more indians and dolls

In the spirit of Island of the Blue dolphins and Sing down the moon, I decided to try another native american novel. this time I chose the newberry honor book, anpao by jamake highwater. I don't remember how many pages I read, I know it was past 50, but I still have no idea what this book was trying to do. I got from what I read that it's about two brothers who want to marry a girl who claims she is married to the moon. the two brothers set out to find the moon and ask if they can marry the girl. in the process, one of the brothers ends up making the moon angry and things get bad. there was something about a swan who gives anpao a ride across a lake to find the cave where the moon lives. now, I love literature. I love analogies and symbolism, but somehow I couldn't see beyond what was actually happening in this story to get the underlying meaning. I'm pretty sure that there is more meaning to this book than I was able to glean from it. Maybe in a literature class with discussion help from others, it might mean more, but in my busy life of children and gardening and housework, I needed to read something not quite so complicated. Or maybe this book really is confusing and the critics who read it just gave it an honor because they too felt that there must be more to it than what they themselves were understanding. either way, I did not finish reading this book and I don't plan on it.

on a good note, after such a good experience with reading Patty Reed's Doll, I decided to read another story where the heroine is a doll, namely "Hitty, Her First hundred years" by Rachel Field, author of calico bush. hitty is a doll who writes her own memoirs and tells of the adventures that she has over one hundred years. I loved this book from beginning to end. her adventures begin when she is crafted out of mountain ash wood from a peddler in colonial new england. she enjoys her life and little mishaps there, but after a time she finds herself on a whaling boat, and then on an island being worshipped by natives, and then in the basket of a snake charmer in India, and then and then. you just wouldn't believe the people and places that one small wooden doll could visit in one hundred years. This is a story that will delight both young and old alike. Another thing I like about the story is that it eludes to several events in history, without divulging too much information, which could then prompt the reader to do some personal research into those historical moments that have defined our lives. Last, but not least, not only have I found a friend in Hitty herself, but I now have another new favorite children's author to add to the list of scott o'dell and clyde robert bulla.