Hello, Old Friends...

I know it's been a terribly long time. I've been quite busy, what with going to school full time, working full time, and being the mother of four children who are growing up far too quickly. Never mind all of that, though. I have some new friends to introduce to you.

First, I'd like you to meet Jacob Rappaport. He is a Jewish young man who grew up in an affluent family in New York. When his father decides to marry him to a mentally disabled girl in order to gain her father's business, Jacob runs away and joins the Union Army during the Civil War. After going behind enemy lines to complete one assignment, his superiors send him to Virginia to woo and marry Eugenia Levy, a woman they believe to be part of a spy ring.

Miss Eugenia 'Jeannie' Levy is one of four daughters of Philip Levy, a business acquaintance of Jacob's. She and her sisters Charlotte, Phoebe, and Rose are quirky and eccentric, and very possibly spies for the Confederacy. While Charlotte doesn't trust him, Jeannie develops feelings for Jacob and happily accepts his proposal of marriage. Meanwhile, despite Jacob's best intentions, he can't help falling in love with the beautiful and mysterious Jeannie. When Charlotte lays a trap to discover whether Jacob is loyal to the Union or to his bride, though, he is found out.

To tell you more about my friends would be a disservice, both to you and to Dara Horn, who did a wonderful job telling their story in her book, All Other Nights. Ms. Horn is a wonderful writer. She makes Jacob, who has many faults, a likable character. She makes Jeannie, a Confederate spy, a sympathetic character. Even more impressively, Ms. Horn has obviously done her homework. She successfully interweaves the plot of this fictional story with real events and people of the Civil War.

I was most impressed with her treatment of Judah Benjamin. For those of you who aren't familiar with Mr. Benjamin, he was perhaps the most influential Jewish man in America up to that time. He was Jefferson Davis' right hand man, and as such had a great deal to do with the policies of the Confederacy and their Intelligence Operations during the Civil War. Ms. Horn treated Benjamin as a human being, delving into his thought processes and his personal life in such a way that the reader understands him and the reasons behind the things he does.

It is interesting to read a book that is simultaneously mainstream and from a different perspective. For those readers who don't know very much about Jewish tradition, Ms. Horn does a beautiful job of integrating them into the story without overwhelming the reader with complicated details. It is a story written from the perspective of Jewish characters, but at its core it is a familiar story. Love. War. Inner conflict. These are subjects with which anyone can relate, regardless of race or religion.

This is one of the best books I've read in quite a while. Dara Horn is an excellent writer, and I can't wait to start on another book she has written. I haven't decided yet which friend I want to make next, though. I've got quite a few waiting for me on my night stand.

Regardless, I'll keep you posted.

Finally...?

I've spent the last several weeks diligently writing about the books I read. Most of them have brought me a great deal of joy. Truly, only one book made me unhappy. I've made friends of authors and characters, and revisited old friends, as well. Throughout the course of this exercise, I have learned a great deal about Jews in American history, about human nature, about children's literature, and most importantly, I've learned a great deal about myself.

I am an eclectic reader. The sort of book I wanted to read varied according to my mood, what I wished to learn, and the sort of characters with whom I wanted to spend my lunch hour. These people, fictional as they might be, do indeed become my friends.

I learned that I do have my limits. I had previously thought that I had a compulsive need to finish every book I began, no matter how boring or ridiculous, for fear that it would get better and I would have missed it. This is not the case, however.

What I gained most from this experiment is that I had forgotten how much I love to read and how much I love to write. I used to do both nearly every day, but had gotten away from it when I went back to school. With all of the text books and essays, I didn't make the time for fiction and writing for pleasure. This challenge has been somewhat of a renewal for me.

Professionally, it has been interesting to read books written for children and young adults. I must admit that I have a soft spot for them, anyway. I grew up reading L.M. Montgomery and Louisa May Alcott and revisit Anne Shirley and Jo March often. More recently, I have read books written by Amanda Hocking and Stephenie Meyer. I had considered these books to be guilty pleasures, but then I read The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller and I realized that, as a teacher, I should know something about children's and young adult's literature, and how am I going to be knowledgeable about something that I have not read?

I also found it interesting that I could make connections that I might not otherwise have noticed. This week is a prime example. This week I went to the library to find another book to read. Having just spent some time with From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, I decided to see what else I could find that was written by E.L. Konigsburg. I came across a book entitled, The View From Saturday, and without a second thought, I picked it up and took it directly to the circulation desk.

 I read my new book in the space of two days, and made many lovely new friends. The book was unique in that each chapter was introduced in the 3rd person, and then told from the point of view of a different character (in the 1st person). Coincidentally, I was working on a lesson plan to teach point of view. While I didn't use it in my lesson plan, I have it stored in the files I keep, both on my laptop and in the back of my mind.

While my little experiment is over, I am seriously considering continuing on with my blog. Even if no one else ever reads it or enjoys it, I know that I will.

A Change of Pace

This week I decided another change of pace was in order. So far, I have read fantastic historical fiction, not-so-fantastic historical fiction, some pretty great young adult fiction, and revisited some of my favorite children's fiction. Considering that I'm nearing the end of my current semester in college, I thought I'd do something daring. I wanted to do something just for fun. I wanted... non-fiction.

Now, having said that, I understand that the word fun is relative. I know people who love Stephen King novels. I can't stand them. Others were of the opinion that G.K. Chesterton was a genius, and that his book The Man Who Was Thursday was the most thrilling book ever written. If you missed my thoughts on that particular book, you can check it out here. My point is, a lot of people loved that book. (Seriously. Amazon gives it a 4.3 out of  5 stars.) I am not one of those people.

I am, however, one of those people who likes to read non-fiction. This week I picked up a book entitled American Judaism, by Jonathan D. Sarna (which incidentally has 4.8 stars on Amazon). It's an interesting account of the history of Jews in America, and Sarna does a good job of making his writing seem more like a narrative than a census record.

I've only made it as far as the American Civil War, but honestly, it has been an interesting read. It's fascinating to me that, in 1654, Jewish refugees arrived in New Amsterdam (now New York) from Brazil. Up until that point New Amsterdam was officially a Calvinist community. While there were Catholics, Lutherans, Anabaptists, and English Puritans residing in the colony, none had been granted permission to organize a congregation or have a minister. When the Jewish refugees arrived, the director-general sought permission from the Dutch West India Company to tell the Jews to leave for fear that by giving them the freedom to remain (and not practice any form of Christianity, let alone Calvinism) that the Lutherans, Anabaptists, Catholics, and Puritans must be given more freedom. What he failed to realize, however, is that not only was the Dutch West India Company more concerned with their pocketbooks than religion, but that many of the principal share holders of the company were, in fact, Jews. After several petitions, the Jewish refugees were not only allowed to stay, but they were allowed to trade, serve guard duty, own real estate, and worship in the privacy of their own homes, which seems to be more than what other religious sects were permitted. The director-general's fears seemed to be well-founded. By 1663, everyone in New Amsterdam was permitted to worship God how they saw fit, as long as they didn't cause problems. According to Sarna's history, the Jewish refugees paved the way for religious freedom, at least in one Dutch colony.

Cesar Kaskel

I don't know if Jonathan Sarna is my new friend, or if it's people like Cesar Kaskel, who rushed to Washington D.C. to appeal to Abraham Lincoln when the Jews of Paducah, Kentucky were expelled. Perhaps they're all becoming friends, and I look forward to meeting more of these truly amazing people.

I'll keep you posted.

Lunch with Old Friends...

I have recently developed a habit of reading over my lunch break at work. The way my schedule is, I am not generally able to stop and eat until nearly everyone else has left the teacher's lounge, so it's the perfect opportunity for me to spend time with my literary friends.

In the last few weeks I have met some great people. I have spent some time with a professor, English royalty, an annoyingly boring anti-anarchist, and a medieval maiden. I consider all of them to be dear friends, with the exception of Thursday. (He and I are acquaintances, certainly, but absolutely not friends.)

This week I decided to catch up with some old friends and read From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I have known Claudia and Jamie Kinkaid for roughly twenty-five years. I was introduced to them through author E.L. Konigsburg when I was young. Claudia was the first to become my friend. She and I both had younger brothers and we were both planners, but that was where our similarities ended. While I was introverted and content to stay home, Claudia craved adventure. While I was very analytical, Claudia was a romantic at heart. In short, I was prose and Claudia was poetry. She was everything I was not, and everything I wanted to be.


Thinking about it, though, who wouldn't want to run away from home and hide out in a museum, especially one as grand as the Metropolitan Museum of Art? (If this is a spoiler, stop immediately, put the computer away, and run - don't walk - to your nearest library.) When Claudia determined that this is what she would do, she asked her brother, Jamie, to come along because, "They complimented each other perfectly. She was cautious (about everything but money) and poor; he was adventurous (about everything but money) and rich." In the course of their adventure, they happened upon a mysterious statue of an angel which Claudia surmises was sculpted by the great Michelangelo. They go on a journey to confirm Claudia's suspicions, which leads them to Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

I had read this book so many times as a kid. I had my very own copy, which was well-worn and very loved. As I grew older, I passed my love for Claudia and Jamie on to my own children, who have their own well-worn and much loved copy. I had not read their story as an adult, however, and I realized this week that it was highly overdue.

I still love Claudia and Jamie. I still envy their adventure at the Met. As an adult, though, I have to empathize with Mr. and Mrs. Kincaid. While the book doesn't give the reader any insight into what they went through, I can only imagine how horrific must it have been to have two of their children disappear. I can't say that this particular worry resonated with me when I was a child the way it does now. This knowledge doesn't discount the fun and excitement that I have with Claudia and Jamie, it just gives me a different perspective. And that's what good reading does, really, isn't it? It makes you think about something new and different or makes you think about things differently.

I'll keep you posted.

Anything but Ordinary

I cannot tell you how much I adore Birdy. I adore her confidence. I adore her empathy. I adore how much she loves her mother. I just adore her.

On the "About the Author" page, Karen Cushman is quoted as saying, "I grew tired of hearing about kings, princes, generals, presidents. I wanted to know what life was like for ordinary young people in other times." Thus, Birdy was born. I could tell that Ms. Cushman loves history as much as I do, and has an interest in young people as much as I do. She created a character in Birdy that is very relatable to most adolescent girls. She isn't perfect. She is emotional. She is stubborn. She is easily provoked. But she is also kind, especially to animals. She is fiercely loyal to her friends. She is brave, and honest, and thoughtful.

Throughout the last half of the book, she tried desperately to find a way out of marrying Shaggy Beard, the man her father had arranged for her to marry. She ranted and raved at her father and considered running away to be a minstrel or a puppeteer, but nothing changed. She refused to consent and her father refused to back down. Shaggy Beard had sent her gifts of a silver toothpick, a headdress, a sewing kit, and a pouch of silver, but she would not spend it because that would mean she had promised to marry him. She refused to spend the money until she went to the fair.

Before you jump to conclusions, however, she did not spend it on fabric or necklaces. She happened upon a performing bear who was moth-eaten and scrawny. His performance was bad enough that his owner announced that he planned to set a pack of dogs against the bear to see who which would be victorious. While many of the onlookers saw this as entertainment, Birdy only saw the cruelty. She struggled within herself, but finally decided that the only course of action was to sacrifice her pouch of silver - and her own freedom and happiness - for the life of the bear.

 I enjoyed watching, in my mind's eye, her evolution and growth. Her perspective changed, particularly regarding her brother, Robert, and her father. Throughout the book, Birdy couldn't stand  her father. When her mother talked about how wonderful her father was, Birdy couldn't understand what her mother saw in him. In the end, though, Birdy is in awe of how her father behaved toward her mother when she was ill, and even looked at him as though he'd performed a miracle when her mother survived.

As for Robert, it was he who rode to an abbey, where the abbess kept a menagerie, to find a home for Birdy's bear. Birdy was shocked and confused and I can imagine that, while she had mixed feelings,  she had some measure of gratitude toward the brother for whom she had so little regard.

In her very last journal entry, Birdy chronicles her salvation. On the day that Shaggy Beard's representatives were set to arrive to take her to him, they instead arrive to tell her father that Shaggy Beard has died. Instead, Birdy is to marry Shaggy Beard's son, Stephen. Stephen is closer to Birdy's age, and although she only met him once, she remembers him as being "young and clean, loves to learn, and is not Shaggy Beard." She decides that she is prepared to learn to love him. Rather than feeling doomed to a future she cannot control, she feels as though the world is full of possibilities and anticipates a future that promises happiness.

While Karen Cushman said that she wanted to know what life was like for ordinary people, I would suggest that Birdy is anything but ordinary. She is beautifully, wonderfully extraordinary.

Who will I meet next?
I'll keep you posted.

"If I Were a Boy"

Ah, Birdy. She is girl after my own heart. She is another kindred spirit. Since I last spoke of my friend, Birdy, she has cursed the love of her Uncle George and her friend, Aelis, set the privy on fire while a suitor was inside, mourned the death of a young man who died and worried for another who had gone missing in a snow storm.

Birdy is the kind of girl that I would love to call my friend. She is courageous, she is thoughtful, and she is funny. She doesn't do what is expected, just because it's expected. Rather, she wants to try new things, even if they turn out to be different than what she imagined. One day, for instance, she was excited to go to a public hanging of two thieves. She envisioned two rough and cruel men who glared and frightened the crowd and virtually dared the executioner to hang them. Instead, she found two boys, barely twelve years old, who were frightened themselves. She couldn't watch, but ran away and wondered how their mothers must feel.

I also admire her curiosity. Fancying herself a songwriter, she wonders,

     Why aren't fingers equal lengths?
     What makes cold?
     Why do men get old and bald
     And women only old?
     When does night turn into day?
     How deep is the sea?
     How can rivers run uphill?
     What will become of me?

The last line is quite telling, actually, for she has no more control over her own life than the woman has control over getting old or the river has control over whether it goes uphill or down. Birdy's frustration with being born a girl is also evident in a list she made of everything boys can do and girls cannot:

     go on crusade
     be horse trainers
     be monks
     laugh very loud
     wear breeches
     drink in ale houses

     cut their hair
     piss on the fire to make it hiss
     wear nothing
     be alone
     get sunburned
     run
     marry whom they will
     glide on the ice

What is truly heartbreaking about this list is that many of these things are activities we take for granted today. None of us would think to refuse to allow our daughters to have a haircut or run. The image of a girl gliding on the ice invokes a sense of pure freedom, and it's sad to think Birdy couldn't experience that. Just as thought provoking, however, is the idea that she couldn't marry whom she chose. It was the standard of the day, but it's still so shocking to think that men chose husbands for their daughters based on who would offer the most money or bring them the most prestige and power.


I have often said that I am glad I was born where I was born and in the time I was born because I absolutely love having running water and an indoor bathroom. What Birdy has reminded me, though, is that I am also grateful that my daughters are not "in danger of being sold like pigs at autumn fair."

I'll keep you posted.

Little Birdy

Ahh... I feel so much better now that I've made a new friend.

I am actually amazed that I never met Catherine, Called Birdy when I was young. It's the story of an adolescent girl living in medieval England. It's written in the form of the girl's diary, offering a more personal glimpse into her life. I would have loved this book when I was a kid! I loved books that featured girls my age, regardless of their situation. I loved Anne Shirley and Emily Starr, orphans living on Prince Edward Island, Canada in the 1800s. I loved Jo March, who was strong, and balanced her ambition with her love for her family, and Polly Milton, who exhibited the ideals of

 

charity and humility even among her friends, who were more interested in material, superficial things than they were the quality of their character. I loved Claudia Kincaid (and her brother Jamie) and envied her adventures in Metropolitan Museum of Art. I considered Susan and Lucy Pevensie (and their brothers Peter and Edmund) to be my dear friends and enjoyed their journeys to Narnia as though I had been there myself. Somehow, though, Catherine, Called Birdy escaped my attention.

How I discovered her wasn't really typical. Usually I get suggestions from my mother, a friend, or pouring over reviews on Amazon or Goodreads.  Karen Cushman's novel, though, I found because I liked the name Birdy and I wanted to know what formal name could be given on a birth certificate if a parent wanted to call their child Birdy.

Perhaps I should have prefaced this post with a small fact about myself. You see, I love names. It's an extension of my love for words, and began in my personal Bible study when I was a teenager. Knowing that Benoni (what Rachel named her youngest son just before she died) means "son of my sorrow," but that Benjamin (what Jacob re-named Benoni) means "son of my right hand" is somewhat telling. The names of all of Jacob's twelve sons are significant, in fact. When I realized that Nabal (1 Samuel 25) means "fool," however, I became fascinated. It wasn't as though Nabal wasn't foolish. "Fool" perfectly describes Abigail's first husband. I just couldn't fathom a mother naming her son "Fool." This sent me on a journey, where I met Henri Daniel-Rops through his book, Daily Life in the Time of Jesus, and became familiar with books written by Pamela Redmond Satran and Linda Rosenkrantz, and later with their website, Nameberry. It is on this site that I came across references to my new friend, Catherine, otherwise known as Birdy. So I suppose, in a round about way, I did meet Birdy through friends, albeit author-friends.

But I digress...

As I said, Catherine is the daughter of a minor knight in 13th century England. She is the youngest child, and the only girl, having three older brothers. Her best friends are a young goat hearder with one leg longer than the other and a girl who takes a shining to Birdy's beloved Uncle George, who has been away fighting in the Crusades.

Birdy is somewhat resentful of the expectations placed upon her. While her mother insists that she spend time learning to sew and embroider, her father attempts to find her a husband so that he might add to his own wealth. Birdy does her best to escape her family's plans for her, attempting to run away with the Jews who have been banished from England, and contemplating disguising herself as a boy so she can join a monastery like her brother, Edward.

It is this part of Birdy's life with which I can identify, and with which I would have identified as a teenager. Having grown up with the expectations of my family and with those of my church, I can understand her frustration. Although I wanted nothing more than to travel the world and to go to college and study history, art, and  literature, my family and my church expected me to marry young and be a stay-at-home mother to my many, many children. I succumbed to my predestined life, at least for a time. In hindsight I wonder how my life might have turned out differently if I had been brave enough to follow my own path, but I wouldn't change the path that I took for anything. (My children are far too wonderful!) I am enjoying spending time with the less submissive Birdy, though, and I am looking forward to seeing how her life turns out.

I'll keep you posted.