A Little Closure, a Little Planning Ahead

I've been neglecting this blog this week. Shame on me. But I have been posting everyday on my other blog (Joysweb) – just as an experiment, after discovering NaBloPoMo. So I haven't been going completely blog-free. More like blog "lite."

Well, December is chugging right along, and if it behaves the same way Decembers usually do, Christmas will be here before we know it, and then suddenly we won't have 2008 to kick around anymore. So I've been doing the natural thing – looking around for reading challenges to join in 2009! And also coming to the sad conclusion that I'm going to have to declare defeat in a couple of the challenges I attempted in 2008. Bummer.

No reflection on either of the challenges, their hosts or participants. It's just that I realize I probably won't have time to get around to reading the remaining books on those lists by the end of this year.

First, the Young Readers Challenge. I was supposed to read a dozen books for that one, and ended up reading eight. So, not total defeat. And it was such a fun challenge, that I'm not too upset about not reaching the finish line. Many thanks to Becky for hosting – I'm not sure how she juggles all those reviews and challenges, but it's a good thing for all us book freaks that she manages it.

I feel a little more regret about admitting my failure in the Man-Booker Challenge. It was one of my favorites – and the books on my list are all books I still hope to read eventually. But I'll never get the three remaining titles read by the end of this month. Plus, there's the very sad fact that the challenge host, Dewey (of The Hidden Side of a Leaf), is no longer with us. And every time I think about the challenge, I remember that. I didn't have the personal relationship with Dewey that a lot of bloggers had, but her death has affected us all, in many ways. She'll be missed.

That leaves me with just one challenge "ending" in 2008 – the Suspense-Thriller Challenge. But technically, that one continues on throughout 2009. So even though I may not make my 2008 goal, I'm still planning to complete all the "required" reading by challenge end.

And that brings me to future challenges. I've already signed up for a couple of new challenges starting in 2009: the Lost In Translation Challenge, and the Read Your Own Books Challenge. In looking for enticing challenges, I'm trying to concentrate as much as possible on those that will allow me to read books I'm already planning to read next year. That way, I can enjoy the challenge and whittle down that enormous TBR pile at the same time.

I have two other goals for my reading in 2009. First, I want to read more "foreign" literature. For me, that will mean literature in translation – since, like most Americans, my only reading language is English (or a version of it, anyway).

And my other long-term goal is to catch up on a lot of the books I missed out on during the 1990s. For some reason I had slipped into a non-reading phase during most of the decade. I think the Internet was probably mostly to blame for that – web surfing took up all my spare reading time for many years. I've recovered a bit lately, thanks mostly to those challenges. But there are a bunch of books from the '90s I want to read now. So I'm going to start my own personal "Reading the '90s" Challenge – for 2009 and beyond!

Review: The House with a Clock in Its Walls

Written by John Bellairs
Illustrated by Edward Gorey
A Dell Yearling Book, Published 1973RIP III Challenge
Young Readers Challenge

The House with a Clock in Its Walls, by John Bellairs, is the first book in his Lewis Barnavelt series of gothic horror novels for young readers.

Orphaned when his parents are killed in an auto accident, ten-year-old Lewis comes to live with his Uncle Jonathan, in New Zebedee, Michigan in 1948. Lewis is lonely, frightened, nervous about meeting his unknown relative, and worried about what his future holds:

It seemed to Lewis that all he could think of these days were questions: Where am I going? Who will I meet? Will I like them? What will happen to me? [p. 4]

This could be the beginning of any number of orphaned-children novels. But Lewis’ Uncle Jonathan turns out to be a wizard – the scandalous black sheep of the family. And the story soon takes a unique and uncanny turn: Together with neighbor Florence Zimmermann (who just happens to be a witch), Lewis and his uncle must locate a magic clock hidden somewhere in Jonathan's spooky mansion, before it destroys the world.

The clock was the handiwork of Isaac Izard, an evil warlock who was the original owner of Uncle Jonathan's house. Izard practiced black magic and lived a hermit-like existence there in the mansion along with his wife Selenna until her mysterious death. Isaac himself died shortly after that, one night during a wild thunderstorm. And though no one understands why he did it, Izard devised a clock that would bring about the end of the world and hid it somewhere in the walls of the house. Now every night Lewis and his uncle search for the clock while they hear it ticking off the minutes leading up to doomsday.

Bellairs’ story is decidedly creepy, but also whimsical and endearing. Uncle Jonathan’s house has some very surprising characteristics – such as stained glass windows with pictures that change without notice. And a secret passageway that leads to Mrs. Zimmermann’s house next door. And Jonathan and Florence are constantly engaged in good-natured bickering, and delight in addressing each other with pet names like “Hag Face,” “Frizzy Wig,” and “Weird Beard.”

Lewis is presented as a very real boy, with a real child’s insecurities and fears, forced to deal with very exotic and peculiar and even perilous situations. His desperate struggle to maintain an unlikely friendship with a popular boy in his class at school serves as the main mechanism for some of the most dangerous action in the book. And although he’s certainly instrumental in the effort to destroy the forces of evil, he’s not portrayed as a superhero. In the end, he’s content to sit around a bonfire with his uncle and Mrs. Zimmermann, drinking cocoa and eating chocolate chip cookies. Of course, the bonfire eventually turns into a jack-o-lantern, with a scowling orange face – but then, Uncle Jonathan is a wizard, after all.

This was my introduction to John Bellairs and Lewis Barnavelt, and I'd definitely like to read more titles in the series. I loved the eccentric characters and bizarre storyline. And Edward Gorey’s illustrations were a special treat, and a perfect match for Bellairs’ mix of ordinary everyday action with a supernatural element. It all combines to make The House with a Clock in Its Walls a delightful experience for readers of all ages.

Review: Superfudge

Written by Judy Blume
Published by Dell Yearling, 1994 and later
Originally published 1980
This review refers to the 1994 edition of the book.
Young Readers Challenge

Is Judy Blume still popular? I know she was wildly successful back in the 1970s and ‘80s. But do kids still read her books? She was one of those annoyingly over-achieving children’s book writers who seemed to turn out nothing but best-sellers. And then she started writing books for adults and did OK there, too. See what I mean about annoying?

Since I was already in college when she published her first children’s books and I don’t have kids of my own, I never had occasion to read any of her books until the Young Readers Challenge came along and made me start looking at all the kids’ lit I’ve missed in the last century decade or so.

There’s really no reason why I should have read this particular book. But I’ve been making a conscious effort this year, to read more children’s and young adult books that have boys as the central characters. In the past, I’ve mostly read “girly” books. So when I found this in one of the boxes of kids’ books I’ve got stored away, I thought I’d give it a look.

Get to the point, already!

Superfudge is a sequel to Blume’s earlier book about the Hatcher family, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (which I haven’t read). This second installment is set a couple of years after that first book, and is narrated by Peter Hatcher, older brother of the unfortunately named Farley Drexel Hatcher (hence the nickname “Fudge”) who is four years old when the book begins. Peter is beginning sixth grade, and trying to live as normal a life as it’s possible to live, with a brother like Fudge.

Fudge is the baby of the family, and gets away with murder (almost literally – in the first book he apparently swallowed Peter’s pet turtle alive!). He is wild and uncontrollable, and naturally the apple of his parents’ eyes. No wonder then that Peter is upset when he learns that a new baby sister is on the way (eventually called “Tootsie”) – he’s positive the new sibling will turn out to be just another version of Fudge!

In this story, the family moves to Princeton, New Jersey for a year so that Mrs. Hatcher can go back to school (and have a new baby, too? talk about Supermom!) and Mr. Hatcher can spend some time writing a book. Peter isn’t happy about the move at first, but once he gets there and starts to make new friends, he begins to enjoy the place. The baby comes. Peter has his first mild crush on a girl. The boys have some funny adventures, and Fudge acquires a talking myna bird whose favorite phrase turns out to be “Bonjour, stupid!” It would be a cute story if it weren’t for the constantly infuriating presence of the abominable Fudge.

A couple of things struck me as I was reading this book, and doing a bit of research on it. One thing I found a little surprising is the fact that Blume “outs” Santa in the book. At one point, Peter talks about the fact that he never believed in Santa Claus because he’d seen his parents putting presents under the tree when he was three years old. And he doesn’t agree with his parents’ plan to let Fudge go on believing a little longer, since Fudge “thinks you can get whatever you want by just asking.” I suppose since the book is aimed at the just-pre-middle school crowd, this isn’t a big deal. But if a parent were reading it to a younger child, this might be a nasty shock.

I was also amused to learn that in later editions of the book, some things have been altered to bring the story a little more “up to date.” Christmas “want” lists are changed to reflect the times – records and record players replaced with CDs, etc. And the boys’ favorite TV shows are replaced with 21st Century shows. I suppose that makes sense from a marketing point of view, although I always hate it when history is tampered with that way, even in children’s books. It means missing a great opportunity for kids to learn a little something about the times their parents and grandparents lived through.

In the end, I guess this is just one of those books you’ve gotta be a kid to appreciate. Fudge did not charm me. I did not think he was super. At one point, big brother Peter says to him, “You are the biggest pain ever invented.” Yeah, I’d agree with that.

Review: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Written by J.K. Rowling
Published by Scholastic Inc., 1999, 312 pages

There's something to be said for being the last person on the planet to read and review a book – you certainly don't need to worry much about plot summaries or "spoilers."

And if I'm not the last person to succumb to the HP experience, then I'm in a group with a very small membership. I've seen a couple of the films and read all about the legal fracas over who has the right to talk about the books and who hasn't. Like everyone else, I've been aware of the phenomenon of Harry Potter for years.

But until now, I had resisted reading any of the books. Not sure why, really. I guess deep down I just felt, as my husband always says, there are some forms of virginity that shouldn't be tampered with. Well, I've finally shed the innocence and read the book and become an initiate. And it wasn't at all painful.

So, for any other Potter virgins out there orbiting Jupiter, the bare (and I mean completely skinned) bones of the story are these. Harry Potter is a young English orphan who lives with his aunt and uncle and cousin Dudley – the Dursleys. The three Dursleys mistreat Harry and force him to sleep in a cupboard under the staircase. As Harry's eleventh birthday nears, he begins to receive mysterious letters which his uncle attempts to hide. But on the eve of his birthday, Harry is visited by a giant named Hagrid who is there to bring Harry his admissions letter to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry finds out for the first time that he's a wizard, and the son of wizards – a fact his aunt and uncle have kept from him all these years.

A month later, Harry makes the journey to Hogwarts and on the way meets two other young wizards-in-training, also just arriving – Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. The three soon become fast friends and have many adventures and fun times learning the ins and outs of wizardry. Harry eventually tangles with the evil Voldemort, the "Dark Lord" who killed Harry's parents when he was just a baby (that's when Harry was a baby, not Voldemort – is this making any sense?), and who is seeking the Sorcerer's (read: Philosopher's) Stone in order to restore himself to power. After their struggle, good triumphs over evil, Voldemort is vanquished after nearly killing Harry, and the Stone is destroyed (or said to be, anyway). After that, the school term is over and everybody goes home for their summer holidays.

I know I haven't said anything about Harry's owl, or his magic broomstick, or the sorting hat, or Professor Dumbledore, or Snape, or Quirrell, or quidditch, or Fluffy the three-headed-dog. Or Voldemort drinking the unicorn blood. And there's a lot more to be discovered. Ms. Rowling does have an imagination – you have to give her that.

I never really understood why the publishers thought they needed to change the book's title for the American market – why "sorcerer's stone" should be any more acceptable or convey any more meaning than "philosopher's stone." I assume they wanted potential readers to make the connection with Tolkien's Ring trilogy, where sorcerers play a mighty role. And I suppose the term "philosopher's stone" does have a slightly less romantic sound – unless you're a student of alchemy.

I must admit I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would. Well, I've always liked fairy tales and stories that involve magic, so I suppose that's not so surprising. And I can see how once a kid reads the first book, he/she would want to go on and read the whole series – I'm a series addict myself. What I don't understand is what makes these books so special to young readers. As I say, it was enjoyable, but certainly no better than any of Lewis's Narnia books, and nowhere near as interesting as Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence (I'm on the third book in that series and Harry and Hogwarts pale by comparison).

So while I'd definitely recommend it as a good read, I can't say I'm making haste to read any of the other Potter books. I certainly have no plans to buy any – if I do read another, it'll have to come from the library or a book swap. Given the evidence of her recent behavior, I'd say Harry and his friends have already brought J.K. a lot more money and fame than is good for her. She doesn't need my $8.99.

The Once Upon a Time II Challenge
Young Readers Challenge

Review: Miss Rumphius

Written and illustrated by Barbara Cooney
Published by Puffin Books, 1985, 30+ pp.; ages 4-8
Originally published by Viking Penguin, Inc., 1982 Young Readers Challenge

The Lupine Lady is little and old. But she has not always been that way. I know. She is my great-aunt, and she told me so.

Barbara Cooney's Miss Rumphius, winner of the 1983 American Book Award, is the charming story of little Alice Rumphius who lived in a seaside city, where "From the front stoop she could see the wharves and the bristling masts of tall ships."

Alice's grandfather is an artist and woodcarver who carves figureheads for ships, and paints pictures of ships and faraway places ("When he was very busy, Alice helped him put in the skies."). In the evenings, Alice sits on her grandfather's knee and listens to his stories about the places he's traveled. When she grows up, says Alice, she wants to live the same life her grandfather has lived – to travel to faraway places and then come home to live by the sea. And her grandfather tells her that there is a third thing she must do – she must do something to make the world more beautiful.

Alice grows up. People call her Miss Rumphius. She moves to a city far from the sea and works in a library ("dusting books and keeping them from getting mixed up, and helping people find the ones they wanted"). And just as she had hoped she would, Miss Rumphius eventually leaves her library and travels the world, meeting new people and having adventures. Then she comes back and finds her home by the sea.

And finally, she discovers a way to make the world more beautiful, as her grandfather had said she must, many years before. All one summer she wanders the fields and country lanes around her home, scattering lupine seeds to the wind (because she's always loved lupines the best). And that's how she comes to be called "The Lupine Lady" – although some people just call her "That Crazy Old Lady," which shows that even the best intentions can go unappreciated.

Somehow I managed to miss out on Barbara Cooney's books when I was a child. Though she illustrated more than 200 (she was twice awarded the Caldecott Medal), this book was my first experience of her work. And I've certainly been missing something. Her illustrations are wonderful - the misty watercolor-like pictures are perfect for the book's seaside settings. And the story of Alice Rumphius is a great example of how one person can find a way to make a real difference in the world.

Barbara Cooney died in March, 2000 at the age of 82. Toward the end of her life, she admitted that Miss Rumphius was the book that was closest to her heart. As she worked on the book, she said, Alice Rumphius came to seem like her alter ego. And that seems utterly fitting for an artist whose illustrations brought so much loveliness into the world.

Review: Twig

Written and illustrated by Elizabeth Orton Jones
60th Anniversary Edition, published by Purple House Press, 2002, 152 pp.
Originally published by The Macmillan Company, 1942
Young Readers Challenge 2008

"Well, who ever heard of going to Fairyland with a plain ordinary old dress on? Just look at it, Your Majesty!" said Twig. "And just look at these old shoes!"

The Queen looked at them and smiled. "They're only on the outside of you, Twig," she said. "It doesn't matter how plain or how ordinary or how old the things on the outside are, you know. It's what is inside that matters."

This book was first recommended to me by my friend Carol Sue when we were in second grade together. She absolutely loved it, and talked about it almost incessantly for about a week. And I was very attracted to it at first – the pictures were wonderful and I loved the idea of being able to shrink down to the size of a sparrow and sit on a dandelion leaf. However, as soon as CS told me that one of the characters in the book was a cockroach, I said "No way, José!" (or the mid-1950s, second-grade equivalent of "No way, José"), and that was that.

But I remembered Twig over the years, and as I grew up and became more liberal about reading-matter taboos, I always intended to try to find and read the book that had made my little girlfriend so happy all those many years ago. And thanks to the Young Readers Challenge, now I have.

Twig is a little girl who lives with her Mama and Papa in an apartment on the fourth floor of a "high sort of house" in the city. She doesn't have other children around to play with, and her world is the back yard, "bounded by houses on three of its sides and by a high fence on its other. Outside the fence was an alley. Inside, was a garbage can."

In the midst of this rather bleak little world, where no grass grows, Twig has discovered a dandelion plant with long leaves "that were bent over like the branches of a tiny tree." And when she finds a discarded tomato can with a rip in its side that resembles a doorway, she washes it out and places it next to the dandelion plant, delighted to see that it looks just like a little house – "just the right size for a fairy."

And eventually a fairy does come along – not just any fairy, but the Queen of Fairyland. But before she shows up, we're introduced to a lot of other wonderful characters, along with Twig. There's the Sparrow family – Sparrow and Mrs. Sparrow and their four children (who are just eggs at the beginning of the story). And there's Old Boy, the ice-wagon horse. And Old Girl, the cat who gives concerts every night.

And then there's Elf, a tiny little fellow dressed in a potato-skin suit, who shows up with a magic book and manages to shrink Twig down to his size – tiny enough to set up housekeeping in the upside-down tomato can. They use one of Twig's Mama's thimbles for a cook pot, and toothpaste tube caps for plates. And Twig sweeps the floor with an old feather from Mrs. Sparrow. And at one point Elf does come home with the aforementioned cockroach (called "Chummie"), but Twig shoos it away very quickly.

When they're not tidying up their tomato-can abode, Twig and Elf visit Mrs. Sparrow in her nest, and sit on her eggs while she goes in search of food and her wandering spouse. The two tiny playmates climb up Old Boy's tail and take a ride inside his ears. And Elf brings Twig a pair of butterfly wings that she attaches to her back and uses to take a little flight around the backyard – before the wings fly off on their own again.

Twig is a very appealing and resourceful little girl. And, of course, when she gets the chance to go live in Fairyland with Elf and the Fairy Queen, she decides she really would rather stay with her Mama and Papa. But during her adventures with Elf and all the other characters, she's learned that she doesn't need a magic book to perform magic – she can make magical things happen anytime she wants, just by using her imagination.

Twig would be a perfect book for reading aloud to preschoolers – most likely over a period of a few days. Since it's aimed at the 4-8 age group, it would probably also work for kids who've learned to read on their own, although I'm not sure how well such an old-fashioned tale would hold their attention. It was first published in 1942, and definitely has a pre-war feel to it.

Elizabeth Orton Jones, in addition to winning the Caldecott medal for Prayer for a Child, also did the illustrations for the 1948 Little Golden Book edition of Little Red Riding Hood, which is one of the best-loved versions of that tale (and one of my childhood favorites). In Twig, the illustrations are a delight: small drawings throughout the book, as well as a number of full-page color pictures.

It's a very cute story – it even has a bit of a "Wizard of Oz" twist at the end. I can see why Carol Sue liked it so much – cockroaches notwithstanding.

Review: Betsy-Tacy

Written by Maud Hart Lovelace
Illustrated by Lois Lenski
Published by Harper Collins
First published by Thomas Y. Crowell, 1940
Young Readers Challenge 2008

First there was just Betsy Ray, a four-year-old girl with plump legs and brown braids, living with her mother and father and her eight-year-old sister Julia in a small yellow cottage, "the last house on her side of Hill Street," in a town named Deep Valley. But even though there are plenty of other children on Hill Street, there are no other little girls just her age, so when a new family moves in across the street, Betsy is thrilled to find that one of the many children in the family is another little four-year-old girl, named Tacy (short for Anastacia).

Tacy is as thin as Betsy is plump, and her hair is red and curly. At first, the two girls don't hit it off – Tacy is painfully shy ("bashful," as Tacy's older sister Katie always tells people) and it takes a while for the two to get to know each other. But after they do, they become inseparable: "It was difficult, later, to think of a time when Betsy and Tacy had not been friends. Hill Street came to regard them almost as one person." So they became Betsy-Tacy.

Maud Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy is the story of the first year of friendship between the two little girls, with Betsy taking the lead in most of their adventures. Along the way, the girls start school, explore their village, and meet their neighbors. They play paper dolls and dress-up, and help their older sisters color Easter eggs. They climb trees, make snow angels, and turn a piano crate into a playhouse – one of my favorite episodes because I had a similar playhouse when I was about that age, made from a box that a refrigerator came in.

Lovelace combines the reality of their situation with a liberal sprinkling of fantasy, mostly in the form of really magical stories made up by Betsy. In one of their early meetings, the two ride through the sky on feathers and look down on their houses and neighbors below. Well, not really. But Betsy and Lovelace have a way of enveloping both Tacy and their readers in the magic.

Not all of the book is charming fantasy. There's a bit of real-life trauma thrown in. When Mrs. Ray has a baby, Betsy has a little trouble adjusting to not being the youngest member of the family anymore. And there's a death in one of the families, that's very surprising and sad.

Betsy-Tacy is the first of a series of books Maud Lovelace wrote about the two girls and their friend Tib, who makes her first appearance at the very end of this book. According to most histories of the books, Lovelace based the character of Betsy on herself and used incidents in her own life for story lines. The books are set in the very late 19th and early 20th centuries, and are appealingly slow-paced and nostalgic. For many years, it was hard to find the books outside libraries; but the huge cult following that's recently developed has led to new editions being issued.

I'm not sure how this book would go over with youngsters today – it's very old-fashioned and, I suppose, quaint. I've been meaning to read it for years. And now that I have, I'm very happy I finally met Betsy and Tacy, and I'm looking forward to getting to know Tib. But I certainly wish I'd discovered their books as a child – I would have loved them.

You can learn more about Maud Hart Lovelace, and Betsy and Tacy and the books by visiting the Betsy-Tacy Society Home Page.

Review: From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Written and Illustrated by E. L. Konigsburg
Simon & Schuster / Aladdin Paperbacks, 2002, 172 pp.
Young Readers Challenge 2008

Winner of the Newbery Medal in 1968, E. (for Elaine) L. Konigsburg's From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler is the story of Claudia Kincaid and her younger brother Jamie, and their adventures in New York City when they decide to run away from their Greenwich, Connecticut home and live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Well, actually it's 12-year-old Claudia who decides to run away – she takes 9-year-old brother Jamie along because "he was good for a laugh" and because he has the amazing sum of twenty-four dollars and forty-three cents saved up, mostly his winnings from gambling on card games.

The two escapees pack their clean undies in their violin and trumpet cases, take the train to New York City, and spend a week living in the Met. They hide from museum guards and workmen, bathe in a museum fountain, sleep in antique beds complete with antique bedding and antique dust. They also manage to solve a mystery involving a statue of an angel that may or may not have been sculpted by Michelangelo.

Their story is narrated by the wealthy and aged Mrs. Frankweiler of the title, and she's part of the mystery. She was also my favorite character. Well, how could I not like a woman who keeps a lifetime of newspaper clippings and personal items in "rows and rows of filing cabinets that line the walls" of her private office? She has the soul of a librarian.

She also hates beauty parlors and has her butler cut her hair. Now who couldn't fall in love with that?

I'm not going to give away much more of the plot, except to say that Claudia and Jamie eventually go home, and the ending has a couple of very neat surprise twists. And along the way, Claudia learns something very valuable about what you can and can't run away from.

This book is very definitely a modern children's classic. It's been around for over 35 years now, and it still delights new readers every year – children and adults alike. There have been two film versions, and it's referenced in several other films and TV shows. So it's stood the test of time and taken a firm place in popular culture.

I enjoyed the book and would recommend it whole-heartedly to readers of all ages, but I think I missed a lot of the charm it would have held for me if I'd first read it as a child. As an adult, I kept having trouble suspending my disbelief – even in the Olden Days of 1967, two children hiding out in the Metropolitan Museum for a week would have been far-fetched stuff. And I also kept wondering about the poor parents of the runaways: What must they have been going through back in Greenwich while Claudia and Jamie were harvesting coins from the fountain, and eating breakfast every morning at the automat? OK, I know it's fantasy and not to be taken too seriously. But a lot of it felt very real, too, and I think it was that mixture of the real and the decidedly non-real that kept tripping me up.

I also couldn't help noticing how dated a lot of the book seemed. Things have really changed since 1967. How many kids today will know what an automat is? Or a transistor radio? Or an Olivetti typewriter?

But in the edition I read, the author herself addresses this problem in an afterword. And she rightly points out that "the events of September 11, 2001, that have changed forever both the conscience and configuration of New York would not have changed Claudia and Jamie. The skyline that they would have seen when they arrived in Manhattan would not have been very different from that which we now (sadly) see."

And though she admits that many things have changed since 1967 (including the author herself), one thing Konigsburg says is still true: "the greatest adventure lies not in running away but in looking inside, and the greatest discovery is not in finding out who made a statue but in finding out what makes you."

Young Readers Challenge: Update

Well, I think I've finally come up with my list of books for the Young Readers Challenge. There are so many children's books I've always meant to read, and so many interesting new ones coming out all the time, that it's been a challenge just putting together a workable list.

Of course, the list is subject to change. And I don't have a theme or anything; but there's a lot of fantasy represented, and several of the books have been Newbery or Caldecott medal winners or honor books. And I notice that I've included at least one book from each decade from 1920 to 1980, although that wasn't planned.

These are the twelve titles I'll definitely be reading (I think).

A Wrinkle in Time. Madeleine L'Engle (1962; ages 9-12; Newbery Medal winner 1963)
Betsy-Tacy. Maud Hart Lovelace (1940; ages 9-12) [See Review]
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. E.L. Konigsburg (1967; ages 9-12; Newbery Medal winner, 1968) [See Review]
Gone-Away Lake. Elizabeth Enright (1957; ages 9-12; Newbery Honor book 1958)
Henner's Lydia. Marguerite de Angeli (1936; ages 4-8)
Hitty, Her First Hundred Years. Rachel Field (1929; ages 9-12; Newbery Medal winner, 1930)
Knight's Castle. Edward Eager (1956; ages 9-12)
Many Moons. James Thurber and Louis Slobodkin (1943; ages 4-8; Caldecott Medal winner, 1944)
Miss Rumphius. Barbara Cooney (1982; ages 4-8; American Book Award winner) [See Review]
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Robert C. O'Brien (1971; ages 4-8; 1972 Newbery Medal winner) [See Review]
The Time Garden. Edward Eager (1958; ages 9-12)
Twig. Elizabeth Orton Jones (1942; ages 4-8) [See Review]

Well, it's not carved in stone, but those are the books I'm hoping to read during the year. Naturally, I do have a rather lengthy list of additional or back-up titles. Quite lengthy, in fact. Oh well, maybe I should just admit I'd like to read every children's book ever written and be done with it!