Back to the Books: A Candle in her Room

A reviewer on Goodreads called "A Candle in her Room" by Ruth M. Arthur "Jane Eyre" meets "Jane Emily."

I almost cheered aloud. What a great way to describe a wonderful book!

You, see I'd  read all three books around the same time in my life and loved, loved, loved all three. Even today, the above three books are among my top favorite books ever.

But "A Candle In Her Room" was THE book that cemented my desire to become a writer and :"A Candle In Her Room" fanned my passion for books about remote places, old houses, isolated people, evil that lurks in shadows, and mood-intensifying pen and ink artwork.

Here is the synopsis:

Melissa was sure it was the doll, Dido, who brought evil to the family, not once, but again and again. Three generations were haunted by the strange wooden doll. Each time Dido came to light there was disaster and tragedy. What could be done to overcome the power of the doll? This is a book about many things: evil, the dimensions of reality, the flow of generations, and surprisingly, the power of love.

If you've read any of my books, you'll see shades of these elements.

Not only did "A Candle In Her Room" feature a protagonist named Melissa (my favorite protag name as a child - I used the name for nearly every short story I ever wrote), it introduced me to an unusual girl's name: Briony.

The more common spelling is "Bryony."

And I did not connect the two until years after I published my first book and realized the strength of my subconscious and how my muse had drawn from past words and story arcs I'd adored.

My copy was a softcover that I ordered from the paper Scholastic book catalogues we used to receive in school. I always ordered lots of books and took them home in a big box.

That copy of "A Candle In Her Room" fell apart ages ago. But I'm fortunate to own a hard cover that Ron rescued from the trash at a school library.

I say "fortunate" because I've seen it priced at thirty dollars or more on Amazon as this book is out-of-print.

Interestingly, I've never read another book by Ruth M. Arthur. When I was younger, internet didn't exist, so I hadn't any means to discover her other titles.

Of course, that's not my excuse now. But I can't justify ordering another Arthur book when money is tight elsewhere. 

Below are a sampling of illustrations from "A Candle In Her Room" (including Melissa examining the doll her younger sister Briony had found) along with a screenshot of the book's simple and foreshadowing opening words.

Enjoy!

"The Crows of Pearblossom" by Aldous Huxley

For a quick recap on how I developed my love for reading and why I'm sharing these books, read this short post.

One of my favorite books from childhood, "The Crows of Pearblossom" by Aldous Huxley, did so many things for me.

It sparked my love for crows.

It introduced me to Huxley, whom, I'm sure, people typically don't associate with children's literature.

The book, naturally, entertained me - as I'm certain it will entertain you, too. 

And poetry! Oh, I can still hear the sing-song snake's poem in my head and the "voice" of my father reading it quite dramatically.

"I cannot fly- I have no wings;

I cannot run- I have no legs;

But I can creep where the black bird sings

And eat her speckled eggs, ha, ha,

And eat her speckled eggs."

For more of my favorite childhood books, search the "back to the books" tag on the home page of this blog.

For a synopsis and background of how this story came to be, visit this Goodreads page.

Another "fan" of the book read it on YouTube. The link is below. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYrA9e33C2Y

Back to the Books: "The Troll Music" by Anita Lobel

For a quick recap on how I developed my love for reading and why I'm sharing these books, read this short post.

One of our favorite books from this club was called The Troll Music by Anita Lobel.

Here is its synopsis: 

A troll casts a spell on a group of musicians, causing their instruments to make only animal sounds. Ultimately, a group of barnyard animals come to the aid of the musicians.

Here is a video of someone reading the book, if you're interested. 

The book is super fun and available on Amazon if you're interested. 

Although I'll be willing to bet some of its subtler themes wouldn't show up in kids books today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifEBthvrmR8

Back to the Books: "The Witch of Hissing Hill" by Mary Calhoun

Where do children develop the lifelong love for reading?

I think, for me, it's because my father read to my sister and me A LOT. 

And what did he read?

Well, my parents, most likely my mother, started a subscription to the Weekly Readers Children's Book Club for us.

Each month, we received a new hardcover book in the mail. The types of titles we received grew with us.

When my sister and I were young, our father read these books to us, over and over. He'd sit in the middle, and we sat on either side so we could see the pictures and follow the text.

One of our favorite books from this club was called The Witch of Hissing Hill by Mary Calhoun, the author of the Katie John books, which I also loved.

Here is its synopsis: 

Sizzle was a witch with a reputation for raising outstanding witch cats: they knew how to spit and scratch and slink with the best of them, how to yowl, and (most importantly) how to stare unblinkingly at a bubbling pot, thereby ensuring the success of the potion in brew. Witches came to Hissing Hill from all over, sure of finding the sort of cats they needed. And then one day, a little yellow kitten named Gold was born - a true disgrace to her clowder of black cats. Was this the end of Sizzle's famous cat-breeding? Would her cats now be (horrors!) nice!?!

And an excerpt:

Far back in the hill country is Hissing Hill.

It's a bare lonely spot, with one twisted house

and a tall fir behind it.

Once upon a time the hill was aswarm

with black witch cats.

Cats arching their backs on the rooftop,

cats chasing up the fir tree,

cats yowling on crooked fence posts,

cats hissing in every corner of the shackly house.

And all of them black, black, black.

Here is a video of someone reading the book, if you're interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4UMlZOBMUM

Back to the Books: The Year and Our Children

Many of my "mothering" mentors were wonderful women with strong personalities and beliefs.

But I only met most of them through their various writings and between the pages of the books they authored.

One of those women was Mary Reed Newland, the mother of seven children, all boys, except for the oldest. 

This was very helpful to me, as I had six children over the years: four boys and two girls. And then later, I was blessed with three older stepchildren: two boys and one girl.

One of Newland's books that influenced my own style of mothering was a book I found abandoned on a shelf at my parents' home called The Year and our Children.

In fact, this book spurred one of my family's most cherished traditions: giving my children a blessing at bedtime. 

My two youngest children and I, all adults, all live together. They still like to receive, and give, blessings at bedtime.

My fourth child and third son lives next door. If he doesn't come to the house for a blessing, or call for one, he will request it by text...

...or he will send one first.

And he never, ever misses a day.

My mother had owned wo books by Newland. One was called We and Our Children and it was a guide to raising Catholic children. It was published in the 1950s during a time of financially insecure times in the family's life.

In fact, I was looking for my own copy and found it at The Book Market, which was located in Joliet at the time and is now in Crest Hill. It was my introduction to that store, of which I've visited many times in search of a rare, elusive, or out-of-print book. 

The other was, again, called The Year and Our Children, and it was a guide to living the liturgical year with children, feast by feast by feast, of which I had no experience; in fact, such a concept was quite new to me, and the concept was planted by picking up this book.

My copy is my mother's original copy. I have no idea if she ever read it. But no single book influenced my children's childhood as this one did. So whether or not she ever read it, I'm glad she kept it, and I'm even more glad she let me keep hers.

Newland wrote in a wonderfully conversational style that made me feel as if I was sitting across the table from her, enjoying a cup of coffee, while she spoke mother-to-mother to me and shared from her wisdom and experiences.

Now, I did not reproduce every suggestion from this book. In fact, I didn't use most of them. I might have used them, if I'd raised my children in the Roman Catholic Church.

But I raised them in the Byzantine Catholic Church/Easter Orthodox Church. And, in 1982, I couldn't find any materials to use with them at own. 

In fact, it was from this book that our annual and very cherished St. Nicholas celebration derived.

In fact,  even our cats enjoy celebrating the Feast of St. Nicholas.

Later, the Rev. John Matusiak created these wonderful coloring books, which I used in atypical ways when I ran a religious education program (but that's for another post).

But Newland's ideas spurred my own ideas, which blessed my children. 

Eventually, my ideas blessed the children I oversaw in Sunday School and in The Higher Ark, a church-sponsored youth group.

Actually, I made this exact shadow box (book illustration below) with my oldest children when they were very young.

The drawing in the book looked better than ours. But that was OK.

For we learned worship and life in Christ isn't static and dull. 

It is alive, and we can express it with conversation loud and quiet, laughing, music, visual arts, drama, and storytellings.

In doing some of these activities with my children, I helped to build a rich life for my family. 

We weren't rich in money. But we were rich in other ways. 

Like our annual Holy Thursday "toga party" (they are supposed to be apostles). We say "toga" because some of our "apostles" came to the dinner table with bath towels pinned with larege diaper pins (we used cloth diapers, too).

And we reproduced the food eaten at the Last Supper as best we can.

I also learned the basics of time management\ from this book, which I still use today.

I not only learned to manage my time, I learned how to become very intentional with my time.

All of us receive the gift of twenty-four hours. And if God so grants it to us, we receive another twenty-four hours.

Time really is a beautiful gift from God, who stand outside of time. He gives us the seconds, and minutes, and hours, and then leaves it up to us as how we shall spend them.

Mary Reed Newland, in her beautiful writings, taught me the importance of choosing how to spend my time wisely.

I am so grateful.

Back to the Books: Amy Moves In

I was a voracious reader as a child. 

Now I don't kow if that love stemmed from my father reading to my sister and me (with my father sitting in the middle with the books), my severely asthmatic childhood (which forced me indoors), or the fact I simply love a good story.

But my Scholastic book order all through my grade and high school years always came in a large box. A few other students typically received a book or two, maybe three. And the box came to me. 

I loved when the teacher distributed those flyers with the featured books. I read all the synopsises and circled anything that looked intriguing.

I read lots of good stories through the years. One story that's remained a forever is Amy Moves In by Marilyn Sachs. 

I first read it when I was eight or nine. Looking back, I'm amazed at the sophisticated sentence structure for younger readers at the time, which probably influenced mine, despite what the Flesch Kincaid reading level calculator says when I upload text from my books.

The copy above isn't my original one, which disappeared years ago. It's the one I ordered on Amazon, so Rebekah could read it, too.

Now Amy Moves In was published in 1964, a few years before I read it. Here is what Kirkus Reviews wrote at the time.

And here is a wonderful examination of the book from a blogger who'd also read it.

Although I read the story nearly thirty years after its setting (the early 1940s), the story or characters never felt dated to me.

It was my first introduction to customs of the Jewish faith, although I didn't realize it at the time.

I didn't realize that Rosa was Hispanic, just that she was pretty and struggled with English.

The book realistically addresses family life, bickering, bullying, lying, friendship, cliques, idiosyncrasies in personalities, and more in ways in ways that feel honest and true.

In high school, I found the second book in the series sitting on friend's book shelf when I spent the night. And now, due to the power of the internet, I have since learned the series has a third book, too.

Yes, I will definitely order one.

The first book left so many unanswered questions, I now want to find out, finally after more than fifty years, how all those threads are tied up at the end.

Highly recommended.

Back to the Books: "The Dracula Book of Great Vampire Stories"

This book is one of my most favorite books of all time.

It obviously pre-dates the internet age, where most of these stories can now be read.

But back when I was growing up, if you wanted to read good vampire stories, you had to hunt them down.

I had checked this book out of the New Lenox Public Library when I was fifteen and devoured it.

And then my mother surprised me with this book on Christmas 1984, the day before I learned I was expecting my third child.

A couple weeks later, in January 1985, I was lying flat on my back on the living room couch, re-reading all these favorite stories.

I was flat on my back because that was the only way to keep from getting sick. Despite all the children I've had, pregnancy does not agree with me.

And I was indulging myself in the book because my two-year-old and eight-month old were both asleep at the same time, a rare occurance.

At one point, I set the book down and wondered if I could write a vampire novel. I had always wanted to write a novel and had down quite a bit of research on witches and vampires when I was fifteen in the hopes of writing that novel.

So I lay there, musing on the type of story I would write.

I thought about how so many of these stories came out of the Victorian era.

I thought about how many people tend to think of the Victorian era in very romantic terms.

So, what if I wrote a story about a teen girl who feel in love with a vampire from the Victorian era, except she refuses to acknowledge what he really is?

By the time the kids woke up, and I was changing their iapers, I had a skeleton story in my head. 

I started and scrapped many drafts throughout the years. But I finally wrote the novel in 2008 and self-published it at the end of 2011. Yes, it's "Bryony."

That one book spawned an entire series and inspired a creative stroke in another BryonySeries novel.

Take a look at the lettering on the opening paragraphs - and the font - in the excerpts below.

I wanted to pay homage to that as best as I could without having access to fancy tools. So I consulted with Rebekah who does my book formatting, and I think she did a great job, as you can see scrolling through these images.

She was not able to build the letters with the fantastic detail as the original book. But she cut up pieces of pictures I'd taken of objects with interesting texture and cobbled them together as images, which she inserted near the text.

The first three pages are from "The Dracula Book of Great Vampire Stories."

The second set of three are from the BryonySeries novel "The Phoenix."

The last page has the list of stories and their authors, in case you want to find any of them online and read them, too.

One last bit of homage: I named BryonySeries character Algernon Demars after Algernon Blackwood, even though the two share nothing in common except the name.

But that's OK, I think.

Final note: the book I own is not the one my mother bought for me. I had lent it to a friend and never saw it again.

I most likely bought my current copy from Amazon. You can, too.

Back to the Books: Pictures Every Child Should Know

This book, published in 1908, belonged to either my father's mother or even her mother.

It sat, untouched, on my parents' bookshelves for many, many years.

I borrowed the book when I started homeschooling my oldest son Christopher in 1989 when he was just seven, and we loved it!

Side note: Christopher and I were apparently the first people who ever read the book. A few of the pages needed to be carefully separated, as they were not perfectly separated when the book and was printed and bound.

Side, side note: The book I own now is one I ordered from a used book shop. I had (eventually) returned the book, but my parents (also eventually) had discarded many of their old books, and this one, apparently, was one that was given away.

The book is a series of biographies of master artists along with black and white plates of their work.

The frontispiece, as you can see, was in color.

While this sounds as if the book were very dry, it really wasn't. Read the above passage. 

I remember the way I stopped reading it to Christopher, how we looked at each other, how I re-read it, and how we laughed.

This book has similar portions all through it...

...such as this humorous story from J.M. W. Turner himself when someone mocked his work.

Most of what I know about these masters and their works, I learned from this book during the years I home-schooled my six children.

And, honestly, I don't think a book like it exists in today's market.

Nor do I feel children study art history in the same way, either.

Nor do I also feel today's world has an expectation that children - or anyone - should know and recognize this type of art and the artists who created them.

Of course, I feel the same way about many subjects, including history.

Whether or not we agree with history, we should study it, if only to know from whence we came and to where we ought not go.

This photo is a good illustration of my points.

At seven, Christopher recognized this piece of art in a church rectory office - and he knew what  The Angelus was.

At eight, when a pastor opened a sermon on the feast of the Annunciation, Christopher not only knew what the feast was, he knew this particular artwork and the artist's biography, he could recite The Angelus, (and we were Byzantine Catholic and later Eastern Orthodox, where The Angelus was not part of our prayer tradition), and he knew where the pastor was going in his words.

This is not to say Christopher is a know-it-all (although he can certainly come off that way sometimes).

But it does mean he could recognize a liturgical year, classic art, The Angelus, and how and why people stopped in their fields to pray it in Catholic countries.

That doesn't mean we endorse or agree with any of it - or that we disagree.

However, understanding art helps one understand the relevance of certain practices and cultural expressions within certain times in history.

Understanding these, I feel, is what it means to be liberally educated.

 

Back to the Books: "Five Little Peppers and How They Grew" by Margaret Sydney

A substitute teacher at the former St. Bernard Catholic School in Joliet read the Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, a few pages a day, to the class when I was in the third grade.

We had this particular teacher for several weeks. Our regular teacher returned before she finished it.

So at some point, I checked out Five Little Peppers and How They Grew out from the school library in order to find out how the book ended. I loved the book and re-read it before I had to return it.

The library also had Five Litttle Peppers Midway, which I also read and loved. I didn't realize Margaret Sydney (her real name was Harriett Mulford Stone Lothrop) had written an entire series of "Peppers" books, just the two, until years later.

Recently, while scrolling through reviews on Goodreads, I saw that people either love or hate this series about five poor children being raised by a single mother in the nineteenth century.

I have not read either book again as an adult (although I own the copy shown below, faded as it is), which Rebekah loved and has also re-read many, many times. 

So I found the version of Five Little Peppers Midway pictured above, the book I had read from the school library on eBay and suprised Rebekah with it for her birthday last week.

So since I have not re-read either book, I'm not certain if I simply retain a sentimental value for these books I treasured as a child or if they stand up well to time for me.

Nevertheless, these two books impacted my life and my writing in several ways.

They contributed to my fondness for the nineteenth century along with my ability to reproduce the speech patterns in a natural way in some of the books in the BryonySeries.

And these two books also helped shape my values regarding the excess of wealth. Although poverty is not something to romanticize, money won't bring happiness or love, and it's better have happiness and love than an excess of weath.

For details on the this first book and its characters, which I felt were really well-drawn, its Wikipedia page gives a nice overview.

For insight on what other readers think, its Goodreads page is a solid place to start.

One last point: my version, has beautiful black and white illustrations and full color plates, which is almost never seen today in children's books, a shame, in my opinion, as good art can add value to a good story.

Maybe that's why I really emphasize the artwork in the BryonySeries books and include chapter heading illustrations in many of the books.

Back to the Books: Elson-Gray Basic Readers Book Four

I first encountered this book on the bookcase of my childhood home. 

It was my father's fourth grade reader, and I read it cover to cover hundreds of times, starting when I was about eight or nine years old. 

I used it as reader with my six children when we home-schooled. And when, no lie, I saw this book sitting on an empty shelf after friends moved into a new home (the previous owners had left it behind), I expressed my delight and was gifted with it on the spot.

So I gave my father's copy to my sister.

What makes this book especially remarkable is that all its wonderful stories and illustrations are written and depicted in ways that children could understand and enjoy without feeling the silent condescension of adults.

From this book, I learned about animal behavior (such as a partridge pretending to be lame to lead enemies away from her young) and I learned about mythology and mythological characters, and I learned about Scrooge.

I also read poems, plays, stories about children in other lands. Some of these stories might sound racist today. But they formed a foundation for my love for other cultures, so I wouldn't discount them.

This book also introduced me to classic stories of Beowolf, Sigurd, and Song of Roland, stories which sparked an interest in great literature that remains to this day.

I liked Roland the best. Perhaps some of that liking is due to the fact that my father had a first cousin named Roland, Dr. Roland Foraste, a child psychiatrist, who died in a car accident in 2000.

While writing this blog and searching for Roland's obituary to add as a backlink, I learned he was a friend of Ethel Kennedy's brother and quoted in this story (scroll to page two).

I only met Roland once (the summer of 1986), and I thought he looked like Fred Gwynne; he certainly had his height and facial shape.

I could not find a photo of him online. But I found one of his brother Roger, who really doesn't resemble Roland.

OK, that was quite a digression. But a fascinating one, you have to admit. I just found out one of my cousins was friends with the brother of Ethel Kennedy. Seriously.

Anyway, because it's really too hard to summarize such a book and the impact it's made on my family and me, I've included photos of its table of contents and some of the wonderful artwork, so you can get a glimpse for yourself.

Needless to say, "they" don't make books like this anymore.