Book Review: Little House in the Big Woods

Although I did not read a great deal of historical fiction when I was a child, the Little House books were once series that I remember enjoying (although I was never a fan of the television series). I’m sure it has been almost twenty years since I read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s novels about life in the vast woods and prairies of Wisconsin, Kansas, Minnesota, South Dakota and Missouri. I knew the pioneer life wasn’t something that I was cut out for, but even so, I was fascinated by the descriptions of how the Ingalls family sustained themselves out in the wilderness – and always had plenty of good things to eat.

As I re-read Little House in the Big Woods, I found all the descriptions that had made such an impression on me when I was seven or eight years old: accounts of how Laura’s Pa had cured venison in a little smokehouse made out of a hollow tree, how Pa and Grandpa Ingalls had collected the sap from the maple trees and the family had made syrup and maple sugar candy, how Laura’s Ma made cheese and butter from their cow’s milk, and how Laura and her sister Mary would play up in the attic amongst all the piles of pumpkins and meats hanging from the rafters. I’m always drawn to descriptions of food, since I love to eat so much.

There were other scenes that I remembered as well – scenes that had to do with the family’s happy existence despite their isolation. Laura describes being cozy and snug in their little log cabin in the Big Woods of Wisconsin during the bitterly cold winters. With contentment, she describes how her father would tell them stories while they sat by the fire, then play them to sleep with his fiddle. The wolves were howling outside in the yard, but Laura knew she was safe with Jack the dog and her Pa with his gun to guard their family, and so she always fell asleep feeling warm and happy.

Apparently one editor turned away Wilder’s manuscripts because the stories don’t contain too much drama – even the tales of Ma, Pa, and Grandpa encountering dangerous wild animals somehow don’t feel threatening because Laura’s memories of early childhood are imbued with that feeling of safety. Despite the leisurely pace of the novels, however, I have found them equally engrossing at age seven and age twenty seven. I think that the descriptions and stories appeal to be when I am in a certain mood because the labors and pleasures of the Ingalls family’s lives are so physical, so tangible and so simple. After living in several different metropolitan areas and working very demanding jobs, I sometimes long for that kind of simplicity. She may have only been four or five years old when she was living in Wisconsin, but the beauty and the pleasure of so many aspects of life made an impression on her. Because she was such a content child, when I read Little House in the Big Woods, I felt happy and content as well. I hate to use the phrase “heart-warming,” but this is one of those novels that can actually make you feel as though you’re snuggled down under the covers near a blazing fire on a cold winter evening, and someone is playing you to sleep. Five stars for a novel that can make me forget the fast pace of daily life, at least for a little while.

Book Review: Chains

I’ve heard many good things about Laurie Halse Anderson’s novels, particularly Speak and Fever 1793. Both are in my teetering To Be Read pile, but I have to admit that I haven’t gotten around to them yet. I ended up reading Chains, one of her newest novels, first – and what catapulted it to the top of my list was actually my recent interest in YA Revolutionary War Historical Fiction.

I read Volume One of M.T. Anderson’s brilliant two-part Octavian Nothing series several months ago, and as I explained in my review of that novel, I found an excellent article about Yonng Adult Revolutionary War Fiction on the Parents’ Choice website right around the same time. The article, written by Jerry Griswold, explained how history textbooks and young adult fiction have traditionally portrayed the subject of the American Revolution as a fairly uncomplicated war, featuring the British as the bad guys and the Americans as the heroes of the piece. Griswold pointed out, though, that the recent novels of both Anderson and Anderson (no relation) are written from the perspective of African American slaves, who found themselves stuck between the Patriots and the Tories and chose sides based on who they thought was most likely to grant them their own freedom. At the time and particularly from the perspective of the African American slaves, there were not clearly delineated “good” sides and “bad” sides – there were slave masters at home in the colonies and slave masters from over the ocean.

Because they are written from the perspective of African Americans, which is an unusual perspective for YA Revolutionary War fiction, both Octavian Nothing and Chains are complex and compelling novels, fraught with questions about what the right course of action might be for each of the main characters. Each of the novels has their own unique aspects, and what I find most interesting about Chains is that novel is written from the perspective of a young African American girl who, among other things, must care for her mentally retarded younger sister. Though Isabel is a young protagonist, she has been saddled with adult responsibilities and so through her, we sympathize with both the plight of an adolescent character and the plight of a mother/caregiver. Her relationship with her sister Ruth is touching, and when they are separated and she can no longer protect Ruth, it is truly heartbreaking. As she tries to formulate a plan to be reunited with her sister, both Isabel and the reader simultaneously come to understand just how few courses of action are truly left open to the young slave girl.

Isabel is already a mature young woman at the opening of the novel, since her father had been sold away from their family some time ago, and her mother had passed away the previous year. She is accustomed to taking care of Ruth, and yet she is also quite frightened, confused and vulnerable. She prays to the spirit of her mother, hoping for some guidance, and while I don’t know exactly how many readers will be able to fully understand to her fear and grief unless they have lost a parent, I know that I easily connected to her vulnerability as she expressed longing for her mother’s direction and protection. I simultaneously wanted to protect poor Isabel – and yet also admired her strength and knew that in reality, she would have been more likely able to protect me than I would have been able to protect her. Her perseverance and ability to survive show a strength that I doubt I possess in such great quantities – reading about young women like this is always a humbling experience for me. I feel both heartbroken and amazed when I think about how there were thousands of women who had to survive such difficult work and abuse, such exhaustion, cold, hunger and emotional trauma. All these women, found in both historical fiction and in the historical reality of slavery, should be the examples that we look to as feminists even in the twenty-first century. Isabel’s strength and maturity is likewise inspiring.

It is also touching how she bonds with an African American young man named Curzon, who looks out for her despite the fact that he has no real connection with her, and how that relationship moves her toward greater maturity. While Curzon’s request that Isabel spy for the rebels at first brings her nothing but trouble, she eventually gets more and more involved in secretive exchanges and politics because she feels drawn to Curzon and ministers to him once he is captured by the British. It is interesting to see how Isabel’s need for family connections outweighs any political preferences of her own, and through all of this, it becomes more and more apparent how the conflict between the British and the American colonists put African Americans in a complex, difficult position. As Isabel observes, she is caught between two countries, and neither side will grant her freedom. While she remains a slave, it is partially through her growing attachment to Curzon that she is able to find a sense of liberty – because she will not relinquish her connection to him. She slowly builds the strength to rebel against her mistress’s commands in order to make sure that Curzon is fed while he is in prison. And so although she was already a very strong, mature girl, she grows into an even more capable young woman at the end of the novel – she no longer hesitates and waits for her mother’s guidance, and is instead able to make decisions and take action on her own.

All in all, this is a complex story (of which I haven’t actually revealed too much) with a richly developed main character that I would recommend to all readers. While I have complained several times recently about other historical fiction novels that contain ideas and attitudes that are too modern for their setting, Chains is accurate (as far as I can tell) and unobtrusive in its language, interesting in both its story and its engagement with historical events, and just generally very well-written. There is a lot of tension throughout the novel as Isabel must deal with continual loss and abuse, combined with the hope that she will find a way to obtain freedom for her sister and herself, and while I’m not sure whether or not this novel would appeal to everyone, I feel fairly confident stating that Chains is so well-written that even many (if not all) readers who are not generally excited about historical fiction will appreciate this novel.

This is the last post that officially participates in my Women's History Month Reading Challenge. Don't worry, though, I plan on continuing to periodically read and review the other works of historical fiction featuring a female character that I picked up during March. I also plan on reading and reviewing Laurie Halse Anderson's sequel to Chains, entitled Forge, so keep an eye out for that...

Book Review: Prisoners in the Palace

I picked up Prisoners in the Palace: How Princess Victoria became Queen with the Help of Her Maid, a Reporter, and a Scoundrel by Michaela McColl based on the recommendation of Khy over at Frenetic Reader, who reviewed this book in January. I have to admit that I didn’t like it quite as much as she did, but I agree with her assessment that “even those who are not typically fans of [historical fiction] will enjoy this one.” In fact, that is a good way to describe this story: enjoyable. Entertaining. It’s a combination feminist social justice/spy novel, fun despite it’s flaws.

It must be said, though, that the novel commits the cardinal sin of historical fiction, which I’ve mentioned a couple of times before: the tendency to dress up characters in period costumes but allow them modern attitudes and language. I recently wrote up a review of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, which is an entertaining enough novel that I was able to completely forgive its contemporary language, especially because the attitudes of the characters were more or less appropriate for the turn of the century. Prisoners in the Palace, however, is set in Victorian England – and while some of the young women’s attitudes make sense, the way that they are presented is far too contemporary (and often relies on clichés, as well). Princess Victoria’s longing for independence and eventual resoluteness of character makes sense for a young girl in her position – over the course of the novel, she evolves from a spoiled, sheltered young girl into a young but resolute, self-sufficient queen. The way that Liza, the main character of the novel, is characterized and speaks/thinks is really what is most problematic for me.

Liza serves as a vehicle for the novel to discuss the ways that women – lower-class women in particular – were often at the mercy of men, monarchs and other royals. Having found herself deeply in debt after the deaths of her parents, Liza has fallen from the gentry and into the working class. Instead of attending her own cotillions and balls, sixteen-year-old Liza must put aside her hopes of “coming out” into society and instead become a ladies maid, only able to observe the glittering world of the gentry from a distance. Luckily, she is engaged as Princess Victoria’s new maid, so she’s got it fairly cushy. But then she becomes a witness to what has happened to the last young lady who held her position at Kensington Palace – Annie was also Princess Victoria’s ladies maid, but was impregnated by the controlling and abusive Sir John, cast out on the street, and had to become a prostitute in order to survive.

Liza’s feminist sensibilities are of course offended (as they should be), but her impulsive actions are a bit too bold to be realistic. The novel is able to explore the inequalities that women in Victorian England faced quite effectively through plot – but even so, it annoyed me that feminism of the 1970s came so easily to Liza of the 1830s. Every author who is going to write a novel about women set in Victorian England really out to read Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, which presents some very forward feminist thinking for end of the Victorian Era and the beginning of the Modernist Period – but while Woolf and other feminists were growing more and more bold, there was still a degree of hesitancy, uncertainty about their attitudes. There was still a sense of propriety and proper femininity that they could not fully shed. Women had a sense of injustice, but most of them weren’t fully able to express it quite so directly and boldly as Liza often does throughout the novel; women of the Victorian Era had been raised by parents and in a society that still held to a much different mentality.

But despite the novel’s too-modern feminist mentality and prose full of contemporary clichés, the story works quite well. I found myself enjoying the novel, gobbling it up like candy at the movie theater. Liza isn’t hired to simply be Princess Victoria’s maid, but a spy for Victoria and her governess the Baroness as well – so while Liza is concerned with her own survival and the sordid fate of her predecessor Annie, she is also involved in Victoria’s emotional and political dealings, which have international consequences. Even though it might be a bit cheesy that the political fate of England rests in Liza’s hands at one or two points during the novel, if you buy into the story, it’s a fun and complex intrigue – it kept me riveted until 1 a.m.

Additionally, I want to express my appreciation for a romance that didn’t take center stage. In her review, Khy noted that “Liza and Will's relationship [was] realistic in that it wasn't all "omg looove!!" immediately, but [was] often tossed aside amidst the drama, only to be brought up again and discussed every once in a while.” I actually liked this, because it showed that Liza was well-aware that other things besides romance had importance to her survival and identity. She was equally determined to work her own way out of debt, avoid the fate of the impregnated and cast-aside Annie, remain loyal to Princess Victoria, and find her own happiness with a husband – once she figured out exactly who it was she wanted to marry and what kind of a life she really wanted. It was important at the end of the novel that she chose Will because she was comfortable with the lifestyle of a working (non-gentry) man, not that she was settling, which shows that she understands the importance of real-life concerns and doesn’t simply idealize “true love.” It was also important that Will both cherished and respected her, and allowed her the room to consider their relationship from different angles. For the most part, this is the kind of romantic relationship that we want for our feminist heroines.

It was ultimately the combination of the feminist character (despite the historical inaccuracies) and spy plot that kept me riveted, and while I can’t forgive Prisoners in the Palace quite as whole-heartedly as The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, I still recommend the novel to most readers. Unless they share my pet peeve, then readers will likely be just as engrossed in the plot, whether they are interested in Victorian historical fiction, feminist stories or just plain old spy novels. I’d even say this one might merit 3 1/2 stars.

March is Women's History Month, and this post participates in my Women's History Month Reading Challenge.

Women's History Month: Some Additional Historial Fiction In My Mailbox

As I’ve noted several times already on the blog, March is Women’s History Month, which I have chosen to celebrate by reading several YA historical fiction novels featuring female characters. I even set up a Women’s History Month Reading Challenge so that others could join me and share their reviews with each other. I’ve posted two reviews celebrating Women’s History Month so far, for the novels The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly and The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare.

Even though I already own plenty of unread novels that meet this criteria, stacked up on my desk and waiting for me, of course I couldn’t resist surfing around to find some additional books. But if I don’t get to them within the literal month of March, I’ll just continue to celebrate Women’s History in the weeks following! I ordered a couple of books that I hadn’t heard of until recently, and a few classic favorites from my childhood as well.

The Green Glass Sea and White Sands, Red Menace by Ellen Klages. The Green Glass Sea won the Scott O’Dell award for historical fiction, a list which I just recently discovered. The novel is about Dewey and Suze, two girls who spend a year in Los Alamos as their parents work on the atomic bomb, the secret gadget that is supposed to end World War II. Dewey, interested in mechanical projects herself, disregards typical gender roles and Suze is a trouble maker of sorts, and so the two misfits form a friendship in the tense atmosphere of the secretive scientific community. White Sands, Red Menace is the sequel to The Green Glass Sea, and follows Dewey and Suze in Alamogordo, New Mexico, where Suze’s father begins working to develop rockets for the U.S. government following the resolution of World War II.

I’m interested in the ways that these novels foreground questions of women scientists – something that’s pretty rare to find in novels, YA or adult fiction (other than straight-up Sci Fi). I can count on one hand the (well-written) books that I’ve read about women scientists and/or girls that are interested in science: The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate and Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondatjee are the only two that are springing to mind at the moment (feel free to share more with me in the comments section!). Gender and ethics questions are posed in both novels; both teen and adult characters are unaware at first how the atomic bomb will ultimately be used, and as they learn more about the device, they struggle with that grim reality. Suze's mother puts her chemistry career on hold and her relationship with her husband grows rocky, mostly because of their different positions regarding the atomic bomb. One reviewer wrote that the novels “nail… the uncertainty that many Americans experienced after the truths of Hiroshima began to surface,” which seems like an ambitious and admirable topic for a YA novel. On a smaller scale, Dewey and Suze are required to take home economics instead of shop – so it sounds like the author Klages has carried these themes of gender, science and ethics throughout the novels on many levels. I’m looking forward to checking out these books, which don’t seem to have gotten much attention in the blogosophere.

Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, On the Banks of Plum Creek, and By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingles Wilder. I read the entire Little House series when I was young, but it’s been so long that I can hardly remember exactly what they were all about. My most distinct memories of these novels are actually the sensory descriptions, particularly of food preparation – curing meat in the smokehouse, canning fruit and freshly baking pies. I also remember Laura’s rapturous account to the general store and her chance to pick out the material for a new dress from amongst the bolts of flowered fabric, and her happy memories of a warm, family-filled Christmas celebration. My memories aren’t too far off, according to reviewers: “Every chapter divulges fascinatingly intricate, yet easy-to-read, details about pioneer life in the Midwest in the late 1800s, from bear-meat curing to maple-tree sapping to homemade bullet making.” So these novels are indeed heavy on the sensory details that stick with you, at least if you’re as fascinated with food as I am.

Most of the plots, however, are lost to me now, but I think the novels are pretty basic, focusing first on survival while Laura’s family is living in a log cabin in woodsy Wisconsin, then as they set out for Kansas in a covered wagon, searching for a new home. They end up living near Plum Creek for a time, then moving again, this time to the wilderness of the unsettled Dakota Territory. Laura’s Pa builds their homestead, works the railroad, and provides for his wife and daughters despite the hardships of pioneer life. Again, what I remember most about these stories is the way that after every hard day of work, every challenge, Pa Ingalls played the fiddle to sooth his daughters to sleep. I must have honed in on all the creature comforts as I read these novels instead of dwelling on the difficult homestead tasks that I would have found less relevant when I was a young and very spoiled little girl. I’m interested to see what pops out at me when I re-read them at age twenty-seven (although I’m still pretty spoiled and dislike manual labor intensely, so I’ll likely still enjoy all the sensory descriptions more than anything else).

The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich

My idea to re-read the Little House books actually hit me because I ran into this novel, with the opening description that reads: “Nineteenth-century American pioneer life was introduced to thousands of young readers by Laura Ingalls Wilder's beloved Little House books. With The Birchbark House, award-winning author Louise Erdrich's first novel for young readers, this same slice of history is seen through the eyes of the spirited, 7-year-old Ojibwa girl Omakayas…” I love Erdrich’s adult novels and I think it will be really awesome to read The Birchbark House (and its sequels, once I get my hands on them) in conjunction with the Little House books.

The summary of the novel on Amazon includes some of the background about Omakayas herself, but also about Erdrich’s detailed prose: “The sole survivor of a smallpox epidemic on Spirit Island, Omakayas, then only a baby girl, was rescued by a fearless woman named Tallow and welcomed into an Ojibwa family on Lake Superior's Madeline Island… Readers will be riveted by the daily life of this Native American family, in which tanning moose hides, picking berries, and scaring crows from the cornfield are as commonplace as encounters with bear cubs and fireside ghost stories… [this is a] poetic, exquisitely wrought narrative.” From this description, it sounds like The Birchbark House will include a lot of the same sensory details as Laura Ingalls Wilder’s novels, so I’m looking forward to a very rich reading experience when I sit down with all of these books!

Book Review: The Witch of Blackbird Pond

The sign of a good historical novel: when the reader is aware of the setting as being significantly different than her own contemporary landscape, and yet feels that at some point while reading, the setting itself fades away and almost ceases to matter because the characters themselves are timeless.

This is exactly the feeling that I get whenever I read The Witch of Blackbird Pond, the Newbery Award-winning novel by Elizabeth George Speare. This novel may be set in colonial New England and include detail about Puritan attitudes and witch hunts, but these things are secondary to the emotional reality of the main character Kit Tyler. I closely identify with Kit, a young woman raised in warm, sunny Barbados who must move to Puritan New England to live with her uncle, aunt and cousins when her grandfather dies. She finds herself quite the fish out of water – she is a headstrong, impulsive, educated and outspoken young woman amongst the prim, reserved and pious seventeenth century New Englanders. She is unaccustomed to doing even light housework, but in Connecticut, she must do her fair share of the chores; her delicate hands become covered in calluses and her fine silk dresses go months without wearing. The contrast between her carefree life in Barbados and her new lifestyle of constant labor is astounding, and it is very difficult for Kit to adjust. She longs to escape the harsh New England winter and return to her balmy island home. Having moved from one climate to another, as well as having shifted roles several times in my life, I can certainly appreciate how truly difficult such a change would be for a spoiled girl like Kit (and like myself).

My ability to sympathize with Kit was further heightened during my latest re-read of the book because like Kit, I recently lost my grandfather. Like the young protagonist in The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, Kit was very closet to her grandfather, who educated her and encouraged her to think for herself. Her homesickness mingles with her grief; these are emotions with which I am all too familiar. Though Speare never goes on too much about Kit’s emotions, it is clear that she misses her grandfather, and while most readers can sympathize to some degree with her heartache, this element of the story struck me particularly hard at this moment in time.

But despite all the grief and difficulties that Kit faces in the novel, The Witch of Blackbird Pond is not a distressing story – merely an engrossing one. Kit is a resilient young woman, determined to make a place for herself somewhere in the world. She is realistic, hard-working, and intelligent; she knows that she must learn to curb her impulsive actions and adapt to the ways of the local New Englanders in order to survive. She is willing to adjust herself in many ways – and yet she is not willing to compromise with regards to certain things. She refuses to leave or betray her friends, including an old woman that most of the village believes to be a witch. When this leads to Kit herself being accused of witchcraft, she still will not betray another young friend of hers, even though the testimony of her friend would likely set her free. Ladies, this is the kind of tenacity and integrity that we want in our female protagonists!

A few readers have commented that the story is fairly slow, so I feel it is important to note that the novel is more about Kit’s emotional upheaval and does not linger on the witch hunt and trial scenes too long – and yet it is Kit’s willingness to stand up for her own opinions and values time after time that make the novel exciting in its own way. Such a stubborn stance would have actually put a young woman like Kit in great danger at that time – which is why she ends up on trial for witchcraft and faces the serious danger of being maimed, cast out of the community, or even killed. But Kit admirably holds her own in this situation, exemplifying the kind of friendship and commitment that readers can appreciate.

Moreover, readers should find the combination of Kit’s realistic expectations and firm values to be an excellent example of what it is like to be a feminist in the real world. Women didn’t always have (and many still don’t have) the luxury of building a career instead of attending to the housework. Circumstances often limit women – even very capable, intelligent women. In many ways, this story is about learning to accept your circumstances while finding the most agreeable way to cope with them. Kit may not be able to change her reality of the need to labor daily beside her uncle, aunt and cousins in the harsh New England climate, but she can work to earn the respect of her family and build friendships with those in the community with whom she feels a true kinship. She then honors those bonds to the best of her ability, a trait that is truly admirable.

The novel isn’t all about compromise and suffering, though; Speare ends the novel on a happier note for Kit. I don’t want to give too much away about the novel, but rest assured that the story doesn’t end with Kit on trial for witchcraft. Sometimes I dislike a too-happy ending because it is unrealistic to have everything perfectly sewn up, just as it ought to be. Yet in this case, I’m all too willing to forgive Speare the indiscretion of a neat conclusion because it’s just so satisfying to see a character achieve happiness when you identify with them so closely.

March is Women's History Month, and this post participates in my Women's History Month Reading Challenge. To join the challenge, all you have to do is read and review one or more books, then link back to my original Reading Challenge post by leaving a link to your post in the comments section.

Book Review: The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

I think I’ve mentioned this (briefly) on the blog before: one of my pet peeves about certain works of historical fiction is when a writer sets his or her novel in a specific time period, includes all the correct historical details with regards to food, clothing and cultural traditions such as work habits and holiday celebrations, but main character is written with a much-too-modern attitude. Especially with novels about young girls and women, the tendency of many contemporary authors is to give their protagonist a modern feminist mentality, but while many girls and women chafed at their traditional female roles throughout history, they didn’t think in quite the same way as “enlightened feminists” at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century.

Many authors of historical fiction need to do a little more research – they shouldn’t only look into what kinds of corsets and gowns women had to wear, what chores they had to perform, what little education they were given – but what the women of those times actually had to say about these things in their letters and diaries. Then they need to stretch their imagination farther in order to articulate a character’s dissatisfaction with traditional gender roles – without adopting contemporary attitudes and expectations.

That’s my little soapbox speech for the week, but the truth is that the main character of Jacqueline Kelly’s Newbery Honor Book The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate commits the atrocious sin of speaking and thinking in contemporary ways – and I loved this novel anyway. In other words, I’ve finally come across a novel that I’m willing to forgive for its historical inaccuracy because it’s so wonderful in so many other ways. Calpurnia Tate is the story of a young Texan girl living on a cotton plantation at the turn of the century who chafes at traditional female activities and duties and longs to study insect and animal life. While I was initially interested in the fact that the protagonist is interested in science (which I feel is somewhat unusual – please correct me if I’m wrong), this element of the story turned out to be only one of many reasons to love Kelly’s novel.

First of all, Calpurnia Tate is quite funny. I don’t tend to laugh too much when I am reading historical fiction, except when it comes to Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables and its sequels. I’m trying to recall any other historical novels that have made me chuckle as much as Kelly’s novel and I’m coming up blank. Calpurnia and her grandfather are both intelligent, very quirky characters that do and say amusing things and find themselves in some entertaining situations. The novel was much lighter reading then I thought it would be from the summary, which pits inquisitive and intellectual Calpurnia against her mother and the world of traditional feminine domesticity.

But despite its humor, the novel does justice to the serious topic of a scientific-minded young woman who is expected to set aside her interest in biology and research in order to learn how to bake pies and knit stockings. As Calpurnia realizes that her chances of becoming a scientist are slim, her feelings of discontent, despair and isolation are realistically portrayed (other than the contemporary speech) and struck me right to the heart. I may not be a scientist at heart, but most people can understand or at least sympathize with the pain of being forced into a role that makes you terribly unhappy. In some ways, this is a similar tale and a similar heartache to that of Maddy in Jennifer Connelly’s fabulous novel A Northern Light, but I really enjoyed the more unusual aspect of Calpurnia Tate that the protagonist was interested in science. Like Gary D. Schmidt’s Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, the main character is exploring the concepts in Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species and finds herself at odds with the more traditionally-minded members of her community. No one understands poor Calpurnia – no one except her grandfather.

And it is Calpurnia’s relationship with her grandfather that is the final and shining reason that I loved this novel. Grandfather Tate is a gruff, distracted old man who hides away in his library and his lab; his grandchildren find him quite intimidating. Yet when Grandfather discovers a budding scientist in his only granddaughter, the two develop a special relationship. They go hunting for bug and plant specimens together, and he teaches her about all the scientific wonders of the world. He cultivates her interest in not only botany and insect life, but in all kinds of knowledge, giving her a copy of The Origin of the Species and access to his collection of Charles Dickens novels. When Calpurnia demonstrates clever business acumen, though, his reaction is one of disappointment – it is obvious that he wants her to become a scientist. He teaches her the scientific method and includes her in his experimental attempts to distill a new type of liquor from pecans. The two discover a new type of plant, which they submit to the Smithsonian Institution to be cataloged and christened with the family name, since they are the plant’s discoverers. They share many interests and activities, and they understand each other in a way that no one else seems to understand either of them.

While Calpurnia’s interest in science is what makes this novel unusual and interesting, it is her relationship with her grandfather that made it particularly poignant for me. I recently lost not only my grandpa, but also my grandmother, both of whom were very special to me. Consequently, this novel hit on many of my emotions. I found myself chuckling – even laughing out loud sometimes – and insisting that I read a few sentences to my husband every once in a while. Then, minutes later, I found myself sniffling a bit.

Clearly, because Kelly was able to entertain me in such a way, I have to forgive its lack of historically accurate speech. In truth, the attitudes and ideas that are communicated are not that far from what a young girl might have felt at the time – it is really only how those ideas are communicated that strike me as inaccurate. But in the overall picture, it stopped mattering to me as I fell in love with this novel. I recommend this even for those who don’t normally enjoy historical fiction and I am much indebted to MJ over at The Woodland Library for her excellent review of this novel, which inspired me to go out and get myself a copy of this book.

This post participates in my Women's History Month Reading Challenge. It's easy to participate - just read and review a historical fiction novel (YA or not) with a female protagonist, then leave me the link to your review on my original Reading Challenge post.

Women's History Month (In My Mailbox and Reading Challenge)

March is Women’s History Month, and so I thought I’d make an extra effort to read some historical fiction with female characters, in addition to reading the six Aussie Y.A. novels for my Six Books in Six Weeks Challenge. So I ordered even more (not that I really needed any more) young adult novels with girls and/or women at the center of the plot.

Even though we’ve all got our own tottering TBR stacks, I’d like to invite everyone to participate in a little mini-reading challenge: read and review at least one historical fiction novel this month that’s centered around a young woman. Grab the badge I’ve made, then link your review back to this post. I’d love to hear about more novels that celebrate Women’s History!!

Meanwhile, here’s what was in my mailbox this week. I’m really excited about these books, although I’m not sure how many of them I’ll actually get to in the month of March…

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George: After reading and reviewing The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell, I’m on a roll with Newbery-winning female-survival stories. This novel is about Miyax, an unhappy Eskimo orphan who has already been married off at the age of thirteen. She runs away from her husband’s parents’ home in Alaska, hoping to reach her pen pal in San Francisco, but becomes lost on the tundra and must rely on a pack of wolves to survive. Another coming-of-age-in-the-wilderness novel may or may not hit me as positively as O’Dell’s novel, but I’m interested to give it a try.

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly: Even though this novel is a Newbery Honor book, I have to admit I wasn’t drawn to it from the description/summary that I read when it first came out: “As the only girl in an uppercrust Texas family of seven children, Calpurnia, 11, is expected to enter young womanhood with all its trappings of tight corsets, cookery, and handiwork…” This sounds a lot like every historical novel about a young girl that I’ve ever read, in which the author tries to insert a modern feminist mentality. This is a pet peeve of mine because it can often feel like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole – while many girls chafed at their traditional roles even back then, they didn’t think in the same ways that we “enlightened feminists” do now at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century. But I’ve recently read a few other descriptions of Calpurnia Tate that made it sound a lot more 1) interesting and 2) relevant to me at this moment in my life, including MJ’s excellent review over at The Woodland Library. It turns out that Calpurnia’s escape from the world of corsets is into the pages of Darwin’s Origin of the Species, which awakens in her a desire to be a scientist. The Darwin comes to her courtesy of her grandfather, with whom she develops a special relationship – which is where the personal relevance pops up. I recently lost my grandpa, with whom I was very close, and so I’m looking forward to reading about another loving relationship between grandfather and granddaughter even more than the storyline about scientific exploration.

Prisoner in the Palace: How Princess Victoria became Queen with the Help of Her Maid, a Reporter, and a Scoundrel by Michaela McColl: This novel came to my attention thanks to Khy over at Frenetic Reader, who reviewed McColl’s book in January. I must admit that while I love period fiction that was actually written during the particular period in which it was set (Austen and Dickens, for example), I’m not usually keen on Victorian historical fiction. But Khy’s opening caught my attention because it’s SO true. She wrote, “I adore historical fiction but often don't read it because of how absolutely dry it can be. Good historical fiction is really good, but bad historical fiction is so, so bad.” She goes on to say that, “Prisoners in the Palace falls into the former category [of well-written historical fiction]” and so since she insists that it’s not dry and that “even those who are not typically fans of the genre will enjoy this one,” I became more and more interested in this novel about a young girl who becomes both a servant and a spy for Queen Victoria. When I found a copy for cheap, the deal was sealed, and McColl’s novel joined my TBR stack.

The Girl in Blue by Ann Rinaldi: When Alex over at The Children’s War reviewed Rinaldi’s Civil War feminist novel, a couple of things immediately caught my eye about the character and the plot. Sixteen-year-old Sarah Wheelock is from Michigan, which is where I grew up, and once she joins the Union Army disguised as a boy, she ends up in Washington D.C., a city that I called home for five years just after my husband and I got married. So not only am I interested in the story of Sarah’s Civil War undercover intrigues, which are apparently based on the true story of Sara Emma Edmonds, I’m also looking forward to reading about familiar locations.

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery: Okay, I admit that I already own a copy of this novel because it is one of my childhood favorites. In fact, I own all eight books in the series (Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island...). But I have wanted to pick up a nicer edition for quite some time, and I’ll use this occasion to re-read Montgomery’s classic novel about the plucky Canadian orphan who turns the lives of Mathew and Marilla Cuthbert – and indeed, the whole town of Avonlea – upside down. I laugh out loud every time I read Montgomery’s series, which is actually pretty rare for me. And oh, that Gilbert Blythe. Be still my beating heart.

If you have any other good suggestions for Women's History Month Reading, post them in the comments section!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In My Mailbox was started by The Story Siren and has spread to over two hundred participating blogs. Bloggers show off books that they have purchased/received (not necessarily in the mail literally), before they actually read and review them in order to share their enthusiasm and catch the interest of their followers. If you’re looking for something new to read, surf through some of mailboxes of this week’s participants, which will be linked to the Story Siren’s March 6 post.

Book Review: The Island of the Blue Dolphins

While I was earning my Master’s Degree in Literature, I was assigned to read Robinson Crusoe one semester. I have to admit that it was the only novel that I simply chose not to finish during my entire graduate school career—I could only take so many of those tedious ledgers and descriptions of the shipwrecked man’s building supplies. A fellow student and friend insisted that while the first two-thirds of the novel were indeed quite boring, the last part of the novel was much more exciting. But I have to confess that at some point, I just stopped caring—and I put the novel up on Paperback Swap. (Sorry, Max.)

As a kid, I was never one for survival or wilderness stories, which is why it took me so long to pick up a novel by Gary Paulsen—and why it has taken so long for me to get around to The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell. But when I saw the beautiful new 50th Anniversary Gift Edition, complete with gorgeous watercolors by Ted Lewin, I knew it was finally time to read this classic children’s novel.

My conclusion is this: O’Dell’s novel is a much, much better version of Daniel Defoe’s plodding stranded-on-a-desert-island novel.

O’Dell’s prose is pretty simple, although I wouldn’t quite describe it as plain or sparse because his descriptions of the island, the animals and birds in particular, seem to come alive even without flowery prose. Every once in a while, the narrator does describe things in more poetic terms, and those beautiful images, scattered widely throughout the text, paint a picture of Karana’s island much more effectively than Defoe’s endless lists.

O’Dell has written Karana’s voice in simple language as well—reserved, she expresses her emotions in very understated terms. But this suits someone who has been left behind on an island with no human companionship for years. She has not forgotten her language, but her use of it has become fairly utilitarian overall. Even so, O’Dell is able to communicate the depth of Karana’s loneliness and grief, even using just brief phrases. Karana is not the kind of girl to go on and on about her emotions – she’s the kind of girl who will silently mourn the loss of her community while she builds her hut, hunts her food, and prepares to kill a pack of wild dogs. She’s the kind of girl who will try to kill a sea elephant and a devilfish—which is why she survives on the island by herself for so many years.

Despite the beauty of O’Dell’s simple prose, though, I think my appreciation for The Island of the Blue Dolphins also/mainly stems from the timing of when I (finally) read the novel. After living in the over-crowded urban sprawl of the Washington D.C. metro area for several years, I have been grateful to escape to the much more scenic Hudson River Valley—and into several “wilderness” novels that I probably wouldn’t have been drawn to even just a few years ago. I now have a much stronger desire to kum-bah-ya with nature on my own, away from all the Starbucks and Burger King drive-thrus. I know I would never survive out alone in the wilderness—I doubt I could even put up a tent on my own, let alone build a hut out of natural materials. And my definition of “hunting” involves combing through racks of clothes at the mall, not going after my dinner with a bow and arrows. (I’m well-aware that I would be naturally selected out of the human race if it weren’t for refrigerator and air-conditioning technology.) Yet the sturdy quality possessed by Karana and the protagonist of Gary Paulsen’s Woods Runner is exactly what I appreciate about these characters. As I read these survival novels, I realize how amazing it must feel to be so in tune with and so dependent on nature.

I just didn’t get that vibe, that luminous feeling of inter-connectedness, from reading Robinson Crusoe – Defoe’s narrator was a colonizer and a capitalist through-and-through; he tried to catalog and dominate the land. Karana must dominate certain aspects of nature in order to survive – she must be willing to kill the wild dogs that killed her little brother, the fish that she must eat, the sea elephants who tusks will provide her with sharp and strong spear tips. But she also respects and comes to love many of the animals on the island, and she stops to admire the beauty around her. She loves the island and says that it has been a place of happiness, despite the fact that she has been stranded their alone. Her ability to not only survive, but still enjoy dressing herself in garlands of flowers and skirts made of beautiful feathers illustrates that O’Dell’s character is much more sweet and personable than Defoe’s narrator—and therefore I could identify with Karana even though I am not nearly as tough as she.

I enjoyed this novel, feeling anxious and peaceful at different times as Karana faced wild animals, dealt with the forces of nature, and enjoyed the beauty and company of the more serene inhabitants of the island. The story allowed me to step outside myself and experience a beauty that is not often available to us today—the solemn beauty of (true) isolation.

This post participates in the Weekly Geeks Challenge for February 20, 2011: Review a book that's less than 200 pages long.