The Codfish Musket, by Agnes Danforth Hewes

Oh, Agnes Danforth Hewes.  You again!  We keep running into each other here.  This novel is also illustrated by Armstrong Sperry, another old friend.

This book takes place in the young United States after the Revolution, but before we had completed westward expansion.  Dan Boit is a young man living in Boston with his elderly grandfather.  He also works part-time for a local merchant, running errands and keeping books.  It's an exciting time in his hometown of Boston; the Columbia has just returned from China.  They have discovered that seal pelts harvested on the northwest coast of the continent can be sold there at an immense profit.  Since the British have cut of many of America's trade routes, this is a very promising way to help keep the country's ports solvent.

After the death of his grandfather (and a number of other events), Dan is sent south to Washington to arrange for a shipment of arms to the shop where he works, to arm the next wave of outgoing ships (muskets being a necessary item to bring, since the Native Americans of the northwest didn't appreciate the intrusion).  He is also asked to remain there to send definitive news of whether there will be war with the French over Louisiana.  During his time there, by happenstance Dan meets President Jefferson, and becomes his secretary.  Meriwether Lewis, the previous secretary, has been sent westward on an expedition.  Dan soon becomes intimately involved in the politics of the time.

I'll admit that historical fiction of this type doesn't appeal to me, but this story was excellently written.  It was a fun adventure, and Dan grows up a lot over the course of the tale.  I also learned a lot about the early years of the United States which I had otherwise glazed over in history class!

Oh, on a side note, there are some horrific instances of racist language in this book so use it with discretion with young children.

Audubon, by Constance Rourke

Dear Audubon,

I wanted to like you. I looked forward to reading you, and even called "dibs" on you as Melanie and I went over the list for 1937. You'll agree, then, that I turned to your pages with a willing, open mind.

And you led me on. You began with a mysterious and intriguing beginning that I had never suspected - I had no idea that the fate of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI's young son Louis Charles was something of a mystery and that James Audubon was one of legend's top candidates, his age and hazy beginnings fascinatingly perfect for the lost Dauphin. I was a little disappointed to read that the heart rumored to be that of the Dauphin was tested for DNA and found to be a match for a close relative of Marie Antoinette. But there's no proof, and a good story is a good story, so I'll hang onto this one.

From the time James Audubon becomes obsessed with birds, though, I quite frankly had trouble staying awake. A picture is worth a thousand words, and James Audubon's career was all about pictures, and none of them were in this book. There were some line drawings, but they were largely forgettable and especially disappointing amid the descriptions of his fantastic colored works.

His adventures in the American frontier were fascinating, actually, but only when I thought about them after plodding through your matter-of-fact descriptions of his travel, who he met where, and what he found to paint. I was sorry to read about his financial woes, but never felt very invested in his character and thus didn't care nearly as much as I might have. I did like learning that he was a devout Quaker, and spoke Quaker English (complete with thees and thous) with a strong French accent throughout his life. I was unsurprised but still a little sorry to learn that he shot nearly all the birds he drew, and thus his gorgeous pictures are almost never from life. And in that context I am glad to know how hard he worked to get every detail exactly right, in contrast to some of his contemporaries.

So yes, you did teach me some things that I'm glad to know, and for that I thank you. I'll almost certainly do more reading about Audubon's life, but I'll take it elsewhere from now on. I'd say let's be friends, but really... you were on interlibrary loan, and I don't know that we'll meet up again.

Best,
Sue

Roller Skates, by Ruth Sawyer

This was my third reading of this book. I read it first in 3rd grade, and have somewhat vague memories of liking it, then again in college (not sure why anymore) where I loved it, and now. Still in love. Which you'll be able to tell by the length of this post!

The book is a semi-autobiographical story of the author's tenth year. Lucinda is ten, and calls herself a "temporary orphan" while her parents are away for a year in Italy. She stays with two ladies (one of them is a teacher at her school) and with a very few ground rules, is basically allowed to do as she pleases for the year. It's the 1890s, she's in New York, and the world is her oyster!

What does she do with her time, you ask? She makes friends. She makes friends with Mr. Gilligan the cab driver, who is from Ireland and invites her to tea so that they can have griddle cakes "cut pie-wise" and tell stories and sing Irish songs (Mrs. Gilligan is Irish too). She makes friends with Tony, an Italian boy whose father has a fruit cart. She makes friends with Trinket, a little girl who lives upstairs. She makes friends with the police officer whose beat is on the way to school. And Alena, a girl who lives with her grandparents who are in the theater. And Mr. Nightowl, who writes for a newspaper and twists his hair up into owl horns when he introduces himself. And Princess Zayda (Lucinda's name for her), an "Oriental" woman who hires Lucinda to give her English lessons. I could go on.

The whole book feels like a lark - there are no rules, and everyone is interesting, and Lucinda's intentions are pure gold. But she's *alive*, too, and can't always control her tongue, which gets her into trouble with her Aunt Emily*. And the world is not always kind, even to spirited ten-year-olds. There is pain in the book, too, which I think is part of why I love it so much. Lucinda is a happy girl, but has real feelings. She revels in feeling "wanted" (she was the fifth child in her family, and never made much of), and feels about ready to explode when winter drags on and she can "feel the lid closing on her" after days of snow and not being able to skate or run outside. There are two deaths in the book, each of which requires its own sort of dealing-with. And at the end, there is a feeling of things changing, and not being able to keep things forever, nor people, nor time. It's not exactly a happy ending, but that just adds to the genuine feel of the book.

Now, on to its accessibility for modern young readers. One review I saw mentioned that readers who liked Little Women might be able to put up with its long descriptions. I didn't mind the descriptions at all, and found it FAR less tedious than Little Women (this coming from someone who read Little Women as a kid and actually kind of liked it). There are some words that would need looking up, but none of them get in the way of understanding the story. I'll spare you the trouble of a couple: pongee is a sort of light cloth, guilp is a kind of ribbon, and pettyjohn is in the oatmeal/cream-of-wheat/other-porridge family. And there are the kinds of un-PC references that you're likely to find in a book of this era. Tony's family is forever having new babies, the cook is referred to as "Black Susan", and so on. All are portrayed in a very sympathetic light, but it can be condescending.

Spoiler Alert
And there's a random murder. If I were assigned the task of editing this book for a modern audience, I might leave in a lot of the un-PC parts and explain them away with a discussion of "it was a different time", but I might seriously consider editing Princess Zayda out. Lucinda never even mentions her to her caregivers, as she knows they would forbid her to continue seeing her. We know that she is "Oriental", has a fabulous exotic room (with curtains, cushions, tapestries, and a jeweled dagger on the wall) in a hotel, and a husband who we never really meet, but who seems harsh, jealous, and possibly abusive. And then Lucinda finds Princess Zayda in her room one day, stabbed in the back with the dagger from the wall. Lucinda is told by the hotel manager to forget that she ever saw it, and to pretend that Princess Zayda had gone away, back to her country, and is happy and well somewhere. Lucinda consoles herself that she is probably happy, having finally escaped her husband. Not essential to the plot, and pretty weighty for a children's book, especially without resolution. That said, I don't remember it bothering me when I read it as a kid - I remember it feeling exciting, and part of a real adventure. Take that as you will. I suppose it's not worse than what's in a lot of movies kids see.

Overall this book paints a great, active, multi-colored, multi-layered picture of a year in New York in the 1890s. I don't think it's for every kid, but give them a some credit - there are a lot who would like it! And if you're looking for something a little different for yourself, it ages well and is a good, satisfying read for an adult too. 

*It feels worth noting that I was simultaneously reading two books with an overbearing Aunt Emily (the other was Walker Percy's "The Moviegoer". If your name is Emily, please pay attention to what sort of Aunt you are.