Review of Watership Down, by Richard Adams, read by Peter Capaldi

Watership Down

by Richard Adams
read by Peter Capaldi

Blackstone Publishing, 2019. Novel first published in 1972. 17 hours, 31 minutes.
Review written May 3, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Earlier review written in 2001.
Starred Review
2002 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #2 Fiction Rereads

Ah, it was so good to revisit Watership Down! This wasn’t the one book I chose to reread from my 2002 Stand-outs as part of my #Sonderbooks25 celebration of my 25th year of writing Sonderbooks – but that motivated me to notice that my public library had an available copy of an eaudiobook – and then I couldn’t keep myself from again enjoying the epic adventures of Hazel and Fiver and Bigwig and all the rest.

It’s funny – I’ve always thought of it as an adult novel. The library has it in the adult section. But my ex-husband did read it to our kids when they were young, and Overdrive has the audiobook listed as Juvenile. I’m going to fall back on the fact that it’s truly for all ages. There is plenty of life-and-death violence, and the reading level is adult, but I think that for listening to the story, this is a perfect family adventure.

So if you’ve never read Watership Down – it’s an epic adventure of a band of rabbits. Hazel’s runt brother Fiver has a vision of death and destruction, so they leave the old warren with a few others and set off across the dangerous countryside to a sunny place on a hillside. Along the way, they meet dangers from predators, but also from other rabbits, encountering two troublesome rabbit societies. And once they arrive, they have the problem that they need some female rabbits, or the new warren can’t survive.

And especially wonderful about this book are the tales told about El-ahrairah, the mythical rabbit hero and trickster. His exploits inspire their own adventures in life-or-death situations.

And, yes, this book about rabbits is full of tension and heroism, and you come to love the very rabbity characters. They feel like real rabbits with authentic rabbit interests.

And I was so happy to revisit this tale! It was fun to hear it told with a British accent. Yes, there’s some sexism, but since it’s about rabbit does, it feels like something I can overlook. Other than that, it completely stands up to the passage of time and I was simply happy to spend time with Hazel and company again. I decided to write a new review so I’ll have one in the new phone-friendly format. This is a book I will recommend all my life long.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/watership_down.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Sonderbooks25: Looking Back at Caravan, by Dorothy Gilman

Caravan

by Dorothy Gilman

Doubleday, 1992. 263 pages.
New Review written March 31, 2025, from my own copy.
Original review written January 19, 2002.

Oh dear. I am now embarrassed that Caravan, by Dorothy Gilman, has long been one of my all-time favorite books. It’s not that it didn’t hold up; it’s that my eyes have been opened to cultural stereotypes. And I’m a little bummed! Shout out, though, to Pam Margolis and the Cultural Competency Training that everyone involved with the Cybils Awards takes.
They opened my eyes.

Here’s the background. I’m running a series of posts I’m calling Sonderbooks25, celebrating my 25th year of posting Sonderbooks. As part of the celebration, I’m choosing one book from each year’s Sonderbooks Stand-outs to reread. In the case of my 2001 choice, The Sand-Reckoner, by Gillian Bradshaw, I wrote a new review and posted it in the newer format. (The first five years of Sonderbooks were posted in a different format and you won’t find them listed in the current indexes.)

I’m afraid I’m not going to do that for Caravan, because although I still love the book, and, wow, it stirs up all kinds of memories from who I was when I read it (I’d read it more than once before reviewing it in 2002.), I’m afraid with opened eyes, I’m not going to recommend it so heartily. So I will add this explanation to the top of the old review and leave it there for those who dig deeply into my website. And on this blog post.

The book is the story of Caressa Horvath, who’s sixteen years old when the story opens in 1911. No, let me revise that – the Caressa telling the story is old, at the end of her life, and revealing secrets especially for her granddaughter, but the tale she tells begins when she was sixteen.

Caressa grew up in a carnival, but her mother wanted her to be a lady, so she saved money and sent her to a school for young ladies in New England. But while she was a student, she picked the pocket of a rich gentleman who was well-traveled – and he caught her. He kept quiet about it, but took her under his wing and eventually married her, despite being twenty years older – to “protect” her. And he took her with him on an expedition to Africa, beginning in Tripoli.

After some time in Tripoli, where her husband made arrangements for their caravan and Caressa befriended her Muslim guide, who showed her around the city, they set off across the desert. They’ve paid off the Tuareg to cross. But before long, they’re confronted by a different group of Tuareg, and Caressa’s husband gets very indignant when they want payment – and the entire caravan ends up getting slaughtered – except for Caressa, who had been playing with her finger puppets to calm herself (one of which is named “Mr. Jappy”) – and they think she is doing magic, so they spare her life and take her with them.

So that’s where the cultural sensitivity becomes questionable. Caressa is much, much more culturally sensitive than her husband, seeing everyone she encounters as actual people. She goes on to live in the desert, among different desert peoples, facing different dangers, for three years. For most of that time, she has a friend and companion in a boy named Bakuli who learned basic English from Christian missionaries and calls himself a Jesus-boy. He was a slave of the Tuareg, but he is the one who warned Caressa that when one of the villagers is on their deathbed, that will be enough to convince them that her magic – which saved her from slaughter – is actually bad and she should be killed.

So Caressa and Bakuli escape together and have more adventures, with time living among different desert people. Later, they’re in a caravan again, and Caressa witnesses a man getting assassinated. She’s afraid the assassin will kill her, but instead when she’s sick from lack of water and the long road – he sells her into slavery. She convinces Bakuli to escape while she is still too sick to leave, and now she’s ready for a major part of the story.

All of that is far, far more riveting than it sounds in my brief summary. And the author makes individuals with names and personalities out of the people Caressa encounters and lives with. However, there are strong shades of the “Magical Negro” trope in the many spiritual encounters Caressa has along the way, finding there’s something behind the villagers’ beliefs. They are also portrayed as superstitious and sensitive to spirits – but Caressa senses the spirits, too, so maybe it’s not superstition? And the slaughtering, enslaving, and assassinating give the feeling that the “savages” stereotype isn’t too far under the surface.

Okay, but that’s a little vague and general. I don’t know what life was actually like at that time in Africa, and at least the author did enough research to know about the different people groups and languages and where they lived, and Caressa sees and names individual people.

But then came the part that made me blanch after “Me Too”:

Caressa had been enslaved, and they were taking her to a harem in Constantinople, when a stranger buys her. And the first thing he does is order her to take off her clothes (in Hausa), and he rapes her.

But Caressa’s mind is blown by the sex. “I was played on like an instrument, reaching sensations never dreamed of.”

Really? She’s just been sold as a slave, raped by the guy who bought her, she’s scared and alone, and you want me to believe that he’s so good at it that she enjoyed it?

When she says “Good heavens” after sex, he discovers that she speaks English and is shocked – her skin was dark by all the time in the sun. He is a Scotsman – who has the Sight, which is what led him to Caressa, though we don’t find that out right away.

She does confront him when he exclaims over her speaking English and asks who she is:

What does it matter to you who I am? You bought me for four gold pieces and now you’ve raped me and you’d have done it whether I was Tuareg, Hausa, Fulani or Arab, so why should it make any difference who I am, and I hope you speak enough English to understand that I think you a vulture – an ungulu – a monster and a bastard.

His answer comes in a hard even voice:

I speak and understand English and I paid four gold pieces for you for reasons I don’t care to mention just now, and I took you fast to put my brand on you because if you were a Tuargia you’d think ill of me if I didn’t, and be out of here by morning.

So, hold on, he’s saying that if she were Black it would have been okay???!

The next day, although she “could not help but dislike the manner of his ‘taking’ me,” she realizes that as a slave, she could have had it happen with a Targui or by the Turkish sultan. (Again, it’s okay, because he’s white???) And then she starts remembering those new sensations she’d experienced – and they have sex again, and from then on, he’s basically her one true love.

And now I am embarrassed how much I’ve loved this book.

Mind you, the twist in the ending is fantastic, and that’s what I’m left thinking about. I am a romantic at heart, so I did love their undying love once it got started – pulled together by the Sight! By Destiny! (Not simply the Magical Negro stereotype, but also the Magical Scotsman.) Caressa’s not in a traditional marriage, and it felt subversive to me as a young married evangelical to love this book anyway. But reading it this time, the manner of their meeting takes my concerns about cultural insensitivity and multiplies them.

And I still enjoyed rereading this book! But when I finished it, I had a bout of insomnia because I kept thinking about young newlywed Sondy who first read it and how that worked out (or rather, didn’t).

So – I still love the book, but that love is dampened in my skeptical old age, and I no longer feel I can wholeheartedly recommend it. But reading it was still a trip down memory lane and I’m excited about the rest of the revisiting I’m going to do for Sonderbooks25.

Review of The Sand-Reckoner, by Gillian Bradshaw

The Sand-Reckoner

by Gillian Bradshaw

Forge (Tom Doherty Associates), 2000. 351 pages.
This review written March 13, 2025, from my own copy.
Original review written August 2001.
Starred Review
2001 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #1 Fiction

I’m revisiting this wonderful book – one of my all-time favorites – as part of #Sonderbooks25, my celebration of my 25th year of writing Sonderbooks. I’m rereading at least one book from each year’s Sonderbooks Stand-outs. And while I will probably not write a new review for all of them, the first five years of reviews were posted in a different format that isn’t phone-friendly, so I want to bring this book to the main site. Does this qualify as an “Old Favorite“? The first time I read it, the book was new! But I’m thinking that enough time has gone by, and it will always be one of my lifetime favorite books, so I’m going to add it to the Old Favorites page, too.

The Sand-Reckoner was reviewed in my very first issue of Sonderbooks (back when it was an email newsletter posted in issues), and the first time I read it was while I was on vacation in Ireland. Despite not being in an idyllic location this time around, I still found the book utterly delightful.

It’s all about the character of Archimedes. He’s portrayed as a genius who gets so wrapped up in his work, he forgets about anything else – which totally fits the historical anecdotes about him. This book shows Archimedes as a young man, returning from the intellectual company of the Museum of Alexandria back to his home in Syracuse, because his father is very ill, and Syracuse is now at war with Rome.

Because of Archimedes’ geometrical genius, he’s better than anyone at building machines – including machines of war, and as he arrives, his first task is to convince the leaders of Syracuse that he can build bigger and better catapults for them. After that, the tyrant of Syracuse (He’s a good guy, but that’s what the leader was called.) must figure out how to entice Archimedes to stay, instead of going back to Alexandria, where more understood his philosophical discussions.

There’s a major subplot about Archimedes’ Roman slave and a romantic subplot as well, and the whole book immerses you in the world of ancient Syracuse with a lovable naive genius.

And, yes, this is one of my all-time favorite books. I’m a math person myself, though never as genius as Archimedes, nor so single-minded. But I do have a big soft spot for sweet nerdy engineers like him.

tor.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/sand_reckoner.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of The Golden Road, by L. M. Montgomery

The Golden Road

by L. M. Montgomery

Bantam Books, 1989. First published in 1913. 213 pages.
Starred Review
Review written July 17, 2019, from my own copy

The Golden Road is a continuation of The Story Girl, so they should be read in order. It’s more antics and adventures of several children living in a village on Prince Edward Island more than one hundred years ago. Put that way, it’s maybe surprising how enjoyable the stories still are today.

The tone is nostalgic. Beverley King is an old man telling about a beautiful season of his childhood, when they were on “the Golden Road.” Like the first book, it’s an episodic tale, though this one doesn’t have quite as many stories told by the Story Girl. But we get more encounters with the local “witch,” Peg Bowen, and Felicity finally makes a mistake in cooking, and we find out about the mystery of the Awkward Man.

Summarized, there’s not a lot that stands out, but this is one of those books with characters who are delightful to spend time with. And the setting of Prince Edward Island pervades the book, making me all the more eager to see it for myself later this year.

This is a book that had me reading with a smile on my face.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/golden_road.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Chronicles of Avonlea, by L. M. Montgomery

Chronicles of Avonlea

by L. M. Montgomery

Grosset & Dunlap, 1970. Originally published in 1912. 306 pages.
Starred Review
Review written July 6, 2019, from my own copy

In preparation for a trip to Prince Edward Island in September, I’m rereading all my L. M. Montgomery books in the order they were published. Chronicles of Avonlea is number five in this endeavor.

Maud Montgomery honed her craft by writing stories and getting them published in magazines. She did this for years before her first novel was published. This collection of stories gives wonderful examples of her brilliance. The only I quibble I have with them is that she was being pressured to write more about Anne of Green Gables – and mention of Anne Shirley is shoehorned into almost every single one of these stories. The only one where it’s organic and Anne is an important part of the plot is the first one, “The Hurrying of Ludovic.”

The most brilliant story of all in this collection is probably my favorite short story ever. I’ve done readings of this story when I was in college to entertain my friends and, yes, when I came to this story this time through, I was compelled to read the whole thing out loud.

That Most Delightful Story Ever is “The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham’s,” the story of a woman who hates men and her cat trapped in the home of a man who hates women and his dog. The woman, who is the narrator, does come off best – and both change their attitudes by the end. The process is all the fun and reading it in the narrator’s voice saying, “I am noted for that” makes it utterly delightful.

Honestly, in this read-through, I’m constantly being shocked when I realize these older characters are now younger than me! Angelina Peter MacPherson is forty-eight years old in this story. In fact, many of the main characters in these stories are deep into adulthood. I’m going to file this book in with Teen Fiction, but really these are family stories. It’s all innocent and G-rated, about life and love, but there’s a lot of focus on older folks coming to understand whom they truly love, whether in romance or the love of a child.

This is a delightful collection, written by a master storyteller at the height of her powers.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/chronicles_of_avonlea.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of The Story Girl, by L. M. Montgomery

The Story Girl

by L. M. Montgomery

Bantam Books, 1987. First published in 1910. 258 pages.
Starred Review
Review written July 5, 2019, from my own copy

It’s really happening! My two childhood friends and I are going to Prince Edward Island this coming September, during the week when all three of us are 55 years old. We first conceived this trip when we were 50, but decided to put it off – and now our rooms are booked!

And this time I’m getting serious about rereading my L. M. Montgomery books. This time, I decided to reread them in the order they were published. I have already reread Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and Kilmeny of the Orchard. Now it was time for The Story Girl.

The Story Girl is about the children of the village of Carlisle on Prince Edward Island. It’s told from the perspective of Beverley King, looking back as an old man on the joys they had as children.

[Incidentally, I have learned from L. M. Montgomery’s books that if a man’s name ends in Y, women will eventually steal it. All of these names appear in her books as names for boys: Beverley, Shirley, Lindsay, and Hillary.]

When I was a young adult reading L. M. Montgomery’s books, I preferred the ones that had romance. But now as I myself am “old” (by her standards – I’ve been shocked that “old” characters in her books are only in their forties!) – I’m reading these books with my own nostalgia.

The Story Girl was one of L. M. Montgomery’s own favorites. I think she liked to think of herself as a sort of Sara Stanley, who was called by everyone “the Story Girl.”

Maud Montgomery did her apprenticeship writing short stories and selling them to magazines. I think as a consequence, short stories are her natural form. And she does a nice job of weaving them through this book, with the Story Girl telling them family stories about objects in their home or stories about people from their village or fairy tales about something that happened.

There’s a lot that’s old-fashioned in this book. Sara and her cousin Felicity are fourteen and twelve years old, but they seem younger by today’s standards. And they have different abilities from children today, with Felicity completely able to run the house while the grown-ups are away for a week, including having baked all afternoon so their pantry is “well stocked with biscuits, cookies, cakes, and pies,” so that she is able to entertain an influx of visitors, as is proper.

Cecily set the table, and the Story Girl waited on it and washed all the dishes afterwards. But all the blushing honours fell to Felicity, who received so many compliments that her airs were quite unbearable for the rest of the week. She presided at the head of the table with as much grace and dignity as if she had been five times twelve years old and seemed to know by instinct just who took sugar and who did not. She was flushed with excitement and pleasure, and was so pretty that I could hardly eat for looking at her – which is the highest compliment in a boy’s power to pay.

I was amused how often the episodes between the children had to do with church and the Bible. When the paper reports that someone in the States has said the day and time for Judgment Day, they all get into a tizzy. Another time, they have a preaching contest (boys only, of course) with very amusing results. And there’s an incident with a picture of God and the question of praying for their cat to get well. Did prayer end up healing him – or was it their request to the local woman they all think is a witch?

All in all, it was delightful to be transported back into L. M. Montgomery’s world. This one doesn’t have romance, but it does have two other things L. M. Montgomery did exceptionally well: short stories plus the escapades of children.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/story_girl.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of The Poppy Seed Cakes, by Margery Clark

The Poppy Seed Cakes

by Margery Clark

with illustrations by Maud and Miska Petersham

Everyman’s Library Children’s Classics, 2013. First published 1924. 157 pages.
Starred Review

Last year I wrote Project 52 – each week reflecting on one year of my life. Which brought back memories. And one of the memories was about which chapter books I read when I was still small, before we moved away from Seattle.

One of those first chapter books was The Poppy Seed Cakes.

I hadn’t read The Poppy Seed Cakes in years. But remembering it made me want to get a copy and hold it in my hands and read it over again. So I looked on Amazon and was delighted to find an Everyman’s Classics edition.

Once the book arrived, I read it immediately. All the pictures and page decorations are there! And I remember every single one and greet them all as old friends. There are many full-page illustrations, alternating between color and black and white. But there are also decorative patterns on each page, with each chapter having its own theme, and the pattern enclosing the text. For example, the chapter “The White Goat,” has a stylized picture of a goat parading across the top of the page. “Erminka and the Crate of Chickens” has chickens across the top, and “The Picnic Basket” has a goose reaching for a picnic basket.

The only thing wrong with this book is its bright yellow cover. I’m pretty sure my grandma’s copy was red. And that’s another thing. I’m not so sure any more that I did read this book from the library in Seattle. But I specifically remember reading it at my grandma’s house in Salem, Oregon – and I think maybe my great-grandmother had a copy as well. (However, that means my mother had read it as a child, so there’s a very good chance she did check it out for me from the library. Which would explain my memory of it as one of the first chapter books I got from the library.)

I am very sad I didn’t think of ordering this book when my own children were small, because I find it’s a book that begs to be read aloud. In fact, I’ll admit that I read some of it aloud even when sitting in my own home all alone. The phrase “Andrewshek’s Auntie Katushka,” which appears over and over just doesn’t want to remain silent in your head.

The stories are old-fashioned and quaint – but do stand the test of time. And the language! First we have stories about Andrewshek and Andrewshek’s Auntie Katushka. Andrewshek’s Auntie Katushka asks him to do something while she is gone – and Andrewshek consistently chooses to do something else – with varying results. Though they usually manage to deal with said results.

Then we have stories about Erminka and her red topped boots. They are her brother’s, and they are too big, so wearing them gets Erminka in trouble more than once.

At the end of the book, the stories come together when Erminka comes for a tea-party at Andrewshek’s house. With poppy seed cakes.

All the animals can talk in this book. Each story is child-sized and matter of fact, and the animals are child-like in their responses. Here’s how the last story ends:

Andrewshek’s Auntie Katushka spread a clean white table cloth on the table under the apple tree in the garden. She brought out two plates of poppy seed cakes and five cups and saucers and five spoons and five napkins. Then she went back into the house to get some strawberry jam.

The white goat and the kitten and the dog and the two chickens came and sat down on the bench beside the table under the apple tree in the garden. They sat very quiet with their hands folded.

“If we behave nicely,” said the white goat, “perhaps Andrewshek’s Auntie Katushka will let us join the tea-party.”

Andrewshek’s Auntie Katushka came out on the porch with a bowl of strawberry jam in her hand. She saw the white goat and the kitten and the dog and the two chickens sitting quiet on the bench, with their hands folded.

“Well! Well!” said Auntie Katushka. “Some more friends have come to our tea-party. I hope they will like poppy seed cakes and strawberry jam, too.”

And they did.

Simple stories and simple concerns, with a happy ending. Though a modern child probably won’t hang out with geese and goats and chickens like Andrewshek and Erminka, they will understand how easy it is to be distracted, the lure of new boots, and the delight of eating poppy seed cakes.

randomhouse.com/everymans

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/poppy_seed_cakes.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of The Boy Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed, by Helen Cooper

boy_who_wouldnt_go_to_bed_largeThe Boy Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed

by Helen Cooper

Dial Books for Young Readers, New York, 1997. First published in Great Britain in 1996.
Starred Review

I’m posting a review of this Old Favorite in response to Travis Jonker’s critique on his 100 Scope Notes blog of the current best-selling children’s book, The Rabbit who wants to fall asleep.

You see, I believe that if you want mesmerizing and hypnotic in a children’s bedtime book, you actually don’t have to sacrifice lovely pictures and beautiful, lilting language.

When my son was a toddler, my then-husband brought this book home after one of his trips to England. It was the British version, so the title was The Baby Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed, but all else was the same.

My son couldn’t keep his eyes open when we read this book to him. Before long, he wouldn’t let us read it at bedtime, because he knew full well it would make him fall asleep.

The book starts with the boys mother telling him it’s bedtime. But it’s still light, because it’s summer, and the boy doesn’t want to go to bed.

But the boy revved up his car…
vrrrooom-chugga-chug…
then drove away
as fast as he could,
and the mother couldn’t catch him.

The boy drives into a lavish dreamscape in his little red car, with a determined look on his face.

The boy meets many creatures and things on his journey and asks them to play, but everyone is much, much too tired.

The language is rhythmic and mesmerizing — but definitely not in a boring or didactic way.

He hadn’t driven very far at all
before he met a tiger.
“Let’s play at roaring,”
said the boy.

But the tiger was too tired.
Nighttime is for snoring,
not roaring,”
yawned the tiger.
“Come back in the morning.
I’ll play with you then.”

The pictures have the soft golden light of a long summer sunset.

He sees soldiers too tired to parade any longer. I like the train (with the dreamscape quickly getting darker), and all the toys in the train cars have their eyes closed:

He stopped for a moment
as a train rolled by.
“Race you to the station,” called the boy.

But the train was too tired.
“Nighttime is for resting, not racing,” said the train.
“I’m going home to my depot, and so should you.”

Of course, parents do not need instructions to read all this in a sleepy, tired, drowsy, weary voice.

When he meets musicians, they’re too drowsy to play music for dancing. They suggest that the boy give them a ride home, and they’ll play a lullaby instead.

The musicians played
such a sweet tune
that the sun was lulled
to sleep and the
moon came out.

The boy’s car went slower …
and slower …
and slower …

and soon the musicians were sound asleep.

Then the boy’s car stopped….
It had fallen asleep too.

The boy tries to get help from the moon hanging in the sky, but even the moon is too tired!

“It’s bedtime,”
sighed the moon drowsily.
And even the moon closed her eyes and dozed off.

Soon, the boy is the only one awake, and all the world around him is sleeping.

But there was someone else who was not asleep.
Someone who was looking for the boy …

Someone who was ever so sleepy,
but couldn’t go to bed until the boy did.

It was the mother.
And the boy hugged her.

The picture of the mother holding the boy here is suitable for framing.

The mother trundles and bundles the boy back to bed. With a big yawn, he gives in to sleep. And the last words of the book are:

“Good night.”

One fun thing about the book is that the dreamscape of the boy’s adventures matches the toys and furniture you’ll find in his room.

The language is so lovely, the paintings are magnificently soft and warm and beautiful, and the tired, tired creatures and things will get any little one yawning.

So my suggestion? If you want to hypnotize your child at bedtime, do it with delight. Try The Boy Who Wouldn’t Go to Bed. Put some sleepiness in your voice, and I challenge you to stay awake, let alone your little one.

Because, after all, nighttime is for snoring, not roaring; dreaming, not parading; and resting, not racing. Good night!

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/boy_who_wouldnt_go_to_bed.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Hearing Heart, by Hannah Hurnard

hearing_heart_largeHearing Heart

by Hannah Hurnard

Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, Illinois, 1986. First published in 1978. 139 pages.
Starred Review

I read and loved all Hannah Hurnard’s books when I was in high school, including this one. This little book was a lovely choice for bringing on my vacation. My usual quiet times include reading bits out of several books — for vacation, I read a chapter each day out of this book.

This book reminds the reader of the importance of walking with God. Long before John Eldredge’s book Walking with God, I read about listening to God’s voice, as God’s people in the Bible did.

The book is autobiographical, outlining Hannah Hurnard’s journey, including missionary work in Palestine before, during, and after World War I. This journey included some steps that looked crazy, but she walked in obedience, and God did amazing things.

Here are some things the author says in her concluding chapter:

It did seem perfectly natural to suppose from the teaching in the Bible and our Lord’s own sayings that all heard his voice in the same way, and that there were not some endowed with a special and mysterious faculty for hearing which was not granted to others. The least child of God can hear in the same way, and be sure that it is the voice of God speaking to him, as any holy man of old, provided he knows and practices the one principle by which the spirit of man can develop a hearing faculty.

Again, this does not mean that we shall ever become infallible or that all our thoughts at all times will be from God. Far from it, especially, of course, at the beginning of our Christian experience. In matters of Christian truth and understanding of the Scriptures, we learn slowly and by stages; a hearing heart, too, may in some cases develop more quickly than a seeing understanding. Every new obedience, however, leads to a fuller understanding, but is always accompanied by an ever-increasing realization that there is infinitely more beyond our present ability to comprehend, and that there is an ever-present danger of becoming self-confident and being dogmatic to others. Nothing deafens a hearing heart more quickly than unwillingness to keep open to further light.

The great principle of the hearing heart is that we become as little children, utterly dependent and always ready to obey. We have to learn to obey his guidance in small personal matters, before we can receive and understand more of his will and purposes.

I like the practicality of this paragraph:

The very fact that spiritual hearing can so easily be confused with imagination is a great safeguard against spiritual pride and ought to develop in us holy cautiousness and humble dependence. But to insist that unusual guidance is only imagination, and that real guidance is really using one’s common sense, did seem to me extraordinary. For most of the guidance which came to me in those early years did not make common sense at all, and generally involved me in the risk of appearing an absolute fool in the eyes of others. Of course, common sense and all one’s intellectual faculties, as well as the experience and wisdom of others, are all part of the wonderful equipment and means by which God does reveal to us his will.

And here’s her final offering to the reader:

So in loving sympathy and understanding with all who long to find a deeper reality in their spiritual life and to know what it is to be drawn into intimate, daily communion and fellowship with the Lord and Savior himself, I would joyfully and humbly share these experiences, praying that he who is so real and so full of understanding love will use them to help others into the radiant happiness of those who can say.

This book offers lovely encouragement to Christians who want to learn to listen to and hear God’s voice.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/hearing_heart.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own copy.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of The Bears on Hemlock Mountain, by Alice Dalgleish

bears_on_hemlock_mountain_largeThe Bears on Hemlock Mountain

by Alice Dalgleish
illustrated by Helen Sewell

Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1952.
Starred Review
Newbery Honor Book, 1953
ALA Notable Book

Today I was shifting Juvenile Fiction books in the D’s and I saw this book, and couldn’t resist checking it out. I took it home and read it, having to say the refrain aloud:

THERE are NO BEARS
ON HEMLOCK MOUNTAIN,
NO BEARS AT ALL.
OF COURSE THERE ARE NO BEARS
ON HEMLOCK MOUNTAIN,
NO BEARS, NO BEARS, NO BEARS,
NO BEARS AT ALL.

Of course, the main reason I love this book so much is that I remember my mother reading it to me. I remember all the suspense building as Jonathan’s mother and Jonathan say this refrain to themselves, and everyone is thinking about bears. I remember how the crunch, crunch, crunch of the snow changes to drip, drip, drip, which means Spring is coming, and how Jonathan hopes the bears don’t know it. And then how incredibly scary it is when Jonathan hides under the big iron pot and the bears start scraping in the snow around it.

I also love what I hadn’t remembered – that this is a story of a great big extended family – a little bit like the one I have. When my mother read it to me, we still lived near my grandma, who was good at making cookies, as Jonathan’s mother is in the book.

It’s rather astonishing to me, reading it now, at how well this story holds up 63 years later. About the only thing that couldn’t happen today is that nobody needs to cut wood to keep a fire going for cooking to get done. Oh, and probably Jonathan’s father and uncles wouldn’t come with guns to shoot the bear.

This is a chapter book – but a chapter book short enough to read aloud, as I well remember. The suspense is incredible, if child-sized. Bottom line, it’s the story of an eight-year-old who is now big enough to go over a big hill in the snow all by himself to his aunt’s house – because of course there are no bears on Hemlock Mountain.

And that story will never grow old.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/bears_on_hemlock_mountain.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?