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!]

Middle Grade Gallery 8

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, a painting that functions as a birth token, a small object kept as an identifying record of an abandoned or orphaned infant.  During the evacuation of children from Edinbugh in the early days of WWII, shy, wealthy Marjorie, on her way to relatives in Canada, trades places with the orphaned Shona and is evacuated to the Scottish countryside (from the LoC summary).  Marjorie discovers the painting in Shona's suitcase:

Taking up the whole bottom of the case was a painting in a wooden frame.  Marjorie was puzzled that Shona, who had so few possessions, would bring a painting along with her.  She lifted it out of the suitcase and carried it over directly under the light so she could see it better.  It showed a Victorian house, rather ornate and turreted, standing in the middle of an overgrown garden.  The windows were blank and empty and, in the forground, iron gates hung open, bent and rusted.  The big stone gateposts leaned at drunken angles and a decorative stone ball had fallen from the top of one.  It lay among the weeds, chipped and shadowed so that it looked like a skull.

[Me again.]  The description is from a childhood favorite (note the British orphans, practically a prerequisite).  After years of searching, I recently located a secondhand copy and upon rereading, was as surprised by the painting as Marjorie was; I had forgotten all about it until she opened the suitcase.  The image accompanying this post, a painting of a ruined Victorian house, Lansdown, Bath 1942, is by British war artist John Piper, who had been commissioned to record bomb damage in and around London at that time.

Does any of this sound familiar--plot, painting, Piper?  Even if you don't recognize this middle grade novel, please leave a comment if you can recommend any others having to do with the evacuation.  I'll reveal, review, and round up the recommendations next week.  Thanks!

[Revealed here.]

Middle Grade Gallery 7

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, a portrait of a queen from a fairly recent fantasy novel (the third in a series of five, so far) that borrows from our familiarity with another, English queen: 

It is a skillful painting of a Castle Queen, from times long past.  He can tell that it is old because she is wearing the true crown, the one that was lost many centuries ago.  The queen has a sharp pointy nose and wears her hair coiled around her ears like a pair of earmuffs.  Clinging to her skirts is an Aie-Aie--a horrible little creature with a ratty face, sharp claws and a long snake's tail.  Its round, red eyes stare out at Silas as though it would like to bite him with its one long, needle-sharp tooth.  The Queen too looks out from the painting, but she wears a lofty, disapproving expression.  Her head is held high, supported by a starched ruff under her chin and her piercing eyes are reflected in the light of Silas's candle and seem to follow them everywhere.

[Me again.]  Does this passage remind you of Elizabeth I, too?  I looked at a lot of portraits of Elizabeth before settling on one to illustrate this post:  the Ermine Portrait, attributed to William Segar (formerly, to Nicholas Hilliard), 1585; and on display at Hatfield House, one of Elizabeth's childhood residences.  The "lofty, disapproving expression," along with other details of the queen's appearance described in the passage, is common to most of Elizabeth's portraits, but the Ermine is as close as they come to an Aie-Aie.

[Hint:  The Queen in the novel is named Etheldredda.  Please leave a comment if you recognized her, too.]

Middle Grade Gallery 6

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, one of a fictional series of four miniatures, as it might have been drawn by Albrecht Dürer. The drawing is first copied, then stolen (and later, recovered) from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in this middle grade novel, one of my favorites of 2009.

The drawing was a tiny framed miniature of a gowned woman kneeling, with her arms around an animal. A lion. She had waves of hair that cascaded down her back, and the lion's mane flowed in similar waves over its massive shoulders.

The drawing above obviously isn't a lion; it's Dürer's Stag Beetle, 1505 (Getty), and it's also a big hint.  Have you figured it out yet?