two hundred public words 17/30
I'm trying to get this post done long before midnight. That would be good.
I said I would write about one of my favorite subgenres -- historical YAF -- and I am going to start doing that. Oddly, though I love it very much, right now I do not see as many authors' names as I would have expected. Possibly they will keep coming back to me. As I said earlier, I refuse to write much about the didactic and annoying Ann Rinaldi. And I've already written about Laurence Yep. But there are more!
For this entry:
Scott O'Dell
Rosemary Sutcliff
Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Well, that's about three for each entry, I am guessing. Though as I say, I may think of others. Note that I am starting with a man. Mostly that's because I want to get him out of the way. I do not enjoy the writing style of Scott O'Dell, though I grant that his extremely famous novel Island of the Blue Dolphins deserves its fame and its inclusion in plenty of reading curricula. Not that there is time, any more, to teach entire novels in middle school Language Arts classes -- oh, NO, we must spend the time teaching writing in various formats, grammar (well, sort of), and analysis of 'literature' through short fiction in textbooks. Which mostly don't have any canonical short stories anymore, anyway. Sometimes, if I am lucky, they have EXCERPTS from good YAF novels, such as, e.g. Karen Cushman.
Anyway. Scott O'Dell. He covers a lot of historical ground and eras, but specializes in indigenous cultures of the Americas, which is worth while. Not many people do that well, though as I said in an earlier entry, I think that Clare Bell did it better with regard to tribes subject to the Mayan empire. He's good at different cultures. He has that flat male affect I do not enjoy in fiction. Should reads for Scott O'Dell: Island of the Blue Dolphin, published in 1960... I'm thinking his 1969 Journey to Jericho sounds pretty good, too, though that may be because it sounds a great deal like the historical novels I prefer by Patricia Beatty. It's about an Appalachian miner's son following his father to California. Hm. Some of the reviews call it "a long short story" and praise the simplicity of its writing. That's exactly why I don't much like O'Dell.
Rosemary Sutcliff, on the other hand... you know, her tone is semi-affectless, too. By which I guess I mean it is emotionally detached. Hers, I suspect, though, is that way because she was writing historical YA fiction in the 1950s, jostling with male writers, and dedicated to scholarship. She reminds me a bit of Mary Renault, though of course, I don't know whether (and doubt) she was a dyke. Anyway, her very excellent books are most often about various aspects of pre-Roman and Roman Britain, including an excellently unromanticized (or at least, romanticized in a very different way) take on King Arthur. She's sort of a poet of the 'dying of the light' which she clearly believes happens when Rome gives up on controlling Britain and then, to boot, its empire is overrun by Germanic barbarians. I own a lot of her books. She was writing largely in the 1950s, but continued on into the 60s, 70s, and at least had some reprinting going on in the 1980s. Her stuff is all very male-centric (much as Renault's is) and stoic. I sort of think of it as the kind of thinking a pre-feminist does: screw what girls are supposed to like, I'm going to be like a BOY... with some unacknowledged dislike of inferior female characters. Anyway, I forgive her this, because I like her historical detail.
Eloise Jarvis McGraw is a welcome rebuttal to that kind of writing, though she didn't get much published. Still, her two main books are perennial favorites, and give GREAT daily life details for Ancient Egypt. Her Mara, Daughter of the Nile is a romance, a spy adventure, a historical imagining of the past (with a certain analysis of Hatshepsut which more recent revisionists would scorn)... it's great. Aimed at teenage girls. I have managed to interest some of my students in this book. One of my favorite girls this past year -- half of a pair of twins... and I had both of them, though luckily not in the same period -- she liked the book so much that she drew me her version of the cover, which I promptly fake-laminated and stuck on my wall. Needless to say, I've kept it with the best of my student work and took it home when I emptied my classroom, this past June. McGraw also has a book aimed at younger kids, called The Golden Goblet. It's a good mystery and adventure, and gives great detail about the lives of Ancient Egypt's craftsmen. Really, you learn so much from these books... which is part of my fascination with them. Such a painless way to pick up information. She's written on American history, too (one of the many 'white captive' novels, if I recall correctly, Moccasin Trail) and according to Wikipedia, won three Newbery medals in three different decades, which is pretty awesome. Her last novel (she was born in 1915 and died in 2000, making her my grandmother's almost exact contemporary, which is interesting) was The Moorchild, which, again if I recall correctly, dabbled in fantasy -- the notion of changelings. Seriously, though, read Mara, Daughter of the Nile. It's excellent.
I'll continue with the other authors tomorrow.
I said I would write about one of my favorite subgenres -- historical YAF -- and I am going to start doing that. Oddly, though I love it very much, right now I do not see as many authors' names as I would have expected. Possibly they will keep coming back to me. As I said earlier, I refuse to write much about the didactic and annoying Ann Rinaldi. And I've already written about Laurence Yep. But there are more!
For this entry:
Scott O'Dell
Rosemary Sutcliff
Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Well, that's about three for each entry, I am guessing. Though as I say, I may think of others. Note that I am starting with a man. Mostly that's because I want to get him out of the way. I do not enjoy the writing style of Scott O'Dell, though I grant that his extremely famous novel Island of the Blue Dolphins deserves its fame and its inclusion in plenty of reading curricula. Not that there is time, any more, to teach entire novels in middle school Language Arts classes -- oh, NO, we must spend the time teaching writing in various formats, grammar (well, sort of), and analysis of 'literature' through short fiction in textbooks. Which mostly don't have any canonical short stories anymore, anyway. Sometimes, if I am lucky, they have EXCERPTS from good YAF novels, such as, e.g. Karen Cushman.
Anyway. Scott O'Dell. He covers a lot of historical ground and eras, but specializes in indigenous cultures of the Americas, which is worth while. Not many people do that well, though as I said in an earlier entry, I think that Clare Bell did it better with regard to tribes subject to the Mayan empire. He's good at different cultures. He has that flat male affect I do not enjoy in fiction. Should reads for Scott O'Dell: Island of the Blue Dolphin, published in 1960... I'm thinking his 1969 Journey to Jericho sounds pretty good, too, though that may be because it sounds a great deal like the historical novels I prefer by Patricia Beatty. It's about an Appalachian miner's son following his father to California. Hm. Some of the reviews call it "a long short story" and praise the simplicity of its writing. That's exactly why I don't much like O'Dell.
Rosemary Sutcliff, on the other hand... you know, her tone is semi-affectless, too. By which I guess I mean it is emotionally detached. Hers, I suspect, though, is that way because she was writing historical YA fiction in the 1950s, jostling with male writers, and dedicated to scholarship. She reminds me a bit of Mary Renault, though of course, I don't know whether (and doubt) she was a dyke. Anyway, her very excellent books are most often about various aspects of pre-Roman and Roman Britain, including an excellently unromanticized (or at least, romanticized in a very different way) take on King Arthur. She's sort of a poet of the 'dying of the light' which she clearly believes happens when Rome gives up on controlling Britain and then, to boot, its empire is overrun by Germanic barbarians. I own a lot of her books. She was writing largely in the 1950s, but continued on into the 60s, 70s, and at least had some reprinting going on in the 1980s. Her stuff is all very male-centric (much as Renault's is) and stoic. I sort of think of it as the kind of thinking a pre-feminist does: screw what girls are supposed to like, I'm going to be like a BOY... with some unacknowledged dislike of inferior female characters. Anyway, I forgive her this, because I like her historical detail.
Eloise Jarvis McGraw is a welcome rebuttal to that kind of writing, though she didn't get much published. Still, her two main books are perennial favorites, and give GREAT daily life details for Ancient Egypt. Her Mara, Daughter of the Nile is a romance, a spy adventure, a historical imagining of the past (with a certain analysis of Hatshepsut which more recent revisionists would scorn)... it's great. Aimed at teenage girls. I have managed to interest some of my students in this book. One of my favorite girls this past year -- half of a pair of twins... and I had both of them, though luckily not in the same period -- she liked the book so much that she drew me her version of the cover, which I promptly fake-laminated and stuck on my wall. Needless to say, I've kept it with the best of my student work and took it home when I emptied my classroom, this past June. McGraw also has a book aimed at younger kids, called The Golden Goblet. It's a good mystery and adventure, and gives great detail about the lives of Ancient Egypt's craftsmen. Really, you learn so much from these books... which is part of my fascination with them. Such a painless way to pick up information. She's written on American history, too (one of the many 'white captive' novels, if I recall correctly, Moccasin Trail) and according to Wikipedia, won three Newbery medals in three different decades, which is pretty awesome. Her last novel (she was born in 1915 and died in 2000, making her my grandmother's almost exact contemporary, which is interesting) was The Moorchild, which, again if I recall correctly, dabbled in fantasy -- the notion of changelings. Seriously, though, read Mara, Daughter of the Nile. It's excellent.
I'll continue with the other authors tomorrow.