Some Writer: The Story of E.B. White, by Melissa Sweet (Houghton Mifflin, 2016, 176 pp., ages 8–12) This chapter book for older readers chronicles the entire life of Elwyn Brooks White (a.k.a. “En” and “Andy”). Author-illustrator Sweet gives special attention, of course, to the masterpieces for which White is famous: Stuart Little, The Trumpet of the Swan, The Elements of Style, and the unforgettable Charlotte’s Web.
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Ghady and Rawan, by Fatima Sharafeddine and Samar Mahfouz Barraj, trans. Sawad Hussain and M. Lynx Qualey (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UT Austin, 2019, 129 pp, grades 7-9)
Ghady & Rawan is a sweet story about two Lebanese thirteen-year-olds, but their experiences resonate with me, the mother of a not-so-long-ago middle schooler in America. Ghady in Brussels and Rawan in Beirut each face their own struggles. Their e-mail correspondence and their local friendship circles sustain them through bullying, family troubles, prejudice, and the challenges of moving between worlds.
Ghady’s family lives in Brussels, Belgium, but he loves the summers they spend in Beirut with extended family and his friends, Rawan and Jad. Back in Brussels for his eighth grade year, Ghady discovers that his new friend, Thomas, has been hanging out with the class bully, Michael.
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Our Mother-Daughter Book Club picked this title in part because one of our members is South African. It turned out to be our first selection in quite some time that every member read to completion. It charmed us all, as well as offering plenty of fodder for discussion.
Eleven-year-old Mercy lives with the rather senior sisters Flora and Mary. They aren’t actually aunts, but they function that way. The reasons for Mercy’s residency with them are a bit murky at first, but they emerge as the story progresses.
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First an acknowledgement: Rousseaux Brasseur, the author of these books, was the much-loved children’s ministry lead at our church when our daughter was in elementary school. Last summer he served for a week as pastor at Camp Harlow, where our daughter volunteers as a teen counselor. Needless to say, I am hardly an unbiased reviewer. But I can attest to the character of the author as a clever, quirky, open-hearted individual with a deep love for Jesus and young people.
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Lepunia will catch you up, carry you away, and set you down—right back in Kansas. But conveyed from a rabbit’s-eye view, it might as well be Oz. It was with some surprise that I realized, on reflection, that no magic takes place in these pages. None but that conjured by Ford’s lyrical descriptions. One part Narnia and one part Little House on the Prairie, Lepunia offers up an enchanted middle America peopled with rabbits, squirrels, coyotes, owls, prairie dogs, ferrets, and more. Cottonwoods, hills, lakes, and burrows become ancestral palaces and legendary landmarks, skillfully rendered in Michael Genova’s lavish sketches and eye-catching cover art.
In this first book of a planned trilogy, the curtain rises on the eve of Founding Day in the township of Lepunia (from the Latin lepus—hare). The festival marks not only the anniversary of the settlement but graduation from the academy for jackrabbit friends Lily, Fluff, and Jackson. Lily hopes to be admitted to the artists’ guild. Fluff expects to follow his father’s profession of baker. And the dearest desire of fleet-footed Jackson is induction into the Gallopers, an elite guard of jackrabbits tasked with defending the kingdom and conveying messages to its farthest reaches.
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WaterBrook, September 2023, 304 pp. ages 8-12
Carolyn Leiloglou’s debut work for middle grade readers incorporates art history and principles of painting into an engaging narrative. Beneath the Swirling Sky isn’t the first book in which characters travel through paintings or engage with art history. Also familiar are tropes of belonging to an endangered ancestral line, questing to save an abducted sibling, and hunting down art thieves.
Such perennial devices nevertheless retain their appeal. What adolescent wouldn’t want to discover inherited gifts that enable them to profoundly change the world? Possibly those chary enough to recognize the probable weight of accompanying responsibility. But who has time to worry about that?
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In slightly belated recognition of translation month (September) and UN Translation Day (Sept. 30), the article linked below appeared on the Story Warren website on September 28, 2022. It features reviews of translated and adapted works for young readers centered around Central Asia and the Silk Road.
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Thrones, Dominations and A Presumption of Death, by Jill Paton Walsh (and Dorothy Sayers)
Though I’m not a Sayers expert, it seems to me Jill Paton Walsh carries off these post-Sayers Wimsey-Vane mysteries admirably. Sayers, it seems, lost interest in Thrones, Dominations after penning a partial manuscript and some notes. In 1986 the publisher approached Walsh with the manuscript, and she agreed to complete it. (Who wouldn’t?) The result is the first full-length work to pick up with Peter and Harriett’s married life in London. It follows Busman’s Honeymoon, set in Harriett’s hometown of Hertfordshire.
During WWII Sayers published some letters by members of the Wimsey family that provided the public with a glimpse of the Wimseys’ wartime life. These letters provided the inspiration as well as the opening chapters of A Presumption of Death. Harriett, her two children, her nephews, and a niece are back in Hertfordshire. Peter is on the continent doing (what else?) top-secret intelligence work. When a murder takes place during a village air raid, Harriett, of course, agrees to help with the investigation.
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The hidden-picture nature of this engaging middle-grade novel accounts for some portion of its appeal: Can you spot the echoes of Charles Dickens, C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L’Engle, Lewis Carroll, and J.K. Rowling? (Not to mention a host of others with whom I’m likely unacquainted. Literary influences cited by the author alerted me to The Wonderful O, by James Thurber, which I plan to investigate soon.)
D’s protagonist, Dhikhilo, is the adopted daughter of a British couple who make limited appearances in the narrative. The fact that Dhikhilo is born in Somaliland and the presence of immigrants and travelers in her seaside town introduce a diversity theme that carries over into the fantasy realm of Liminus.
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