Plumfield Moms

Reflection: Imitators of Christ

"The first time I read the apostle Paul’s command to the Corinthians to imitate him, I remember thinking, Wait a minute! Why is he telling them to imitate him instead of imitating Jesus? I’ve always respected this guy, but he really did have some gall."

Book Review: Ain’t Nothing But a Man

"Ain’t Nothing but a Man is a 60-page version of Nelson’s 200+ page book for adults. Every page has photographs or drawings to show locations and people of the post-Civil War era, and to illustrate what the railroad slang from the songs mean. 
In “How to be a Historian” the co-author, Marc Aronson, lists the six stages of Nelson’s search:
Finding what is known already
Checking their sources
Finding gaps and disagreements and formulating your own questions
Looking for new evidence
Expanding the search
Sharing what you have found
https://plumfieldmoms.com/plumfield-moms-picture-book-reviews/aint-nothing-but-a-man-my-quest-to-find-the-real-john-henry

Reflection: Sandle Strap

Today’s Americans aren’t familiar with a practice that people have understood for thousands of years - the habit of doffing a cap, bowing, kneeling, or simply lowering the eyes before a person with more power, money, or social status. We don’t acknowledge our “betters.”
As much as Christians appreciate that Jesus died for our sins, I’m afraid we often forget that he is something other than we are. He isn’t only our Savior. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. If that’s true, it behooves us to remember it and behave accordingly.

Our Reading Life: February 2024

Diane’s References
Picture of Charlton Heston’s son 
Ben Hur by Lew Wallace  
Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore
Keeper of the Bees by Gene Stratton-Porter 
A Women of No Importance by Sonia Purnell
Virginia Was a Spy by Catherine Urdahl
The Spy with the Wooden Leg: The Story of Virginia Hall by Nancy Polette
Stars of the Night: The Courageous Children of the Czech Kindertransport by Caren Stelsen 
Nicholas Winton and the Rescued Generation: Save One Life, Save the World by Muriel Emanuel
The Light That Shines Forever: The True Story and Remarkable Rescue of 669 Children on the Eve of World War II by David Warner
Nicky & Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued by Peter Sis
One Life movie
Sara Masarik’s References 
Resistance by Jennifer A. Nielsen 
America’s Children Books by James Otis 
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigurd Undset 
Blackout by Connie Willis
All Clear by Connie Willis
Guernsey and the Literary Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Sarah Kim’s References
Beowulf Burton Raffel translation
Beowulf Seamus Heaney translation
The Boys of Blur by N. D. Wilson
N. D. Wilson - beloved author
The Push Cart War by Jean Merrill
Best in Children’s Books Vol. 16 The Best Birthday by Quail Hawkins
Napoleon's Hemorrhoids: And Other Small Events That Changed History by Phil Mason
Tanya’s References 
Purple House Press: The Gift of the Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois
Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson 
The Legend of Bass Reeves by Gary Paulsen   
Biblioguides online community

Book Review: Hannah of Kentucky by James Otis

Written in 1912 by James Otis, this exciting and absorbing young readers’ novel tells the true story of Boonesborough from the point of view of a young girl. Written with excellent language and writing, this story is very alive and a joy to read. The reading level is comparable to something like a “Childhood of Famous Americans” book, whereas the point of view is something like the “We Were There” books. While Hannah and her family are fictional, Otis tells us, through the character of Hannah, about Boonesborough as if she was giving us a real first-person account.
https://plumfieldandpaideia.com/hannah-of-kentucky/ 

Reflection: A Place for the Called Out

I have an unusual habit. I write letters. I mean the old-fashioned, handwritten (in cursive), on pretty stationery, with a postage stamp, sent through the U.S. mail kind of letters. One reason I do this is that I enjoy receiving letters. There is a look and feel to a personal letter that almost casts its own light from beneath the piles of impersonal, meaningless, or unpleasant stacks of paper that invade our homes through our mailboxes.

Our Librarian Life: January 2024 with Sherry Early & Kristi Stansfield

Thornton Burgess books
The Incredible Journey by Shelia Burnford 
Plumfield Reads Book Club Guides
LibraryThing
The Card Catalog 
Biblioguides Private Lending Library Directory
Bibloguides Online Community

Book Review: The Penderwicks

The Penderwicks is a series that is recommended everywhere. It is not a series that I have in my library. In my years of moderating a massive book group, I found that this was a book series that really divides people. I read the first two books (or was it three? I can’t remember for sure) and found that I fell into the “this had so much potential to be brilliant but falls into modern tropes and makes me frustrated” camp.
For years I have mostly stayed quiet about it because those who love The Penderwicks  really  love  those stories. And there is nothing inherently wrong with the books that I read, so I just didn’t think it mattered what I thought. Years later, however, I heard so many people asking about them, so I thought it prudent to articulate my objections.
The first book, The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy, was delightful. Not perfect, but refreshingly fun for a modern book. The problem is that readers very rarely are willing to read one book and not the others in a series. And the second book, The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, was definitely not delightful. Instead of a sweet and interesting family story, the girls are petulant and angsty. They are rude to each other and disrespectful of adults. I was so disappointed.
One of the recommendations for the series is that readers claim there are so many lovely literary references that bibliophiles are delighted while at the same time, the children are modern and living like we do, so it makes those old book references come alive. Maybe. Probably. However, that doesn’t negate the bad behavior of the girls.
Some claim that these are like Beverly Cleary’s books. They show girls going through real growing pains, and it gives our children someone to identify with. But, as I said in my article, In Defense of Beverly Cleary, Cleary was writing about the whole family. In her stories, adults are more than present, they are worthy characters themselves, and they provide good boundaries for their children.
In the Penderwicks books, there is a strong sense that the children know better than the adults and that they have a moral obligation to teach the adults how the world works and how to live better. Again, this is not what we see in Cleary, or Gary D. Schmidt, or N. D. Wilson. In those stories, the children understand their own value, but they do not discredit the adults who are there to love and lead them.
Some critics of the series object to the “modern realism” themes of divorce, remarriage, teenage dating, etc. I don’t object to those themes. I do, however, object to how they are presented in modern books. I can’t really say how those play out throughout the series because I stopped early in the series, but I did not love what I saw.
One of the challenges of writing a series about sisters who have a substantial span of age is that it is hard to know who the target audience is. Should children as young as the youngest sister be reading? Or are these for children who are as old as the oldest sister? In Hilda van Stockum’s The Mitchells series, we see children who are babies in the same family as children who are in high school. To make the story suitable for all ages, Hilda did mention some dances and possible romance, but she did so only very lightly. In the second Penderwicks book, teen romance is a key theme. Just because the oldest sister is old enough to be interested in boys doesn’t mean that our younger readers need that explained in detail complete with hormonal discussion.
I think that while these stories could be lovely, they miss the mark. With so many better options out there, I am keeping these out of my library.
https://plumfieldmoms.com/plumfield-moms-book-reviews/the-penderwicks
 

Reflection: Do Even More

What I heard Sunday morning was, “Put on your big girl armor, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in everything, because he who calls you is faithful.”

Book Review: I Am David by Anne Holm

The concentration camps were so horrific that stories about them are usually done with incredible care and some trepidation. When we think of children in the concentration camps, many of us rightly cannot hold that idea in our minds for very long. It is just too awful. Children were there. Most were killed but some were there. But few of us have the fortitude to consider that idea very closely or for very long.
 
But what about children in the camps? What happened to them? Anne Holm gives us a small window into that idea in I Am David (reprinted as North to Freedom). Mercifully, however, the story opens with a guard telling twelve-year-old David about the escape he has planned for him. David breaks out of a Bulgarian concentration camp in the first few pages, so all of our knowledge about his experiences in the camp comes to us through his memories when he is safely on the other side.
“In his mind’s eye David saw once again the gray bare room he knew so well. He saw the man and was conscious, somewhere in the pit of his stomach, of the hard knot of hate he always felt whenever he saw him. The man’s eyes were small, repulsive, light in color, their expression never changing; his face was gross and fat, yet at the same time square and angular. David had known him all his life, but he never spoke to him more than was necessary to answer his questions; and though he had known his name for as long as he could remember, he never said anything but “the man” when he spoke about him or thought of him. Giving him a name would be like admitting that he knew him; it would place him on an equal footing with the others.”
The guard tells David that when he lights his match, the circuit will be cut and David will have 30 seconds to get across the yard and over the fence. David is baffled by the man’s suggestion that he should escape and is sincerely concerned that the man is setting him up to be shot.
“And then quite suddenly David decided he would do it. He had turned it over in his mind until his head was in a whirl, and he still could not understand why the man had told him to escape. David had no wish to make the attempt: it would only be a question of time before he was caught. But suppose it were a trap and they shot him – it would all be over quickly anyway. If you were fired at while trying to escape, you would be  dead within a minute. Yes, David decided to try.”
The man not only provides a means of David’s escape, but he also promises that hidden in the field on the other side of the fence there would be a pouch with a little bread, drinking water, a knife, and a compass. He tells David which way to run and to head for Italy. And, once there, to go North. And just keep going North until he gets to Denmark. He does not say why David must get to Denmark, but he insists on it.
Once David successfully breaks free of the concentration camp, we realize that he has no memory of any life outside of the camp. He has no idea what cities look like, how normal people interact with each other, or what a beautiful mountainside looks like. Every experience is new and terrifying for him. His journey is a bit of a pilgrimage. And he is learning how to be human after only ever being a caged animal. In some haunting ways, he reminds me of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster – hiding in the woods, watching people in order to understand how to be really human.
As he goes along, we learn that David was kept separate from other children in the camp. He grew up in a place where his only companions were men from many different countries, a teenage mentor, and the guards. Consequently, David learned many languages by mimicking all of the men he heard speak. He speaks Oxford English, noble Italian, everyday French, official German, and robust Yiddish. His linguistic abilities serve him well in his journey North through Europe.
At one point, David spends some time with a wealthy Italian family. The mother gives him milk and vitamins. He realizes that in the camp he had been given milk and vitamins. At the time, he thought they were poison meant to keep him weak. In light of the love of this Italian mother for her children, he realizes these were good things. And he ponders why “the man” would have given him good things to make him healthy. He reflects on how everyone in the camp eventually died of starvation-related complaints. And yet, he was being given nourishing milk and smuggled vitamins. Why?
In the camp, David had one friend. A French teen named Johannes who was assigned to be David’s companion and tutor. Johannes died in the camp of a heart attack. Before that, however, Johannes taught David not just languages and history but also ethics and manners. As David journeys North, he realizes that that too did not make any sense. Why had “the man” taken such an interest in David’s education? If everyone was destined to die in the camps, why bother to educate the child and teach him how to be human?
David was not raised with any religion. But, he was not unaware of many of the faiths in the camp. On his trek, he decides that he needs a god to believe in. He remembers a man in the camp praying to the God of green pastures and still waters. Once he sees the beauty of the mountains for the first time, he realizes that that is the God he longs to serve. Without anyone to teach him how to pray, he fumbles his way into a relationship with that God hoping that he has chosen the right one. The storytelling here is excellent. David’s mistakes and his faith are innocent and beautiful and God does not abandon him.
This story has some hard parts, but it does end well. The ending is a bit miraculous but not unbelievable. I would recommend this for a mature middle school reader and above. The context is hard but not graphic. This would be a wonderful first concentration camp story for young readers who are not yet ready for sadder or more devastating classics like The Hiding Place. I think this would be even better than Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl.
The audio version of this book is excellent. You can learn more about this fascinating book at Biblioguides.com.
There is a dog in this story. If you are concerned about what happens to the dog, please scroll down. If you do not want any spoilers, read no further.
 
https://plumfieldmoms.com/plumfield-moms-book-reviews/i-am-david-aka-north-to-freedom