Scott O'Dell

After reading "The Matchlock Gun" a Newberry Medalist, and being slightly disappointed...I have decided to try to read more Newberry Medalist and Honor books to see which ones are really worth studying or having my kids read when they get there. I just finished "The Island of the Blue Dolphins" and "Sing Down the Moon." They are both written by Scott O'Dell (the same author that wrote Sarah Bishop).
I had tried to read "The Island of the Blue Dolphins" a few years ago and never got past the first couple pages. I'm not sure why because it was a very interesting book. It is about an Indian girl who lives with her tribe on an island off the coast of California (which I found very intriguing, since I looked for these islands every time we drove to my grandparents house in Santa Barbara). Her tribe leaves on a ship with white men, but she is left behind and has to learn how to live by herself on the island for 18 years until she is recued. That part of the story is true, the rest of the story - how she manages to survive - is the author's creativity. I love stories about girl's or women who are strong and even a little wild. Maybe somewhere underneath my outer shell of living the typical 'good' life, there is a part of me that imagines myself living alone in a forest with nothing but animals to keep me company (actually, I used to write stories about that as a kid). I guess I should just picture my house as a forest and my children as animals (not too hard to do) and I'm good. I definately liked this book and thought it worthy of the Newberry Medal.
I read "Sing Down the Moon" in three nights of reading before bed. This one is also about an Indian girl. This time it's the Navaho tribe in Arizona. The mood in this story is definately darker as it deals with the hardships the Navaho tribe faced as they were forced to march into captivity by the white man. I was continually surprised at how matter of fact the wording was. Not once did I find myself overcome with emotion as these horrible events were described. It was as though I myself became like the Old Men in the book, beyond caring or feeling. I found myself just reading the pages with not much hope of a better future for the characters in the story. But, lest you think that this book is depressing and therefore not worth reading, it actually does have a happy ending and in doing so the book mirrors the lives of the Navahos as they struggled through this oppressiveness to eventually be released from the white man to return to their homes. So yes, I think it is well deserving of it's Newberry honor and look forward to reading some more works of Scott O'Dell.

The Scarlet Pimpernel

I realized that I finished this book a couple weeks ago, but haven't written my review yet. This was another one of those books that took me a while to get into. After I'd been reading it for a couple nights, Chris asked which page I was on, and I was only on page 16. In my defense, I do all my reading right before bed and sometimes my eyes close pretty fast. But, I did eventually get into the book and even stayed up late a few nights, unable to put it down. This book is set during the French Revolution when the citizens of France were capturing all the "aristos" and sending them to Madame Guillotine. Other than the styles, dress and culture of the time, that is the only history included in the novel. The rest of the story is a romance/adventure novel. I read something that said The Scarlet Pimpernel was the first masked superhero story, preceding zorro, the lone ranger, even batman and superman. So, overall it was adventurous and kept me reading. However, I do have a couple of criticisms. The first is that the author uses a few words in extreme excess. These words being: peremtory, and imperturbable. Maybe this is another manifestation of French culture during the Revolution, but personally I found it annoying that all of the Scarlet Pimpernel's actions were either peremtory or imperturbable. My next criticism is that each time there was a secret identity to be uncovered, (and this too happens often) I had guessed the true identity chapters in advance. This left me just reading to get to the point that the secret identity would be revealed and not so much concentrating on what was happening in the meantime. I would however recommend this book to others, if for nothing else, than to say that you've read one of the classics. Having said that, the next time that I want to read a book set during the French Revolution, I think I'll choose Les Miserables and just watch the movie of The Scarlet Pimpernel, which I am looking forward to seeing now that I've finished the book.

Patty Reed's Doll

We just finished reading Patty Reed's Doll for our history book club. It is a story about the Donner party and their trek to California. The kids enjoyed it and were happy that I only cried twice while reading it to them. The book brought up many topics for discussion like: the continental divide, whether or not to trust strangers, the inner strenth of individuals, is salt water good for drinking, which objects are really important, etc. For book club we did a lot of fun activities including following the path they took on a relief map, making our own relief maps with modeling clay, packing doll house items into a mini covered wagon, and making our own wooden dolls. Clarissa's, Krystal's, and Jared's wooden dolls.

Krystal with her doll.