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Julia Redfern #2
Julia and the Hand of God
A series of crises lead 11-year-old Julia to see her family in a different light and help her reaffirm her ambition to be a writer.
168 pages, Hardcover
First published November 18, 1977
About the author
Eleanor Cameron
28 books54 followersEleanor Frances Butler Cameron (1912 - 1996) was a Canadian children's author who spent most of her life in California. Born in Winnipeg, Canada in 1912, her family then moved to South Charleston, Ohio when she was 3 years old. Her father farmed and her mother ran a hotel. After three years, they moved to Berkeley, California. Her parents divorced a few years later. At 16, she moved with her mother and stepfather to Los Angeles. She credits her English mother's love of story telling for her inspiration to write and make up stories.
She attended UCLA and the Art Center School of Los Angeles. In 1930, she started working at the Los Angeles Public Library and later worked as a research librarian for the Los Angeles Board of Education and two different advertising companies. She married Ian Cameron, a printmaker and publisher, in 1934 and the couple had a son, David, in 1944.
Her first book came out in 1950, based on her experience as a librarian. It was well received by critics, but didn't sell well. She did not start writing children's books until her son asked him to write one starring him as a character. this resulted in her popular series The Mushroom Planet.
With the success of the Mushroom Planet books, Cameron focused on writing for children. Between 1959 and 1988 she produced 12 additional children's novels, including The Court of the Stone Children (1973) and the semi-autobiographical five book Julia Redfern series (1971–1988). She won the National Book Award for Court of the Stone Children in 1973, and was a runner up for To The Green Mountains in 1979.
In addition to her fiction work, Cameron wrote two books of criticism and reflection on children's literature. The first, The Green and Burning Tree, was released in 1969 and led an increased profile for Cameron in the world of children's literature. Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s Cameron worked as a traveling speaker and contributor to publications such as The Horn Book Magazine, Wilson Library Bulletin, and Children's Literature in Education. She was also a member of the founding editorial board for the children's magazine Cricket, which debuted in 1973. In 1972 she and Roald Dahl exchanged barbs across three issues of The Horn Book, a magazine devoted to critical discussions of children's and young adult fiction. Her second book of essays, The Seed and the Vision: On the Writing and Appreciation of Children's Books, came out in 1993. It is her final published book.
From late 1967 until her death Cameron made her home in Pebble Beach, California. She died in hospice in Monterey, California on October 11, 1996 at the age of 84.[
She attended UCLA and the Art Center School of Los Angeles. In 1930, she started working at the Los Angeles Public Library and later worked as a research librarian for the Los Angeles Board of Education and two different advertising companies. She married Ian Cameron, a printmaker and publisher, in 1934 and the couple had a son, David, in 1944.
Her first book came out in 1950, based on her experience as a librarian. It was well received by critics, but didn't sell well. She did not start writing children's books until her son asked him to write one starring him as a character. this resulted in her popular series The Mushroom Planet.
With the success of the Mushroom Planet books, Cameron focused on writing for children. Between 1959 and 1988 she produced 12 additional children's novels, including The Court of the Stone Children (1973) and the semi-autobiographical five book Julia Redfern series (1971–1988). She won the National Book Award for Court of the Stone Children in 1973, and was a runner up for To The Green Mountains in 1979.
In addition to her fiction work, Cameron wrote two books of criticism and reflection on children's literature. The first, The Green and Burning Tree, was released in 1969 and led an increased profile for Cameron in the world of children's literature. Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s Cameron worked as a traveling speaker and contributor to publications such as The Horn Book Magazine, Wilson Library Bulletin, and Children's Literature in Education. She was also a member of the founding editorial board for the children's magazine Cricket, which debuted in 1973. In 1972 she and Roald Dahl exchanged barbs across three issues of The Horn Book, a magazine devoted to critical discussions of children's and young adult fiction. Her second book of essays, The Seed and the Vision: On the Writing and Appreciation of Children's Books, came out in 1993. It is her final published book.
From late 1967 until her death Cameron made her home in Pebble Beach, California. She died in hospice in Monterey, California on October 11, 1996 at the age of 84.[
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 17, 2019
So this is a curious kind of prequel. I believe it should be read after A Room Made of Windows, even though it takes place before. It sets up what happens in the first book and gives us some good insight as to Julia's behavior.
The series is somewhat autobiographical, based on Cameron's own life in Berkeley, CA between 1918 and 1928, and I thought the period flavor was pretty good until I got to p.121, where Cameron completely flubs it:
"... standing near Victor, the big black-and-white papier-mache Victrola dog. He was put at the entrance every morning and brought in every evening and he had his head on one side as if listening sensitively to strains of music no one else could hear."
Firstly, the famous dog's name is Nipper. Secondly, he is associated not with a Victrola (where the horn is hidden in a cabinet) but in an open-horn gramophone (the original painting has a cylinder phonograph). Thirdly, he is not listening to music, but to the recorded voice of his master: His Master's Voice - HMV - the slogan of what was known at the time of the book as the Victor Talking Machine Company. This is one of the best-known trademarks ever, and I assumed that everyone - especially someone who grew up in that time - would have known the correct story.
Illustrations are more in line with the time period than those in the first book, although I'm still not thrilled with them. Something about the style is still too modern.
The series is somewhat autobiographical, based on Cameron's own life in Berkeley, CA between 1918 and 1928, and I thought the period flavor was pretty good until I got to p.121, where Cameron completely flubs it:
"... standing near Victor, the big black-and-white papier-mache Victrola dog. He was put at the entrance every morning and brought in every evening and he had his head on one side as if listening sensitively to strains of music no one else could hear."
Firstly, the famous dog's name is Nipper. Secondly, he is associated not with a Victrola (where the horn is hidden in a cabinet) but in an open-horn gramophone (the original painting has a cylinder phonograph). Thirdly, he is not listening to music, but to the recorded voice of his master: His Master's Voice - HMV - the slogan of what was known at the time of the book as the Victor Talking Machine Company. This is one of the best-known trademarks ever, and I assumed that everyone - especially someone who grew up in that time - would have known the correct story.
Illustrations are more in line with the time period than those in the first book, although I'm still not thrilled with them. Something about the style is still too modern.
June 14, 2021
This book is part of Eleanor Cameron’s “Julia Redfern” series, based on her own childhood in 1920s Berkeley, California. I remember enjoying some of the Julia books as a child but I’m not sure if I ever read this one until now.
In Julia and the Hand of God, Julia is 11 years old and struggling to understand the mysteries of life and death, as well as some of the tensions and dysfunctions among the adults in her family. Don’t let the title put you off or make you think this is some kind of moralizing Christian tract—as befits a book set in Berkeley, the themes are much more “spiritual, not religious.”
The story definitely draws on some tropes that are familiar from other books about sensitive young girls. Like Anne of Green Gables, Julia is passionate and imaginative and constantly getting into scrapes. I was also reminded of The Fountain Overflows : another semi-autobiographical novel about an artistic family living in genteel poverty, with hints that some of them may have the Second Sight.
This is kind of a loosely plotted character study, and as I said, I don’t know that it breaks new ground. But, as someone who was once a daydreaming young girl herself, I’m a sucker for characters like Julia; and as a Bay Area resident, I love the remembered details of early-1920s Berkeley and San Francisco. Sadly, like many Californians, I can now attest that Eleanor Cameron’s writing about wildfire season (“The sky was dull, the sun coppery, so that it shed an unearthly light, and it seemed very small as if it had retreated behind the pall of smoke”) is not just vivid, but accurate.
In Julia and the Hand of God, Julia is 11 years old and struggling to understand the mysteries of life and death, as well as some of the tensions and dysfunctions among the adults in her family. Don’t let the title put you off or make you think this is some kind of moralizing Christian tract—as befits a book set in Berkeley, the themes are much more “spiritual, not religious.”
The story definitely draws on some tropes that are familiar from other books about sensitive young girls. Like Anne of Green Gables, Julia is passionate and imaginative and constantly getting into scrapes. I was also reminded of The Fountain Overflows : another semi-autobiographical novel about an artistic family living in genteel poverty, with hints that some of them may have the Second Sight.
This is kind of a loosely plotted character study, and as I said, I don’t know that it breaks new ground. But, as someone who was once a daydreaming young girl herself, I’m a sucker for characters like Julia; and as a Bay Area resident, I love the remembered details of early-1920s Berkeley and San Francisco. Sadly, like many Californians, I can now attest that Eleanor Cameron’s writing about wildfire season (“The sky was dull, the sun coppery, so that it shed an unearthly light, and it seemed very small as if it had retreated behind the pall of smoke”) is not just vivid, but accurate.
August 28, 2019
Eleanor Cameron books tend to feel like old friends. The Julie Redfern books hold a special place in my biblioheart, as not only did I grow up in the Oakland-Berkeley Hills, I went through a huge wildfire in them as well. I met many interesting, complicated people over the years, and the way the author talks about Julia and where she is through various periods of her life feel very familiar.
If you like a bit of true history being woven through a story and some honest, incomplete character sketches as a main character goes through a story arc, this is a book for you!
I recent bought an autographed copy of this book, which makes me very happy.
If you like a bit of true history being woven through a story and some honest, incomplete character sketches as a main character goes through a story arc, this is a book for you!
I recent bought an autographed copy of this book, which makes me very happy.
February 5, 2022
Disappointing. A lot of the plot felt contrived (even a child wouldn’t voluntarily take a nap next to a forest fire). It seems like the author, after her successful first book about Julia, “A Room Made of Windows”, decided to go back and fill in at length anything that might have been mentioned in that book as past history. It wasn’t necessary, and the result isn’t terribly interesting to read. I’m not going to pass this book to my nephews who live in San Francisco because for the first part of the book Julia is obsessed with the 1906 earthquake there and its devastation, and whether it could happen again any moment, and I wouldn’t want them to get freaked out.
To read the Julia Redfern books chronologically, the order is:
Julia's Magic
That Julia Redfern
Julia and the Hand of G-d
A Room Made of Windows
The Private Worlds of Julia Redfern
To read the Julia Redfern books chronologically, the order is:
Julia's Magic
That Julia Redfern
Julia and the Hand of G-d
A Room Made of Windows
The Private Worlds of Julia Redfern
March 12, 2014
Three and a half stars, really, since the plot is a bit threadbare, but I do like Eleanor Cameron's writing style.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews