Findings

Becky has a meme for this month’s Author Challenge:

What has been your favorite book that you’ve read for the Celebrate the Author challenge?

This is a hard one, because after only 6 months it’s hard to choose between The Black Cauldron and Frog and Toad Together. I’ve enjoyed Frog and Toad for the longest, so I guess I’ll go with that.

What has been your least favorite book?

No One Noticed the Cat, Anne McCaffrey. (I should have gone back to Pern.)

What one author or one book would you suggest to other participants?

The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, Chris Van Allsburg, because it’s such a novel idea.

Have you discovered any new authors along the way?

Not yet, but in the next 6 months I will. And I’ve learned new things about previously known authors.

Would you be interested in participating in this challenge again next year? Why or Why not?

I might be. If I did it again, I would change my focus so it would seem all new. This year I’m doing mostly children’s or YA books. If I did it again, I’d choose adult books, just to make it different. For some months I could choose the same authors; I learned this year, for instance, that Russell Hoban has written adult novels. I never knew that before reading about him for this challenge. Another idea would be to turn it into a mini lit crit course, and see what the authors have written about their artistic philosophy (since Becky’s gotten me thinking about Coleridge again!).

I’m not exactly an expert on Chris Van Allsburg. My first acquaintance with him was The Polar Express, long before it became Hollywood fare. I think it was my mother, then a kindergarten teacher, who introduced me to the book when I was in college, and I thought it was great. After my daughter experienced it in her kindergarten class last year, though, I formed a different impression. It was read to the kids, then they made bells, then they watched the movie in class.

It bothered me then. First, my husband and I had watched the movie and decided to wait to let our daughter watch it. The whole business of the tramp ghost on the train roof seemed potentially scary, and really the movie took so many liberties with the plot as to be its own entity. Then she went to school and was shown the movie anyway. Second, when the kindergarten class worked with the story, it became an overt lesson in the nature of faith, one in which faith was simply “belief” without regard to whether the particular object of faith was a worthy one or not. We’re Christians, and we teach our children that Jesus rose from the dead, and that God hears our prayers. Here was the kindergarten teacher using this book to teach that Santa, too, was worthy of “faith.”

No, I’m not advocating book-burning. It gave rise to some good discussions (though sooner than I would have chosen if circumstances hadn’t forced it). On the whole it was an exercise in the power of stories — Van Allsburg’s stories in this case, and his wonderful visualizations — and their malleability in the hands of their readers. I still like The Polar Express; the reality that seeing isn’t believing, but rather believing is seeing, is an important one. But all objects of faith certainly aren’t equal. It’s a multifaceted book that lends itself to different philosophies.   

That multifacetedness is evidence that it’s legitimate art, not simply a screen for a single didactic agenda. All the Van Allsburg stories I’ve seen are similarly suggestive. Another one I like is The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. It contains a set of unrelated pictures, all done in black-and-white, and all with Van Allsburg’s trademark suggestiveness. Each picture contains a story title, and one line of a story. The reader’s job is to supply the rest of the story. (Follow the title link to see the pictures.) It’s really a wonderful imaginative exercise that takes students a step beyond picture narration, and into story creation. I’ve had the book since I was in college and (I admit it) I’ve pored over the pictures many times with admiration for Van Allsburg’s detail, inventiveness, and skill at depicting mood and atmosphere. These qualities explain why he’s the author I picked for the June Celebrate the Author Challenge. I learned from this book that he never learned to draw as a child, and felt he was no good at it. I’m glad he knows better now.

I just think Arnold Lobel is a dear man. That’s a mushier evaluation than I usually give, but I can’t help it. His birthday is this month, and I chose him for the Celebrate the Author Challenge. He’s an author I enjoyed as a child myself, and now again with my children.

If you’ve ever read the Frog and Toad stories, maybe you know what I mean. What a pair these two old bachelors are! So complementary in their personalities. So physically unattractive (unless you have a thing for amphibians, as I admittedly did in first grade). So… human.

In our house, “I’m having a Toad kind of a day” has become part of our specialized family discourse. When you wake up feeling a bit grumpy, stodgy, easily panicked, and inflexible, you’re having a Toad day. Toad somehow stays lovable in the stories despite this. Perhaps it’s because Lobel has balanced him so perfectly with his tall green friend Frog, who’s almost always cheerful, fun-loving, loyal, and encouraging.

My favorite stories come from Frog and Toad Together. I love “Cookies,” for instance, because it’s so darn true. Fresh-baked cookies have always been my Waterloo, the demands of willpower notwithstanding, so I can relate to these guys when they can’t resist some cookies Toad has baked, and resort to all kind of foolish attempts to trick themselves into not eating any more. And then there’s “Dragons and Giants,” where they read a story together and then go looking for adventure to prove their mettle. The story ends with them back home, safe, but hiding. Are they brave? What makes a person (or a small squishy animal) brave?

I could talk about every single story in the book. I like them all. But the most complex is “The Dream.” Toad dreams that he’s onstage, with Frog his only audience, and a booming voice announcing his many accomplishments. The applause is deafening, but with each succeeding performance, Frog shrinks until Toad can no longer find him. It’s a story about the costs of competetiveness, told feelingly, compellingly, and memorably. It’s a wonderful find for children.

This audiobook is one we own, and I recommend it. Arnold Lobel himself is the reader, and he has the most warm, friendly voice. It’s perfect for these stories, all of which convey a gentle wisdom fleshed out in true-to-life relationships and situations. My only regret is that my daughters have listened to it so much, they have the stories memorized and can no longer benefit from these books as readers. But no matter. I’ll take them on any terms.

It’s Anne McCaffrey’s birthday this month. I remember enjoying her dragon tales years ago, when I was in college (or newly graduated), so I chose her for the Celebrate the Author Challenge. Rather than rereading something, I chose No One Noticed the Cat to refresh my memory largely because it looked appealing on the library shelf. It’s only about 5.5″ by 6.5″ and the pages all have borders similar to the one on the cover. I guess it fit my expectations of what a fairy tale should look like.

Why, you ask, am I going on and on about the book as a physical object? Because I like to start on a positive note. Once I finished admiring the cover and started reading, it was pretty much all downhill. Not downhill like a sheer cliff; not excruciating. But a gentle and unexciting coast downhill ’twas, just the same. As a refresher course in Anne McCaffrey, it failed to remind me of anything I had liked in the past.

The tale is (supposed to be) about a cat named Niffy, who’s been somehow infused with all the wisdom of a young prince’s deceased regent. Throughout the prince’s “coming of age” as a ruler, the cat (we’re supposed to believe) guides him. Negotiating tricky relationships with other kingdoms? Ask the cat. Choosing a spouse? Ask the cat. Hunting “barguas” (fantasy lands require fantasy animals)? Yes, that’s right: ask the cat.

It might have worked if it didn’t read more like a Masterplots version of a longer story. There isn’t any character development. There isn’t any convincing tension. There isn’t much description of anything other than food served at royal meals, of which there are exhaustive detailings that make you hungry, then fail to satisfy with a good story.

Nevertheless, I’ve really liked Anne McCaffrey stories before. Maybe this one just isn’t representative. Maybe if I hadn’t been a flaky heroine myself, choosing a book by its pretty cover, I would have launched into one of her other novels on the library shelf, and found myself immersed in reminders aplenty of her creative aplomb. (Yes, I’m proud of that: “aplomb.” A nifty word, that.) A quick tour of her bio, publishing history and awards (here, through which you can also link to her personal website) indicates a wide-ranging imagination that spins out several series in several fictional universes, as well as great success in connecting to a diverse readership and achieving professional recognition.   

I think in the past, I felt an identification with her female characters who fought to define themselves in ways that didn’t fit the prescribed mold. This story was about a man, and didn’t include any real female protagonists. Also, I’m at a different point in life, more comfortable with the unwieldy aspects of my personality, and looking for characters that model a different flavor of strength than the rebelliousness that appealed to me in the past.

Not all authors are a lifelong attachment; some speak with great eloquence for a season, then say goodbye and remain mere casual acquaintances. We have friendships at many different levels, with books as well as with living, breathing people. So even though this particular reading was kind of disappointing, I feel like I can celebrate this author in the same way I celebrate other old friends I run into, or relatives I see only rarely. They’re not the ones saved in the speed dial of my phone. Still, they’re a part of who I am.

It’s Dr. Seuss’s birthday today. I chose him for the Celebrate the Author Challenge because his stories are woven into the texture of our family life in a big way: my daughters choose his books from the library; they listen to Seuss audiobooks; they invent Seussian improvisations as part of their play. What’s so appealing about Dr. Seuss? Here are the five things that come first to mind:

1. The smallest actions can produce the biggest results. Small is beautiful; small matters. In short, you matter. The smallest Who of all turns the tide in Horton Hears a Who, adding his tiny bit to the cacophony of a Whoville desperate to escape being boiled in hot beezlenut oil. The bright moment of hope at the end of The Lorax comes when the Onceler tosses out a truffula seed and tells his young audience, “You might be the one to restore Paradise.” Mack the insignificant turtle upsets the despotic Yertle’s empire. Young Cindy Lou Who (who is no more than two) puts a human face on the Grinch’s enemies, and begins his awakening. It’s the actions performed by the least of us that redistribute the forces of the universe. So stay in the game, and do your small part.
2. Genuineness matters. It’s the whole theme of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The Grinch has no argument with Christmas, but with the loss of Christmas when it degenerates into crass materialism and greed. His salvation comes when he realizes the Whos in Whoville are the real thing. In Bartholomew and the Oobleck, the horrible green stuff dissipates only when the king delivers a genuine apology. Horton’s true blue faithfulness produces a whole new species in Horton Hatches the Egg. And my favorite treatment of the subject of genuineness, a new discovery for me, is Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? It’s a satire on the logic of, “Eat your vegetables because there are people starving somewhere in the world.” In this story that reasoning is expounded to the enth degree of absurdity, until it becomes, “You ought to be thankful a whole heaping lot for the people and places you’re lucky you’re NOT!” It ends up looking more like a mixture of self-righteousness and cruelty than true compassion.  
3. Dreams matter. So many child dreamers emerge from the pages: the narrator of McElligott’s Pool; young Morris McGurk, with his grand vision for the vacant lot behind Sneelock’s store in If I Ran the Circus; Gerald McGrew, the amazing, entrepreneurial boy who imagines life as a zookeeper in If I Ran the Zoo. Keep that imagination oiled and purring, because it’s a valuable asset to rich living for children of all ages.
4. There’s good in this world, but Seuss stories contain their share of evil as well. Yertle the Turtle is a megalomaniac, as is the Onceler driven by greed and a conquesting attitude in The Lorax. Horton’s mistreatment at the hands of the Wickersham brothers, the nasty kangaroo, and the bird who drops the Whos into oblivion shows some unequivocal badness at work. Maisie, the mother who abandons her egg, confirms that even a mother can be terribly selfish. In a strange way, the Grinch, who looks so ugly and mean-spirited, is really a subversive hero because he fights greed and a mercantile spirit. So don’t be afraid to look past appearances and discern what’s in people’s hearts. There’s good and evil, and it’s going to be a battle.
5. 5. Last but not least: the sheer joy of language. Words! More words! New words! Meanings turned inside out, endings appended and altered, fantasy language that ends up suggesting fantasy creatures and meanings. What on earth is a thromdimbulator? What’s a hippo-no-hungus or a dippo-no-dungus? It’s fun to hear, fun to read, fun to learn to read with these tales. My daughters listen to this audiobook, in which the likes of Kelsey Grammar, John Cleese, Dustin Hoffman, Walter Matthau, Billy Crystal, and John Lithgow read classic Seuss stories with their impeccable timing and inflection. It’s great fun, and highly recommended. I’ve come to appreciate the linguistic adventure of reading Dr. Seuss even more, and so have my (already quite verbal) children.  

There’s plenty more that could be said, but these are the first five things that came to mind to celebrate about Dr. Seuss. It’s not as spectacular as what the Birthday Bird could serve up in Happy Birthday to You! But if genuineness matters, then perhaps my gratitude for the gift of his books counts as much as JoJo Who’s tiny voice.

It’s Russell Hoban’s birthday this month, and this post is a birthday tribute. His writing is much more extensive than I realized till I stumbled upon this site. I know him as the author of the Frances stories, which were a staple of my own childhood and now of my children’s as well. In fact, they listen to this audiobook of several of the stories, read by Glynis Johns. (I like my way of singing Frances’s songs better, though! :-)) This collection includes Bread and Jam for Frances, Bedtime for Frances, A Birthday for Frances, and A Baby Sister for Frances, all good ones. They deal with some typical family situations and conflicts in the context of a very loving and civilized family of badgers.

When I was little, though, my favorite, far and away, was A Bargain for Frances.  I had a slightly mean friend much like Frances’s friend Gloria, and I liked the way Frances gets revenge when Gloria cheats her out of a tea set she’s been saving up for. As an adult I still like the story, but now it’s because it opens up opportunities to talk with my daughters, ages 6 and 4, about saving up your money, what to do when people are mean to you, and whether Frances’s response is fair or not. (Okay, true confession: I still always chuckle when Frances calls Gloria and tricks her into thinking she’s left a small fortune in the sugar bowl!) Frances and Gloria end up deciding that “being friends is better than being careful” - a fact I as an adult often need to be reminded of. In the long run, it is better not to take refuge from people in hyper-carefulness. Thanks, badger child, for keeping me straight on that point.

Another I liked was Harvey’s Hideout. Harvey and his sister Mildred are muskrats who have very cool secret burrows and fake each other out about how many friends they have coming to cookouts and parties there. It turns out that the burrows are back to back, a fact Harvey discovers by eavesdropping through the wall, and in the end they work out their sibling squabbles and mutual deceptions and are able to enjoy each other’s company. I loved it as a kid. The dugouts were neat, and they got to actually COOK even though they were kids. As an adult, I wonder what the Hobans were thinking; the name-calling between brother and sister is hard to read aloud, and sometimes the parental interventions are real head scratchers. For instance, when Harvey calls Mildred, “loud-mouthed, bossy, mean and rotten,” their father insists that she’s loud-mouthed and bossy, but not mean and rotten. ??? Can’t really imagine mediating a sibling spat that way with my kids. So they’re missing out on this one.

It’s interesting to remember that it never phased me as a kid, though. I accepted Harvey and Mildred Muskrat, meanness included, because I knew kids could be that way. The strength of all these stories is their gentle treatment of some of the real difficulties of being young: mean friends, sharing things, sharing parents, getting along with siblings, allowances, bedtimes, finicky tastes and other matters. There was enough reality to Frances to keep me coming back for more. As an adult, there’s enough reality to her parents - and enough wisdom - to bring me back again.

The Celebrate the Author Challenge for February is here.

I read Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain chronicles when I was in junior high. Mrs. Greenblatt, the librarian, recommended them to me, and I wasn’t disappointed. Last year I revisited the first book, The Book of Three, and this week I read book 2, The Black Cauldron. Experiencing the book as an (alleged) adult, I was less absorbed by the story, but more appreciative of Alexander’s ability to craft a myth for young adults that includes so many of the pleasing elements of some great stories they’ll encounter later.

Once again I found myself joining up with Taran, the assistant pig-keeper on a quest to test his mettle and find his manhood; Eilonwy, the mouthy princess; Gurgi, the hairy spinner of rhymes (more verbose than Chewbacca, but otherwise surely an ancestor!); Fflewddur Flam, the unflaggingly cheerful harpist and teller of tales; as well as the valiant Gwydian, the gruff dwarf Doli, and the wise wizard Dallben. This book includes a few new faces too, most notably Ellidyr the spiteful prince of Pen-Larcau and the brave and mysterious Morgant.

My brother-in-law says there are only about 5 stories out there, remixed over and over. I’m not sure if I agree, but I did find lots of connections between this story and others, especially Tolkein’s. Like The Two Towers, The Black Cauldron as the second book in the series is (in my opinion) the darkest. Its central mission is serious: to secure and destroy the cauldron Arawn uses to turn corpses into “cauldron-born” warriors who can never be killed. Alexander’s characters also reminded me often of Tolkein’s: Arawn and Sauron; the cauldron-born and the ringwraiths; Taran and Frodo; on and on. Both authors include a fellowship in which rivalries fester and threaten to break it apart. Both include an evil, enchanted object that magnifies the characters’ inner wrestling with good and evil. Even the imaginary kingdom of Prydain, and its inhabitants with their difficult-to-pronounce names, calls to mind Tolkein’s much more elaborate, meticulous alternative world and language in Middle Earth.

There are links to other stories too. The 3 enchantresses, Orwen, Orgoch, and Orddu, remind me of L’Engle’s Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which, who also take the form of dishevelled crones and leave us guessing whether they’re entirely to be trusted. The cauldron itself hearkens to the biblical story of redemption, for it’s used to keep those who are dead alive as slaves to the evil will of Arawn, and it can only be destroyed if a living person willingly climbs in and loses his life. And the cast of characters– a young man coming of age, a princess, a bard– could serve as the template for any number of classic tales.

I’ve adopted some of the assumptions of classical education in my approach to homeschooling my children. One of these assumptions is that if you can introduce children to some of the great stories when they’re young sponges (my oldest is 6), they will love them, and take that love with them into a later and more complex understanding of them. Right now, for instance, we’re reading an illustrated version of The Iliad for children. The idea is that later, reading a more difficult text of the story won’t be intimidating, because my daughter will already know it.

I thought of this as I read The Black Cauldron. It contains so many elements of other tales (more than just the ones I’ve mentioned) embodied in a narrative that’s entertaining and fast-paced. It seems very likely that younger readers who encounter these stories will feel the “shock of recognition” and the joy of discovery later if they attempt the harder work of reading a longer and denser version of them– enough recognition and pleasure to disarm any intimidation. Surely this is a main pull of reading for all of us: entering fictional worlds which, though they may seem new and different on the outside, are familiar enough ground to offer us a new perspective on our lives. 

None of this is meant to discount the fact that these are simply good stories in themselves, filled with humor, skillful character development and true wisdom. I think they’re a great gift, one that I appreciate even more now than I did when I first encountered them years ago. I suppose that’s one of the benefits of becoming, uh, “seasoned.” So it seems fitting to be reading and enjoying The Black Cauldron in honor of Lloyd Alexander’s birthday this month. The Celebrate the Author Challenge for January is here.

Becky of Becky’s Book Reviews is hosting a reading challenge that “is designed to ‘celebrate’ author birthdays. Choose one author for each month of the year. Read at least one book a month. 12 authors. 12 birthdays.” I can’t resist this one! Anyone can join the fun up through the third week (or so) of January 2008, but I have my list ready now (a mere five minutes after discovering Becky’s challenge):

• January: Lloyd Alexander 
• February: Russell Hoban
• March: Dr. Suess
• April: Anne McCaffrey 
• May: Arnold Lobel
• June: Chris Van Allsburg
• July: Beatrix Potter
• August: Tasha Tudor
• September: Jack Prelutsky
• October: Gene Zion
• November: Madeleine L’Engle or C.S. Lewis
• December: Noel Streatfield or James Thurber