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June 2020 — Novels With a Summer Theme
I researched women homesteaders for a paper I wrote for a class on the History of the (American) Trans-Mississippi West. Letters of a Woman Homesteader Eleanor Pruitt Stewart is considered the definitive voice of female homesteaders because she wrote letters back east detailing her adventures. It's since come to light that she actually was married at the time and her husband and mother-in-law were homesteading too. The reality was that very few women actually homesteaded alone. They either kept their jobs as teachers and only went out to the claim in the summer or they had help from male relatives and very few if any actually "proved up" on their claims. I LOVED Hattie Big Sky so I need to read this Carol Ryrie Brink book. I was a huge fan of Caddie Woodlawn. I can't believe I never read this one before.
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And Seacrow Island is also in many ways a total celebration of the summer months (and when the family is away from the island during the fall and winter, this is simply very quickly passed over only to begin again with another, with a second season of summer vacation episodes and anecdotes). But while as a teenager, Ferien auf Saltkrokan (the German language translation of Vi på Saltkråkan, of Astrid Lindgren's the original Swedish text) was one of my absolute favourite summer time reading books, as an older adult and upon rereading, I frustratingly have found the widower father of the family (and actually ALL of the three boys as well) as far far too used to and far far to ready to give the entire domestic responsibility to the eldest daughter, to 19 year old Malin (and yes, especially Melchior, especially the father often acts totally childishly and with a huge lack of being able to taken even some parenting duties seriously).
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The series (in German translation) was one of my favourites when I was around eight years of age, and rereading is still a pleasure. But with the English language translations, I just cannot get over how much content seems to have been left out.
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I am not going to be listing ALL of the instances where content has been either removed or changed (but sadly it does seem that a lot of specifically Swedish cultural detail is missing), but I will concentrate on two scenarios that have indeed always totally bothered and frustrated me.
Now in the by Florence Lamborn translated Noisy Village books, it soon becomes apparent that the vast majority of the rather numerous scenes where the six children are playing "Indian" have been redacted and censored, understandable perhaps, but still in my opinion not a good move and not even an acceptable one either. For one, I just out of principle do NOT agree with this kind of actively overreaching editing (and consider it both insulting to the author and to potential readers). And for two, there are actually so very many scenes of the six children playing "Indian" in the Noisy Village books (and Lisa's one brother also keeps on insisting that he wants to travel to the USA and become an Indian chieftain once he grows up) that no, in my opinion, these episodes are actually an integral part of the entire series and really should have all been kept and of course also as necessary, discussed.
And furthermore, the removal by Florence Lamborn of that one episode (in I believe the second novel) where Lasse (or rather Karl in the Noisy Village translations) pretends to be a water sprite and more than likely because Karl is briefly shown in the nude (oh horror) is totally mind boggling to and for me. For really, this is in all ways just such a fun and in all ways also totally innocent scenario, but I guess American prudishness considers it offensive in some way (and come on, the boy is naked for something like one or two sentences at the most, and all that is being stated is that Karl sits on a rock in his proverbial birthday suit, playing a pipe, pretending to be a water sprite and that everyone ends up laughing at and appreciating Karl's little act).
I only remember Christmas in Noisy Village, a picture book. I would have liked reading more of the stories in a novel format.
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Very interesting. (I read that book a few years ago and really enjoyed it.)
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Even though I have personally not been all too thrilled with what Florence Lamborn has removed in her translations, the Noisy Village novels themselves are still wonderful and give a delightful sense of both time and place (and yes, also of the seasons) and I do think you would likely enjoy them and that you should also consider them for your nieces and nephews (the short episodes would likely work very well as a read aloud).
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Yes, do make yourself acquainted with them. My sons and I have enjoyed the ones we've been able to get our hands on (some are harder to track down via library than others, it seems, at least in our area).
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Yes..."
If you are talking about the Noisy Village books, I did read them but I could just not get over the amount of redacted details. The German translations have much more content and that means the translator obviously wielded a pretty strangely and weirdly heavy editing pen (and in fact, even in the German translation, there supposedly were some abridgements but nothing compared to Florence Lamborn’s translations and there really was no reason to get rid of so much).
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My mom liked Be Prepared because it was about a girl who didn't fit in. She sent it to my cousin's daughter last year. Mom didn't seem bothered by the Russian camp. She won't remember if I ask her and I don't think my nieces have read this one yet.
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Oh I enjoyed that part of Be Prepared as well, because I also was a girl who did not fit in. And I did not mind the Russian part of the camp but I do mind the flag waving and paying hommage to the Russian flag (but yes, I would have the same kinds of issues with ANY flag).
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Still finding Zachary not only annoying but also a bit typecast as a typical never do well. The Moon by Night is interesting but certainly not as readable as Meet the Austins. And while the story takes place in the summer, I also do not really think that there is a typical summer theme (even though I am liking the USA geography information presented).
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My review:
Hm. Well, first of all, it's dated, published in 1962 (the year of my birth). An ordinary single woman (Libby's aunt) has bought a home and land on Cape Cod and is doing much labor herself, but also hiring out. The phone she gets put in is a party line. The beach is empty. So... read it as historical fiction?
Libby's parents are not just 'overseas on business' but specifically in Iran managing oil extraction. On previous overseas trips, Libby has gone with them, but Mother has said that Iran isn't a good place for a girl.
She is 12, from NYC, and at first seems sheltered and incompetent. But as she points out to the neighbor boy, he'd be incompetent at life in the city. At least she does try to be optimistic and to look for the bright side of situations.
I like the details. On viewing the free ocean of the Cape (as compared to the crowded beaches for which you had to pay a fee in NYC), Libby is impressed by the "deep blue sea" and wonders if it's not deep, and blue, as she always assumed, but rather deep-blue, as in a rich color. I have always made the same assumption... and now I wonder....
Anyway, it's a lovely little book, a joy to read, and child me would have treasured it. Recommended to all interested in comfort reads about healthy children a half a century ago. openlibrary
If for no other reason, I'll be glad I read this short children's book because it introduced me to "olive and cream cheese sandwiches." I had a tapenade, cr. cheese, and bread in the kitchen so I immediately went and made a sandwich and it was wonderful!
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My review:
Hm. Well, first of all, it's dated, published in 1962 (the year of my birth). An ordinary single wom..."
I tried to sign out Look Alive, Libby! on Open Library, but it is one of those “must read in one hour” books. Can understand this for a picture book but not really for a novel of over 200 pages.
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Now with regard to the novel itself, the summer setting is interesting enough but it also feels not really like an active part of the Summer of Fear but more like it is just a narrational tool of setting a place and time but not having much to do with the story itself, except perhaps that because school is over for the year, the entire family is of course much more present at home and therefore also much more susceptible to the fake Julia's reign of terror.
Yes, I did mildly enjoy Lois Duncan's 1977 young adult horror novel Summer of Fear when I read it as a teenager in 1980, revisiting Summer of Fear as an older adult has not at all been even remotely either a pleasurable or a rewarding reading experience for me. For sorry, but Summer of Fear is really so blatantly predictable that you not only are more than aware without even the shadow of a doubt right from square one that ALL of Rachel Bryant's fears with regard to her orphaned cousin Julia are one hundred percent justified and true (that Juila is an imposter and later turns out to be an an actual and bona fide witch), but also that while I found Rachel a positive and generally likeable character when I read Sumer of Fear as a teenager, rereading the novel now rather shows her as in many ways a bratty and nastily opinionated individual.
And while of course it is fake cousin Julia/Sarah who turns out to be the witch-like main villain of Summer of Fear, personally, I have been almost feeling a wee bit sorry for her this time around, as not only does Rachel from the very beginning act extremely negatively towards her supposed cousin, the author's, Lois Duncan's attitude towards the inhabitants of the Ozark Mountains of Missouri has indeed also made me personally very much annoyed and uncomfortable (because truly and in my opinion, Duncan with her text, with her narrative and especially with the main villain of Summer of Fear, seems to continuously insinuate and claim that if the established, the original long-term inhabitants of the Ozark Mountains are not uncouth, uneducated, superstitious hillbilly types, they are cold and calculating witches like Julia/Sarah who will even resort to murder and mayhem in order to obtain and keep their desires). So therefore, even though I do have to admit that Summer of Fear is well enough written and as a teenager, certainly kept me up all night reading with suspense and appreciation (when I was not reading the book at school with my friends), I really can and will now only grant a one star ranking at best for Summer of Fear (and yes, Summer of Fear is thus also and sadly most definitely a novel that I actively regret having revisited, for what was mildly entertaining, suspenseful and readable in 1980 has now completely dissipated, and really, Lois Duncan's obvious authorial and personal disdain for the people of the Ozark Mountains of Missouri does majorly make me cringe and rub me the wrong proverbial way).
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If you look at my "reading dates" you will likely notice that it took me more than a month to finish with Gillian McDunn's Caterpillar Summer. And the reason why this has been the case is simply that I kind of majorly lost interest for a while because at least to and for me there are far too many obviously and standardly tried and true plot and theme coincidences and also just too many stereotypically rendered characters present in Caterpillar Summer to make McDunn's novel all that personally enjoyable and interesting as a reading experience.
For while yes, I have indeed much loved the family home by the beach environment and the evocatively descriptive manner in which the author presents and depicts especially Gingerbread Island and the Atlantic Ocean and how Chicken's special needs and issues are fortunately and usually not what ONLY defines him and his personality (and that I do find both Caterpillar and Chicken as well as Lilly and Macon wonderful and for the most part richly nuanced as characters, not to mention that the fact that Caterpillar and Chicken are biracial is generally just portrayed as natural, as a given and no big deal) unfortunately, many of the characters who inhabit the pages of Caterpillar Summer (such as Caterpillar's friend Harriet and certainly main bully John Harvey Dawson and yes indeed, even Caterpillar's and Chicken's mother) are much too one-sidedly stereotypical either good or loathsome, with especially the mother and her almost complete focus on her work and her often seemingly just ignoring not only Chicken's special needs but also that her daughter Caterpillar should not just be present in the family as a baby-sitter and caregiver for her little brother really totally bothering me (in particular since I also find the mother's behaviour often considerably less mature than that of her daughter, than Caterpillar, that I find the mother overly selfish, entitled and furthermore also not nearly enough criticised by author Gillian McDunn).
Combined with the fact that both the long standing conflicts between the mother and her parents (Lily and of course in particular Macon) and the entire scenario of Chicken being thought to be lost in the storm (even though he actually was not even lost in the first place) are standard and repetitive literary tropes which I have read in far far too many Middle Grade children's novels and actually in literature in general, while I have certainly found Caterpillar Summer not a terrible or in any manner an unacceptable, unreadable novel, I also have not managed to be either all that enchanted or really much personally and emotionally moved by and involved in especially its themes and contents (and certainly just enough to consider but two stars for Caterpillar Summer and to yes having been more than a bit personally disappointed), with the added (and necessary) caveat that for readers who are vegetarian or vegan, the fishing contest and hat it is such a large and much important part of Caterpillar Summer might well and also be something anathema and not all that pleasant to read about.
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Also, I imagine it's possible one could sit down with a book, read for up to an hour, and then check it out again next time one is ready to sit down. Or even just renew immediately if one is almost done.
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I am going to try again in a few days and see if things have changed. I might just keep on checking it out as it becomes due.
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Hachette Book Group, Inc., Harpercollins Publishers LLC, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and Penguin Random House LLC are bringing the suit.
There's a whole thing about HathiTrust that I don't understand. https://www.hathitrust.org/ETAS-Descr...
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I will check.
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So yes, a major and important (not to mention necessary) part of what has (always) made Paula Danziger's The Cat Ate my Gymsuit so engagingly relatable and delightfully readable (on a personal and emotional level) is first person narrator and main protagonist Marcy Lewis and how she really does not fit in either at home or even all that much at school, how she (and thankfully rather successfully) must battle against her body fat issues and in particular her often horribly verbally abusive father at home and many of her blinkered and woefully one-sided robot like teachers at school (except of course for kindred spirit Miss Finney, the new English teacher, who is rocking the proverbial boat and telling her students to think and not just to follow).
However with the sequel, with There's a Bat in Bunk Five, instead of Paula Danziger having penned an engaging and realistic feeling continuation for The Cat Ate my Gymsuit, There's a Bat in Bunk Five is really and for all intents and purposes (and of course in my humble opinion) just another standardly typical and as such also pretty majorly unimaginative summer camp story, with the obligatory problem camper who ends up running away (Ginger Simon) and Marcy as one of the teenaged counsellors of course falling in love (and really for the first time) with fellow counsellor Ted, both story thread types which I for one really did not wish to encounter so strongly and so obviously overtly. For yes indeed, I have certainly read far too many similar summer camp stories over the years (and was therefore and actually hoping for more than just reading in There's a Bat in Bunk Five about campers ganging up on unpopular participants, boy/girl dynamics, counsellors dealing with bats, rodents and poison ivy, especially since the camp where Marcy is working for the summer is supposed to be an arts camp and so I had originally thought and hoped that perhaps there would be actual details on music, art and the like being prominently featured, but no, the latter in fact and actually appears more like a decorative trim than a main thematics in There's a Bat in Bunk Five).
And certainly, with the Marcy Lewis of There's a Bat in Bunk Five having morphed into a much more standard and universally popular type of teenaged character than what she (and oh so wonderfully) was in The Cat Ate my Gymsuit, with her almost magically having totally slimmed down and because she is at summer camp also of course not having to deal with her dysfunctional family dynamics, there is and there has been (at least according to my feelings and my personal reading philosophy) nothing really all that special and all that engaging in There's a Bat in Bunk Five, a decent enough traditional summer camp story to be sure, but in my opinion not really a worthy sequel to The Cat Ate my Gymsuit and absolutely not containing either the reading magic or the personal relatability of the latter.
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There's a Bat in Bunk Five is not terrible but the first book, The Cat Ate My Gymsuit was just so much better. I wonder if the fact that it was written in 1980 and thus six years after the first book might have anything to do with this because even though There's a Bat in Bunk Five is supposed to be happening almost immediately after The Cat Ate My Gymsuit with regard to Marcy’s life and school, Marcy and actually everyone seems to feel much more real-time 1980s than 1970s in the sequel.
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I vaguely remember the first time I read Madeleine L'Engle's The Moon by Night in 1979 that while I really enjoyed reading about the Austins' across much of the continental USA (and a tiny bit of Western Canada) summer camping road-trip, I also rather continuously felt as though I was missing quite a lot of important and seemingly necessary prior Austin Family knowledge and details (but indeed, I also did not at all realise that The Moon by Night was in fact not a stand-alone novel until I read and totally loved the first book of the series, until I had the chance to read Meet the Austins in 2016).
So this time reading The Moon by Night, I actually and once again (and just like in 1979) have gleaned most of my reading pleasure and joy from Madeleine L'Engle's (through first person narrator Vicky Austin's) depictions and descriptions of the family's camping trip (both driving to the specific and chosen camp-sites and then what happens after the Austins have set up their tents), a bit like a presented USA geography lesson (as well as the discussed differences between Canada and the United States while the Austins are camping in Alberta), but without the usual tedium and general dryness of in-class teaching and learning (except that during the course of The Moon by Night oldest brother John Austin does tend to often feel more than a bit preachy and full of himself and his supposed font of knowledge, sometimes even to the point of him appearing annoyingly like the typical and frustrating Smart Alec type, always pontificating, always or at least far too often willfully bragging and showing off to both his parents and in particular to his younger sisters Vicky and Suzy, as well as also the youngest Rob but not as much as his sisters).
And yes, even though in The Moon by Night Vicky Austin's constant with heavy teenaged angst imbued musings and worries do start to wear a bit thin and to become something I really would rather wish to avoid (or to at least just skim over whilst reading), and that I personally do tend to find especially potential love interest Zachary majorly problematic and later on during the trip new possible love interest Andy as just a bit too good and too perfect to be true, it is in fact John's constant put-downs of Zachary and his relentless condescension of and generally pretty intense nastiness towards Vicky and lack sympathy for his sister that I have definitely found the most personally annoying and infuriating part of The Moon by Night (and actually considerably more so than Zachary's behaviour and antics, even though I do full well know and realize he is indeed pretty bad news and not AT ALL someone positive).
Therefore, albeit that I have definitely found The Moon by Night a generally very much enjoyable reading experience (and one that I certainly feel is full full full of interesting bits and pieces of geography, of cultural and political considerations, and indeed also because many of them are so delightfully and datedly 1960s), that Madeleine L'Engle focusses (in my opinion) bit too much and too intensely on Vicky Austin's growing pains and onset of puberty issues and that brother John Austin is too often simply arrogant and full of himself and always seemingly on Vicky's case so to speak (especially with regard to romance and her acquaintance with Zachary), yes, this has certainly made The Moon by Night at times a bit tedious and frustrating to read and as such not yet a four star but only a high three star rating for The Moon by Night.
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I have not gotten all that far but I do not think the mother is all that lax, it just feels as though the final decision must rest with the father simply because he is the head of the household, kind of annoying even if it might not be surprising for time and place.
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OMG so excited I could get this from ILL today! :-) I also got Secret Sisters of the Salty Sea but I'm going to start with The Magic Summer since I've been trying to get it for years and there's no renewal for ILL.
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I am looking forward to reading your review and to see if The Magic Summer will be a novel to try to find a copy of. And I really do think you will enjoy Secret Sisters of the Salty Sea.
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Thank you. I'm looking forward to both and will be sure to post my reviews here :-)
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I am really looking forward to how you have enjoyed the Streatfeild novel, for I am kind of tempted to consider it.
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Worth checking out?
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I think I will try it.
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I just started it today and... I'm not sure yet. It kind of gave me a little shock because the children's father (I believe he's an epidemiologist) goes off to the "Far East" to study "a microbe, which is a killer when it gets going" then he falls ill. Yikes! So ironic reading it right now since it's been on my to-read list for years and was written in 1967.
Cheryl, you're probably ahead of me... does it focus too much on the epidemic/illness or does it move on once the children are staying with their aunt? I was kind of thinking this would be a fun, cozy sort of read based on the brief description here on GR but I had no idea about the father or epidemic. Thanks!
I think I might try Secret Sisters of the Salty Sea over the weekend and see if that captures my fancy more quickly.
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I think you'll both like it, but it is not quite what I expected, either.
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I will still consider the book, but not a priority at present.
Also finally pushed through with Swallows and Amazons, but have found much of the minute sailing descriptions a bit tedious and found the repeated use of the word “savages” of its time but still problematic.
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I am definitely going to try the Streatfeild book.
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Many readers do seem to have both very much enjoyed Arthur Ransome's 1930 Swallows and Amazons and also tend to possess nostalgic remembrances of the novel from their own childhoods. But for me, yes indeed and also most frustratingly and annoyingly, my first personal encounter with Swallows and Amazons as an older reader (in my fifties) has not at all been the pleasure for which I had been hoping but rather a totally and utterly forgettable, annoyingly tedious long and massively yawn-inducing reading slog.
Now I am actually NOT someone who has general and usual reading issues and reservations with textual descriptions (and even with a given novel containing many such illustrative representations and in fact also minutely detailed ones). However and yes indeed, what is being described to and for me as a reader must also and equally be rendered, must be penned engagingly and also (usually) without the over-use of topic or theme specific jargon. And no, the almost endless seeming sailing and boating vocabulary found rather en masse in Swallows and Amazons (and right from the beginning of Arthur Ransome's featured narrative) has indeed been bothering and frustrating me so very much that in order to actually be able and willing to complete Swallows and Amazons and not to be tempted to abandon it as yet another did not finish book, I indeed needed to constantly be skimming as my massive irritation with this sailing jargon and also the rather incessant repetition of it really did increase exponentially the more I was reading.
Furthermore but importantly, for a novel that is supposed to be depicting and showing imaginative adventure, discovery and two groups of children joyfully playing at being pirates at sea, for the first two-hundred pages or so of Swallows and Amazons (at least in my humble opinion), surprisingly very little bona fide action and adventure actually even takes place (and also, that in Swallows and Amazons in particular the characters of both Susan and Rob Walker are overly stereotyped has really and truly been and continues to be a major bone of contention for me, with Susan appearing as primarily and simply a typical "mother" figure whose only real and important role seems to be managing the cooking, taking care of the Walkers' home away from home and Rob being shown by Arthur Ransome as someone with really no defining character traits at all except that he is still really quite young and prior to the arrival of Victoria the baby of the Walker family).
Combined with the fact that I have also felt majorly uncomfortable with how throughout Swallows and Amazons both the Walker and the Blackett siblings are so often playing at, pretending to be encountering and sometimes even fighting with so-called natives and savages (a sign of the times perhaps, but it still does make me rather cringe to hear John Walker kind of even if just in jest be denigrating the Dixons as native savages, as there is in my opinion also a sense of British upper middle class disdain for farmers, for the peasantry present in and with this attitude), I really did not end up at all finding Swallows and Amazons either fun to read or all that engaging, and as such only a one star reading experience for me (albeit that I am still glad to finally have read Swallows and Amazons and to be able to now point out and make the claim that no, Swallows and Amazons definitely has not been a novel to and for my reading tastes).
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Fortunately her stepsisters are not evil, and in fact know that their dad is kinda a jerk, and know how to deal with him. I couldn't. If I were Jen's mom, I wouldn't... nobody is allowed to talk to my kids that way. But then, Mom's blinded by the dirt on her hands & by her relief to be out of the city. And, I suppose, by Walter's ability to give her security and freedom to become a farmer, an enterprise very likely to fail without enough resources to invest.
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I'm assuming you would not like Moby-Dick or, the Whale either :)
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I would say that most were likely upset and especially so, if they had originally been told to come and set up homesteads, to maybe even have been actively encouraged to do so only to then be told to leave and likely with no or at best inadequate compensation.
I do wonder about the hospitality issue, and how universal it was. It is interesting from a language history point of view, that the word for guest is also related syntactically and morphologically to the word hostile, meaning of course that a guest you take into your home can also turn out to be an enemy.