Book Review: Word After Word After Word

Word After Word After Word by Patricia MacLachlan

One of those books I might begin to refer to as "little lovlies;" in the same realm as Creech's Love That Dog, not in subject matter but in its honest depiction of the meaningful emotional journeys children undertake and its conviction that those small journeys are consequential. Which they are. 

Book Review: The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood

A wonderfully charming, witty and entertaining book, written in a voice that is reminiscent of those wonderful Victorian authors who wrote about plucky women. Wood has mastered that Victorian style of reader-aside that, for this adult reader, made the book wholly worthwhile.

Extraordinarily busy places are often compared to beehives, and if you have ever seen the inside of a beehive, you already know why this is so. (It is not necessary to actually set foot inside of a beehive to confirm this, by the way. They are too small and too full of bees for in-person tours to be truly convenient. But there are alternatives: One could peer inside using some sort of periscopelike magnifying device, for example. Or one could simply accept that beehives are busy and get on with it. This second option is called "suspending one's disbelief," and it is by far the easiest row to hoe, now and at other times too.


Eavesdropping rarely leads to the desired result. One hides under the bed hoping to discover whether or not a surprise party is being planned for one's birthday, and instead learns that indeed there was, but the festivities have been canceled due to one's cousins all coming down with pinkeye simultaneously. The danger and dust bunnies are hardly worth the trouble. Penelope knew this, but in her defense it should be noted that she had not planned to eavesdrop in the first place. The experience had been thrust upon her with no warning, as if she were a character in a comedic French play.



As you may know, complimentary remarks of this type are all too often made by well-meaning adults to children who are, to be frank, perfectly ordinary looking. This practice of overstating the case is called hyperbole. Hyperbole is usually harmless, but in some cases it has been known to precipitate unnecessary wars as well as a painful gaseous condition called stock market bubbles. For safety's sake, then, hyperbole should be used with restraint and only by those with the proper literary training.


The no-nonsense Victorian nanny moments tucked within the nonsensical plot are endearing, as well.

Now I am well aware that being raised by wolves can be considered an undesirable start in life. But truly, which of us do not have obstacles to overcome? Whining--or howling or what you please--is not the solution to any of life's problems. I realize there have been challenges. I assure you there will be more. Abandoned in the forest as infants, suckled by ferocious smelly animals, forced to wear uncomfortable party outfits, and made to learn to dance the schottische--this is simply the way life goes. Hands must be washed before dinner nevertheless. Please and thank you must be said, and playthings must be put away when you are done with them. Are we agreed?


And then there are the brief moments with a philosophical bent;

...the mystery of not knowing what one's future held paled next to the mystery of not knowing all that one's past already contained


I suppose this is what is meant by 'growing up.' Finding out the difference between what one expected one's life would be like and how things really are.


Whether this book will appeal to children, specifically my child, remains to be seen. I shall read it to him in 2011, when the already planned sequel has been released, because this book doesn't so much end as write itself into a frenzy and then abruptly stop, like an potboiler told by one who has suddenly developed a devilish tickle in his throat. You wait for the story to continue as its teller drinks some water and wipes the tears from his eyes. If the story appeals to my kid, he'll want to keep going. Immediately. So we wait.

I do think he'll like it, however, as it seems to be readable on many levels. It is an endearing story, in its way, if outrageous and unexpected.

Book Review: The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman

Pullman is an atheist. Let's just get that out of the way right up front. An atheist with a healthy disregard for the modern institution that is the church. 

Let's also get out of the way that the book is a part of The Myths Series, which also includesThe Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood's retelling of the Odyssey from Penelope's point of view. A bully pulpit, if the author chooses to use it that way. 

And that Pullman does is no surprise. Pullman's version of the Gospel stories is inevitably unchristian. 

What IS a surprise is that this book was written after the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, a Pullman admirer, asked Pullman during a public debate why having tackled God he had neglected to write about Jesus. This book seems to be Pullman's answer to that question. And while the book is, as mentioned above, unchristian, it is not in the least anti-Jesus. 

In the back cover blurb, Pullman writes of this book, "[it is] a story about how stories become stories." And in that, the story is fairly simple: Pullman takes the familiar canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and weaves a retelling; interestingly, this retelling also includes other less well-known Christian gospels such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Protoevangelium of James, which Pullman uses almost verbatim (if such a word can be used in a case like this) at the beginning of the book. 

The gist of the story is this; Mary actually had twins; Jesus, a healthy infant and Christ, a sickly infant.  It is Christ who is found lying in the feeding trough by the shepherds and the wise men. 

The story continues with Christ, the weaker twin, studying holy texts and astounding the elders with his precocious rabbinical wisdom. Jesus learns carpentry from his father and is popular. I confess at many points early in the story, I had to glance back at the title again; yes, he DOES say that Christ is going to be the scoundrel. Ok, back to reading. In a twist that is the harbinger of Pullman's main crux, as the boys reach adulthood, their characters polarize: Christ becomes cautious and fanciful while Jesus is passionate and impulsive. And holy. 

It is Jesus who is baptised by John. It is Jesus who goes into the wilderness for forty days. But it is Christ who fulfills the Satan role in the wilderness, tempting Jesus with the idea of the future church. The back and forth between the two brothers in this chapter is no less than a brilliant abstract into the essence of Pullman's argument with modern Christianity, further abstracted in the selections of the discussion chosen below; 

Christ   Fine words convince the mind, but miracles speak directly to the heart and then to the soul. If a simple person sees stones changed into bread, or sees sick people healed, this makes an impression on him that could change his life. He'll believe every word you say from then on. He'll follow you to the ends of the earth. 

Jesus   You think the word of God can be conveyed by conjuring tricks? ... Is that all you've learned from the scriptures? To put on a sensational show for the credulous? You'd do better to forget about that and attend to the real meaning of things. Remember what the scripture says; "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."

Christ   What is the real meaning of things, then? 

Jesus   God loves us like a father, and his Kingdom is coming soon. 

Christ   But that's exactly what we can demonstrate with miracles. And the Kingdom is a test for us, I'm sure: we must help bring it about...I can see the whole world united in his Kingdom of the faithful ... an association of local groups under the direction and guidance of a wise-elder in the region, the regional leaders all answering to the authority of one supreme director, a kind of regent of God on earth! And there would be councils of learned men to discuss and agree on the details of ritual and worship, and even more importantly, to rule on the intricacies of faith, to declare what was to be believed and what was to be shunned...Isn't this a vision worth marveling at, Jesus? Isn't this something to work for with every drop of blood in our bodies? 

Jesus   You phantom. You shadow of a man...Do you think your mighty organisation would even recognise the Kingdom if it arrived? Fool! The Kingdom of God would come into these magnificent courts and palaces like a poor traveller with dust on his feet. The guards would spot him at once, ask for his papers, beat him, and throw him out into the street. 

So Jesus continues his journey as a holy man. And Christ, bidden by a mysterious stranger (who functions as the evil impetus behind the distortion of Jesus’s teachings into the founding of the modern Christian Church) follows him and records his words and actions. 

And at some point, Christ begins to edit, of which the stranger approves. 

Sometimes there is a danger that people might misinterpret the words of a popular speaker. The statements need to be edited, the meanings clarified, the complexities unravelled for the simple-of-understanding. In fact, I want you to continue. Keep a record of what your brother says, and I shall collect your reports from time to time so that we can begin the work of interpretation. 

And so the story continues, with some of the famous miracles explained (the loaves and fishes turns out to be just Jesus convincing the crowd to share with each other, no less of a miracle, in some ways, than producing food out of thin air) and some left to stand as simple inspiration and hope motivating the lame to walk and the body to heal. 

The stranger reappears periodically with little nuggets like "What should have been is a better servant of the Kingdom that what was" and Christ continues to edit and fabricate the story. 

And when you come to assemble the history of what the world is living through now, you will add to the outward and visible events their inward and spiritual significance; so, for example, when you look down on the story as God looks down on time, you will be able to have Jesus foretell to his disciples, as it were in truth, the events to come of which, in history, he was unaware. 

And so Pullman weaves his tale of the good man Jesus, who never claimed to be anything but a prophet of how the world could be if we people were any damn good. And the scoundrel Christ fabricates the history to fit the vision of the future Church, the tangible symbol of a Kingdom of God that will never arrive on earth. 

As the story builds to the crucifixion, one waits for the scene in the garden at Gethsemane, where Jesus goes to pray. And, true to form, Pullman has Jesus decrying God's absence; he has been preaching and teaching and giving and, still, no word directly from God. As Jesus prays, he questions and he waits for some answer, some sign. He hears the sounds of life progressing, a dog barking, an owl hooting, an insect chirping, but, 

If I thought you were in those sounds I could love you with all my heart, even if those were the only sounds you made. But you're in the silence. You say nothing. God, is there any difference between saying that and saying you're not there at all? I can imagine some philosophical smartarse of a priest in years to come pulling the wool over his poor followers' eyes: "God's great absence is, of course, the very sign of his presence", or some such drivel. The people will hear his words, and think how clever he is to say such things, and they'll try to believe it; and they'll go home puzzled and hungry, because it makes no sense at all. That priest is worse than the fool in the psalm, who at least is an honest man. When the fool prays to you and gets no answer, he decides that God's great absence means he's not bloody well there. 

Jesus continues his one-sided conversation to sketch how he feels Christ's vision of the church would inevitably become an instrument of torture and control for greedy men and a sanctuary for secretly lustful men who would take advantage of the innocent. This is vintage Pullman; heavy handed and passionate. He hates the church. Of course he does. We knew that before we started this book. 

So one expects that the resurrection will be fabricated, with the twin, Christ, appearing to the followers of Jesus, to inspire them to greatness. Pullman has a little bit of nasty fun with that; the followers of Jesus ask Christ to prove he is Jesus and show them his wounds. He has no wounds but the followers so desperately want to believe that they explain this away. And later, as they are building early Christianity, the story changes again and morphs into the doubting Thomas riff, which means that they had to explain away the broken legs, which the Romans practiced in all crucifixions as a matter of protocol, because if Jesus returned with his wounds intact and his legs had been broken, he wouldn't have been able to walk. So they came up with piercing his side. 

And I wish Pullman hadn't done that. There's no reason to pick a fight like that when the larger lessons he has tried to teach were so well thought out. If Pullman's purpose in this book was to explain how the words of Jesus have evolved into an instrument of oppression, then this little turn was unnecessary. 

Of course, maybe that wasn't Pullman's purpose. Maybe I got out of the book only what I sought to get out of it, ignoring the other lessons I didn't understand or with which I didn't agree. 


And maybe that's the most important lesson of all.

Book Review: How to Train Your Dragon

How to Train Your Dragon (Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III)  by Cressida Cowell

It is probably best that I have NOT seen the Dreamworks film based on this book, as I was able to go into the book without expectation. 

And without expectation, it was an eminently entertaining read. The illustrations are purposefully messy, as is the font, and the book is littered throughout with faux ink blots, just as a young male Viking's journal might be, if the Vikings knew about ink. Or journals. 

And, sure, I could go on and on about the incongruities of the plot based on historical timelines, but what's the point? This is a work of imaginative fiction; Cowell has deliberately created a world that tugs at our ideas of history and throws them on their head at the same time. 

A tad violent and bullies, both of human nature and dragon nature, appear throughout. But the hero prevails and becomes a Hero.

Book Review: Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism

Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism by Georgia Byng

As another Goodreads reviewer wrote, "I despise reading about bullies. And if I do have to read about them, there better be a good payoff in the end." 

The payoff was there but it was way late and a dollar short. 

I found none of the characters to be likable enough to inspire my attention and the moral, the lesson, the moment of redemption, remorse and reconfiguring, was not boldly drawn so as to make up for the pages and pages and pages of selfish, irresponsible behavior perpetrated by all of the book's characters. 

It was readable. And the story was interesting, if purposefully odd in its Charles Dickens orphan meets A Star is Born. But I, like the reviewer quoted above, would have quit looooong before the end had I not read that there WAS a moral. 

I'm glad I kept reading. But this is not one for kids who aren't really paying attention to each word. This is a book that must be finished or the lesson becomes "do whatever you want whenever you want as long as it makes you happy." Not a good lesson, that. 

Book Review: Gatty's Tale

Gatty's Tale by Kevin Crossley-Holland

A sequel-slash-parallel to the King Arthur trilogy by the same author. Except I liked this book much, much better. Perhaps it was that I knew what to expect. Perhaps it was because, having read the trilogy, I was set up mentally for Crossley-Holland's world. Perhaps it was because the story was allowed to flow, without being chopped up with interruptions from legend. Perhaps it was because the heroine was such a plucky, likable gal. Whatever the actual reason, this book spoke to me moreso than the trilogy. 

Sure, in a book review, you're supposed to say why. But what if you don't quite know why? 

What if one of the reasons was a song Gatty made up? 
I didn't know I didn't know
Nobody told me so. 

Perhaps it was throwaway quotes like this one, "Nothing can be nothing. Everything's something." 

Or, "You can teach someone a skill but you can't teach them spirit" 

Or, "It's one thing to know, Gatty, but quite another to understand." 

Or, "The quill is a miracle because it drinks darkness and sheds light." 

Or, "No one is really quite as interested in us as we are in ourselves." 

One thing's for sure, I didn't enjoy it because I was itching to read a story about a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the middle ages. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. But the story of this book wasn't the pilgrimage; the story was within the pilgrimage, just as a pilgrimage isn't really about the destination but, rather, the journey. 

And this was a delightful journey.


Published in the US as Crossing to Paradise

Book Review The Mysterious Benedict Society

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

I often love love love books written for the target audiences of ten through fourteen years old because, in the case of the well-written, well-thought ones, authors who write for this demographic actually take their readers seriously. They present themes that are necessary for making one's way in the world in a palatable manner. They parent without parenting and give readers, serious readers, a mentor who speaks from within the pages and is available anytime the reader picks up the book. They don't try to impress. They don't try to be cerebral. They entertain. They teach. They inspire. They amuse. 

Certainly, not every book written for this age group is such a masterpiece. But The Mysterious Benedict Society comes close. It's an engaging page-turner with plenty of moral, ethical and societal questioning upon which the reader can munch when not turning pages. 

The Mysterious Benedict Society is chock-full of puzzles, mysteries and wordplay while simultaneously being the kind of story that you cannot seem to put down. What is more thrilling, to a young reader or to an adult reader, than four kids who are charged with saving the world? Literally saving the world? 

The book treads the fine line between myth and reality. One can imagine the events happening; they are improbable but not impossible. But the world of Stewart's creation, though it bears some resemblance to our world, is nothing like it. There is no internet. Everyone reads the newspaper. TV exists but Number Two types on a typewriter. The kids have no gadgets (save for Kate's slingshot and spyglass) but they wear fairly modern clothing, which places the sense of place firmly in some imaginary time between the Victorian era and now. This is not a distraction at all but might be why people persist in comparing this book to the Lemony Snicket books. But where Lemony Snicket is full of stories tinged with doom, Stewart's book is full of hope; it takes the time to point out what's wrong in that world (which bears a passing resemblance to ours) but doesn't sketch hopelessness in that dark, gothic manner that Handler employs. Nor is there an ever-present sneering narrator, looking down with disgust on the world around him, his readers and himself.  Yeah, I don't like Lemony Snicket.


But I digress. 

On the second page of The Mysterious Benedict Society  Stewart introduces the Emergency; "Things had gotten desperately out of control, the headlines reported; the school systems, the budget, the pollution, the crime, the weather ... why, everything, in fact, was a complete mess, and citizens everywhere were clamoring for a major -- no, a dramatic -- improvement in government." As one continues reading, one realizes that the Emergency has been going on for years with no improvement. As one continues further and delves into the plot, the Emergency is outed for what it really is; propaganda gone haywire in the media. Sound familiar? 

Near the end of the book, the villain reveals the crux of his villainous plan, which rests heavily on the idea that best way to make people feel better, and, ergo, control them, is to present a simple answers to complex problems; if one can convince people to believe in the simple answer their stress goes away and they become malleable. And when people buy into an easy answer, they stop thinking. And stop working for a better world. They become sheep beholden to the person/organization/government who gave them the simple answer. Sound familiar? 


Of course, Stewart doesn't really say any of this; Mr. Curtain simply states the idea. And sure, Stewart lifted this from Mencken ("For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong") who probably lifted it from somewhere else. But, still, in a book aimed at smart pre-teens, this reference is something wonderful. 

Despite the depth of Stewart's themes, he treats them rather lightly.  He doesn't preach. He puts it out there and then lets his characters figure out what it means, often letting the reader figure it out first. And he never makes it seem hopeless. There is always a chance, a ghost of a chance, that these kids can figure out how to fix it. All of it. 

The whole book is based on the large theme of truth and loyalty and strength of character but it didn't feel like a lecture. At all. 

I particularly enjoyed the moral fiber of the four main characters; their dedication to truth. Their dedication to each other. Their patience, mostly, with the quirks of the other three. I relished the differing strengths and talents of each of the four and how they formed a supportive ring; not decrying with envy the talents of those around them but, rather, respecting them and appreciating them, even when they were talents they wished they had. I admired their ability to take the road less traveled and suffer the consequences of not selling out.  And I admired Stewart for writing them this way.  These are all aspects to be emulated, by children and adults alike. And I always love it when a book, any kind of book, makes me want to try to be a better person. This one did. 

I found Constance Contraire to be the most loosely and carelessly drawn of all the characters; she had no consistency and made no sense. At all. Then suddenly she did make sense --perfect sense --and became one of the best characterizations I've ever experienced in children's literature.  Just like that. A piece of the puzzle was missing and when it was filled in, the world changed.  It was a brilliant story-telling turn, which I admire.

The whole book is like that. A series of puzzles, some deeper and more meaningful than others.  Some solutions were obvious to me.  Some were not.  Some I figured out.  Some I did not.  I mused.  I thought.  I nodded affirmatively.   But mostly I turned pages with wild abandon, eyes flying over the prose, wanting to discover what was going to happen next.