June Link-Up: Old School Kidlit Reading Challenge 2017 (Required Reading)

Today marks the end of month six of the Old School Kidlit Reading Challenge. In June, we focused on Required Reading.

Despite my grand plans, I only read two books for the challenge this month:

• Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin (1903)
• Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (1908)

What did you read? Share your links in comments!

Reading with Little Miss Muffet and Little Bo Peep, June 2017

Reading with Little Miss Muffet

Miss Muffet has continued to blossom as a new reader this past month. She is zipping through the Hooked on Phonics readers and has also been sounding out sections of the McGuffey Primer, and even some of the books we normally read aloud to her.  I plan to go through the box of easy reader books we have stashed away for her to see whether there are some she might be able to read between now and the end of the summer. She is loving all the characters in the Hooked on Phonics books, but they are pretty bland, and I think we will all enjoy seeing her read books with more interesting characters.

In addition to her own independent reading, I have been reading tons of picture books aloud to Miss Muffet at bedtime. By far, the best reaction she has had to any book in recent memory is her outright laughter at Julius, the Baby of the World. There is a section of the story where Lilly, the older sister, writes a mean story about baby Julius which reflects her jealousy over all the attention he gets from their parents. In the story, Lilly claims that if Julius were a number, he'd be zero, and if he were a fruit, he'd be a raisin. Then she writes,  "Zero is nothing. A raisin tastes like dirt. The end." When I read this last part, Miss Muffet broke out into uncontrollable giggles. When I quoted those lines to her again the next day, we both laughed at our inside joke. This is the first sign she has really shown of a sense of humor. She laughs at silliness, of course, but this was the first time I really thought she understood a joke.

Miss Muffet has also recently been enjoying Five Minutes' Peace and A Quiet Night In by Jill Murphy, Little Excavator by Anna Dewdney (see Miss Muffet's review here!), The Star-Spangled Banner by Peter Spier, We the People by Peter Spier, The Twelve Dancing Princesses by Ruth Sanderson, and selections from My Bookhouse Volume 3, Through Fairy Halls. She's also taken a liking to a few new titles from our current library pile: Poppy Louise is Not Afraid of Anything by Jenna McCarthy and Molly Idle, If Not for the Cat by Jack Prelutsky and Ted Rand, and Over and Under the Pond by Kate Messner and Christopher Silas Neal.

Reading with Little Bo Peep

At 21 months, Bo Peep has definitely begun her descent into the terrible twos, complete with an inclination to say no to absolutely everything. One of her favorite things to say when I call her over to me for a diaper change, or to put her shoes on, or to go lie down is, "No! I readin'." And often, she does have a book in hand. Recent favorites that she has been "readin'" are Mr. Grumpy by Roger Hargreaves, No, David by David Shannon (which she often "reads" aloud in imitation of her sister), Gossie and Gertie by Olivier Dunrea and Gideon and Otto by Olivier Dunrea.

Bo Peep is also starting to learn how to shop for used books. While we were on vacation last week, she selected two books in a used bookstore, both of which we ended up purchasing: A House is a House For Me, which we previously only owned in paperback, and Nursery Rhymes by Douglas Gorsline. So far, she has refused to let anyone read them to her, but she happily paraded them around her grandmother's house "readin' to self."

Because of her aversion to letting adults read to her, Bo Peep's been getting a lot of "secondhand read-alouds" lately. Since she typically won't sit for a story, we read to her sister in her presence so she can hear the stories even if she doesn't want to participate. She also seems to enjoy poetry picnics, when she can nibble a cookie while listening to short poems.

Book Review: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (1908)

Siblings Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert are expecting to adopt an orphan boy to help around the house, so when Anne Shirley comes to them at Green Gables, they are completely surprised. Matthew takes a liking to her instantly, but it takes some convincing before Marilla decides not to send her back to the orphanage. Even then, Marilla and Anne have many ups and downs as Anne makes a life for herself in Avonlea and overcomes the hardships of her past.

When I was a kid, maybe around four years old, maybe a little older, I saw a clip from an adaptation of Anne of Green Gables on television. In my memory, this is a scene where Anne walks across a fence and falls. That night, for some reason, that scene replayed in my dream, and then I had a horrible nightmare. Though the scene from Anne of Green Gables was not scary unto itself, I always associated that scene, as well as the book, with the unsettling feeling of that nightmare. This is why, until now, I had never read this book.

Now that I have read it, I am not certain it is a book I would have enjoyed as a kid, but it is absolutely a book I enjoyed reading as an adult. I completely understand why people like Anne. From her effusive way of expressing her feelings about anything and everything, to her wonderful imagination, to the utterly human mistakes she makes, she is a character that is easy to relate to and easy to root for. She is both fascinating and sympathetic, the kind of friend every girl wishes she had, and also very much like many girls in her desire for a "bosom friend," her rivalry with Gilbert Blythe, and her feelings of awkwardness about her own appearance.

I also love the way L.M. Montgomery writes. Her descriptions paint vivid pictures of Avonlea and its inhabitants. I love the little foibles of people like Matthew, who has trouble interacting with women, and Mrs. Rachel who has an opinion about everything and uses the phrase "that's what" to punctuate her sentences. These people feel very real, and because the point of view shifts from character to character, they also provide important insight into Anne as a character. It is interesting to realize how much a child reader might miss on a first reading that would become apparent upon a re-reading later in life. I also love how many wonderfully memorable and quotable lines there are in this book. Many of these I have seen out of context over the years, and they are even more meaningful now that I know how they connect to the story. I couldn't even pick a favorite; if I was the kind of reader who wrote in her books, I'd have highlighted something on nearly every page.

It is just a coincidence that I am reading this book around the same time as the release of Anne with an E on Netflix, but I completely understand why so many fans of Anne, particularly in the Catholic circles where I've been following the reviews and discussions, are so horrified by this new dark take on the story. Of course, there is a dark side to Anne Shirley's past, but one of the reasons the book is so beloved and so wonderful, is that it doesn't dwell on the darkness. This is an uplifting story where a lovable underdog turns out okay, and there is no reason for it to be made into anything else. Not every dark corner of every sad story needs to be explored; with so many "edgy" books out there now, it is comforting to know that at least one gentle, funny, and ultimately happy story is still there to fall back into. I understand wanting that story to be preserved and protected from contemporary notions of entertainment.

Though I was not a kid who would have read this book willingly, I suspect my own girls may be different, and I look forward to seeing their reactions to Anne when they are older. I'm also really eager to get into the sequels, and to read more from Chronicles of Avonlea, which I will be doing as part of the Deal Me in Challenge. I'm glad to finally have moved past the Anne of my childhood nightmare, and to know this character and enjoy her the way everyone else does.

Reading Through History: The Chestry Oak by Kate Seredy (1948)

Michael, a Hungarian prince, has been looking forward to the day when he will turn seven years old. On this day, as has been the tradition of the royal family for generations, Michael will plant an oak tree in Chestry Valley, symbolizing the continued growth of his family tree. By the time Michael does turn seven, however, things are very strange around the castle. World War II is well underway, and the castle is full of Nazi sympathizers who have been led to believe Michael's father, the Prince of Chestry, is a supporter of Nazism as well. Though he is young, Michael is also engaged in an elaborate game of make-believe in which he only shows his true self to his father and his nurse behind closed doors. Still, Michael has great hope for the future, and he decides to take an acorn from a Chestry oak and save it until the war is over and things return to normal. He does not realize, however, the journey this acorn will take before reaching its final destination.

I tried coming into this book cold, without any background information whatsoever, and because of that, I felt that I had been thrown into the middle of a story with no sense of direction. It took me a couple of chapters to get my bearings, and a bit more than that to become invested in the story. Having read the whole story, now, though, I can say that the slow start, introducing Michael through his nurse's account of the night he was born, and slowly building up to the tragic loss of his childhood home to the terrors of war, is the best way to handle this story. Because the main character is so young at the start of the book, it is necessary for the details about the changes in his life in Chestry Valley to be revealed in ways which are appropriate to his age. This might feel slow to an adult reader who already has plenty of context for reading about World War II, but for children, particularly young ones, the time Seredy takes to unfold the circumstances of Michael's changing life is essential to helping them understand the historical events taking place and to feel the impact of those events on the young prince.

Indeed, I would say that this book, and not Number the Stars as I have previously stated, is the book I would most want to use to introduce the topic of the Holocaust to my children. Presenting the story of Prince Michael is a great way to begin a gentle discussion about a topic that will become increasingly more brutal as children age and learn more about it. The book captures both the devastation of war and the power of hope in the face of great loss. It is not a happy story, necessarily, but it is not a tragedy either.

It is also remarkable how soon after the end of the war this book was published. It would be easy to imagine that such a book would have a very narrow and time-specific perspective on events that had just happened at the time of its writing, but on the contrary, this book paints a portrait of the war that is still relevant, believable, and powerful in the year 2017. Thinking about the timing also makes me reflect again on The Singing Tree, where it is suggested that the world would know better, after World War I, than to let another war of that kind happen again. Seredy's voice is not just that of a storyteller, but also that of a witness to history, who allows us to see how the world changed over the first half of the 20th century. Her stories have an immediacy about them that is impossible to achieve in even the most well-researched of contemporary historical fiction novels.

In addition to being an emotional portrayal of the impact of war on the country of Hungary, and on Prince Michael's family in particular, The Chestry Oak also includes a lot about horses, which is a special interest of many children. It also includes a wonderful American family in its supporting cast, which despite some readers' insistence that they reside in Vermont, most likely reside in the Hudson Valley, where Seredy lived, where The Open Gate is set, and where I grew up.

Fans of Kate Seredy will fall instantly in love with this book; those who are new to Seredy's work will fall in love with her writing after reading this book. Either way, it is a beautifully written and engaging story that I wish was more widely available. A definite gem worth owning if you can find it.

Book Review: Let's Pretend We Never Met by Melissa Walker (2017)

When Mattie Markham and her family move from North Carolina to Pennsylvania to be closer to Mattie's grandmother as she moves into assisted living, Mattie worries that she won't make new friends. She is grateful, therefore, to discover that living next door to her new apartment is a girl her age named Agnes. Agnes, who has an unnamed social disorder accompanied by anxiety, is definitely unusual, but her enthusiasm for life, and her way of making everything feel important and exciting are appealing to Mattie, and the two become close quickly. Unfortunately, though, when school starts up again after Christmas, Mattie discovers that in her new classroom, Agnes is considered the weird kid. Worried about jeopardizing her chances of friendship with her other classmates, Mattie begins to distance herself from Agnes, finding it difficult to reconcile the fun she has with Agnes at home with how strangely she behaves in class.

I chose to read Let's Pretend We Never Met solely based on the author, who is a fellow Vassar graduate and the author of the young adult novel, Unbreak My Heart, which I remembered praising in a review a few years ago.  Once I learned what the book was about, there was a part of me that was afraid I'd just walked into a "Very Special Friendship" story a la Stargirl or Wonder, both of which I have found grating. I am so glad to be able to say that this book very clearly is not a message-driven story of the after school special variety, but a much more subtle character-driven novel about the difficulties of navigating fifth grade friendships.

All of the characters, from Mattie and her parents, to Agnes and her mom, to Mattie's new teacher and classmates, are believable despite their relative lack of dysfunction. Though there are problems in the story - Mattie's mom's struggle to find full-time work, Mattie's grandmother's signs of dementia, and Agnes's parents' marital difficulties - they are the problems of ordinary life, and these difficulties inform each other to give a complete portrait of Mattie as a character and her friendship with Agnes. Unlike Wonder, which essentially exploits Auggie's disfigurement to teach us all how to be tolerant and caring, this book simply delivers that message, quietly and without fanfare, in a way that is powerful without being obnoxious. Walker never reveals Agnes's diagnosis and instead defines her by her unique interests, her personality, and her behaviors, both the usual and unusual ones.

I don't keep up with many new middle grade books now that I've mostly stepped out of the library world. Knowing that I'm only going to read a few this year, I'm glad Let's Pretend We Never Met is one that happened to come across my radar. It's a book I would have loved as a kid, and one that I would absolutely feel comfortable having my own girls read in a few years. The writing is good, the characters feel real, the moral is clear but not preachy, and it is enjoyable to read.

Poetry Picnic: June 1, 2017

We had a poetry picnic on June 1st to welcome the new month. I chose a lot of poems because many of them were so short, but it didn't take the girls as long to eat at this picnic as it had at the previous one, since it was a snack and not lunch, and they became pretty restless. I'd probably choose to read half of these if I had it to do over. (As usual, anthology titles link to Goodreads; poem titles link to online full text when available.)

From The Posy Ring: 

• Where Go the Boats? by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Fairy Folk by Robert Montgomery Bird
• Discontent by Sarah Orne Jewett 

These were the longest and most difficult-to-understand poems on the list, which is why I started with them. I read poems like these mainly to expose the girls to the language. I don't necessarily expect them to comprehend the meaning at all.

From All the Small Poems and Fourteen More: 

• sun by Valerie Worth
• coins by Valerie Worth
• duck by Valerie Worth
• caterpillar by Valerie Worth
• mushroom by Valerie Worth
• pocket by Valerie Worth

Miss Muffet really responded to these "small poems" and their corresponding illustrations. My favorite was "duck" but she seemed most fond of "coins." I like this collection because the poems are very short, but they are not dumbed down in any way for kids. When we someday begin to study and analyze poetry, these would be good ones to start with.

From Listen, Children, Listen: 

• Blum by Dorothy Aldis
• Numbers by Elizabeth Madox Roberts
• Whispers by Myra Cohn Livingston
• Discovery by Myra Cohn Livingston
• The Sun by John Drinkwater 

Miss Muffet liked "Blum" because she is in a phase where she likes to make up words. She also liked "Numbers", which I chose because I have started doing very basic math with her using Cuisenaire rods. The other poems didn't seem to make any particular impression, though Miss Muffet did seem to think the suggestion in "The Sun" that we tell the sun we are happy was pretty amusing.

From Everything Glistens and Everything Sings:

• The River by Charlotte Zolotow 
• Toward Dark by Charlotte Zolotow
• Raccoon by Charlotte Zolotow
• Ladybug by Charlotte Zolotow 

These poems are a little too pensive for little kids, but since they are short, I read them for the language. "Ladybug" was probably the girls' favorite. 

From Favorite Poems Old and New: 

• Song for a Little House by Christopher Morley
• Swimming by Clinton Scollard
• At the Garden Gate by David McCord
• What Do We Plant? by Henry Abbey
• Old Log House by James S. Tippett

Most of these poems were chosen based on recent discussions I had with Miss Muffet. We've been talking about wanting a bigger house, but trying to enjoy the littleness of our current small one. The pool had just opened, so we were preparing to swim, and Miss Muffet likes to ask about the materials from which things are made so "What Do We Plant?" seemed a natural choice. I chose "At the Garden Gate" because I liked the rhythm, and "Old Log House" because it was about the "old days" which Miss Muffet seems increasingly interested in hearing about. 

From The Year Around:

• Alone by John Farrar 
• June by Douglas Malloch
• That's June by Mary F. Butts
• Stay, June, Stay! by Christina Rossetti (part IV of the linked poem)

These poems all came from the June section of the book. I hope to keep using this book each month to introduce themes related to the current season and upcoming holidays.

From All Together:

• Everybody Says by Dorothy Aldis
• Bad by Dorothy Aldis
• We Know a House by Dorothy Aldis
• Awful Mornings by Dorothy Aldis

This is the most preschool-friendly collection of poetry we have, so I try to include a few poems from it at each picnic. This one had two about having a bad day, as we'd had struggled through the morning. I chose "Everybody Says" because it mentions "Aunt Bee" which is what Miss Muffet sometimes calls my sister. "We Know a House" was a random choice to complement the house-themed poems from Favorite Poems Old and New above.

Book Review: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin (1903)

When Rebecca Rowena Randall is sent to live with her spinster aunts in place of the older sister who cannot be spared at home, the beginning of her stay is anything but auspicious. The aunts believe Rebecca to be prone to foolishness, like her deceased ne'er-do-well father, and Rebecca, though spirited, knows very little of the household chores she is meant to perform. As the years progress, however, Rebecca proves to be a committed student, a selfless friend, the object of a specific benefactor's affections, and a gifted writer.

This coming of age story is one I absolutely refused to read during childhood, and even now I don't think I would have liked it as a kid. I was troubled by children who had lost a parent or who simply didn't live with their parents, and all the delightful parts of Rebecca's personality would easily have been lost to me, masked by my own perception that children like her are to be pitied.  As an adult, though, I can recognize the charm of Rebecca as a character. Though her adventures are confined to her home and schoolhouse, and her triumphs involve small victories like selling enough soap to help a poor family and winning a writing contest, she has an indomitable spirit and she does and says things that real kids generally only imagine themselves doing.

My chief complaint about this book is how quickly events unfold in the second half. The story is at its best when it relates events about Rebecca's daily life prior to adolescence. Once she enters high school, the story moves along very quickly, and begins to feel rushed as compared with earlier sections. I also found the ending somewhat predictable, but that didn't bother me as much, since it does wrap things up very well, and on the necessary hopeful note.

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm is not my favorite book (and it really pales in comparison to Anne of Green Gables, which I read immediately following it and will review soon), but I understand why it has appealed to so many girls. I will happily let my own kids read it when they are around age 10 or so, and I will probably read it again when they do.