My reading pace has been slow, but I finished four books recently. Two of them (Tom’s Midnight Garden and A Bear Called Paddington) are on the BBC’s Top 100 Children’s Books list, bringing my total for that list to 52/100.
Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce, A-: Tom is sent to his aunt and uncle’s place because his brother has measles. There’s nowhere for him to play there, and he thinks he’ll be stuck inside the entire time, miserably bored. But then, late at night, the old grandfather clock in the lobby of the apartment building strikes the impossible hour of thirteen while Tom is awake and unable to sleep. He creeps downstairs, where he discovers that the paved area behind the building has been transformed into a large, beautiful garden, which he then explores each night during his stay. I struggled to get into this book. Maybe it was the character of Tom, who was annoying at times, or maybe it was the garden, which didn’t seem particularly exciting (Tom’s means of access to the garden is magical, but the garden itself is not). It got better as it went along, though, and I enjoyed the ending, however predictable. There are many books that are like this: difficult to get into but sad to leave at the end. The older I get, the less willing I am to stick with a book that I’m not enjoying. But one benefit of reading classics is that most of them are classics for good reason, so you know that your patience is likely to be rewarded.
A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond, A+: Mr. and Mrs. Brown are at the train station to pick up their daughter. While there, they find a polite little bear who is alone and has nowhere to go, so they take him home with them and make him part of their family. Paddington, whom they named after the train station, is always getting into trouble, but he’s so sweet and polite that they love him anyway. I had access to the Paddington series as a child and probably read at least some of them, but I didn’t remember any details beyond Paddington’s fondness for marmalade. I’m so glad I read this book now. It’s such a charmer! Recommended.
Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands (Book 2 of the Emily Wilde Series) by Heather Fawcett, A: Emily Wilde is a professor of “dryadology” (the study of fairies and such). In this second book of the series, she travels to an alpine region looking for a “nexus,” a fairy door that goes to multiple places, something which other scholars think is a myth. If anyone can find the nexus, she can, and she has more than scholarship driving her to find it, because the life of her suitor and fellow scholar, Wendell Bambleby, is in danger. A fun mix of fantasy and romance, this book is every bit as enjoyable as the book that preceded it. To give you a hint of the book’s character, here’s how it begins:
The foot would not fit in my briefcase, so I wrapped it in cloth and wrestled it into an old knapsack I sometimes carry with me on expeditions. Surprisingly–or perhaps unsurprisingly, as it is a faerie foot–it is neither dirty nor foul-smelling. It is, of course, long mummified and would probably be mistaken for a goat’s foot by a casual observer, perhaps an unlikely offering excavated from the tomb of some ancient pharaoh. . . .
I gazed at my now-bulging knapsack, feeling entirely ridiculous. Trust me when I say that I would rather not cart a foot around campus with me. But faerie remains, mummified or not, have been known to slip away as the fancy takes them, and I can only assume that feet are particularly inclined to such wanderlust…
Constellation Route by Matthew Olzmann: The poems in this collection are framed as letters, with the post office as a uniting theme. They are intellectual, questioning, not always easily absorbed, but good. I think I would enjoy them more if I could have additional time with them, but the book is borrowed, and I must return it. Here are links to some of the poems that I liked and that are currently available online:
