I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade, by Diane Lee Wilson

I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade, by Diane Lee Wilson (Orchard Books, 1998, middle grade/ya, 230 pages)

Oyuna lives in late 13th century Mongolia, moving across the steppes with her family and their horses. When she was an infant, bad luck befell her--her mother died, and her foot had been crushed by a horse. But she grows up determined to bring good fortune to her family--to win the great yearly horse race...even though girls aren't allowed to enter. First she needs a horse, a horse swifter than the wind...

But when her father gives her the chance to chose a horse of her own at the yearly gathering, fate leads her to an old white mare, and Oyuna is compelled to choose her. The bond between girl and mare is magical--Oyuna at times feels what her horse is feeling. When the soldiers of the great Kublai Kahn come to take men and horses off to the wars, and, against all odds, pick Oyuna's mare, she knows she can't let her horse leave without her. Disguising herself as a boy, she sets off on a magical journey across Mongolia that takes her the court of Kublai Kahn himself. There she might achieve her dream of a snow white mare who can win the great race...if she can change her luck. A much more detailed synopsis can be found at books4yourkids, where I first heard of this one.

This is the sort of book that manages to be both magical and believable--a once upon a time and far away story, whose detailed depiction of life and customs in medieval Mongolia make that time and place come to vivid life. And Oyuna is a wonderfully plucky heroine--brave and resourceful. There is magic here--Oyuna's mare is far from ordinary, and the spirit world lies close to what is real, but it isn't full blown fantasy. It's more historical fiction with a touch of the inexplicable.

An excellent book, in particular for the girl reader who likes horses! Note on age--this is catalogued in my library system as YA, but it had a much more middle grade feel for me. There's a romance toward the end, but it's a romance that just happens, and isn't part of the story--for the most part, is a Brave Adolescent on a Quest story, the sort of book that's very at home in the middle grade section!

Alchemy and Meggy Swann, by Karen Cushman

I wondered, when I first saw the title of Alchemy and Meggy Swann (2010, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, mg, 176 pages) if this might be fantasy...it's not, but it is my favorite of all of Karen Cushman's historical fiction to date. Set in Elizabethan England, it tells of a young girl summoned by the father she's never met to join him in London. When she arrives, however, she is given a cold greeting. Her father wanted an able-bodied boy to work for him. Meggie is a girl, and needs sticks to lean on when she walks.

Neglected, angry, and uncertain, Meggie scowls at the world. But gradually, her friendship with Roger, a player's boy, grows (mainly because he is incredibly patient with her), and she finds herself on cordial terms with a few of the tradesfolk in her new London neighborhood, although there are others who still hold the the medieval beliefs that lameness like Meggie's is a sign of sin. But up on the top floor of her new house, her father is busily trying to turn base metal into gold. To do this, he needs money....and alchemy can be put to more sinister uses. Like murder and treason....

Cushman strikes just the right balance here between historical accuracy and a lively story of contemporary interest. The dialogue is particularly zesty, managing to be Elizabethan-esque while still fun to read. Here's an example, picked more or less at random:

"Of a sudden the door banged open. "Come, Meggy Swann," Roger called. "We are off to the river in search of a breeze."

She looked up, hiding the joy she felt at seeing him, and said, "Pray sir, pardon me. For a moment I mistook you for someone I did once knew. Someone who swore he was a friend and then abandoned me to sink under my afflictions in this--"

"Nay, Meggy, be not spleeny. I was occupied with drilling the apprentices and learning a new part myself." (page 95)

Meggy is at first not the most likable of characters (she is indeed very spleeny), but she sure has reason to be more than a bit prickly. I found it a pleasure to watch her gain confidence, and realizing that she actually does have the power to change her own circumstances. The story of how she finds a place in the world is both moving and believable (well, pretty believable. In all likelihood, she would have ended up begging in the gutters, but I'm glad she didn't).

Recommended to those who like detail-rich historical fiction or books featuring characters with disabilities, and in particular to those interested in alchemy, Elizabethan theatre, and the difficulties of keeping a pet goose in 16th/17th London on a limited budget!

(nb: review copy received from the publisher, via The Picnic Basket, where you can read the thoughts of many others in the comments on this post)

Waterslain Angels, by Kevin Crossley-Holland

Waterslain Angels, by Kevin Crossley-Holland (Orion Books, 2009, 192 pp)

When Oliver Cromwell's men rampaged through England, smashing to pieces the works of art that decorated the countries churches, the angels of the small Norfolk village of Waterslain were lost.

Waterslain in the 1950s is still a small village, but the fate of the angels has faded from local memory. Then a carved wing is found during a clear-out of the vestry attic. Two children, Annie (10) and Sandy (11), become convinced the angels weren't destroyed, and set out to find them.

The almost illegible words they discover carved on the church's wall give them a clue--

Between her Will
And his Wall
Waterslain
We Lie Waiting

But someone else wants the angels. The shady tough guy of the village is hunting them down too, to sell them. Annie and Sandy must find the waterslain angels and bring them back to the empty places waiting for them in the church before they are lost to the village forever.

As Annie searches, her dreams are full of the rough voices of Cromwell's men, and visions of the angels, urging her to find them where they lie waiting. For Sandy, whose father, an American in the air force, was recently killed in a flying accident, and whose mother has just come home to Waterslain, the quest for the angels brings comfort. And the angels bring the two lonely children together in the strong bonds of a friendship forged by the mystery they are unravelling (and a satisfyingly believable mystery it is, too).

Waterslain Angels is an utterly lovely mix of the detail of everyday life and the power and beauty of dreams. It is a fascinating mystery, a historical treasure hunt, a story of friendship, a lovely evocation of place, and a little bit a fantasy (Annie's dreams) It is beautifully written-- I would be hard pressed to find words to edit out. All in all, an excellently satisfying book that is most definite keeper for future re-reading.

Here are other reviews, at the Falcata Times, Achockablog, and Read Plus.

Waterslain Angels hasn't been published in the US yet, but copies can be found for under $10.

The Book of the Maidservant, by Rebecca Barnhouse

The Book of the Maidservant, by Rebecca Barnhouse (Random House, 2009, middle grade/young adult, 224 pp), is a tale of a pilgrimage from England to Rome in the fifteenth-century, and the girl who had to scrub the pots all the way there.

Johanna is the serving girl of Dame Margery Kempe, a woman of extraordinarily vocal and incessant piety. Dame Margery's tender feelings for the sufferings of Christ, which move her to tears at every turn, don't translate into tenderness for Johanna, who never gets so much as a kind word.

So when Dame Margery sets off on a pilgrimage to Rome, taking Johanna along to wait on her, Johanna doesn't expect it to be fun. But it is worse than she had imagined--not only does she have to tend to her ungrateful mistress, but the entire company with whom she is journeying expect her to work for all of them. So her days are spend trudging through Europe, her evenings cooking and washing and mending...

The only bright spark is the young student, John Mouse, who fills her mind like no-one she has ever met before. But abandoned outside Rome by Dame Margery and separated from the rest of the rag tag band of travellers, she's not at all sure she'll ever see him again. Let alone get back to England.

It's a good story, although Johanna's tribulations become, perhaps, a bit repetitive. It's the sort of historical fiction for kids that nicely shows what life would have been like "back then," without attempting archaism of language or shining too glaring a spotlight on the unfamiliar. And it's a sub-genre of historical fiction that I like lots--the sort that takes a real person, who is only briefly mentioned in history, and brings her to life.

Dame Margery Kempe, incidentally, was real, as was her servant Johanna, and although Barnhouse tinkered a bit with the sequence of events, she sticks closely to the story that Dame Margery actually told of her pilgrimage (the Book of Margery Kempe is the first autobiography written in English).

Some kids might ask for more Action than this book provides--it focuses on the interactions of the travellers, and Johanna's particular situation, so there aren't any Epic Medievally bits (although there are some tense moments). But for kids who like historical fiction that's character driven (such as The Midwife's Apprentice, by Karen Cushman), this one would be a good choice.

A note on the age level--this is marketed as Young Adult, but I would argue that it is much better for older middle grade kids. There is no explicit YA type content, and Johanna reads young in my mind--more like an eighth grader than a tenth grader. I think I would have enjoyed this lots at around 11, the age I was when I started on Rosemary Sutcliff.

Here's a great interview with Barnhouse at The Paper Wait.

The Giant-Slayer, by Iain Lawrence

The Giant-Slayer, by Iain Lawrence (Random House 2009, middle grade, 284 pages), is two stories. There is the straight story, historical fiction set in 1955, that tells of a group of children struck down by polio just before the vaccine was developed. Within that story is a fairy tale, told by one of the characters, that (I think) gets more page time than "real life" does. So although its not a fantasy (nothing "magical" happens), it's also not quite non-fantasy. What is told in the story doesn't, exactly, stay in the story...

Laurie's father is a scientist, working as many hours as he can to develop the polio vaccine; when he thinks of his daughter, keeping her safe from polio is the only thought that comes to mind. But when Laurie's best friend Dickie falls ill, Laurie enters the polio wing of the hospital to find him. There he is, in a room with two other children, all being kept alive by iron lungs.

Laurie is a storyteller, and there in that room her voice brings to life a tale of an unlikely hero and his quest to kill a giant. Gradually her story takes into itself the listening children; each of them is there--Dickie, the great hunter Khan, Carolyn, the Swamp Witch, and Jimmy, the hero whose father kept him from growing up. When Laurie can't finish her tale, they bring the story to its end themselves...

It's hard to know just what to say about this. The central fairy tale is just fine (there are some interesting twists), but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to fans of fantasy. The real-life aspects of the book are fascinating (it's the best fictional representation of a polio ward I've ever read about), but felt overshadowed by Laurie's fable (I wanted more of the 1950s), so I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to fans of historical fiction.

But together the two parts of the book somehow worked for me, and I think it would work even better for a certain type of young reader, the sort who is sensitive to metaphor, the sort who appreciates stories with a lot of heart (ie me when I was in sixth grade, before I became all cynical etc).

Other reviews at Through a Glass Darkly, the Book List blog Bookends, Buxtolicious Blog, Shelf Awareness, and from a sixth grader (who loved it) at Book Trends.

Cutter's Island: Ceasar in Captivity

In Suetonius' Life of Julius Ceasar, there is the following passage, describing an event that occurred when Ceasar was in his twenties: "While crossing to Rhodes, after the winter season had already begun, he was taken by pirates near the island of Pharmacussa and remained in their custody for nearly forty days in a state of intense vexation, attended only by a single physician and two body-servants; 2 for he had sent off his travelling companions and the rest of his attendants at the outset, to raise money for his ransom. Once he was set on shore on payment of fifty talents, he did not delay then and there to launch a fleet and pursue the departing pirates, and the moment they were in his power to inflict on them the punishment which he had often threatened when joking with them."

In Cutter's Island: Ceasar in Captivity, Vincent Panella took this passage and ran with it. Interspersing his account of Ceasar's time on the island with flashbacks to his life as a young man negotiating the political turmoil of Rome, he brings the future general face to face with those outside the laws, and with himself. This is Ceasar before he knows that he will be Ceasar, untried, on the outs with those who rule the empire that will one day be his. In his conversations with Cutter, his daily fear for his safety, and his enforced period of reflection about himself and his future, Ceasar moves toward his destiny as conqueror and ruler.

"We're not pirates, Lord. We constitute the Navy of King Mithridates, whose lands you've taken by force."

"The butcher king has ceded Asia."

"Forget all that, and think of this: there are two parts to any law, what is written, and what can be enforced. Stick to your medicines, young man, and to your books and papers. You'll live longer." (page 49)

Ceasar, of course, does not take this advice, and the reverberations of his time with the pirates contribute to making him an enforcer par excellence.

I thought, when I accepted this book for review, that this might well be a good crossover from historical fiction to fantasy, what with the plot concerning an isolated hero faced with a band of pirates, the hints of divine destiny and the rich background of fate, and gods, and detailed, alien world. All this is here, and might indeed appeal to the reader of fantasy who enjoys books that focus on the personal and introspective. That being said, there is also a generous amount of the blood that comes with piracy, civil war, gladiators, and the punishments decreed by the laws of Rome. There are also rather explicit descriptions of the relationship between Ceasar and his mistress (which I personally found a bit gratuitous, and which held me back a bit from wanting to understand his character).

This is a book that requires the reader to do a certain amount of thoughtful application to figure out the import of the characters' words. It was not quite my cup of tea, primarily because I was never quite convinced that I should care about young Julius, and partly because I am just not naturally that sort of reader (sigh). For the reader willing to make that investment, however, or the reader who has a taste for historically accurate fiction about the Romans, it might well prove a rewarding experience.

(Review copy received from the publisher, Academy Chicago. Cutter's Island was first published in 2000, and has just been released in paperback)

Mare's War, by Tanita Davis

It rained again this morning, so no weeding. The children and house guests slept late, and the house was tidy. So I got a lovely two hours in which to read a book I've been saving for just such a window of opportunity--Mare's War, by Tanita Davis (2009, Alfred A. Knopf, 343pp). And the two hours flew by in happy, deeply satisfied reading...

Mare's War tells of two journeys. In a car speeding (or not, depending on the driver) across America to a mysterious reunion are two teenage girls (who had their own, more teenagerishly appropriate plans for the summer) and their grandmother, Marey Lee (known as Mare), who planned the trip. On the way, their grandmother tells them the story of her own great journey, seventy or so years before, when she escaped from her home in Bay Slough, Alabama and went to war.

The two sister, Octavia and Talitha, squabble, fret, drag their feet, and send occasional postcards of complaint to friends and family (shown in the book, in a nicely light touch), but as the miles pass, and their grandmother's story unfolds, the tone of the postcard messages changes. Their grandmother's life as Marey Lee, an African American teenager in the Women's Army Corps has them fascinated. The friendships she made, the prejudice she encountered, and the historical pageant of which she was a part are spellbinding stuff. This is an eye-openingly powerful narrative that educates without being didactic, filling a blank space in the history of World War II without ever loosing sight of Marey Lee, the girl.

It was a story that sure kept me enthralled (although I'm glad I didn't have to drive 2,340 miles from California to Alabama in summer with my sisters and grandmother to hear it).

Davis manages to make her teenagers in the present interesting people in their own right, and not just vessels created to receive Mare's story, but their sibling relationship and 21st century teenage angsts pall in comparison to what their grandmother went through (to give them credit, they realize this). In essence, Mare's War is first rate historical fiction, set in a modern narrative that, I think, makes it much more accessible and appealing to teenagers than Marey Lee's story, served straight up, might have been.

So today I moved my Madeline L'Engle books down to the playroom, and shelved Mare's War in the section I think of as "British Girls Books," even though they aren't by any means all British. They are, though, all books that put girls front and central--books about girls doing things, and communities of girls, and career stories. And that, in my mind, is where Mare's War belongs. I'll be recommending this book at a yahoo group I belong to (Girls Own), that focuses on British girls' boarding school books--the relationships between young women, their education, the career choices they made, and the windows they often offer on life as a girl many years ago are all here in Marey Lee's story.

I'm also more than happy to recommend this to fans of World War II historical fiction--it's a great addition to that genre. And while I'm at it, it's a great road trip story too!

Anyway. I hope Mare's War will be happy shelved next to Hester Burton's books (more great historical fiction), and one shelf up from Helen Doyle Boylston...who is best known for intrepid nurse Sue Barton, but who also wrote a rather interesting memoir of her World War I experiences--Sister: The War Diary of a Nurse.

Other reviews of Mare's War can be found at Reading in Color, Reading Rants, The HappyNappyBookseller, Jen Robinson's Book Page, and Colleen Mondor.

Disclosure: Tanita Davis is a blog friend of mine, and I was lucky enough to win a copy of the book from one of her giveaways. So, although I was very glad to write what I think is a glowing review (at least, it's meant to be) of her book, I just want to make it clear that I would have written this even if I had never met her (in an online sense).

Fiction books about women's suffrage

This being Women's History Month, I have been musing about children's fiction books about women's suffrage. It was not a long muse, because I could only think of one-- Miss Rivers and Miss Bridges, by Geraldine Symons (MacMillan, 1971). We are the only library in Rhode Island that still has a copy, which is a shame as it is a great book (I was the first person to check it out in 15 years, saving it from the discard pile by a hair). 13 year old Pansy sets of for London at the beginning of last century, little knowing that her friend Atalanta is going to get them arrested for their enthusiastic participation in the Suffragette movement. There are several books about Pansy and Atalanta, all good reads.

Even when I tried to widen my mental book search to "good fiction directly about women's rights" (not including the "women have careers" or "go to college" genres) I came up with very little. There's The Mills Down Below, by Mabel Esther Allan, which is also dated, out-of-print, and English. Sure, there are lots of books with references -- one I like is Jean Thesman's The Ornament Tree (in print and American)--but I couldn't even find much on line. Maybe my heart just wasn't in the googling, or maybe America has been satisfied with those dry sort-of-dull-cereal type biographies that children across the country seem forced to check out of the library when they are in third grade or thereabouts -- "I Am Susan B. Anthony" etc. Or maybe there are really good fiction books out there that I don't know about or have forgotten.