two hundred public words 23/30
Let's see. Three at a go, this evening. Maybe. We'll see.
Berlie Doherty
Jill Paton Walsh
Harriette Gillem Robinet
The first author, Berlie Doherty, is a Brit. I don't know a ton about her, having only read one of her (many, apparently) books. But the one I read was good -- again, much more observant about class in history. It's about a young woman's talking with her elders and learning stories of their youth, particularly her grandmother's young romance while she was a factory girl. Granny Was a Buffer Girl is the title. It's set in the North of England, and in the 1930s -- at least, the flashback parts are. It reminds me in tone of a movie I love very much and haven't seen in ages, god, what was it called... oh, yeah. Letter to Brezhnev, a great 80s romance set in Liverpool where a young woman who works in a chicken factory and goes out to get happily drunk on payday meets a young Russian -- a young Soviet Russian -- sailor and shags him. Awwww. Letters ensue, and it's a foil-the-Cold-War romance! I don't know; it's part of that whole Brit working class pop culture thing, like the 80s and 90s movies celebrating the moment of the Miners' Strike in 1984. I wish that were available on Netflix Instant Watch... Awww... it's not even available to RENT! Sigh.
Jill Paton Walsh is also a Brit. I think. She has a more serious tone to her. I've read a few of her books, but the one that sticks with me is a quite depressing bit of history, and writing, about the fate of one of England's plague villages, a place called Eyam. The book is called A Parcel of Patterns, and tells the story of how the village quarantined itself, and how the majority of its inhabitants died. I can't actually remember the fate of the narrator, in fact. It's very, very effective, partly for its speech patterns and the language, which seems -- well, like I would know -- quite accurate. At any rate it's not anachronistic at all. You know what's funny? Well, a couple of things -- from Wikipedia, both of them. First, apparently there is a genetic mutation that some people from Eyam have now that may make them immune not only to the bubonic plague, but, if present in both parents, to HIV/AIDS. I have no idea how credible that is. Second -- Berlie Doherty has apparently also writen a book about Eyam -- a fantasy novel. I am very curious about that.
Finally, Harriette Gillem Robinet. I wish I liked her writing better, but I don't. She strikes me as political, but she's very clunky in her writing, sigh. She's written a bunch of historical YAF books which are set often in and around Chicago (also one about the bus boycott, in Montgomery, Walking to the Bus-Rider Blues). Her book about the Chicago Fire, Children of the Fire has gotten a fair amount of attention, I suspect because there aren't many (if any) other fictional treatments for kids. But the one I liked most is her YAF novel about the Haymarket Riot -- now that takes some politics. That one is called Missing from Haymarket Square. They're worth reading for the history... but her characterization isn't too interesting, and ... well, sigh, I'm just not too compelled. Sadly.
Berlie Doherty
Jill Paton Walsh
Harriette Gillem Robinet
The first author, Berlie Doherty, is a Brit. I don't know a ton about her, having only read one of her (many, apparently) books. But the one I read was good -- again, much more observant about class in history. It's about a young woman's talking with her elders and learning stories of their youth, particularly her grandmother's young romance while she was a factory girl. Granny Was a Buffer Girl is the title. It's set in the North of England, and in the 1930s -- at least, the flashback parts are. It reminds me in tone of a movie I love very much and haven't seen in ages, god, what was it called... oh, yeah. Letter to Brezhnev, a great 80s romance set in Liverpool where a young woman who works in a chicken factory and goes out to get happily drunk on payday meets a young Russian -- a young Soviet Russian -- sailor and shags him. Awwww. Letters ensue, and it's a foil-the-Cold-War romance! I don't know; it's part of that whole Brit working class pop culture thing, like the 80s and 90s movies celebrating the moment of the Miners' Strike in 1984. I wish that were available on Netflix Instant Watch... Awww... it's not even available to RENT! Sigh.
Jill Paton Walsh is also a Brit. I think. She has a more serious tone to her. I've read a few of her books, but the one that sticks with me is a quite depressing bit of history, and writing, about the fate of one of England's plague villages, a place called Eyam. The book is called A Parcel of Patterns, and tells the story of how the village quarantined itself, and how the majority of its inhabitants died. I can't actually remember the fate of the narrator, in fact. It's very, very effective, partly for its speech patterns and the language, which seems -- well, like I would know -- quite accurate. At any rate it's not anachronistic at all. You know what's funny? Well, a couple of things -- from Wikipedia, both of them. First, apparently there is a genetic mutation that some people from Eyam have now that may make them immune not only to the bubonic plague, but, if present in both parents, to HIV/AIDS. I have no idea how credible that is. Second -- Berlie Doherty has apparently also writen a book about Eyam -- a fantasy novel. I am very curious about that.
Finally, Harriette Gillem Robinet. I wish I liked her writing better, but I don't. She strikes me as political, but she's very clunky in her writing, sigh. She's written a bunch of historical YAF books which are set often in and around Chicago (also one about the bus boycott, in Montgomery, Walking to the Bus-Rider Blues). Her book about the Chicago Fire, Children of the Fire has gotten a fair amount of attention, I suspect because there aren't many (if any) other fictional treatments for kids. But the one I liked most is her YAF novel about the Haymarket Riot -- now that takes some politics. That one is called Missing from Haymarket Square. They're worth reading for the history... but her characterization isn't too interesting, and ... well, sigh, I'm just not too compelled. Sadly.