Review of The Farmer and the Monkey, by Marla Frazee

Historical, Picture Book Review, Starred Review, Wordless Picture Book 0

The Farmer and the Monkey

by Marla Frazee

Beach Lane Books (Simon & Schuster), 2020. 32 pages.
Review written February 6, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

The Farmer and the Monkey is the sequel to The Farmer and the Clown, both wordless books picturing an old and plainly dressed farmer with an unusual visitor who has fallen off the circus train.

When it’s a monkey, the farmer initially wants nothing to do with him. But even the farmer doesn’t want to leave the monkey out in deep snow.

And then we get to see the farmer loosen up and gain affection for the monkey, despite some chaos that follows after him.

The ending is similar, when they see the circus train coming back.

But the flap copy tells us this is going to be a trilogy! I’ll be watching for The Farmer and the Circus.

What makes these books so much fun is how much is told through pictures alone. I look forward to the day I can use this in a storytime, because it would be so much fun to hear what kids see in these wonderful pictures.

marlafrazee.com
simonandschuster.com/kids

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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.

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Review of The Jane Austen Project, by Kathleen A. Flynn

Audiobooks, Austenalia, Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

The Jane Austen Project

by Kathleen A. Flynn
performed by Saskia Maarleveld

HarperAudio, 2017. 11 hours on 9 CDs.
Review written May 3, 2021, from a library audiobook.
Starred Review

Here’s another book featuring time travel to Jane Austen’s time. My time listening to this audiobook in the car happened to overlap with listening to the eaudiobook Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict. But this one meticulously explained how the purposeful and planned time travel happened – much more satisfying to the science fiction reader in me.

You see, in the future, after the “die-off,” time travel has been developed. Rachel Katzman, a doctor who has done work with disaster relief and happens to love Jane Austen novels, applied and was accepted to the Jane Austen Project, an undertaking of the Royal Institute for Special Topics in Physics.

Her mission, together with Liam Finuca, an Austen scholar, is to go back in time to 1815, not long before Jane Austen’s death. They are posing as a brother and sister, Dr. William Ravenswood and his sister Mary. They arrive in 1815 with counterfeit money strapped to their bodies. They plan to ingratiate their way into the society of Jane’s brother Henry, and from there make the acquaintance of Jane. And they want to be good enough acquaintances to somehow get a copy of the complete version of The Watsons as well as find the missing letters, before those letters get burned by Jane’s sister Cassandra, and maybe diagnose the disease that killed Jane.

Can they do all this? They’ve got a letter of introduction from an Austen relative in Jamaica, so it would be difficult to check. But can they win Henry over, and then Jane? It helps when Henry gets sick and Liam becomes an attentive doctor friend checking on him. Henry doesn’t know that it’s “Mary” who’s the real doctor, telling her “brother” what questions to ask.

There begin to be signs that they’ve disturbed the “probability field,” so they have worries about what they’re changing by all their actions in their own past.

This book was delightful. I loved the way they had to know all about Jane Austen’s life and about customs of the time, so that gets conveyed to the reader (unlike the poor clueless heroine in Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict). The book pulls you in and helps the reader see all the difficulties one would face if you tried to be accepted into the society of 1815 without detection.

This book is like Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict in that part of the difficulty – and some of the humor – is a woman with more modern attitudes regarding sex trying to fit in during that time, when attitudes are very different. Fair warning to Jane Austen fans: This book has more sex scenes and sexual situations than Jane Austen’s books do.

I’m not completely satisfied with the ending, when it’s revealed, that yes, their time travel changed some things. (I think it’s not a spoiler if I don’t say what was changed, parts of which made me happy.) But then, I always have trouble with time travel paradoxes. I did appreciate that they attempted to explain the repercussions.

And the book is so much fun! You forget it’s fiction and feel like you’ve been immersed in Jane Austen’s time and Jane Austen’s society. A real treat for Jane Austen fans.

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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.

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Review of The Fountains of Silence, by Ruta Sepetys, read by Maite Járegui

Audiobooks, Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Fountains of Silence

by Ruta Sepetys
read by Maite Járegui

Listening Library, 2019. 12.5 hours on 10 CDs.
Review written April 23, 2020, from a library audiobook
Starred Review

This is a richly detailed historical novel set in Franco’s Spain after World War II. The Spanish people have learned to be silent about injustices.

The book features a cross-cultural attraction. Daniel’s family is visiting Madrid. His father is a rich oil executive from Texas who wants Daniel to take over the family business, but Daniel wants to be a photojournalist. He’s hoping to get photographs in Spain to win a contest and get a scholarship to journalism school.

Anna is a maid at the hotel, assigned to facilitate things for their family. Her family was on the wrong side of Franco, but her sister has always looked after her. Anna is tempted to tell Daniel what things are really like in Spain, and he wants to get photos that look deeper.

Anna’s brother is helping a friend who plans to be a matador, though he has to train in secret. And several family members are on the edge of something going on with dead babies and the orphanage and adoptions.

There’s a slow pace to this book that gives you portraits of many people. I like the slow build of the feelings between Anna and Daniel. I have some quibbles with some big coincidences that happened, but I still enjoyed the story and learned much about life in Spain under Franco.

This was the audiobook I’d been listening to in the car before the library closed for Covid-19. So I brought it into the house, and now I think I’m hooked on listening to an audiobook while making dinner. New times, new habits. This was a good way to begin that new habit.

listeninglibrary.com

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

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.

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Review of Kent State, by Deborah Wiles

Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Kent State

by Deborah Wiles

Scholastic Press, 2020. 132 pages.
Review written October 22, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

This short novel in verse could almost be listed as nonfiction, because the author strives to accurately present a picture of what happened fifty years ago, on May 4, 1970, when the National Guard opened fire on college students, and four were killed and nine wounded.

The story isn’t told in one neat, tidy package. Instead, we get multiple voices. It’s not defined who’s speaking, but the voices are delineated by font and size and position on the page. We can eventually figure out who’s speaking. Some, in fact, have to work to be heard.

The effect is a well-rounded picture. I liked the way it reminded me of the conversation today around the protests in Portland. Some say they’re peaceful protestors. Others that they’re terrorists. Some say they were exercising their first amendment rights, and others that they were thugs destroying property. Some say there were outside agitators. That’s the kind of thing we find here, as Deborah Wiles lets many voices speak – fellow students, townspeople, National Guard members, faculty, members of Black United Students, students who did not agree with the protests, and more.

But the big point of the book is about the four children who died. We do get to hear a lot about them. One wasn’t even involved in the protests, but was simply walking to class. The National Guard troops who fired were barely older than the ones who were killed.

Some of the voices say that the white students didn’t really believe the National Guard would use real bullets. The black students did, so most of them heeded a warning to stay away. We get all the circumstances leading up to the deaths and then the tragic order to fire.

The opening chapter addresses the reader as a new friend who needs to hear the story. The different voices are going to tell this new friend what happened. Here’s how that chapter ends:

Let me make room for our new friend.
We don’t want to scare you away, friend.
Take the most comfortable chair.
Sit. Listen.
Make up your own mind.
Open your heart.
Here is what is most important:

They did not have to die.

Pull up a chair, take an hour, and read this book. It will open your eyes. With the author, I hope that this knowledge will help avoid future tragedies.

***

After the audiobook version won the 2021 Odyssey Award for the audio production, I decided to listen as well and add a review of that.

I can easily see why it won. The production features a full cast, and they included sound effects, especially the sound of bullets, plus original music in the transitions, music that sounded appropriate for the time of the story.

The book was narrated by a full cast, which is sometimes hard to follow, but in this case it was easier to instantly tell who was speaking and remember things they’d said before. For example, a voice representing students repeats the same line several times, and when I was hearing her voice speaking the line, I easily remembered that I’d heard that person say the same thing before. The producers did a good job of using voices that sounded different from each other — voices for students, for townspeople, for the National Guard, for the black students — and it was easier to have an idea of who was speaking from the voice than it had been from simply a change in font.

The audio production is short — only two hours — and even though I’d already read the book, I was riveted by the audio version, making the words come to life. Since the book was written in the form of unrhymed poetry spoken by different people affected, and since they did a great job with the sound effects, the audio version is the perfect way to experience this book.

deborahwiles.com
scholastic.com

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Review of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, by Laurie Viera Rigler

Audiobooks, Austenalia, Fiction Review, Historical 0

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

by Laurie Viera Rigler
read by Orlagh Cassidy

Penguin Audio, 2007. 7 hours.
Review written April 25, 2021, from a library eaudiobook

I’m on a roll of reading Jane Austen take-offs, and this is one of the silliest, or I should probably say most light-hearted.

Courtney, a modern young woman who lives in Los Angeles, recently caught her fiancé cheating on her. As part of her healing process, she did her usual Jane Austen binge. But one morning she wakes up to find herself in the home of a young lady who lives in the English countryside during Jane Austen’s time, in the body of that young lady.

The young lady is named Jane Mansfield, and she has recently had a terrible fall from a horse. When Courtney tries to tell people that she is not, actually, Jane, they try to help by bleeding her (with dirty equipment!) and threaten to put her in an asylum. She has to go along with it. Surely it’s temporary, and she can just humor them, but it seems awfully realistic and she doesn’t want to live it out in an asylum.

The book never does adequately explain why this body-switching happened. There’s talk about the fluidity of time and a wish and trauma and… well, whatever it was, it’s fun that it happened. (I also wasn’t completely satisfied about what her “destiny” was that would take her back, but I won’t give that away.) For a fantasy fan like me, that aspect was awfully murky.

This book is also a lot more raunchy than most Jane Austen take-offs. Courtney had been sexually active with her fiancé and other people before him, and she appraises the men she meets with that in mind – which does not really fit with Jane Austen’s England. But now Jane’s mother very much wants her to marry Mr. Edgeworth – and Courtney can’t remember why Jane was opposed to that plan. But she gets flashes of Jane’s memories, and she’s afraid that even in a different body, she’s attracted to an unsuitable man.

Along the way, there’s lots of humor as Courtney’s modern sensibilities clash with life in Jane Austen’s England. And though some things appall her – such as having to use a chamber pot – she begins to make the best of the situation – and the reader (or listener) gets to enjoy it with her.

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Review of Amber and Clay, by Laura Amy Schlitz

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Amber & Clay

by Laura Amy Schlitz
with illustrations by Julia Iredale

Candlewick Press, 2021. 532 pages.
Review written April 17, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

How to explain a Laura Amy Schlitz book? Except to say it isn’t like anything else you’ve read.

Amber and Clay is “the tale of a girl as precious as amber, the tale of a boy as common as clay.” That’s what the god Hermes tells us right at the front of the book. He also tells us that though the boy was a slave boy, the girl started out life lucky. That is, she was lucky, “except for one thing: she died young.”

I let that comment pass, thinking it would happen tragically soon after the book ends, but, reader, that’s not what happens. It’s also not a love story between the two, so her death doesn’t feel as tragic as it might have in that case. The link between the two of them is that the mother of the boy, Rhaskos, is the slave woman who was sold to tend the girl, Melisto.

This is a tale of ancient Greece. Throughout the book eighteen “Exhibits” are shown – archaeological findings from ancient Greece. It’s not clear, but these are probably invented findings, based on actual findings, with the texts changed for our characters. (They could be actual findings, but in that case, I don’t think the illustrator would get credit.) They give the impression that our story actually happened.

Don’t be daunted by the size of the book, because much of it is done in verse, so it reads more quickly than you’d think. The author’s note at the back reveals that she used poetic forms from the poetry of Greece. Gods and goddesses provide some perspective, and we hear about the two children, Rhaskos and Melisto. Their stories start out separate, but begin to come together after Melisto’s death.

My favorite thing about the book was Rhaskos’ friendship with Sokrates. (Which I learned is pronounced So-KRA-teez.) In their conversations, Sokrates asks questions, and we learn much about his philosophy. It also takes us through the trial and death of Sokrates. We end up with a children’s book that helps you understand Sokrates’ philosophy and makes you sad about his death – which is really quite a notable feat.

The story itself captured my mind more than it did my heart. The details about ancient Greece were so fascinating! I didn’t find the characters terribly likable at first, but they grew on me. By the end, I at least hoped for a happy ending for those who were still alive!

And the craft and research that went into creating this book were amazing. I tell people that I can’t possibly predict what any Newbery committee will select – but I have a good idea what makes a contender. I believe this book will be scrutinized by the committee as an amazing accomplishment. And if there are still kids out there obsessed with Greek mythology, this book pulls the reader fully into the daily life of ancient Greece.

Let me conclude with a section from Sokrates’ trial:

So now perhaps someone will say, Aren’t you ashamed, Sokrates, to have devoted your life to asking questions that may get you killed? And here’s my answer: When someone takes a stand, he has to hold his ground and face the danger. When I fought in the battles of Potidaea and Amphipolis and Delion, I held my ground and obeyed my commanders. And when the god tells me to live a life in pursuit of wisdom, questioning myself and others, I cannot desert my post.

candlewick.com

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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.

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Review of Watercress, by Andrea Wang, pictures by Jason Chin

Historical, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Watercress

by Andrea Wang
pictures by Jason Chin

Neal Porter Books, 2021. 36 pages.
Review written April 17, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

I knew that any picture book illustrated by Jason Chin would be stunningly beautiful, but I didn’t know how much this story would haunt me.

We see that we’ve gone back in time to a girl sitting in the back seat of an old red Pontiac. Her parents excitedly stop the car when they see watercress by the side of the road, in a muddy ditch next to a corn field.

In her stance, in her expression, you can see the girl is not happy about this stop. The whole family gets out and gathers watercress in paper bags. She gets wet and muddy, and her brother makes it worse. When a car passes, she ducks and hopes it’s not anyone she knows.

When they get home, the watercress is prepared for dinner, with garlic and sesame seeds. The girl doesn’t want anything to do with it.

Mom and Dad press me to try some.
“It is fresh,” Dad says.
“It is free,” Mom says.
I shake my head.

Free is bad.
Free is
hand-me-down clothes and
roadside trash-heap furniture and
now,
dinner from a ditch.

It takes a memory, and a photo, from the girl’s mother to change her attitude, with new appreciation for memories and family and watercress.

This is indeed a beautiful book, with emotions clearly shown in the pictures, with more subdued tones for memories. The text, too, is beautiful. Simple and spare, but saying so much.

An exquisite story about feeling like an outsider, and about family and memory.

HolidayHouse.com

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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.

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Review of Longbourn, by Jo Baker

Austenalia, Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Longbourn

by Jo Baker
read by Emma Fielding

Random House Audio, 2013. 13.5 hours.
Review written April 9, 2021, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

A big thank you to my coworker Pam who told me about this book after I posted my new Austenalia page. Longbourn focuses on the home of Elizabeth Bennet during the events of Pride and Prejudice and tells us about the lives of the servants.

This isn’t the same flavor at all as Jane Austen’s books, dealing with ladies and gentlemen and polite society and appearances and sweetly and innocently finding husbands. Details are a little more sordid, and there are some unpleasant scenes and situations. The book begins on a wash day, and Sarah, a housemaid, has these thoughts about her employers:

The young ladies might behave like they were smooth and sealed as alabaster statues underneath their clothes, but then they would drop their soiled shifts on the bedchamber floor, to be whisked away and cleansed, and would thus reveal themselves to be the frail, leaking, forked bodily creatures that they really were. Perhaps that was why they spoke instructions at her from behind an embroidery hoop or over the top of a book: she had scrubbed away their sweat, their stains, their monthly blood; she knew they weren’t as rarefied as angels, and so they just couldn’t look her in the eye.

Longbourn is a small household, with the butler married to the housekeeper. Sarah is the older of the two housemaids, and she’s only a teen herself. At the start of the book, a stranger comes into town, and he quickly becomes their new footman. There are some questions as to why a young man would be available during a time of war.

Something fun about this book is that yes, the events of Pride and Prejudice play out among the young ladies, but those things aren’t nearly as interesting to the servants as what is going on in their own lives. The author has given them intriguing back stories.

So don’t think of this as a Jane Austen read-alike. It’s not. But it is a fascinating and absorbing account of what life was like for ordinary people in England during the Napoleonic Wars. It’s about making do and surviving, but also about finding love and finding opportunities. What would a servant dream of making of themselves during that era?

I will add that in revealing the back stories of the servants, Jo Baker gives us some surprising back stories of the main characters. Bingley’s family made their fortune in sugar, and there are some implications about one of his servants – but that’s only the beginning of the back story revelations.

I wasn’t too sure I’d enjoy it as the book began, since I’m used to thinking of only the pleasant side of Austen heroines. But the more I listened, the more caught up I was in the lives and situations of these people who began to feel like they knew a lot more about how the world really works than the fine ladies I was used to reading about.

jobakerwriter.com
aaknopf.com

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

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.

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Review of Just Like That, by Gary D. Schmidt

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Just Like That

by Gary D. Schmidt

Clarion Books, 2021. 387 pages.
Review written March 19, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

This book is set in 1968, during the Vietnam War, and after the events in The Wednesday Wars and Okay for Now. In this book, we’re following Meryl Lee Kowalski, and the first thing we learn is that one of the characters from the other books, one who had become very important to Meryl Lee, has died suddenly in a freak accident. Oh, and there’s even a nod to Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, including a character from the Buckminster family (though this is years later).

You do not have to have read the earlier books (although this book makes me want to go back and reread them), and my own memory was hazy, but anyone will understand the painful good memories and the Blank left when thinking of someone you love who is no longer there.

Meryl Lee’s parents decide she needs a complete change. They send her to St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy for Girls in Maine. So all the rest of the cast of characters in this book are new.

And Meryl Lee is the only new girl in eighth grade at St. Elene’s. Her roommate is from such an important family that she shares her last name with her hometown. She makes it very clear how much she misses the roommate she’d been paired with for years who is now living in Budapest with her diplomat family for the year. We can tell Meryl Lee’s going to have a challenge fitting in at her new school.

Alongside Meryl Lee’s story, there’s a parallel story of Matt Coffin, a boy who’s been living by himself in a fisherman’s shack by the water. People haven’t been able to get him to stay at school.

Things might have gone on this way for a very long time, except one early spring evening, when the orange sun was low and the shadows of the pines long, Mrs. Nora MacKnockater came down the steep ridge to the shore beneath her house and settled her substantial rump on a smooth rock large enough to hold it. She watched a flat stone skip in the trough between the low waves – the tide was heading out – turned, and saw Matt Coffin brush back his hair, pull his arm to toss the next stone, see her, and stop.

“Five skips,” she said, “is a creditable throw.”

Mrs. MacKnockater builds a friendship with Matt, starting with skipping stones, then sharing food, then finally giving him a place to stay. But Mrs. MacKnockater is also the headmistress at St. Elene’s Preparatory School for Girls, so Matt and Meryl Lee’s stories are going to converge. Matt has a tragic past and always worries that it will catch up with him. He doesn’t dare put down roots, because if he does, those people will get hurt.

As in so many of his other books, Gary Schmidt pulls you into the emotions of his characters. This book portrays grief in ways that will rend your heart. But it also shows new starts and new friendships. It shows Meryl Lee making new connections with some people you thought were too odious to ever be relatable and others that are surprisingly kind and others who just make you cheer that such good people found each other.

Once again, I’ll spend the year hoping for a Newbery nod for a Gary Schmidt book. Now that I’ve been on the committee, I understand that I can’t predict at all what the committee will decide, but I am at least absolutely sure this book will get consideration. It’s a beautiful and memorable book that explores grief but leaves you with hope.

hmhbooks.com

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Review of The Jane Austen Society, by Natalie Jenner

Austenalia, Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

The Jane Austen Society

by Natalie Jenner
read by Richard Armitage

Macmillan Audio, 2020. 12 hours, 34 minutes.
Review written March 11, 2021, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

Oh, The Jane Austen Society is delightful in every way! I had recently discovered I can listen to eaudiobooks while pulling holds at the library and was finding myself making more lists of books to pull to get more time to listen to this book. I was surprised to learn the author is a debut novelists, and disappointed that I can’t immediately read more of her books.

The Jane Austen Society is set shortly after World War II, focusing on a disparate group of people from Chawton, the final home of Jane Austen. Tourists already came to Chawton looking for signs of Jane, but there was no place focusing their interest. The Knight family that owned the estate has no direct heir, so the things that Jane once lived among were in danger of getting lost. A group of people living in the village discover that they all love Jane Austen, and decide to do something about preserving her legacy.

A lot of the charm of the novel is discovering how the different people all develop their love for Jane Austen’s novels and are surprised to learn this love is shared. Yes, there are romances among the characters, and yes, some of them echo the situations from Jane Austen’s novels.

There are also problems with the inheritance of the estate, and personal problems as so many in the village are grieving losses from the war. There’s even a movie star who loves Jane Austen and has some money to bring to the project. Her fiancé is interested in pleasing her by helping to back the project, though it’s questionable how much his heart is in it.

A lot of the story is told from the perspective of the local widowed doctor, who knows everyone in the village and sees to everyone’s medical needs. Which also means he feels personally responsible when there are people he can’t save, especially when that included his own wife. Then there’s the farmer who does odd jobs for everyone in the village, and the maid on the estate who had to leave school early but is fascinated by the books in the family library, which once Jane Austen might have read.

In all, the author does a magnificent job of showing us a village of people in complicated relationships with one another – rather like Jane Austen herself would do.

And it’s all narrated with the marvelous deep voice of Richard Armitage, distinguishing between the characters enough to help us follow the large cast as they interact. (I am never very fond of how British folks do American accents, but all the lovely British accents made up for it.)

A special treat for me, a hardcore Jane Austen fan, was the many discussions among the characters of fine points in Jane Austen’s books, discussions of favorite characters, of blind spots in the characters, and this or that subtle point made. The delight of eavesdropping on these conversations added to my enjoyment of the book. And, yes, I knew all the references. Other hardcore Jane fans will enjoy that part, too, though it’s not a requirement to love the book.

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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.

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