps, as well as historic paintings and lithographs.  Zimmerman allows the Sioux leaders to tell their own stories, continuing Dee Brown's practice of including ample primary source materials (primarily oral histories).

Zimmerman concludes his narrative with the incredibly powerful quote that seems to sum up everything that happened to the Native population of this country from the time the white man first landed:

"They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it."  --Red Cloud


This book includes abundant backmatter, including a timeline of Sioux history from 1851 to 1909, a glossary, information on the Sioux calendar, recommended reading, suggested websites, and an index.

I expect this excellent book to be nominated for many non-fiction awards; I would highly recommend it for upper elementary school through middle school, as well as for adults who would like an easy-to-follow overview of this shameful part of our nation's history.

Book Review: City of Orphans, by Avi (Simon & Schuster, 2011)

Recommended for ages 10-14.

Avi, Newbery award-winning author of more than 60 novels for children and teens, turns once again to historical fiction in his newest novel, set in 1893 New York City.  His hero, thirteen-year old Maks, makes a bit of money as a newsboy to help his impoverished immigrant family on the lower East Side.  When his older sister, Emma, who works as a maid at the swank Waldorf-Astoria hotel, is falsely accused of theft and imprisoned in the city prison ominously called the Tombs, Maks teams up with a homeless girl, Willa, to try to clear his sister's name and free her from jail.  At the same time, he has to avoid landing in the clutches of the Plug Ugly gang, whose boss is trying to take control of all the newsies.  Confronted with a mystery whodunit, Maks enlists the help of a dying lawyer to find the true culprit of the theft at the hotel.

Avi knows how to spin a convincing tale, and this book is no exception.  In his afterword, he notes that the book is his attempt to "catch a small bit of how New York City kids lived at the end of the nineteenth century."  He's particularly adept at evoking the sounds, smells, and look of tenement life in New York, with its mix of poor immigrants from many nations.  This poverty contrasts with the swank brand-new Waldorf Astoria, where Maks winds up working under cover to try to clear his sister's name.   Avi uses a very colloquial voice to tell the story, with the narrator speaking directly to the reader.  While I understand the use of a strong point of view, I was irritated by the way he tries to evoke the dialect of the time, with plenty of dropped letters, i.e. "'cause' instead of "because", 'bout' instead of "about," 'em' instead of "them," etc.

Avi includes an Author's Note with historical details about the period, as well as suggestions for further reading and viewing.

City of Orphans is definitely worth reading, and will be enjoyed by young people who like a historical mystery, but it would not be one of my favorites among Avi's works.

Anne of Green Gables: A Classic Revisited

Anne of Green Gables, 1st edition

Although L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables is one of the most beloved children's classics world-wide, having sold more than 50 million copies, I admit I never read Anne of Green Gables as a child.  I first remember encountering her in the enchanting award-winning 1985 TV adaptation starring Megan Follows and Colleen Dewhurst.  I read the entire series while in my 20's, and have recently been enjoying revisiting Avonlea and the adventures of Anne Shirley in audiobook, narrated by Barbara Caruso in the Recorded Books version. 

Anne from the 1985 TV version

If by chance you've never discovered Anne Shirley as a "kindred spirit", it's never too late to dive into these charming stories. No less than Mark Twain wrote, "In Anne of Green Gables you will find the dearest and most moving and delightful child since the immortal Alice."

Published in 1908 to immediate critical and commercial success, the first novel is set in 1878, looking back nostalgically to an earlier generation (the later novels, which include not only Anne's adventures but those of her family, take the reader all the way to World War I).  The well-known original story centers around a lonely middle-aged brother and sister who decide to adopt a boy to help them with farm work, but who are mistakenly sent a girl instead.  And not just any girl, but the outlandishly romantic, hot-headed Anne Shirley, whose temper is as fiery as her much-hated red hair, but who has a bright intellect and a heart of gold just longing for friendship and love.  Her adventures will make you laugh out loud as well as cry; who can forget when she accidentally makes her dear friend Diana drunk on current wine (thinking she was giving her raspberry cordial instead), or when she cracks a slate over Gilbert Blythe's head in a fit of fury, or when in desperation over her horrible red hair, she dies it, turning her red locks green instead.

It's fascinating to read some of the current scholarship on this beloved story (called the most famous in Canadian literature), particularly the many feminist reinterpretations of recent years.  An excellent bibliography can be found online through the L. M. Montgomery Institute's website.  You can also find an overview of recent scholarship in an on-line article by Kathleen A. Miller, "Revisiting Anne of Green Gables and her Creator."   The L. M. Montgomery Institute also sponsors a biennial conference held on Prince Edward Island itself, which in 2012 will focus on L. M. Montgomery and cultural memory.  I'd love to attend that some time!

Although I believe the first book retains all its appeal and charms for contemporary readers, it is hard not to be disappointed in some sense with the later volumes, in which the fiery, independent Anne seems to settle down into a sedate matron, married to Dr. Gilbert Blythe, and gives up her ambitions of a career as a writer and educator for the supposed joys of married life.  The books become increasingly sentimental as well.

In Anne's House of Dreams, which starts with Anne's wedding at Green Gables and continues through the beginning of her married life, I couldn't help but be moved to tears by Montgomery's account of the difficult birth and subsequent quick death of Anne's first baby, Joyce, although part of me was glad, too, for Anne's married life with Gilbert was portrayed as so idyllic and filled with happiness that as a reader (or listener), I almost wanted to scream in frustration!  I'm afraid that kind of perfect happiness doesn't make for interesting literature, as I'm sure Ms. Montgomery well knew.  The later books deal largely with Anne's many children and their adventures, and Anne takes a secondary role in these volumes.  I have little desire to revisit those volumes, although I may yet change my mind.

A bit of Anne trivia:  Kate Middleton, the new Duchess of Cambridge, is an Anne of Green Gables fan, and visited Prince Edward Island during the couple's first visit to Canada, where she met with L. M. Montgomery's granddaughter and was presented with a special 100th anniversary copy of the classic novel.  See the following link for many photos of their visit there.

If you are an Anne fan, please leave a comment with your favorite Anne moment in the series!  Thanks so much.

Book Review: The Crossing, by Donna Jo Napoli (Atheneum Books, 2011)

Recommended for ages 5-10.


This stunning new picture book, written by Donna Jo Napoli and majestically illustrated by Jim Madsen, tells the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition from the point of view of its youngest participant, baby Jean Baptiste, son of Sacagawea.  Strapped onto his mother's back in a cradle board, the baby comments on the various sights and sounds of the expedition.  The narrative is written in free verse. Here is an example from the book's opening:

"Rolled in rabbit hide/I am tucked snug/in a cradle pack/in the whipping cold/of new spring./Roar, roar!  Grizzlies stand tall in my dreams."

The vibrantly colored two page illustrations effectively capture the grandeur of the American wilderness that is all around the expedition's participants.  Jean Baptiste observes eagles, cougars, grizzlies, salmon, elk, birds, and other wildlife that were abundant at the time, as the group makes its way to the Pacific and then back to their home.

An author's note provides some historical context on the journey tiny Jean Baptiste and Sacagawea embarked upon from Fort Mandan, North Dakota to the Pacific and back again.  While this book does not give young readers a complete picture of the Lewis and Clark expedition, it would make an excellent class read-aloud or supplement for home schoolers studying Lewis and Clark, allowing students to imagine the journey from an unusual point of view.  The illustrations are also wonderfully evocative of another time and place in American history, a time when the frontier was vast and the country ripe for exploration.

For another point of view on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, elementary students might try my favorite book about the expedition, New Found Land by Allan Wolf (Candlewick, 2004), which tells then story from the point of view of 13 different participants, including Lewis' dog, Seaman.  Other historical novels worth consideration are The Captain's Dog:  My Journey with the Lewis & Clark Tribe, by Roland Smith (Sandpiper, 2008); Kathryn Lasky's The Journal of Augustus Pelletier:  The Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804 (My Name is America) (Scholastic, 2000),

Blog Tour and Book Review: Haunting Violet, by Alyxandra Harvey (Bloomsbury, 2011)

Recommended for ages 12 and up.

I'm delighted to participate in the blog tour for Alyxandra Harvey’s new novel, Haunting Violet, set in Victorian England. It's a deliciously frightening paranormal historical fantasy just right for summer reading.  Alyxandra is also the author of The Drake Chronicles, a popular vampire series whose fourth volume is due out in November.

In Haunting Violet, our young heroine, Violet Willoughby, has been forced for years to help out in the “family business”--her stunningly beautiful mother puts on fake seances for bereaved parents, husbands and wives to contact loved ones in the beyond.  Their fortunes are picking up, and they’ve been invited to Rosefield, the luxurious country estate of Lord Jasper, a wealthy and influential earl with a strong interest in spiritualism.  Violet is looking forward to visiting with her friend Elizabeth, Lord Jasper’s goddaughter, while Violet’s mother hopes to finalize a possible match between her daughter and Xavier, a kind, handsome, and wealthy young man who’s also attending the country gathering.  But Violet is much more attracted to the unsuitable Colin, an Irish lad who is her mother’s assistant, and whose kisses make her feel “devoured, delicious, decadent..”  

Violet doesn’t believe in ghosts--how could she after her exposure to all the tricks of her mother’s medium trade?  So no one is more astonished than Violet when, at the first of her mother’s seances at Lord Jasper’s estate, she sees a girl in the shadows, dripping water.  Here’s Harvey’s creepy description of Violet’s first ghost sighting:

“She met my eyes and it was as if winter blew through the parlor.  When she opened her mouth, the sound was muffled and high-pitched, like nothing I had ever heard before.  She walked toward me, suddenly close enough that the hem of my skirt drew damp and cold.  I cringed back in my chair, looking around wildly...sweat pooled under my arm.”  

What is the ghost doing there?  It turns out she’s Rowena, who drowned the previous year--or was she murdered?  She’s desperately trying to warn her twin sister Tabitha of the danger of meeting the same fate, even using a “spirit board” to spell out messages to avert impending doom.  And there’s more ghosts who appear to Violet as well; at Lord Jasper’s ball they’re all over the ballroom, but only Violet can see them, and feel them rushing at her with their spirit hands.  Harvey’s descriptions of ghostly activity are sure to send a chill down the spine of her teen readers.  Will Violet be able to help Tabitha escape her fate, and solve the mystery of her sister’s drowning?  And what will her own future hold?


Harvey imbues this romantic tale with a mystery, romance, and above all, a wry sense of humor; Violet is particularly aware of the irony of her ridiculous situation:  “The real problem was that I didn’t actually believe in ghosts.  But they clearly believed in me.”  They should have the decency to stay dead, she quips at one point.  The reader has the distinct impression that Harvey, and her heroine, are winking at us through the pages!

Readers who enjoy this novel might also want to read Laura Amy Schlitz’s A Drowned Maiden’s Hair, another gothic tale which also revolves around a young girl caught up in the schemes of fake mediums, this time in early 20th century New England.  

Book Review: The Revenant, by Sonia Gensler (Alfred A. Knopf Books, 2011)

Recommended for ages 12 and up.

With The Revenant, which hits bookstores this week, debut author Sonia Gensler has crafted a historical fiction/paranormal romance page turner perfect for summer reading. Our heroine is seventeen year old Willie--a self-described liar and a cheat. Desperate to avoid having to return home to help her mother take care of her half-brothers, she fakes educational credentials to get hired as an English teacher at the Cherokee Female Seminary in Indian Territory.

It’s 1896, and Willie doesn’t know what to expect from her new position, but she certainly doesn’t expect to find a her pupils are mostly mixed-race, upper-class young Cherokee ladies who are much more sophisticated and privileged than she is. Nor does she expect the school to be shrouded in mystery--one of their students had supposedly drowned and now her classmates believe that the young girl’s spirit haunts Willie’s room. Willie doesn’t believe in ghosts, but she can’t explain the peculiar noises and the strange events happening at school. Could it be a revenant--one who returns from the dead?

She also doesn’t know what to make of her attraction to a handsome, charming young man, Eli Sevenstar, who’s a student at the nearby Cherokee academy for boys. Romance between an instructor and a student is surely prohibited, not to mention a romance with a native. But in the meantime Willie has to figure out how to grade all the English assignments she has given out, organize the students in a Shakespeare play, and solve a murder mystery--a hefty load for any proper young lady. Can she survive long enough to figure out her own destiny?

This book offers plenty of suspense and entertainment for fans of ghost stories, mysteries and the paranormal, with a good dose of history in the mix as well. My favorite element of the book was definitely the detailed historical setting. While I was familiar with the outlines of the Cherokee Trail of Tears, when the tribe was forced to move from Georgia to what is now Oklahoma, I was unfamiliar with the existence of a small group of wealthy Cherokees who signed a treaty with the Jackson administration and moved voluntarily to what was then Indian territory. An author’s note describes Gensler’s extensive research with primary sources at the Oklahoma Historical Society and Northeastern State University’s archives. This research provided accurate historical background, including depicting the tension on campus between Cherokee students of different economic classes. The main characters are highly appealing, and teens will enjoy the bit of forbidden romance as well.

Gensler’s website provides links to further information on the real Cherokee Female Seminary, which was staffed by graduates of Mount Holyoke and other Eastern colleges.




Disclosure: ARC provided by publisher.

Tween Tuesday Book Review: The Trouble with May Amelia, by Jennifer Holm (Atheneum Books, 2011)

Recommended for ages 8-12. 


Jennifer Holm's 1999 novel Our Only May Amelia (which received a Newbery Honor in 2000) is one of my all-time favorite historical novels for kids, and I was eager to read the sequel which has just been released this spring.  If you haven't read the first book, May Amelia is the only girl in a large family of Finn immigrants living in a remote area of Washington State around 1900.  Amelia fits into the tradition of feisty tomboy frontier girls like Laura Ingalls, and her first story both made me laugh and made me sob (no spoilers, for those who haven't read it).

While the sequel doesn't quite pack the emotional wallop of the first book, I greatly enjoyed this book as well.  In fact, I felt like I was visiting an old friend whom I hadn't seen in quite some time, one I was glad to catch up with.  How to describe 12-year old May Amelia?  Holm opens the book with the following description:  "My brother Wilbert tells me I'm like the grain of sand in an oyster.  Someday I will be a Pearl, but I will nag and irritate the poor oyster and everyone else until then."  Her Pappa tells her "he would rather have one boy than a dozen May Amelias because Girls Are Useless."  She lives in the middle of nowhere with no girls to keep her company, and she's always being teased by her seven older brothers.  Her father not only runs the family farm but also works at a nearby logging camp for extra cash. 

When a quick-talking stranger comes to town, May Amelia finally proves useful to interpret for her father from English to Finnish.  The stranger's looking for investors to develop the land around the Nasel river, and assures Pappa he has powerful supporters.  Pappa would have to mortgage the farm, but is this a once in a lifetime opportunity to bring the family out of poverty and into prosperity?  And will May Amelia finally demonstrate to her father that she has "sisu", or guts? 

This story is based on the author's own family history, in particular that of her great-grandfather, who settled on the Nasel River in 1871.  But it is young May Amelia who's the star of this funny but also moving tale of the Western frontier.  She's one of those characters who stays with you long after you've finished her story.  I'd love to see Jennifer Holm continue with more stories about May Amelia as she grows up.  But I hope we won't have to wait twelve years for the next installment!

For more great books for tweens, check out Green Bean Teen Queen's weekly meme, Tween Tuesday.

Blog Tour and Giveaway: Stones for My Father, by Trilby Kent (Tundra, 2011)

Recommended for ages 10 and up.


I am delighted to participate in Tundra Books' blog tour for a moving new novel for young people set during South Africa's Boer War, Stones for My Father.  Written by novelist Trilby Kent, who was born in Canada but currently lives in London, this book is her second published novel for young people.

One of the reasons I enjoy historical fiction so much is that it can take you to a place and time you've never experienced.  In this case the backdrop for the story is the Boer War, which was disastrous for the British, who are driving the Boers from their farms.  We experience this chaotic time through the eyes of Corlie Roux, a skinny young girl living with her stern mother and younger siblings in the Transvaal.  Most of the Afrikaner men and young boys are off fighting the British, but Corlie's father is already in the graveyard, having died of consumption.  Corlie's only friend seems to be Sipho, an African boy who is her matie, or playmate, and who teaches her the ways of the bush, telling stories together and fishing and tracking animals with her.

But when she and Sipho see the English "khakis" nearby, Corlie and her family flee to the laager, groups of Boers hiding out in the bush.  On their journey, Corlie watches helplessly by as she sees their family farm burned by the British.  While foraging for food, Corlie and her brother meet a kind Canadian soldier--a Khaki, but one who provides them with some precious meat.  They finally meet up with the laager after a trek of many days across the veld, but their safe haven is short lived.  Soon discovered by British soldiers, Corlie and all the others are forced to surrender, then sent to a "voluntary refugee camp," which more resembles an internment camp, where the conditions are harsh indeed, with scarce food, water, or other resources for the thousands of women and children imprisoned there.  Corlie and her family are "undesirables"--those whose menfolk were still fighting the British, and were given the lowest rations.  Soon the children are "numb with boredom," and worse yet, are falling ill to typhoid and other diseases brought on by malnutrition and unsanitary conditions at the camp.  Corlie's soon fighting for her life, and her self-worth, discovering a secret about her father that we could only guess at as we read her story, and a secret that reunites her with the kind Canadian whose destiny becomes intertwined with Corlie's.

Kent does a wonderful job evoking the African bush, with "days...so hot that even raindrops would sizzle as they hit the dry earth."  She also captures very effectively the inhumanity of war, with the hardships it creates on ordinary civilians, particularly innocent women and children, in her depiction of the "refugee camp."  The book includes a very brief epilogue with some historical information; for U.S. readers, most of whom have no familiarity with this period in history, some additional background might have been helpful.  I would have enjoyed seeing something more detailed to set this story in better historical context.

GIVEAWAY:  Tundra Books has kindly provided me with a review copy which I am giving away to one of my readers.  In order to enter, please leave a comment below with your e-mail address so I can contact you if you are the winner!  A winner will be selected by random number generator on May 8.

Book Review: The Year We Were Famous, by Carole Estby Dagg (Clarion Books, 2011)

Release date:  April 4, 2011


Recommended for ages 12 and up.


Debut novelist Carole Estby Dagg was inspired by her own family history to write the delightful new young adult historical novel, The Year We Were Famous.  Based on the true story of the author's great-aunt and great-grandmother, this adventure-filled novel set at the time of the suffragist movement tells the tale of 17-year old Clara Estby and her mother, Helga, who decide to walk clear across the United States from the small Norwegian-American farming community of Mica Creek, Washington to New York City--some 4,000 miles--to save their family farm from foreclosure.  Helga, a dedicated suffragist, also wanted to prove that women deserved the vote, because a woman was resourceful enough to make it across the country on her own, without a man's help.  All this, in an era when most women never went more than a few miles from their home.

The story, told in the first person by Clara, opens with Clara, the eldest of eight children, having returned from high school in Spokane to her family's farm in Mica Creek.  While brainstorming about ways to raise money to save their farm, her mother comes up with her idea of walking across the country, and begins seeking sponsors. At her pa's suggestion, Clara agrees to go along on an adventure that she can't begin to imagine: "This would be my year abroad, my year to turn the old Clara into someone bold, someone with newfound talents, strengths, and purpose in life."  And when a New York publisher offers them $10,000 if they complete the trip by November 30, 1896, they are on their way, equipped with calling cards, a letter from the mayor of Spokane attesting to their moral character, work boots, canteens, oil-skin ponchos, tooth powder and toothbrushes, two journals and six pencils, a second-hand satchel, and a compass given to Clara by Erick, the boy who's sweet on her--but no change of clothes!

Needless to say, Clara and her mother have no shortage of adventures on the way, as they follow the train tracks East, including encounters with Native Americans, outlaws, handsome journalists, and even the President-Elect and First Lady of the United States, not to mention blizzards, flash flood, lava fields, heat, thirst, and a sprained ankle.  Will they make it to New York on time to collect their prize and save the farm?  You'll have to read this to find out.  I, for one, had a hard time putting this book down. 

Author Dagg does an outstanding job bringing the voices of her intrepid ancestors to life; she extensively researched the lives of Victorian women in order to "get inside Great-Aunt Clara's head."  Teens are likely to identify with Clara's personality clashes with her mother, as well as her dreams of a life more exciting than being a farmer's wife in rural Mica Creek and her struggle between family obligations and becoming independent.

An excellent website for the book  offers more information on historical context and discussion themes; this would be a particularly appropriate title for a mother-daughter book club, and although the protagonist is seventeen, the book would be perfectly appropriate for readers as young as ten. 

And for those interested in reading more about this adventure, you can check out
Linda Lawrence Hunt's 2005 release for adult readers, Bold Spirit:  Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America.  

In addition, a novel aimed at adult readers about Helga and Clara has also been released this spring:  The Daughter's Walk, by Jane Kirkpatrick (WaterBrook Press, 2011).






Here is the book trailer for The Year We Were Famous:



Other blog reviews:
The Ninja Librarian
Unshelved

Disclosure:  Review copy provided by publisher.

Check in tomorrow for a special guest post from author Carole Estby Dagg!