A History of Children’s Stories: “The Haunted Wood” by Sam Leith

One of the earliest memories I have is my mother reading to me from a big, green book of tales for children. Stories Children Love by Watty Piper, a collection of nine tales, was first published in the 1920s and reprinted in 1933. I believe my book, which I still have, was a reprint from about 1950. 

The stories are the familiar ones, including “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Peter Pan,” “Cinderella,” “Three Bears,” and “Jack and the Beanstalk.” The illustrations are classic 1920s.

 

What I didn’t know is that these stories have a history. In fact, all children’s literature has a history. While a surprising amount of it is fairly modern, it is a history with deep roots; adults having been telling children stories for millennia. A now Sam Leith has undertaken telling that history in The Haunted Wood: A History of Childhood Reading.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Books I’m Not Recommending for Christmas

It’s Christmas season, which means it’s time for my annual list of books I’m not recommending for Christmas. Chalk the title up to my sensitivity about giving and receiving books. It likely goes back to some childhood trauma when I received a book I was totally uninterested in. I would have been polite and said thank you, I was raised in the South, after all, but I would have been traumatized nonetheless. 

An alternative title might be “The Best Books I’ve Read This Year.” I read a lot of books, and I read a lot of good books, so I have to say up front I’m omitting some to keep the list (relatively) short. Some are books published this year; a few were published decades ago.

 

It was a good year for poetry. It was the year I discovered good graphic novels. I found some new authors and revisited some old ones. Note: Links are to my reviews.

 

Poetry

 

Spending the Winter: Poems by Joseph Bottum.

 

The Shield of Achilles by W.H. Auden.

 

Herman Melville: Battle Pieces & Aspects of the War.

 

Last Things, First Things, and Other Lost Causes: Poems by Joshua Hren.

 

The Grief Committee Minutes: Poems by Sarah Carey.

 

The Unfolding: Poems by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

 

Empty Me Full: Poems by Catherine Abbey Hodges.

 

Under the Pearl Moon: Poems by Rick Maxson.

 

House of 49 Doors: Poems by Laurie Klein.

 

Graphic Novels

 

The Colour Out of Space by H.P. Lovecraft and Sara Barkat.

 

The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien by John Hendrix.

 

Mysteries

 

Sting of the Honey Bee by Roger Longrigg.

 

The Dark Wives by Ann Cleeves.

 

The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny.

 

A Saxon Shadow and A Stolen Shadow by H L Marsay.

 

In That Sleep of Death by Jonathan Dunsky.

 

In the Key of Death by Scott Hunter.

 

Death, Adjourned by Simon Michael.

 

Faith

 

The Storied Life by Jared Wilson.

 

In This Way We Came to Rome: With Paul on the Appian Way by Gene Thompson and Mark Wilson.

 

Art

 

Thunderclap: A memoir of art and life & sudden death by Laura Cummings.

 

Fiction

 

Hold Fast by Spencer K.M. Brown.

 

Works of Mercy and The Blackbird & Other Stories by Sally Thomas.

 

Clear by Carys Davies.

 

A World Lost and A Place on Earth by Wendell Berry.

 

Children’s Literature

 

The Sin Eater by Gary Schmidt.

 

Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt.

 

History

 

The Gettysburg Reunion of 1913 by John Hopkins.

 

The Aleppo Codex by Matti Friedman.

 

Literary Criticism

 

Dickensland: The Curious History of Dickens’s London by Lee Jackson.

 

The History of the Hobbit by John Rateliff.

 

C.S. Lewis’s Oxford by Simon Horobin.

 

Top photograph by Olena Bohovyk via Unsplash. Used with permission.

“Trapped in the Tunnel” by Katrina Hoover Lee

Young teens Terry, Gary, and Larry Fitzpatrick live with their parents on Brady Street in a small town in Indiana. The streets rather isolated; it’s near the river the boys love and has only two neighbors, an abandoned house next door and a home owned by “the German woman” Tina down the street. It’s early summer 1987, and the three boys find all kinds of things to keep them occupied.  

The boys have heard stories of how their area supposedly was part of the Underground Railroad before and during the Civil War. But it’s only when the local antiques dealer gives them an old map that their imaginations take flight. It appears that there are tunnels connecting the houses on their street, secret rooms in the basements, and all manner of secret doors.

 

Katrina Hoover Lee

They hunt for clues and soon begin to find them, including in their own basement and in the abandoned house next door. But things take a turn for the really exciting, and dangerous, when they’re asked to care for Tina’s dog while she’s away. 

 

In Trapped in the Tunnel, Katrina Hoover Lee tells the boys’ story. She combines strong Christian elements along with the things young teens can do to keep themselves occupied, with a good dose of mystery and mounting tension. The targeted age group for the series is roughly 8 to 13. And this is the  time before personal computers, mobile phones, iPads, and the worldwide web, so the book is a treat for those of us adults who can remember those ancient times.

 

Lee has published seven books in the Brady Street Boys 1980s Adventure Series, of which Trapped in the Tunnel is the first. She’s also published several other books, both fiction and non-diction. The Brady Street Boys originated as stories she told her brother, growing up on a Mennonite farm. She lives with her family in Elkhart, Indiana. 

 

Some Monday Readings

 

“My Letters! All Dead Paper,” poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

The False Promise of Device-Based Education – Amy Tyson at After Babel.

 

Democracy in America: an introduction – Roger Kimball at The New Criterion.

 

Stark Truth: All the King’s Terrible Choices – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

"Across Five Aprils" by Irene Hunt

In 1964, author Irene Hunt (1907-2001) published the middle-grade novel Across Five Aprils. It’s the coming-of-age story of nine-year-old Jethro Creighton, the youngest of five brothers and a sister. They live and work with their parents Matt and Emma on a farm in southern Illinois. 

This coming-of-age story is set during the Civil War, beginning in 1861. It’s so well done, and such a good story, that it’s no wonder that it was runner-up to the Newberry Medal in 1965 (her second book, Up the Road Slowly, won the medal in 1966). In 212 pages, Hunt manages to tell both the story of the Creighton family and the story of the Civil War itself. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Civil War Institutes and Conferences – Terry Rensel at Emerging Civil War. 

Who Won the Battle of Cold Harbor? – Owen Rust at The Collector.

"Your love will carry me safely through": War, Hope, and Reasons to Live - Sarah Kay Bierle at Emerging Civil War.

The Hidden Sorrow of Valentine's Day - David Bannon at Front Porch Republic.

On the Origin of Humanity's Superpower - Seth Lewis.

'February 14, 2024': An Ash Wednesday Valentine's Poem - Cynthia Erlandson at Society of Classical Poets.

“The Notorious Adventures of Nutt the Nefarious” by Seth Lewis

William Shakespeare has recently died. The King James Version of the Bible has nowbeen translated and published. A new world has been discovered by Europe. 

And John Nutt (born before 1600 and died after 1632) is ranging from eastern Canada to the western coast of England, making raids on settlements and towns and attacking ships. In short, Nutt was a pirate, one who inspired fear across the north Atlantic. He was finally captured by Sr. John Eliot in 1623, tried and found guilty, and sentenced to death by hanging.

 

Except Nutt paid the English Secretary of State George Calvert a sizeable bribe and was pardoned. As author and poet Seth Lewis would say, Nutt “nearly died.”

 

Lewis, who lives in southern Ireland and works with Irish Baptist churches, has created a short and fictional account of the famous exploits of Nutt, many of which have been lost. The Notorious Adventures of Nutt the Nefarious includes poems and stories, told over the course of a week. Aimed at children and perhaps to be read aloud to them, it is great fun for adults as well.

 

Seth Lewis

The adventures begin with an “epic poem,” which explains how Nutt found his way to the island of Timbukthree on a ship named A.Corn, after Nutt’s father Archibald Cornelius the Third. It sets the stage for the adventures to come, noting that, from early on, Nutt very nearly dies on a regular and often daily basis.

 

His very nearly dying experiences include being swallowed by a Wheel (a strange cross between a whale and an electric eel), having to replace a termite-infested main mast, a battle with the squirrelly Squire Rell, an encounter with the danger Mouth Sharks, or Marks, followed by one with the Cannibulls, or Bulls. We hold our breath as Nutt and his pirates very nearly die many times over. The story ends as it should, with the anticipation of future adventures ahead. 

 

The Notorious Adventures of Nutt the Nefarious is pure fun, filled with puns and zany adventures (including a forest of broccoli that doesn’t take kindly to visitors). It’s a treat for children and the child within us all.