Above the Dreamless Dead: World War I in Poetry and Comics

My Latin teacher, Mrs. Jones, made me memorize this quote from the Aeneid  when I was 15--Sunt lacrimae rerum, et mentem motilia tangunt (There are tears of things, and they touch the human heart).   It pretty much sums up the book I just finished-- Above the Dreamless Dead: World War I in Poetry and Comics, edited by Chris Duffy (First Second, July 2014, YA on up)

Many of the poems of the WW I English poets that are anthologized here, illustrated by various graphic artists, were not new to me, but seeing them illustrated twisted, sharpened, and deepened my emotional reaction to them.  And my emotional reaction to the pity of it, and the horror of it, is so great that any intellectual response is dampened to the banality of "I don't like this one as much" or "Yes, that is great writing, and gee those are powerful images" (then taking a break in the reading to allow the eyes to clear).

So I can't critically review this one.

I can say, though, that I think it is a valuable book.  And that I think we need books like this, in a format that's friendly and familiar to young readers, that might shake the foundations of safe complacency.

"If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gurgling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

[Sweet and good it is to die for your country].

George Pratt's black and white illustrations, understated, matter of fact, help bring the point of Wilfred Owen's famous poem home.  

So yes, it's a good book, with the emotional heft of great poems made more so by the drawings.   And it's made education friendly by the ordering of the poems by their sequence in the war--The Call to War, In the Trenches, and Aftermath, by an introduction explaining trench warfare and poetry, bios. of the poets, and by notes about each poem and its adaptation.  You can go look at these things here at First Second. 

And moving on from there, more poetry comics, please, First Second!  They are such a useful and easy way to acquire cultural literacy.

Example:  On a much lighter and somewhat tangential note--Busman's Honeymoon, by Dorothy Sayers (the one in which Peter and Harriet are married) is full of quotations and references (I would like an annotated edition, please) and I finally (!), thanks to inclusion of Everyone Sang, by Siegfried Sassoon, realize where the line that comes into Harriet's head at one point "Everyone suddenly burst out singing" comes from.  It's not utterly tangential, because of course Lord Peter was himself a veteran of WW I....and this makes the peace he finds with Harriet all the more powerful.  As Sasson's poem goes on to say--

"And beauty came like the setting sun:

My heart was shaken with tears, and horror
Drifted away..."

Which Sayers doubtless knew and was thinking of, because she was smart without the help of poetry comics!

(disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher)

(for the first time in ages, I get to be part of Poetry Friday, hosted today at A Year of Reading!)

Sophie, In Shadow, by Eileen Kernaghan

Sophie, In Shadow, by Eileen Kernaghan (Thistledown Press, YA, March 2014)

Two years ago, sixteen-year-old English girl Sophie survived the sinking of the Titanic, but her parents did not.  Still haunted by that tragedy, she's sent off to India, to stay with distant cousins--Tom, a zoologist working at the Indian Museum, Jean, his novelist wife, and their young daughter, Alex.  Sophie has prepared herself for "India" by reading (both non-fiction and Kipling), but nothing can prepare her for what happens once she arrives.

Tragedy and culture-shock combine to wake in Sophie a gift of sorts--her perceptions of both past and future become strangely sharpened.  And her visions will make her a player in the tail end of Kipling's Great Game--the game of intrigue, political machinations, and spying in which European powers, and now Indian nationalists, shape the future of the country.  World War I is underway in Europe, and plots are afoot in India that may well destroy both Sophie's new family and British control of the sub-continent.

I approach fiction about India, especially fiction involving young English girls with supernatural abilities, with a certain amount of caution, looking carefully for stereotypes, romanticization, and neo-colonial baggage.   Happily, Sophie, In Shadow did a good job of not bothering me!  In large part this is because we stick closely to Sophie's point of view--she is aware that she has a lot of learning to do, and is willing to question the social norms of the very tail end of the British raj.  It is still very much a European point of view, but the reader can't reasonably expect more from this particular character's story.

There was much I enjoyed--I am a huge fan of Kipling's Kim, so it was great to see Sophie becoming involved in the last years of the Great Game, including a bit where a German agent is pursued through the mountains!  And I am also a fan of being educated through historical fiction--before reading this book, I had not particular thoughts on what was happening in India during WW I.  And Sophie herself, and her cousins, are interesting characters with believable motivations, interests, and aspirations.  Added interest came from a secondary character, a friend of Jean's who was a real person--Alexandra David-Néel , a French-Belgian spiritualist, anarchist, Buddhist, writer, and explorer.  I may well have to seek out more about her!

The paranormal elements of the story are enough to add fantastic zest, but are not so much so as to make Sophie a special snowflake saving India (thank goodness!).  Sophie's visions do not take over the book--for the most part, it reads as historical fiction--so don't expect this to be full-blown paranormal fantasy.

In short, Sophie, in Shadow is historical fantasy that both educates and entertains, that I particularly recommend to fans of Kim!

(note:  Jean and Tom and Alexandra were the central characters in Kernaghan's earlier book, Wild Talent, but it is not at all necessary to have read that first).

disclaimer: review copy received from the author

In the Shadow of Blackbirds, by Cat Winters

In the Shadow of Blackbirds, by Cat Winters (Amulet, 2013) is a page-turning mystery/horror/romance/ghost story of great riveting-ness.   Set in California toward the end of WW I, the Spanish Influenza is an overwhelming nightmare, boys are coming back from the war horribly maimed and shell shocked, and 16 year old Mary Shelley Black's father has just been arrested for helping boys dodge the draft.

Her aunt Eva takes her in--not an old fussy aunt, but a 26 year old working making battleships, grieving for her dead husband (tb) and her lost youth, and rather fascinated by the work of a young spirit photographer, Julius.   Who Mary hates.  Mary loved Julius' young step-brother, Stephan, and they had one all to short sweet bit of passion before Stephan went to war.....and now Julius is there, and Stephan isn't.

Mary's hopes that Stephen is still alive proof unfounded.  He is dead.  There is his coffin.

And then she gets struck by lightning, and all supernatural heck breaks loose.

Because Stephen begins to haunt her.  And Stephen is suffering the tortures of the damned.

Mary cannot find peace until she can help him, and so a dark unwinding of fact and spirit and treachery and death begins....

I would have read this in a single sitting even if I hadn't been reading it for the 48 Hour Challenge.   I am not sure if I blinked as much as I should have.   Huge emotional punch, huge emotional wrenchings, great characters, and fascinating plot.  At least I think there was all that, but I was so busy reading I wasn't thinking.  Just feeling.

I'll leave it at that.  

The Jewel and the Key, by Louise Spiegler, for Timeslip Tuesday

The Jewel and the Key, by Louise Spiegler (Clarion Books, 2011, YA, 464 pages)

When an earthquake hits Seattle, it sets in motion a chain of events that gives sixteen-year old Addie, stage struck but shut out of the high school drama clique, the theater experience of her dreams. But this comes at a price that Addie could never have expected. While helping her father fix the earthquake damage to his bookstore, she finds a silver mirror, tucked among vintage clothes in a hidden storage room. When she looks in the mirror, she finds herself transported back to 1917 Seattle...where the dilapidated old theater of her own time, the Jewel, still has all its glory.

There, in the company of the vibrant theater people of the past, Addie learns to love the Jewel, and one young actor, named Reg, in particular. But the mirror shuttles her back and forth between times, and the future, both for the people of 1917, and in her own time, is clouded by war. For Reg, it's WW I; for Addie's best friend, and kind-of foster-brother, Whaley, it's the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the present, the owner of the Jewel is hoping to restore it--if the preservationists, with their grant money, can be convinced that enough is known about its original appearance. Addie's mirror might be the key that is needed...but saving the theatre, and saving Whaley and Reg from being swallowed by war, might be too much for her to pull off.

The Jewel and the Key is a book that carefully builds its story--as the cover image suggests, there are no mad rushings into headlong action. Addie is given time to come to terms with her time-travelling, the reader is given time to get to know the supporting cast, and, most importantly, there is time for Siegler to build a beautifully convincing picture of Seattle on the brink of WW I. The social history of the time is crucial to the story, and Siegler does an excellent job making it meaningful.

Addie herself is equally convincing--her relationships, both in the past and the present, rang true. The romance element of the book gave it poignancy on an intimate scale; the reality of war gave it a more universal emotional power.

It was a book I read somewhat slowly, feeling no need to rush (yet feeling, just a tad, that things could move on a bit faster...). I savored, along with Addie, the life of the early 20th century theater, I fretted along with her as she hunted in the present for the information that could restore it to its former glory, and my heart ached for her as she tried to keep safe those she loved.

At its best (in my opinion), time travel books use the past in powerful ways to change the lives of the characters from the present, forcing them to grow up, and change; putting them, essentially, through an emotional wringer, while shinning light on what was never considered before (and not annoying the picky reader with anachronisms). The Jewel and the Key does all this very nicely--Addie isn't the same person at the end, and I, as the reader, wasn't quite either, in the small, but cumulatively important ways that a book can change and educate its reader.

That being said, it wasn't a book that I loved. I think the deliberate pacing of the book diluted the emotional intensity somewhat, but this could have been just me. I held back from investing myself in the relationships formed in the past, having learned, through bitter fictional experience, that WW I and happily ever don't always go hand in hand (which isn't a spoiler for this book in particular, just my perspective reading it). I did, however, enjoy it very much, and do heartily recommend it, to fans of historical fiction and the theatre in particular.

Note on the mechanics of the time travel--sure, the mirror serves as a connection between past and present, and it's a special mirror, but there's no reason why it should act as a time travel device. If lack of explanation bothers you, you might well be bothered.

Note on age: It's YA in theme and age of heroine, but not inappropriate for a younger reader. The romance is understated, and though there are disturbing depictions of the reality of war, and police brutality, the violence isn't as nearly as graphic as The Hunger Games, which all the 11 year olds I know have read....

Here's another review, at Jen Robinson's Book Page (who incidentally found it a fast read, leading me to wonder if my reaction would have been different if I had read it under more peaceful circumstances that those that transpired. Last night was not a shining star in the annals of my 11 year old's homework)

Day of the Assassins, by Johnny O'Brien, for Timeslip Tuesday

Day of the Assassins, by Johnny O'Brien (Templar Publishing, 2009, upper middle grade/YA, 224 pages), is a fast-paced time-travel adventure that takes two British school boys back to World War I, via a time machine. There they become pawns in a struggle between two rival factions of the scientists who invented the machine. One side (known as VIGIL) has sworn not to meddle with the past, lest the present be disrupted; the other side, led by a mysterious man known as the Benefactor, feels a strong moral imperative to change things, and make the past better.

Jack and Angus aren't sure which side is right. Thrown into Europe on the eve of WW I, they soon find out that the past, with its vast cast of characters, and conflicting points of view, is much more complicated than they thought. Should they try to stop the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, or let history take its terrible course?

Timeslip Tuesday is something of a risk for me as a reader--I've exhausted all but two of the timeslip stories I've already read (I'm holding those in reserve), and so I find myself, as it were, setting up blind dates with books I've never met and with whom I might turn out to have little in common. Day of the Assassins happened to be that sort of book--we had a pleasant conversation, but didn't exchange phone numbers.

I think it would be great for a 12 year old boy fascinated by intrigue and adventure--there are lots of Daring Escapes (rappelling down from a cable car, being shot at while escaping on high-powered motorcycles smuggled from the future) and Dramatic Events (an unexpected balloon trip when the tether rope is shot through, the culminating assassination attempt) as Jack and Angus travel across Europe, pursued by the operatives of VIGIL.

As for me, I find that, unless its Connie Willis, time travel devices built by scientists are much harder for me to accept than time travel through vague, even unexplained, magic. (It didn't help that the time travel machine is called Taurus--I kept mis-reading it as Tardis). I appreciated the central dilemma of the book--if you could keep a war from happening, would it be the right thing to do?--but that wasn't quite enough to satisfy me--I was never deeply moved, which surprised me a bit, because it doesn't take much of WW I to move me.

But that being said, if you know a young reader whose interest in WW I might have been sparked by Leviathan et seq. by Scott Westerfeld, you could offer them this--it's not as wildly extravagant in its imagination, but that reader might well find it a satisfying adventure. And for those who like to learn history through fiction, this is a good introduction to the beginnings of WW I.

And I myself might well, some other Timeslip Tuesday, find myself reviewing the next two books in the series--Day of Deliverance (2010) and Day of Vengeance (2011).

Here's an example from early in Jack's adventure, when he's hiding on a British ship of war:

"Jack turned round on the gun so his back was now facing away from the turret and towards the bow. Balancing dangerously, he inserted first one foot and then the other into the barrel and pushed his body carefully into the end of the gun. It was a tight squeeze, but he was small for his age and he just made it. As long as he kept his blond head down, nobody would ever know he was there.

But he did not have much time to enjoy his new hiding place. Suddenly he felt a slight vibrating sensation around him coupled with a low, grinding sound. Imperceptibly at first, the giant gun barrel in which he was encased, slowly started to move. The massive gun swung its way from its position parallel with the starboard deck out towards the sea. As it moved laterally, it also rose upwards into the air. Below, in the gun turret itself, he began to hear muffled voices and the commotion of men preparing… for what? Jack, whose head had been flush with the end of the barrel, pushed himself up a couple of inches and sneaked a look. He was shocked at what he saw. His gun was now pointing well out over the starboard side of the ship and thirty feet below all he could see was the grey water of the sea churning to white as Dreadnought drove through it at a mind-spinning twenty knots.

Emerging from a light mist on the distant horizon, he spotted first one, then two and then three ghostly shapes....The gun rose a little further into the air, and he realised with sickening fear that Dreadnought was about to open fire." (page 65)

(Ms. Yingling also has a time travel book review today--Ruby Red, by Kersten Gier, which I want rather badly! And at Just Booking Around you can find the classic Lest Darkness Fall, which I really need to read some day....If anyone else, by the way, were to review a time travel book on a Tuesday, and let me know, I'll put in a link!)

Ghost of Heroes Past, by Charles Reid, for Timeslip Tuesday

Before I begin the review of this week's book, I just want to share that Alyce at At Home With Books has kicked of a Time Travel Reading Challenge! I guess my goal is to read 52 time travel books in the coming year, since that's how many Tuesdays there will be....Alyce has a nice list of time travel books in her announcement post, and, just in case any readers of this blog don't know, I have a full list of my review of time travel books here, sorted by time period and age range. And now, today's Timeslip Tuesday book:

Ghost of Heroes Past, by Charles Reid ( Ronsdale Press, 2010, middle grade, 170 pages)

Johnny Anders is an ordinary Canadian boy, of the lonely, daydreaming kind. But his life becomes utterly extraordinary when the ghost of a soldier begins visiting him at night. This ghost takes Johnny back into the past, showing him scenes from World Wars I and II in which Canadian men and women were present. The moving acts of heroism he witnesses include those of Bill Chong, risking his life to carry military intelligence through the havoc of south Asia in WW II, a nurse, Joan Bamford Flecher, who refuses to believe that the impossible task of bringing hundreds of wounded civilians to safety is impossible, and numerous other brave men and women, some of whom never made it home. These night-time excursions have a profound effect on Johnny, encouraging him to recognize that there might be a reason why he's been chosen by the ghost--he, too, has the gift to make stories from history become real, through his writing.

In the present, his self-confidence, minute to start with, is bolstered by his growing friendship with a new girl in town. Casey has self-confidence to spare--so much so that she dresses in gungy clothes, wanting to be judged for her character, not by her appearance. She has an interest in the two world wars herself--her great grandfather fought in both. And when Johnny begins to share his experience with her, it turns out that her great grandfather is one of the heroes whose story Johnny has been observing. She is an eager audience for his stories, who encourages him to explore his own talents as a historian...and she becomes more than just a friend.

I myself am fascinated by the two world wars, and Reid does a beautiful job telling his stories in gripping fashion. I was riveted. His presentation of the wars is balanced--he makes a stab at explaining why the Japanese did some of the horrible things they did, instead of just dismissing them as Bad, and he never glorifies or sugar-coats the realities of war. I do wonder, though, why the ghost who visits Johnny is fixed on the two world wars--this is never explained. (The ghost himself isn't exactly explained either, but I am comfortable letting that slide--it's fantasy, after all).

The other story, of Casey back in real life, requires much more suspension of disbelief--I don't think that anyone that confident really exists in any middle school. But it sure would be great if they did, and I enjoyed the growing friendship between the two, even though it also required great suspension of disbelief that Casey would really fall for Johnny...she somehow is attracted to something more than just the stories he tells, and I was never quite convinced that I saw what she did in him!

Time travel-wise, this is firmly in the didactic camp--Johnny, and the reader, are Being Taught Lessons, and Johnny remains a passive observer throughout. For those like me, who enjoy learning through fiction, this works well. And I think the book has enough excitement and mystery to hold the interest of its intended audience of young readers who enjoy historical fiction, although those who don't enjoy historical fiction for the sake of the history might find it a bit disjointed.

In the acknowledgements, Reid states that "the stories of military actions are as recorded, either by military archives, or as told by the actual participants in interviews with the author." I wish he'd made this more obvious, by including more information about this aspect of the book in an afterword. I only thought to look at the acknowledgements just now, and finding that the author seems to have actually been in touch with Bill Chong, for instance, adds, for me, a layer of interest that I think could have been developed in more detail, with pointers on how to find more information. I went poking about online, and found, for instance, this site on Canadian Chinese Veterans, where there's a picture of Bill Chong's employment letter (shown at right).

Note on age appropriateness: there is some pretty hard core horrible-ness of war described here. People die, and I think it might disturb younger readers. The growing relationship between the two kids also kicks this up a bit toward the older range of middle grade (11 to 12 year olds), even though they do no more than exchange a chaste kiss.

(a rather less favorable review of the book can be found at Quill and Quire, the Canadian book review magazine--and they do raise some valid points. But whatever the reason, Ghost of Heroes Past worked for me!)

Review copy gratefully received from the publisher for Cybils consideration.

Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld

Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld (Simon Pulse, 2009, YA, 448 pages), was that lovely sort of book which exceeds one's expectations. I knew it would be well-written, I expected, in general, that it would be a good book. I didn't, though, expect to enjoy it as much as I did.

I haven't read that much steampunk, mainly because I find complicated machinery and billows of toxic smoke and steam unappealing, and although I know that's a naive view of the genre, but that's what was in my mind. But looking back on Leviathan, the skies were clear, and the machinery unobtrusive, allowing me to enjoy the story...

In a Europe that never was, WW I is beginning. This alternate Europe had split years before into two factions--each taking a different path towards improving the quality of life (and the quality of war as well). The western countries followed the lead of Darwin, mixing and matching bits of life forms to create living technology, and the East went the route of wondrously complex mechanical creations. So in this alternate WWI, Darwinist England's vast living zepplins guarded by bats who poop metal spikes (owie?) are about to face off against Klanker Germany's air craft and huge land machines, great behemoths of steam-driven ingenuity.

As the book begins, two teenagers become caught up in the madness of war. One is Alex, son of the assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, fleeing toward a place of safety where he can ride out the war without being captured by either side. One is Deryn, who disguised herself as a boy to join Britain's air force, and now is a midshipman on the greatest living zepplin of them all--the titular Leviathan.

When the Leviathan crash lands in Switzerland, near where Alex and his guardians have taken refuge, the paths of the two meet, and much excitement ensues. Can the Hapsburg bunch help the British bunch without jeopardizing themselves? Will the Germans come to make sure they finished off the Leviathan? Can the Leviathan be fixed, or are they all stuck in the Alps forever? And what is the mysterious mission the Leviathan was embarked on, carrying Darwin's scientist grand-daughter to the Ottoman empire, with a cargo of precious eggs?

It's great "kids in peril" stuff, with both Alex and Deryn forced to grow-up fast as war becomes a reality for them. Alex, in particular, must cope with an utter re-shuffling of his views of the world and the realities of his life. The technological split between Darwinists and Clankers adds wondrously fascinating detail, the plot is exciting, yet these things never overwhelmed the character arc of the two teenagers and their growing friendship.

Technically this is a YA book, but at this stage of the game (dunno what will happen relationship-wise in the next book--for now Alex and Deryn are still at the just friends but almost certainly about to become more than that) this is a great book for older middle grade kids. The detailed black and white full page illustrations are fascinating in their own right, as well as bringing Westerfield's creations to life. You can see some of them at Westerfield's blog--they are fantastic.

The second book of the series, Behemoth, will be out in October 2010.

Jessamy, for Timeslip Tuesday

Today's Timeslip Tuesday book is Jessamy, by Barbara Sleigh (1967, 246 pages of large type, middle grade). Peter shared a touching story about this book over at his blog, Collecting Children's Books, this past Sunday, and since I am lucky enough to have a copy, it seemed like a good time to feature it here (especially since it is one of my favorite timeslip stories).

Jessamy's lonely life is spent being shunted between two aunts, one in school time, one for vacations. Neither particularly wants her. So when Aunt Maggie, the vacation aunt, breaks the news to her that her own children have whooping cough, and that Jessamy will have to stay elsewhere, she is not particularly disappointed. Especially when the elsewhere turns out to be an old house, empty except for a caretaker and the memories the house still holds of the children who once lived there. While exploring the house, Jessamy's attention is caught by a tall cupboard in the old nursery. Opening the door, she finds the measuring marks of those children, with their names written next to them. And one of the names is her own.

That night, Jessamy can't sleep for wondering if she really saw her own name. Quietly she goes back upstairs, opens the cupboard...and finds that she has gone back in time, to 1914, and that she has just fallen from a tree, hurting her head badly (nicely smoothing out for her the difficulties concomitant with time travel). Here she has another aunt, the newly hired cook, who (for a change) is an aunt who loves her, and, in an equally pleasant turn of events, she has the companionship of the children of the house. It is for the most part a happy house. It is true, Fanny, the girl closest to Jessamy's own age, resents the intrusion of the cook's niece, but Kit, the youngest boy, soon becomes her close friend. For Jessamy, lonely no longer, the past seems like an awfully nice place to be.

Except for one thing. 1914, as Jessamy realizes, is not the best year to visit to the past. World War I has started, Harry, the eldest son of the house has left school to enlist, quarreling with his grandfather and storming off in the night, seemingly taking with him his grandfather's precious medieval book of hours. Jessamy, living in both the upstairs world of the family and the downstairs world of the staff, may be the only one able to solve the mystery and clear Harry's name.

Before she can do this, the cupboard sends her forward in time again. But her time in the present is made magical by her knowledge of the house's past, and free from Aunt Maggie's ideas of "suitable playmates," Jessamy befriends a boy who shares his name with a man she had met in the past.

And one day, the cupboard sends her back again. A year has past, and the mystery is still unsolved...and Harry's grandfather still will not allow his name to be spoken.

If I keep on writing, it will get spoilerish, so I shall stop now. But in case anyone is wondering, Jessamy solves the mystery and ends up in her own time, with a happy ending.

Peter referred to this as a "lesser known children's book", but over in the UK it is still rather well known and loved, especially by those who read it back in the 1960s and 70s, when they were children. Partly this is because it is so easy to empathize with likable, lonely Jessamy, partly because Sleigh does a marvellous job bringing the house and its family to life, and partly because the story is magical enough to fascinate, without being so complex as to befuddle. This is the sort of book that a certain type of 10 or 11 year old girl (who values character over action, who is imaginative and introspective) will find incredibly satisfying.

Sadly, it is not readily available anymore, because it's been out of print for a while. It's selling on Amazon for around $50, although there are slightly cheaper copies at Amazon UK (fifteen pounds). But lots of American libraries bought it in the late 1960s, so it might still be lingering in the obscure branches that haven't purged their collections much...It is worth looking for.

ps. Sorry for the small size of the picture. It is not a dog in a pink dress. It is a kneeling girl. But I wanted to show an edition other than the one at Peter's site. The edition I have is an even more miserable cover than either of these, being mostly puce. If I get around to it, I'll scan it, since it's nowhere to be found on line.

Charlotte Sometimes for Timeslip Tuesday

Welcome to Timeslip Tuesday. If you have a review of a Timeslip story you'd like to share, or anything else timeslip bookish, please leave me a link!

Today's Timeslip Tuesday book is the one that I consider such a Classic Example of the genre that I used it for my T.T. graphic (although with a different cover from the most recent edition at left)-- Charlotte Sometimes, by Penelope Farmer (1969, reprinted many times, a good one for ages 9-12 ish). I am not alone in thinking this- the book shows up in just about all the critical essays on timeslip stories I've read (2), and even when it first came out its quality was recognized--in a review written that year, Margery Fisher described Charlotte Sometimes as "…a haunting, convincing story which comes close to being a masterpiece of its kind." (Growing Point, November 1969, p 1408).

In 1918, with WW I still being fought, Clare Moby and her little sister Emily go to boarding school for the first time. Forty years later, a girl named Charlotte Makepeace arrives at the same school, and sleeps in the same bed that Clare had used. Charlotte awakes after her first night to find herself in Claire's time, and so begins a dizzying flip flop through time as the two girls alternate days in each other's life. No one, except Emily, realizes they are two different girls, although all the frantic piano practicing Charlotte does is not enough to keep the music teacher from being baffled by her erratic performance. They communicate through Clare's journal, hidden in her time, and both are certain that the strange experience will end when Clare and Emily become day girls.

"Dear Charlotte, [wrote Clare]
Did Emily tell you about the bed? I think she might be right, though I did not tell her so. We should be moving to lodgings now quite soon. We must make quite sure I am in 1918, not you, the day we move. Emily would be so worried if you got caught then, and I in your time, and I would be so worried about her
Yours sincerely,
Clare"

But it is not Clare who is in 1918 when the girls are moved, but Charlotte. And away from the bed, the time travelling won't happen, and Charlotte begins to worry that she will be Clare forever, that she has replaced Emily for Emma, her own little sister, and most frighteningly of all, that she might be in danger of slipping even further back in time....

Charlotte Sometimes is unusual plot-wise. It is rare for two people to actually swap places in time, and to be able to communicate. This premise makes this a great book about identity--if people don't know you're not you, what constitutes "you" to begin with? The same reviewer I quoted above wrote, "…this is really a study in disintegration, the study of a girl finding an identity by losing it… ". Lots of characters going back in time wonder if they are losing their real self, but Charlotte actually has a "self" that she has to be in the past, one that comes with the emotional attachment of a little sister. She constantly struggles to hold onto bits of Charlotte that aren't Clare, but it is hard.

What makes this book a favorite of mine, however, is its exploration of what it means to be a sister (something in which I have a natural interest, being a middle sister myself). Emily both accepts and rejects Charlotte as a sister. She generally adopts a "one bossy sister is the same as another" point of view, with a strong sense that Charlotte should be there looking after her--

"Tears marked her face but she stopped crying the moment she saw Charlotte; became more indignant than frightened.

"Why ever did you let me go like that?" she asked. "I thought I'd never find you."

Yet Emily feels deep anguish, crying bitterly, when she thinks she hears Clare's voice, but finds Charlotte is still in her sister's place. And Charlotte, in her turn, worries that she is letting Emily take Emma's place in her own heart. Haunting and convincing, indeed.

Disclaimer: I am perhaps disposed to find this book interesting because I, of course, am a Charlotte, and my own little sister is an Emily. But lots of other people who aren't named Charlotte have liked it, so I feel free to recommend it with a clean conscience! There is also the added bonus of a quite detailed WW I background, and a bit of back story for the secondary charaters, both of which added interest for me.

Penelope Farmer wrote two earlier books about Charlotte and her own sister, Emma, which are very strange indeed (The Summer Birds and Emma in Winter, both of which involve flying by magic). So strange are these books that I find it easier to pretend that they are written about two altogether different people--this is not to say that they are bad, just really odd. And then there is the still stranger Castle of Bone...

p.s. This might also be the only timeslip story to have inspired a rock song (Charlotte Sometimes, by the Cure). There is also a relatively new arrival on the rock music scene calling herself Charlotte Sometimes, which kinda seems lame to me. Or is it really neat that she has picked up on the struggle for identity embedded in this book and made it her own?????

The Silver Donkey, by Sonya Hartnett

There are some books that I find good -- the books I read in one tremendous gallop, that leave me dazed and red eyed, and then come back to haunt me as I pull up crabgrass. The Silver Donkey, by Sonya Hartnett (US 2006) was one such book.

It tells the story of two French girls who find a blind English soldier in the woods above their farm. He is trying to go home again, to see his dying brother, and because, as is gradually revealed, the war (WWI) has become something he can no longer be a part of, and he has deserted. He draws the girls to him with his small silver donkey (a good luck charm given as a parting gift by his brother), and with the stories he tells, and they visit him daily, keeping him alive while his sight returns. The stories are not of his own experience fighting in the war, but are about donkeys--the donkey that carried Mary to Bethlehem, the donkey who asked the sky for rain in an Indian legend, a donkey who carried wounded soldiers down to the beach at Gallipoli, and the finding of the silver donkey itself. The girls, knowing they have no way to see the soldier safely across the English Channel, bring their older brother to meet him. He in turn brings a still older friend, who, although a victim of polio, can still sail a boat and become a hero of this small story.

I use the word small on purpose--it is not an epic tale of the horrors of violent war. The book focuses on a small place, a small event in the larger picture, on small, ordinary people. There is no padding in this story; every word and scene seems cleanly and purposefully chosen, which gives the story great intensity and immediacy. The stories told by the solider deliberately break this feeling. I'm not a great fan of interjected stories in general, because I resent having the narrative flow broken, and also because I feel challenged by them. The author must have put them in for Deep Reasons, I think, and will I be clever enough to figure out what they were?

But I liked these stories very much as separate entities--they would make lovely stand-alone read alouds, except for the fact that they made me cry. I am not sure I've figured out the Point of the stories, if indeed a single Point exists. It's tied in to the nature of donkeys, the silver donkey of the title, and the Soldier (donkey-like in what he bore during his time at the front, but ultimately not so when he deserts). At any event, it's great food for thought, but makes the book perhaps less likely to hold the interest of children who have other things to do with their lives than pull up crabgrass. I think this book also might work better for readers who already know about the horrors of WWI. From the beginning I knew what the soldier was escaping from, whereas the book only tells about it toward the end.

My only regret about this book is not a fault, exactly, but a personal preference. I really liked the younger sister, Coco--she reminded me very much of Hilary McKay's style of character. Here's an example:

"Coco, however, was enjoying being mortally sad. She wandered down the lane sobbing woefully. She didn't dab away the tears that cascaded down her cheeks. "Lieutenant, Lieutenant!" she wailed. "Why - why - why?"

She supposed that anyone who saw her, a lonesome child staggering, weeping along a lane, could not help but be touched by the poignancy."

I would have liked more Coco.

The Silver Donkey sounds like an animal story, and there's nothing on the cover boards (there was no dust jacket) to suggest what it's about. The picture on the back of a sort of fay looking guy holding a small donkey made it look like a fantasy. It's lack of dust jacket drew me toward it--it is a beautiful dark green, with silver embossing, making it look old and precious. It is a lovely book to hold and read- the words are clear and far apart on the page, with pencil illustrations by Don Powers.

The book, published in Australia, won that county's top prizes: the 2005 Courier Mail award for young readers and the 2005 CBC Book of the Year award for young readers. Despite this, I find it a little bizarre that it has been made into an apparently successful musical.

Here's a link to a nice interview with Sonya Harnett over at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

Two YA books about WW I: boy book vs. girl book

I recently finished reading The Foreshadowing, by Marcus Sedgewick, a ya novel about World War I. Alexandra sees when people will die. After foretelling the death of her oldest brother, Alexandra becomes desperate to forestall the death she sees happening to her other brother. With minimal training as a nurse in the hospital where her father is a doctor, she heads off to France to find and save him.

This book was recently described in the Guardian as a book "that could help boys read" -- these books, apparently, should be "action packed" and "attention grabbing," which The Foreshadowing certainly is. I enjoyed it, although I might not have checked it out of the library if I had known it was a boy's book. I was tricked by the female-ness of the narrator into thinking I was getting a girl's book. So much for superficial snap judgements, because I quickly came to the conclusion that The Foreshadowing was indeed more a "boy" book.

[nb: although the Guardian started the "boy book" labeling, I am now going to become equally culpable. My definitions of girl's book vs boy's book are my own idiosyncratic ones, and I feel guilty about using these categories, believing strongly that gender stereotypes are bad bad bad. So I am using the terms with tongue firmly in cheek, as a conceptual device to talk about the books I like (girl) vs books I don't so much (boy). And in the process I continue to worry about my own boys, and whether they will be permitted/inclined to enjoy many of my favorite books that aren't boy books. My six year old is ashamed that he likes Angelina Ballerina. I hope to heck he didn't pick up on that bit of gender stereotyping from me. But of course even when you say, "It's just fine for boys to like ballet," the act of saying it makes it clear that it's not the normative viewpoint].

But anyway. What The Foreshadowing doesn't have, that a good girl's book should have, is introspective inaction. Alexandra is certainly thinking a lot, but the Cassandra theme of her narrative is so great that she doesn't have space to be anything else. The other thing a good girl's book has are powerful relationships. Alexandra is pretty much alone throughout the book, and the author's tight focus on her mental distress keep her isolated. Her reactions to non-dying people (such as the wounded soldiers all around her) are not particularly deep and thoughtful. And a girl's book would have put in more romantic frisson between Alexandra and a man she meets in France, who also can see when people are marked for death.


A girl's book about wounded WW I veterans that I love to pieces is After the Dancing Days, by Margaret Rostkowski (first published 1986, still available in paperback, but with a much more "modern" cover than this old one). This book is also narrated by a teenage girl--Annie visits the veterans' hospital where her father works and makes friends with Andrew, a horribly scarred young solder. It is not actioned packed--not much happens on the outside. But inside, Annie is growing up, Andrew is healing, and Annie's family is regrouping.


After the Dancing Days is a book I re-read every other year or so, whereas, although I certainly liked it, and would recommend it to those who lean toward action, I will probably not be re-reading The Foreshadowing. (Do girls re-read more than boys, establishing close relationships with their favorite books and brooding over them? Do boys leap actively from book to book?)

And then there's my favorite WW I girl's book of all, Rilla of Ingleside, by LM Montgomery...