Blue-Footed Musings

Linnets and Valerians by Elizabeth Goudge
Grade: B+

Elizabeth Goudge wrote The Little White Horse, a magical book that has long been a favorite of mine (and J.K. Rowling’s), so when Linnets and Valerians, came back into print, I had to get a copy of it. Did it meet my high expectations? Not quite.

Linnets and Valerians is about a four children who are left in the care of their grandmother while their father, a military man, heads off to Egypt. The children hate living with their grandmother, so they run away and end up at their uncle’s house. He agrees to be their guardian and teacher. The children amuse themselves by exploring their new neighborhood, getting into all sorts of places they’re not supposed to be, and in the process they solve a couple of mysteries and help bring about some positive changes.

Linnets and Valerians is a lovely book, well written and quite readable, but the answers to its mysteries were too obvious and its magic degenerated into witchcraft. It just wasn’t as good as The Little White Horse, so it was a disappointment for me, but it came so close to being great that I still recommend it for avid fans of children’s books.

I’m a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson
Grade: B+

I borrowed this book from the library because I needed to read a passage for work. I figured I might as well read the whole book while I had it.

I’m a Stranger Here Myself is a collection of 70 columns that Bryson wrote for an English audience after returning to America, his native country. The book contains some brilliant pieces (“Last Night on the Titanic,” “An Address”) and some almost intolerable ones (“Your New Computer”), but most of them are somewhere in-between. The beauty of this book lies in the brevity of the pieces, each of which requires only a few minutes to read, making this a great nightstand book.