Mondays
Now that I’ve gotten up a good head of steam, I’m going to settle in for the long haul and just post on Mondays. This week’s Monday post is Falter Tom and the Water Boy. Hope to see you here on future Mondays!
Falter Tom and the Water Boy (1959)
Maurice Duggan was an important figure in New Zealand’s mid-century literary scene, known mostly for short stories. Falter Tom and the Water Boy was his one children’s novel. Falter Tom is an old sailor, nick-named for his game leg (Duggan himself lost a leg in early adulthood), who lives in a cabin in a small… Read more Falter Tom and the Water Boy (1959)
The Richleighs of Tantamount (1966)
Four siblings from an E. Nesbit book find themselves in The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, wander through a few Enid Blyton Famous Five books and The Secret Garden, to arrive, surprisingly, at a satisfying ending. Edwin, Angeline, Sebastian, and Maud Richleigh are the children of wealthy Londoners around the year 1870. They are fantastically pampered,… Read more The Richleighs of Tantamount (1966)
Switching Places: The Kellyhorns (1942)
Two people look enough alike that one could pass for the other. Can they pass? What happens when people mistake you for someone else? What would you need to know in order to fit yourself into someone else’s life? Authors have played with this idea for centuries. There are the separated twins in Roman playwright… Read more Switching Places: The Kellyhorns (1942)
The Rescuers (1959)
The movie of The Rescuers has almost nothing to do with the book, but even if you read the book and it’s sequels as a child, you may not realize how weird it is. It is not even a book for children. It’s a Ruritanian romance, with mice. Ruritanian romances were a style of swashbuckler… Read more The Rescuers (1959)
Lud-in-the-Mist (1926)
Lud-in-the-Mist is a neglected masterpiece of early 20th century fantastical and fairytale-inspired works. Though not written as a children’s book, it’s really is no less suited for children than Ursula LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea (which, to be fair, would today be marketed as Young Adult). Teens could certainly enjoy Lud-in-the-Mist, and older children whose… Read more Lud-in-the-Mist (1926)
Mistress Masham’s Repose (1946)
T.H. White is best known for his retelling of the King Arthur legend in The Once and Future King, a compilation of three novels including The Sword in the Stone. Mistress Masham’s Repose concerns the orphaned heiress to a crumbling estate, being raised by a horrible governess with the collusion of her equally horrible sidekick… Read more Mistress Masham’s Repose (1946)
Caddie Woodlawn (1935)
Just as Wilder must have noticed Jumping Off Place, Carol Ryrie Brink must have noticed Little House in the Big Woods: her own grandmother, Caroline Woodhouse, was just 14 years older than Laura Ingalls, and grew up about 15 miles away from her on a farm in Wisconsin. In 1935, three years after Big Woods,… Read more Caddie Woodlawn (1935)
Stuart Little (1945)
Though I be beaten to death by enraged fifth-grade teachers, I have to say it: Stuart Little is a terrible book. First off, the premise — that Mrs. Little gave birth to a mouse — just doesn’t bear thinking about. But we’ll let that pass; we’ll pretend that White’s target audience in the 1940’s knew… Read more Stuart Little (1945)
Harriet the Spy (1964)
This is the story of Harriet Welsh, daughter of wealthy New Yorkers and attendee of a snobbish private school, where she has banded together with two other misfits. Harriet’s particular oddity is her obssession with writing down everything, and with wanting to know everything, which leads her to spying on the lives of others. She… Read more Harriet the Spy (1964)