WRB—Children’s Literature Supplement, Oct. 2024
“the tyranny of Parental Activities”
It is with great regret that Sarah would like to offer her apologies to CLS readers. Last month, she recommended Giselle Potter’s Lucy’s Eyes and Margaret’s Dragon before having read it herself. While she loves Potter’s other illustrated work, Mr. Semolina-Semolinus, this offering was not at all what she expected. For being a book about female saints, it would’ve been nice if it had mentioned God a bit more. And many of the pictures were particularly violent (yes, most of these women were martyrs, but it was excessive). Sarah is sorry she put the book in this newsletter and hopes her readers will forgive her—and know that while she generally vets the books mentioned here, she’ll be doing even more close reads now.
Hopefully, you can forgive her, dear readers, and will continue on for some much lovelier saint book suggestions, praise of a delightful goose, some spooky reads, and much more.
October thrills
Growing up, Sarah was always down for a good mystery story. She’s suggested various titles for different ages in the CLS before, but for your October reading pleasure, here are some reminders.
David A. Adler’s Cam Jansen series inspired a very young Sarah to wander around, blinking her eyes, and saying “click.”
Kidnap at the Catfish Café by Patricia Reilly Giff (1998) is wonderful on audio book.
It’s been many years, but Sarah remembers enjoying John Bibee’s The Homeschool Detectives series.
A good Boxcar Children book never goes amiss. Try The Pizza Mystery (1993).
Need a good picture book or easy reader mystery? Meet Robert Quackenbush’s charming Detective Mole. (Don’t forget Miss Mallard, too!)
Bonus: Check out Jim Weiss’s Spooky Classics for Children. “The Canterville Ghost” has stuck with Sarah for a long time.
Bookish history
If you can read French, these books might just be for you (and Sarah may have to learn French just to read them). Hélène de Lauzun, in the European Conservative, takes a moment to tell readers of stories that delighted her childhood and continue to enrich the minds and hearts of her own family:
This year, French literature celebrates the 150th anniversary of the death of the Comtesse de Ségur, author of children’s books that have been classics for generations of French boys and girls. But the venerable countess now gets bad press: she is criticized for being Catholic, reactionary, and confined to a backward-looking vision of an idealized paternalistic society. And yet she has much that ought to appeal to the modern world—a woman of letters who made her living from her pen in a century of men. Her inexhaustibly rich works are among those treasures that must be saved from contemporary savagery, which would dream of burning them in the fire or emptying them of their substance.
A spooky fairytale
Now is the perfect time to read Hans Christian Andersen’s The Red Shoes, especially if you can get your hands on the version retold and illustrated by Barbara Bazilian.
Strega Nona
This New York Times piece about Tomie dePaola’s beloved book character is . . . odd. Apparently, she’s giving everyone “fall vibes,” and while Sarah is delighted at the well-deserved attention dear Strega Nona is getting, she finds this manifestation disconcerting. First, the timing is off—she’s pretty sure the book is set in early spring, not fall. And this leads to the second complaint: Has anyone actually read the book? The NYT writer says, “Strega Nona, whose name means “Grandmother Witch,” is a healer who enchants the townspeople with her magically refilling pasta pot. When she recruits the help of a young man named Big Anthony, he bungles the spell that is supposed to halt pasta making. The town overflows with noodles.” Some of this is correct, but it gives readers the wrong impression. Strega Nona curies headaches and warts and finds husbands for young women. She doesn’t go around making pasta for everyone, just for herself and her hired help. The townspeople don’t even know about her pot until Big Anthony tells them about it—and they scoff at him! Strega Nona actually spends very little time bending over the pasta pot in this book, leading Sarah to wonder where people are getting these “hunched over a pot” and “fall” vibes. While it’s certainly a more wholesome “vibe” than some of the other ones currently on the loose, Sarah would appreciate it if people picked up the book and enjoyed the story, too.
What the kids are reading
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