All Sail Set, by Armstrong Sperry

Ah, nothing like a Sea Voyage!

Our protagonist is a teenaged boy named Enoch Thacher. He lives in East Boston, near a shipyard, and is good friends with his neighbor Messina Clark, a retired sailor. Enoch and Messina spend hours and hours and hours discussing life at sea, and Enoch just itches to go to sea himself. One thing leads to another, and he ends up an apprentice on The Flying Cloud, one of the most famous clipper ships in history. This book describes her maiden voyage, and Enoch's (or Thach's, as we learn to call him) experiences as the ship goes from New York, "around the Horn", to San Francisco in record time.

I have mixed feelings about this book. Honestly, I probably would have given up on it if I weren't reading it for the blog. The first 80 pages or so were dry as toast to me, and full of nautical jargon without even being set at sea (yet). But, reading on my own assignment, I persevered, and was glad for it in the end. Once Thach is on the ship, things move along, and there's a lot more actual story. There are good descriptions of life on board the ship, such as sleeping quarters, work schedules, food, general exhaustion, etc. And in what is largely a narrative tale, the reader gets a surprisingly good sense of what it must have felt like to be out on the sea for the first time - getting sea legs, climbing the rigging for the first time, working out disagreements,  and most poignantly of all, the emotional connection to the ship herself. The end, for me, was completely unexpected and left me with a lot of respect for the book, as many writers of children's fiction would hesitate to go there.

I am now left wondering (as I often do, with Newbery historical fiction) how much of the story is true. The parts involving The Flying Cloud herself all seem to check out - she really did make record time between New York and San Francisco on her maiden voyage, and really epitomized the romance and spirit of the clipper ship during its heyday. I couldn't find anything (online) about the fire at the end, though, or whether there really was an Enoch Thacher aboard as apprentice.

In the end, I'd say read it - but with the caveat that the reader should a) generally like the sea voyage genre, b) have a lot of patience (or be willing to skip or skim the first few chapters), and c) be aware that there is a very helpful glossary of terms at the end of the book! I think the genre isn't for everyone, but this is a great example of the genre.

Young Walter Scott, by Elizabeth Janet Gray

This is a children's biography of Walter Scott. It's written well enough to be understood by kids, despite the occasional Scottish dialect tossed in. But the question is, why? What kid, while browsing the biographies, will see this and think "Oh, Walter Scott! He rocks! I can't wait to read more about *him*!" I have no idea what child would ever want to read this, or care about the protagonist. Heck, I wasn't especially interested, either. The author certainly makes you sensitive to things that are happening to Walter, but meh. He's hard to relate to.

Kate Seredy did illustrate the cover and the end papers. We've seen quite a bit from her in the first few decades of the Newberries.

The Good Master, by Kate Seredy

Having read The White Stag, I was bracing myself for another slog when another Kate Seredy book came my way. But, I was very pleasantly surprised!

In addition to the gorgeous illustrations by the author, The Good Master is a sweet, easy to read, engaging story. It's in the same kind of category as Heidi and The Secret Garden - a thin, vaguely unhealthy city girl comes to the country and experiences honest work, good simple food, and becomes a new person. Instead of the Yorkshire moors or the Swiss mountains, this story takes place on the fruited plains of pre-WWI Hungary.

There is a boy, Jancsi, who lives with his mother and father on a large ranch. At the beginning of the book, he is excited that his cousin Kate, who he has never met, will be coming from the city to stay with his family. He does not have siblings, and is looking forward to company, "even a girl". When Kate arrives, though, she is not only delicate, but a little hellion, and almost as much fun as a brother! She gets into all kinds of trouble, and keeps Jancsi and his parents on their toes, but she comes around when she, along with the reader, is introduced to the rhythms of life in the country, from Easter to Christmas. As examples, we see eggs dyed (an Easter tradition I was not surprised to see) and all the boys in the village sprinkling all the girls in the village with water (an Easter tradition I had never heard of!).

There are lovely descriptions of various folk traditions surrounding major holidays, there are traditional folk tales told by sheepherders and millers (including the one told in The White Stag, but shorter and much more enjoyable!), there are gypsies, a circus, near-death experiences... and there is plenty of good-will throughout. Comparing it to Heidi and The Secret Garden is, I think, high praise well deserved. Unlike those two classics, however, there is also a main character who is a boy, and I think this could be enjoyed by both boys and girls. More people should read it. I'm also looking forward to its sequel, The Singing Tree (one of the1940 Newbery Honors)!

Note: Kate  Seredy was the illustrator of two 1936 Newbery books - she also illustrated the first edition of Caddie Woodlawn!

Honk the Moose, by Phil Strong

Honk the Moose is a true story! In Birora, Minnesota, two friends, Waino and Ivar, are returning home from skiing. Ivar's father owns the livery and the two boys stop in his stable to oil their skis. But amidst the horses, they discover a moose, who wandered in to help himself to the hay after going hungry for days in the harsh winter. He is named Honk for the sound that he makes, and try as they might, Honk cannot be convinced to leave.

The story will be very fun as a read-aloud, especially as the effort to remove Honk escalates in the town, with each new person not believing that the moose really exists (first Ivar's father, who sends the boys to call the police, who calls the mayor, who then calls the town council). When it becomes clear that Honk is there to stay, the book talks about how he becomes a part of the town. This one's more for younger readers of chapter books, but still a fun story for older ones.

Caddie Woodlawn, by Carol Ryrie Brink

I did love this book during my tween years, and now rereading it as an adult, all I can think of is how very much like the Little House books it is. But this story takes place at least 15 years before Laura Ingalls Wilder's birth. And interestingly enough, I counted at least two stories in this book that I also remember having read in the Little House series. I think perhaps they simply became Wisconsin urban legend. I did my google maps homework and found that Laura was born less than 40 miles from where this book takes place, which explains the common themes- Caddie Woodlawn is based on the true story of the author's grandmother.

Caddie takes place during the Civil War. Caddie's father, who runs the local mill, is affluent enough that he was able to pay to have a man sent in his place. The family also has hired men living full-time on the property. Caddie is the middle child of five. There used to be six, however, when the family moved west from Boston the youngest girl, Mary, was ill and died. Because Caddie was weak and sickly also, Mr. Woodlawn convinced his wife to allow her to run wild with the boys to regain her health, convinced that she would take up more feminine behavior when she became ready.

In addition to their own small family, the Woodlawns are on very good terms with the Indians that live locally, especially Indian John (who has the advantage of command of the English language, although it's unfortunately depicted as the stereotypical pidgin English common in books from this period). The book follows a year in Caddie's life- picking nuts, riding horses, going to school, and worrying about rumors of Indian massacre, eagerly awaiting the mail after a long winter, and eating entirely too much turkey. Over the course of events, Caddie does mature and become ready to at least consider that a lady's skills have some merit.

Also impressive for the time the book was written in is the way the Woodlawn family is scornful of a man in the community who had taken an Indian wife in the days when the town was not yet settled. Not because he took an Indian wife, but because he is clearly ashamed of her and their three children, and because he sends his wife away to rejoin her people when rumors of massacre have made her uncomfortable to keep. Stereotypes notwithstanding, it's a perspective that you don't often see represented. As their mother tells the Woodlawn children, "Sam Hankinson hasn't a very strong character. Now if your father had married an Indian. . . you may be sure that he would never have sent her off because he was ashamed of her."

I did love my paperback copy of this book with Trina Schart Hyman illustrations; they have so much more character than the airbrushed bland ones that are in the 1958 edition I borrowed from my library this week (see right). Who makes a better-looking tomboy, I ask you?