A Daughter of the Seine: The Life of Madame Roland, by Jeanette Eaton

I'll admit that with no background in the subject of this book whatsoever, I didn't realize it was a biography until I was quite a few pages into into it and looked it up, because the writing style confused me. Daughter is a biography of Marie Roland, a significant figure in the French revolution. Unfortunately, she met an untimely demise at the guillotine.

This book would be a very, very tough sell. The librarian in me was instantly irked at the fact that it contained no bibliography or citations to verify anything that it said. Additionally, it's a very thick volume and unless you have a background in French history and/or language, the world and names are rather disorienting (especially the author's insistence on writing out digits, for example, Louis Seize instead of Louis XVI). I didn't know enough about the people involved to care enough to continue to plod through it, so I gave up halfway through (a first for me in this Newbery endeavor). I'm a little disappointed in myself, but not enough to go back and try it again.

The Jumping-Off Place, by Marian Hurd McNeely

I know exactly which kids at the Library I should recommend this book to! Imagine The Boxcar Children meets Little House on the Prairie, and you've got this book. Becky and her three younger siblings, Dick, Joan and Phil, have been raised by their Uncle Jim. He had staked a claim in the newly opened Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, but became ill and died afterward. With no other hope for a future, Becky and crew decide to "prove up" his claim as he had originally intended for all of them to do together.

Uncle Jim had set up the homestead and prepared canned goods for them, but when the children arrive they find that their windows have been smashed and their pump removed. After they settle in with the help of a kind neighbor from town, they go to draw water from the creek. This is where they meet two sons from the Welp family, and learn that in their absence another family has put up a shanty within their boundaries and is attempting to claim it for themselves. Additionally, summer drought puts their plants at risk.

What really sets this book apart from the Little House books is the slightly more mature perspective- coming from a town with a large social network, the four children know exactly what it is that they've left behind, and discover that there's a great deal to miss. "That's the one thing I don't like about Dakota," laments Phil. "There's never any folks for audiences."

Also, as four children having to survive alone, when tragedy strikes, they feel it deeply. There's no optimistic belief that Pa will somehow fix it. If they don't fix it themselves, it may just not get fixed.

The book is based on the experiences of the author homesteading with her husband in South Dakota, although in a slightly later time period than the Ingalls family. This book was also published quite a bit in advance of Laura's fictionalized memoirs, for those concerned about copycatting. The Jumping-Off Place was actually just republished in 2008 as a paperback with the original illustrations, and I'm glad a new generation will have access to it after such a long absence. The republished edition also contains an afterword by Jean L. S. Patrick explaining the context of the story and a bit about the author, which is a great addition (unlike the highly unnecessary "word list"- a glossary of the more challenging words tacked on at the end. No one looks for these anymore). I wish I could give this book more tags to increase its visibility!

Vaino, a Boy of New Finland, by Julia Davis Adams

The book begins in the winter of 1916. Vaino, a young Finnish boy, lives with his mother, brother and sister (I don't recall the location of the father being either explained or significant, but I could be wrong about this) in Russian-occupied rural Finland. Russian soldiers are often on the lookout for members of the resistance, and many elements of Finnish culture, including the spoken language, are forbidden.

Vaino's mother often helps pass the time with folk tales of Vaino's namesake, a Finnish god named Väinämöinen, who helps landscape the earth after its creation, and then goes on quests in it (often with his friend Imarinen, a blacksmith of legendary talent).

Over time, Vaino becomes more invested in the resistance movement as his mother ingrains love of his country in him, his brother joins the resistance, and his sister leaves home to marry a member of the resistance on the fly, far from home. His family also wins the support of a Russian soldier by assisting him generously in his time of need. This soldier later defects in favor of the Finnish side and is of great use to the resistance. Vaino also comes of age as he finds his place in fighting for Finnish freedom.

It seems that recently there have been a number of stories of people in love with their homeland, living under the oppression of outsiders, and fighting to free the country they care for. I wish I had a better understanding of what, exactly, was going on in the world at that time to make this kind of storyline so appealing to American audiences, as World War I was well over and done with by then. All Quiet On the Western Front won the Academy Award that year; perhaps it captured imagination enough that parents wanted something similar for their children, only a bit happier.

Little Blacknose, by Hildegarde Hoyt Swift

Once again, first impressions threw me off. With many of these older books, I know nothing about them but the title, so I have to imagine the summary on my own. I'm usually so, so wrong. As in the case of Little Blacknose, who I'd imagined to be a horse.

Little Blacknose is, in fact, a new train, and the very first steam engine to come into New York state to replace the horses that used to pull the rail cars. We see Blacknose come to initial awareness after his construction, unsure of what he is and then, in transit to the station that will be his home, itching to move freely along the rails.

When he initially arrives, he's snubbed by the horses, but soon proves himself by being so much faster and stronger. Eventually, he is replaced by a newer, stronger steam engine and sulks briefly before saving the day after all (the new engine had a malfunctioning part and was unable to carry supplies on its inaugural run).

Eventually Blacknose is placed into storage and collects dust for several decades until he is restored and placed into a museum.

Nothing too too thrilling, but would make a fun readaloud for a little one with an interest in trains.

Pran of Albania, by Elizabeth Miller

Pran is a young woman who lives with her parents and two younger twin brothers in Albania. The book describes her day-to-day life, and how the people in the small villages coped with the threat of Slavic invasion at their borders. Although the book speaks very frankly of life and death, blood feuds and wars, it's pretty tame in nature and has a happy ending. Also, *spoiler alert* no one identified in the story dies (although it is assumed that men died fighting to secure the borders).

One of the most interesting parts of the story for me was the discussion of gender roles. Whether true or not, the story claimed that a woman could take a man's role in society, including in councils and fighting, if she vowed to remain a virgin and not marry. She was required to cut her hair and the could then wear a man's clothing and rifle. It was fleshed out reasonably well, and I was really intrigued by it!

My only frustration with the book is in the ethnic words and names. Not a fault so much as the lack of a pronunciation guide. I don't like feeling as if I'm not saying things properly in my head, and a quick appendix or something at the end could easily have remedied this.

Overall an interesting and simple story.

Update 8/26/2013: apparently the gender-role-switching is true, and traditional in this culture.  I came across this article today. http://www.thefrisky.com/2013-08-25/the-sworn-virgins-of-albania-live-as-celibate-gender-bending-lives/

The Tangle-Coated Horse and Other Tales from the Fionn Saga, by Ella Young

Wow, I haven't Newbery blogged in a while and I feel like a bit of a slacker. Time to plunge back in!

I'll admit that I had a bit of difficulty with this one. I'm not remotely familiar with Irish folk tales. I'm sure these stories are marvelous for those who are. However, for me, I felt like I was dropped into an unfamiliar world and left to fill in the gaps on my own. The book has multiple short stories all centered on Fionn, how he was raised, and his many adventures. These stories, despite being chronological, do not follow or build on one another, so don't need to be read in any particular order. This was not the book for me; I wanted continuity (you don't just introduce the son of your protagonist and then never mention him again!).

However, I did want to be fair to the book so I loaned it to a coworker who's a biiiiig iriphile (Eirephile?) to read over the weekend. As a former teacher she was pleased with its readability, and she enjoyed it because she was already somewhat familiar with the cast. So today's American kids probably need a bit of curriculum support to get into it fully, but it has its time and place.

Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, by Rachel Field

I first read Hitty when I was 10 or 11, and I remember loving it. As in really wishing I had a small wooden doll that I could make clothes for and carry around everywhere I went. And looking in flea markets and yard sales for quite some time for one with the right personality. I didn't exactly find one, but I did do a lot of doll-clothes sewing for a little while, and I think there is a doll somewhere with her name cross-stitched on her undershirt.

Hitty, short for Mehitabel, is a small wooden doll carved by a peddler in rural Maine in the early 1800s for a small girl named Phoebe. We follow Hitty for, well, a hundred years, as she goes on adventures with her young mistresses and is eventually either lost or abandoned by each of them in turn. I'll tell you a little about each:

Phoebe, daughter of a whaling ship captain. It is due to Phoebe's cross-stitched "Hitty" on Hitty's chemise that the doll is able to keep her name through all her adventures. Most notably, Hitty accompanies Phoebe on a voyage on her father's ship, and we learn a lot about how the whaling business worked. One thing leads to another, and Hitty is dropped by a sleeping Phoebe onto a street in Bombay.

Thankful, daughter of missionaries in India. Hitty was picked up from the street by a snake charmer, who used her as part of his act until Thankful's parents happened to notice her, and thought she would be a good present for their little girl. They were essentially right; Thankful did love her. She got sick, though, and was sent back to live with her grandparents in Philadelphia, since "India is no place for a child". One thing leads to another, and Hitty is stuffed in a couch, where she remains for several years.

Clarissa, a young Philadelphian Quaker girl around the time of the Civil War. Clarissa's cousins discovered Hitty when they were playing on the couch in the attic. Hitty's life is more stable while she is living with Clarissa, and Hitty tells us that she is able to write her memoirs now because of the time she spent on Clarissa's desk at her little dame school. When Clarissa goes off to boarding school, Hitty is packed in a box with mothballs.

Isabella, daughter of a lawyer and his wife in New York City. Isabella is less well-developed as a character than Phoebe, Thankful, and Clarissa, but we do know that she is headstrong and spoiled, but a good-natured child in her way. One thing leads to another, and Hitty is stolen from Isabella by a pack of ruffians on New Years Day.

From here Hitty's life is fairly unstable, and I won't go into further details.

Reading this now, I was a little impressed with my 5th grade self for sticking with the book in the beginning. It picks up nicely for most of the middle, but it is hard to stay engaged with for the first couple of chapters (a long time spent under a church pew, and then a crow's nest, are described in painful detail), and toward the end of the book Hitty travels with an artist who paints her in still-life, two old ladies in New Orleans, an elderly lady who collects china animals, and finally the owner of an antique shop in New York. It's just less interesting. The book is also pretty un-PC in parts, like when the "natives" on a desert island are described, and the way the dialect of former plantation slaves is handled during the short time Hitty spends with a girl named "Car'line" there. I honestly had no recollection of this section of the book from my first reading of it - reading it now was truly reading it anew.

The descriptions of historic events are accurate as they go, though, if the perspective on some has changed since the book was published. For example, a modern reader might be surprised at how things like peeling the blubber off the whale and the "Nantucket Sleigh Ride" are glorified during Hitty's time with Phoebe, and the description of some immigrant tenement children is not at all kind. But we also hear about the Civil War from a Quaker perspective, the Fresh Air Fund (though not mentioned by its name, I'm pretty sure this is what was going on), and more everyday things like the sensation that a wonderful opera singer Adelina Patti caused in Philadelphia, and what it might have been like to meet Charles Dickens, as well as changes in fashion, schooling, and what were considered basic manners. 

I think the appeal of this book would vary widely by child. I think it's safe to say that it's more a girls' book than a boys' book, and one for fairly patient girls at that. It probably helps if they like dolls, and can grasp that perspectives on some things have changed. But for that quiet, doll-liking, patient girl with perspective, it's a great book!

Note: I have found several websites devoted to Hitty, with recreations of scenes in the book, timelines, etc. It's worth a google if you're so inclined!