Sarah's September & October Books
The past couple months, as it happened, were all about children's and young adult books -- pretty unusual for me!
The Church Mice series by Graham Oakley
My best friend sent several of these to my house after being shocked to learn that neither my husband nor I had read them growing up. They are very English, very Anglican picture books written in the '70s. The first book, The Church Mouse, introduces us to Sampson, the (usually) docile church cat, and Arthur the mouse, who occupies the parish church along with a great crowd of friends and relations. The storyline is wittier than I'd been expecting, and the illustrations are terrific. The Church Mice at Bay is the story of what happens when a hippie substitute vicar comes to town, and The Church Mice and the Moon finds Sampson having to rescue some of the mice after they are kidnapped to be trained as astronauts.
The Family Tree series by Ann M. Martin
I'd been wanting to read these ever since I heard the premise -- the four volumes follow four generations of girls in a family, each of whom spends (part of) her growing-up years in the family cottage in coastal Maine. I would've LOVED these as a kid, and I finally ILLed them last month. Better to Wish covers roughly the 1920s-1940s, The Long Way Home the 1950s-1960s, Best Kept Secret the 1970s-1980s, and Home is the Place the 1990s-2010s. If you grew up devouring the Baby-Sitters Club books as I did, you can guess at some of the themes Ann explores: kids and adults with special needs, giftedness, divorce, prejudice, sibling relationships and best friendships. It was interesting watching how some of these topics were dealt with differently across the nearly century-long span. And even when some darker themes crop up (darker, at least, than what you'd encounter in the BSC; the books are still quite tame), Ann has a characteristically gentle touch in the way she writes about them (though some of that is due to the vignette nature of the storytelling). In the final book, all four generations are still alive, so that makes for an interesting dynamic and bringing some things full circle, though I thought #4 was the weakest book overall. Although I didn't find them as good as Ann's recent standalone fiction (A Corner of the Universe and Rain Reign, in particular), I enjoyed them and recommend them.
Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright
A book I only discovered through this community. I enjoyed it very much! Enright describes the passage of time and seasons beautifully. I was also struck by the independence the kids enjoy, providing them with the context for adventure and growth. I'm sure some kids still enjoy that today, but it's probably more unusual. I plan to check out more kids' books by this author. (Any recommendations?)
A Bird, a Girl, and a Rescue (The Rwendigo Tales #2) by J. A. Myhre
I received an ARC through Cross Focused Reviews. Myhre is a longstanding medical missionary in Africa who originally made up these stories for her children. She's a talented storyteller with an ability to draw you into the action. And in this book, it's pretty intense -- at her boarding school, Kiisa not only faces challenges like bullying and soccer tournaments, but the threat of kidnapping raids by political rebels. She navigates these situations by faith, which is presented in a quiet yet powerful way. I was particularly impressed by how relatable the characters were -- the rural African setting is different from what many readers will be familiar with, yet many will immediately resonate with Kiisa's loneliness and doubt as she adjusts to her new peer group. There are talking animals, too, which initially made me doubtful about the book, but added an unexpectedly cool twist to the story.
Not kids/YA
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
My first Gaskell. I'd been hankering for something Victorian, and while this may not rank among my favorite nineteenth-century novels, it definitely fit the bill. More than once, Margaret Hale struck me as a bit of a "Mary Sue," but I kind of loved her all the same. I then watched the 2004 BBC miniseries, which I pretty much adored!
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson
A historical account of the sinking of the luxury passenger ship by a WWI German submarine, told mostly through the stories of individuals on board the respective vessels. You know what's coming, but it still feels shocking when the disaster hits.
On Loving God by Bernard of Clairvaux
I've been working through a lecture series on medieval theology and was inspired to read this twelfth-century treatise for myself. It's an easier read than a lot of medieval works, but still challenging. Bernard presses you to reflect on God's inexhaustible nature and what it looks like for finite creatures to grow in their love for Him. I read a lot of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Christian (Puritan) literature, and I could definitely see how Bernard's devotion influenced those later writers.
Total read in September & October: 12
The Church Mice series by Graham Oakley
My best friend sent several of these to my house after being shocked to learn that neither my husband nor I had read them growing up. They are very English, very Anglican picture books written in the '70s. The first book, The Church Mouse, introduces us to Sampson, the (usually) docile church cat, and Arthur the mouse, who occupies the parish church along with a great crowd of friends and relations. The storyline is wittier than I'd been expecting, and the illustrations are terrific. The Church Mice at Bay is the story of what happens when a hippie substitute vicar comes to town, and The Church Mice and the Moon finds Sampson having to rescue some of the mice after they are kidnapped to be trained as astronauts.
The Family Tree series by Ann M. Martin
I'd been wanting to read these ever since I heard the premise -- the four volumes follow four generations of girls in a family, each of whom spends (part of) her growing-up years in the family cottage in coastal Maine. I would've LOVED these as a kid, and I finally ILLed them last month. Better to Wish covers roughly the 1920s-1940s, The Long Way Home the 1950s-1960s, Best Kept Secret the 1970s-1980s, and Home is the Place the 1990s-2010s. If you grew up devouring the Baby-Sitters Club books as I did, you can guess at some of the themes Ann explores: kids and adults with special needs, giftedness, divorce, prejudice, sibling relationships and best friendships. It was interesting watching how some of these topics were dealt with differently across the nearly century-long span. And even when some darker themes crop up (darker, at least, than what you'd encounter in the BSC; the books are still quite tame), Ann has a characteristically gentle touch in the way she writes about them (though some of that is due to the vignette nature of the storytelling). In the final book, all four generations are still alive, so that makes for an interesting dynamic and bringing some things full circle, though I thought #4 was the weakest book overall. Although I didn't find them as good as Ann's recent standalone fiction (A Corner of the Universe and Rain Reign, in particular), I enjoyed them and recommend them.
Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright
A book I only discovered through this community. I enjoyed it very much! Enright describes the passage of time and seasons beautifully. I was also struck by the independence the kids enjoy, providing them with the context for adventure and growth. I'm sure some kids still enjoy that today, but it's probably more unusual. I plan to check out more kids' books by this author. (Any recommendations?)
A Bird, a Girl, and a Rescue (The Rwendigo Tales #2) by J. A. Myhre
I received an ARC through Cross Focused Reviews. Myhre is a longstanding medical missionary in Africa who originally made up these stories for her children. She's a talented storyteller with an ability to draw you into the action. And in this book, it's pretty intense -- at her boarding school, Kiisa not only faces challenges like bullying and soccer tournaments, but the threat of kidnapping raids by political rebels. She navigates these situations by faith, which is presented in a quiet yet powerful way. I was particularly impressed by how relatable the characters were -- the rural African setting is different from what many readers will be familiar with, yet many will immediately resonate with Kiisa's loneliness and doubt as she adjusts to her new peer group. There are talking animals, too, which initially made me doubtful about the book, but added an unexpectedly cool twist to the story.
Not kids/YA
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
My first Gaskell. I'd been hankering for something Victorian, and while this may not rank among my favorite nineteenth-century novels, it definitely fit the bill. More than once, Margaret Hale struck me as a bit of a "Mary Sue," but I kind of loved her all the same. I then watched the 2004 BBC miniseries, which I pretty much adored!
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson
A historical account of the sinking of the luxury passenger ship by a WWI German submarine, told mostly through the stories of individuals on board the respective vessels. You know what's coming, but it still feels shocking when the disaster hits.
On Loving God by Bernard of Clairvaux
I've been working through a lecture series on medieval theology and was inspired to read this twelfth-century treatise for myself. It's an easier read than a lot of medieval works, but still challenging. Bernard presses you to reflect on God's inexhaustible nature and what it looks like for finite creatures to grow in their love for Him. I read a lot of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Christian (Puritan) literature, and I could definitely see how Bernard's devotion influenced those later writers.
Total read in September & October: 12