Hild

I don't think if I can wait til Christmas to read Hild by Nicola Griffith (FSG, 2013), a novel set in seventh-century Britain about the girl who becomes Saint Hilda of Whitby. Griffith wrote about Hild and genre (Fantasy or history?, 11/12/2013) for Tor.com, and Amal El-Mohtar reviewed the book for NPR in the context of conversations about women in historical fiction--and historical fantasy (Hild Destroys Myths of Medieval Womanhood, 11/14/2013). The early medieval world, historical fantasy, women (and children--Hild is just three at the beginning of the  novel), warriors and saints: I have a deep and abiding interest in them all. And lo, today is the feast day of Saint Hilda!

[That gorgeous cover is by Italian twins Anna and Elena Balbusso.]

My Havana for Nonfiction Monday

My Havana: Memories of a Cuban Boyhood by Rosemary Wells with Secundino Fernandez (illustrated by Peter Ferguson; Candlewick, 2010) encompasses the decade of my own parents' childhoods, and the city young Dino describes in it is almost as familiar to me as if I remembered it myself:

Until I [Dino] am six years old, in 1954, my world is sweet. "We live in a city built by angels," Papi says. There is no cold in Havana, only sunshine and warm rain. The city's avenues are lined with arcades of coral stone archways, ancient doors, and window frames....

The architecture of the colonial capital fascinates Dino (he grows up to be an architect), and he fills his sketchbooks with drawings of buildings, windows and doorways. As if taken from Dino's sketchbook, pencil drawings of architectural details are overlaid on a view of the rooftops in this wordless double-page spread:

Peter Ferguson's painterly illustrations, done in oil with spot art in pencil, capture a city suffused with golden light: very different from both Madrid, where Dino lives with his maternal grandparents from 1954-56, and New York City, where he and his family settle in 1959 after Castro comes to power in Cuba. They're an integral part of this relatively short (65 pages), yet surprisingly rich book.

Rosemary Wells was inspired to write My Havana after hearing an interview with Secundino Fernandez in which he described his intense homesickness for Havana, and his attempt to alleviate it by building a cardboard model of the city on the floor of his bedroom in New York (that episode makes it into the book, too). It's a beautiful and evocative example of the power of place in childhood memory, and one for which I am especially grateful.

A note on politics: The text of My Havana touches on the repressive Franco regime in Spain as well as on the Batista dictatorship and the Cuban revolution under Castro. I only wish the author's note had not.

Black Radishes and Pink Rabbits

There is a moment early in Black Radishes by Susan Lynn Meyer (Delacorte, 2010) when 11-year-old Gustave Becker has to pack his things prior to leaving Paris for the small town of Saint-Georges in advance of the Nazi occupation.  Aside from his clothes, he is allowed to bring only a few books and toys.  He chooses the books easily--his Boy Scout Manual and two favorites, The Three Musketeers and Around the World in Eighty Days--but the toys prove more difficult:

[H]ow could he choose only one?  Gustave picked up his new sailboat and ran a finger over its shiny blue and white paint.  Uncle David had given him and Jean-Paul each a sailboat last summer to sail in the fountains in the parks.  Saint-Georges was near a river, so a boat would be good to have.  But then he saw Monkey, partly hidden under his train set on the bed, and his heart tightened.  He had almost forgotten him.  Monkey's head tilted slightly to one side.  A gold post in his ear and the bright black, beady eyes looking out from his face gave him a mischievous air.

At this point I almost shouted, "Gustave, take Monkey!"  I didn't want him to make the same mistake that Anna does in Judith Kerr's When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (1971); packing, instead of the titular rabbit who had been "her companion ever since she could remember," a newly acquired woolly dog.  Fortunately (spoiler alert), he doesn't, and Monkey goes on to play an important role in the book's climactic scene at the border between occupied and free France.

Black Radishes is a beautifully crafted, impeccably researched novel (and a 2011 Sydney Taylor Honor Award Winner for Older Readers).  Debut author Meyer, an English professor at Wellesley, was inspired by her father's experience in WWII France, although she makes clear (in an informative author's note as well as an interview at BookPage, January 2011) that she's writing historical fiction; and I think Black Radishes is all the stronger for that.  Meyer is also working on a companion novel, tentatively titled Green and Unripe Fruit, which follows Gustave after he and his family emigrate to America in 1942.

And just in case you don't know what black radishes (which also figure in that climactic scene) look like, here they are.

  

Heart of a Samurai

This book was already on my to-read list when it was recognized with a Newbery Honor last month. I had picked it up from the new book display at the library (the same new book display from which I picked up and then put back the eventual Newbery winner, Moon over Manifest.  I'm still waiting for that book) on the strength of the gorgeous cover art by Jillian Tamaki; and the jacket copy, which promised "An action-packed historical novel set on the high seas!" Not to mention samurai. Which is a little misleading; the actual book is more complicated than that.

Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus (Amulet, 2010) is a fictionalized account of the life of Nakahama (John) Manjiro, who is believed to be the first Japanese person to set foot in America.  A poor fisherman's son, Manjiro was shipwrecked off the coast of Japan in 1841 and rescued by an American whaling ship.  The captain of the ship brought Manjiro home with him to New England, where he studied for several years before making his way back to Japan.  In keeping with Japan's isolationist policies at the time, Manjiro was immediately taken into custody; but he was later released, reunited with his mother, and given the rank of samurai.  His diplomatic work eventually helped open Japan to the world.

Heart of a Samurai encompasses Manjiro's entire journey; the central section of the book is concerned with his time in America. On a farm. Manjiro himself is very likable character: thoughtful, observant, optimistic, and funny; and the book is at its best when it stays close to his thoughts and observations about the differences, practical and philosophical, between Japan and America; and to his realizations about them both.

As I was reading, some incidents and characters struck me as more "fictionalized" than "historical."  And as it turns out, these were precisely the ones that Preus, in her Historical Notes, acknowledges having invented "to provide conflict and advance the story as well as to acknowledge the prejudice and ill will that Manjiro faced."  I wish Heart of a Samurai had been either more fictionalized or less; as it is, it's an uneasy balance--probably not unlike Manjiro's own.

[See also Pam at Mother Reader's take on Heart of a Samurai during her Newbery Discussion Week.]

I, Juan de Pareja and Grandma's Gift

The portrait of Juan de Pareja in last week's Middle Grade Gallery was painted by Diego Vezquez in Rome, 1650.  Congratulations to Jennifer of Jean Little Library for correctly identifying the source of the descriptions, Elizabeth Borton de Trevino's 1966 Newbery Award-winning novel, I, Juan de Pareja (this gorgeous edition is from Square Fish, 2008; the tagline on the cover reads "The story of a great painter and the slave he helped become an artist").  Apparently, the portrait was such a startling likeness of Pareja that when he himself unveiled it to prospective patrons of Velazquez (in a nice bit of theater which also appears in the book, as quoted below), they didn't know whether to speak to him or the portrait:

Then I said, "I understand that you are interested in portraiture, and I thought you might like to look at this one, your honor."

I flung back the cover and set up the portrait by my side. I had taken care to dress in the same clothes and also to wear the white collar, and I could hear the Duke gasp.

"By Bacchus!" he shouted.  "That is a portrait!"

I think the tagline gets it backward, but the story is indeed as much about Velazquez, who is portrayed as thoughtful and reserved, a true friend to slave and king alike; as it is about Juan.  There are cameo appearances by other artists of the day as well, including Rubens and Murillo (and a visit to the workshop of a sculptor of religious images, Gil Medina); as a historical novel it gives a good sense of seventeenth-century Spain.  One of my favorite Newbery books.

The portrait of Juan de Pareja also plays an important part in this year's Pura Belpre Illustrator Award-winning book, Grandma's Gift by Eric Velasquez (presumably no relation; Walker, 2010), in which a boy and his grandmother visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see it.  I haven't read this book yet, but it's on the hold list.

Finally, it's proven difficult to pin down Pareja's expression in just one word!  It looks like I'm going to have to settle for complicated.

Turtle in Paradise

We read, or rather listened to, Jennifer L. Holm's Turtle in Paradise (Random House, 2010) under the best possible circumstances--while driving to the Keys (that would be Paradise) during last year's summer vacation--so I have fond memories of it and was very happy (if also a little surprised) to see it get a Newbery Honor.  Turtle in Paradise is in some ways a typical Newbery pick, at least this year: it's historical fiction; it's about a girl (that would be Turtle); she's sent away to live with relatives in a new and unfamiliar place.  That describes three of the five Newbery books this year (including the winner).  Narrow the historical part down to the Great Depression and you still have two (including this one and the winner).

Which is not to say that Turtle isn't a worthy pick: I happen to know a carful of people who liked it lots!  I checked it out of the library and reread it as soon as we got home even, and my only complaint was that the ending felt a little rushed (I was afraid I might have drifted off and missed something, actually).  But it was always funny, sour and sweet like a Key West cut-up, a great summer read or read-aloud.

Like Penny from Heaven and Our Only May Amelia, Holm's other Newbery Honor books, Turtle in Paradise was inspired by family history; and the Author's Note includes family photographs (I love these) as well as a testimonial to the effectiveness of a certain diaper-rash formula--Holm uses it on her own babies' bungies.

[In other news for fans of Jennifer Holm, a sequel to Our Only May Amelia at last!  The Trouble with May Amelia (Atheneum) will be out in April.]

Middle Grade Gallery 9

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, an illuminated manuscript, or rather a page from one, that holds the key to a mystery--and a curse:

[William] looked back at the page and tried to make out the details in the three small drawings at the foot of the page.  They were enclosed by a border of crows amongst twirling branches and leaves.

The first picture showed a hill with trees growing on the top, and in the foreground a white-robed figure with feathered wings.  There was what appeared to be the shaft of an arrow sticking out of its chest.  A chill went through William as it dawned on him what he was looking at.

[Me again.]  The passage goes on to describe the second and third pictures as well.  Try as I might I couldn't find a medieval image of a "white-robed figure with feathered wings" (angels were much more colorful back then).  William's angel probably would have looked more like this one, from Bede's Life of Cuthbert (England, N., last quarter of the 12th century), blue-robed and rainbow-winged.  I think this manuscript is a good fit in terms of period and setting for the book in question, a lovely new middle grade novel set in a mythical, medieval world.

[The illuminations hold the key to the title of this book, too!]

Searching for Shona and children's books about the Evacuation

The painting of the ruined Victorian house in last week's Middle Grade Gallery is from Searching for Shona, by Margaret J. Anderson (Knopf, 1978), a recently rediscovered childhood favorite.  After Marjorie and Shona trade places on the train platform in Edinbugh, Marjorie is evacuated to Canonbie.  She and another orphan, Anna Ray, are billeted with the Miss Campbells, middle-aged identical twins who own a dress shop.  Marjorie and Anna find the house in the painting, empty (although not yet in ruins) save for a cozy playroom in the turret.  Clairmont House becomes a refuge for them until the army requisitions it to house soldiers, and by the end of the war, the house is as the artist depicted it in the painting.

How is the painting connected to Shona?  I don't want to give it away--if a middle grade novel about two girls, one from a privileged background (Marjorie) and another with only one clue about her family (Shona), trading places during the evacuation appeals to you (don't forget the abandoned house and the identical twin sisters, either), you really should try to find a copy of Searching For Shona.  I will say that Shona's father, like John Piper (whose work I featured in the original post), turns out to have been a war artist.  But there's more to the story than that, and it's all very satisfying.

Unfortunately, I didn't get many (any) other recommendations of children's books about the evacuation.  Anna Hebner noted that in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950), the four Pevensie children are evacuated from London to the Professor's country house (Lewis himself took in evacuees at his house in Oxford).  A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones (1987) also begins with the main character's evacuation from London, although she only makes it as far the train station (this one's out of print, and Charlotte doesn't like it anyway).

As for realistic fiction, The Children's War (a blog dedicated to books written for children and young adults about WWII) has a review of In Spite of All Terror by Hester Burton (1968), and I'm looking for a copy of that one now.

But the books about the evacuation I most want to read are (perhaps not surprisingly) by Noel Streatfeild.  The first is Saplings (1945), a novel for adults about the devastating effects of the war on a middle-class family with four children.  It's available in a gorgeous Persephone Books edition (have you heard of Persephone Books?) and sounds very depressing. The second is When the Siren Wailed (1974), a children's book written at considerably more remove from the war itself, and in which three working-class children are evacuated from London.  The original edition was illustrated by Margery Gill and thankfully, it ends happily.

[See the comments for more suggestions.]