Children's Books discussion

Join us to discuss this award winner from 1972:

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien

Also any or all of these laudable books:

Incident at Hawk's Hill by Allan W. Eckert

The Planet of Junior Brown by Virginia Hamilton

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin (second in a series; do you know if that matters?)

Annie and the Old One by Miska Miles (a picture-book)

The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder (not her first!)

Six choices! Better start planning the month now! ;)

I don't have time atm to check if they're on openlibrary, but I suspect most will be, and many will be in reprints in public libraries, too.

O'Brien was inspired by a real researcher, according to this fascinating Atlas Obscura article: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles...

Had to start early because September is shaping up to be one of those extra busy months.
From my review of The Headless Cupid:
(view spoiler)[
"... he'd asked his mother if she believed in ghosts, and she'd said that she didn't disbelieve in anything that made the world more exciting."

Amanda says " I wasn't trying to get the weeding done. I was just practicing my powers. An important part of being an occult person is developing your power over other people."

Blair is an interesting character. Even though he's the first, sometimes the only, person to notice things, even David doesn't take him seriously enough. For example when he points out that Amanda is afraid of snakes, and David says, no, it's Molly who is.

The independence the children are given is shocking. They haven't been demonstrating responsibility, but still the 11 yo, the 12 yo, and three little children are left on their own all day one time, and several hours at least once else.(view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]

I'm not sure how much I enjoyed, nor how much value there is in, Incident at Hawk's Hill My review:

This article, http://ozandends.blogspot.com/2020/07..., is much more interesting than the book. I found it looking for information about the truth that inspired the novel and learned that the enhancements Eckert added varied as to their relevance & implausibility, that the novel was written for adults, that the Kirkus reviewer did not like it, and much more.

The treatment of the previous occupants of the land, the assorted Indian nations, is brief, and not sufficiently regretful or apologetic, but not inaccurate either.

" One such Prairie dog town began in the Dakota territory and stretched far out into the land of the Cheyennes. It was just over 100 miles in width and fully 250 miles in length. Within its confines lived the staggering population of over 400 million black tailed prairie dogs."

Early in the book Burton shows off a badger he had trapped. Ben looks for the notch on the ear: "This was not the badger he had encountered out in the prairie and a wave of relief flooded through him." Even Ben is biased towards the known, the immediate... whereas the truth is, of course, that one badger is just as valuable as another.

Sometimes the writing is delightful:
A kingfisher "trilled it's rattling cry as even discussed over its own poor aim and then bounced off through the air on inconstant wingbeats."
And: "[Rose hips] did little to satisfy his hunger, but at least his stomach had something to work on."

I read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH when I was a kid but had already seen and loved the movie "The Secrets of NIMH" and thought the movie was better. The book was a little darker I think and not cute.

Annie and the Old One sticks out in my memories of Second Grade. My teacher read it to us and we made Navajo Fry Bread in the classroom. I distinctly remember that and enjoying the book and the experience of trying the food from the book.

I never read the others but I'm familiar with the late Virginia Hamilton as one of the few Black authors writing way back when. I've read some of her folktale adaptations and some of her other books.

My best friend LOVED Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH when we were about ten. I think somewhere along the way it was a read-aloud but I don’t have any strong memories attached. I’ll probably save it for a family read-aloud in a few years when my youngest should be old enough to listen, too.

None of the other selections look familiar to me. I’ll look forward to the response here to see if I should make any of them a priority.

Annie and the Old One deserves the hype. It's a short picture-book, illustrated by one of my favorite artists, Peter Parnall*. Though Miles is not, apparently, Native, I could not find any controversy about her or about the book. She did live with the Navaho and so when she says that the coyote is God's dog, for example, I believe her. Poignant, wise, effective.

*I especially like his work with Byrd Baylor, for example The Way to Start a Day and Everybody Needs a Rock.

I have read four of the books decades ago, and The Headless Cupid more than once. Probably my favorite of this group. I have not read Incident or Planet; will try to get to Incident this month.

The Secret of NIMH is on Amazon Prime for anyone who wants to watch it and compare to the book. (see also YouTube)

I loved the NIMH movie as a kid and loved the book when I read it in my early 20s. They are very different from each other. The movie sets up a typical good guy/bad guy dynamic. The book is refreshingly free of bad guys and consists of logical problem solving.

Here's my review of Tombs of Atuan: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I am a pretty big UKL fan, but Atuan is not my favorite of hers. The first book in the series, though, is an all-time classic.

Honestly, there are a few times that I feel like the committee missed a classic one year and picked a less interesting follow-up later on. This feels like one of those times.

Thanks for the suggestion about the UKL sequel; I will skip it.

I loved Mrs. Frisby when I was a child and look forward to my reread. And I will def. try to read Planet of Junior Brown.

Almost halfway through Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. I'd forgotten how long it is; I probably skimmed the more literary and descriptive bits when I was a child. I'd also for forgotten the lovely illustrations... I was keen on Beth and Joe Krush, and on Garth Williams, at the time, and this style is about 1/2way in between those imo, but they feel new to me. Atm it's reminding me of nothing so much as another Newbery classic, Rabbit Hill. I imagine that will change when we meet the titular rats.

And indeed it did. It was fascinating to me, as a youngster, to learn of laboratory experiments' methodology (I might've guessed that liberties were taken for the sake of fiction, but I'm sure I didn't care). And then to learn of the rats' schemes... at that point the trope used was that of the ever popular Littles and Borrowers and Tom Thumb etc. etc.

And then the book got faster paced and more exciting....

I definitely can see why I liked it so much. I'm not exactly sure why it won the Medal, though. Of course, the competition doesn't stand out as amazing this year. Maybe Hamilton's novel; I'll have to see what I think when I read it. But this is about courage, and honor, and does have that bit of a reference to 'STEM' (which wasn't a thing back then, but educators were aware that science needed more support). I mean, those are important themes, but they weren't hard to find in children's literature either.

I'm off to see if I can find out what else was published that year that maybe the Newbery committee overlooked....

Well, I guess it's not a search that I can do effectively. All I found that might have some value would be Freckle Juice and The Lorax.

Incident at Hawk's Hill
I enjoyed this story, and I can understand why it was named a Newbery Honor. It is well-written and the characters are well-delineated, especially young Ben and the badger. I really liked all the details about the female badger, even before she and Ben met; how she dug her den, how she cared for her cubs, and how she hunted. Although I realize that this is fiction (even though based on a true incident), I had a hard time believing that 6-year-old Ben could figure out how to treat the badger's injured foot. Even though he grew up on a farm. The author implies that Ben was very observant of animal behavior, and I guess that is how the author justified that scene. It was interesting to read how Ben mentally embraced being a badger, so that when he was found, he fought like an animal, until he was able to mentally change gears again to human. I really liked how the family rallied around Ben's badger companion when it was shot; and how Ben's father stood up to the shooter and ordered him off their farm.

Cheryl wrote: "Well, I guess it's not a search that I can do effectively. All I found that might have some value would be Freckle Juice and The Lorax."

Yeah! Those are both good books. Freckle Juice was a big hit in our house. Probably still is in my brother's house. They like The Lorax too.

Beverly wrote: "Incident at Hawk's Hill
I enjoyed this story, and I can understand why it was named a Newbery Honor.... Ben's father stood up to the shooter and ordered him off their farm"

You're convincing me, especially with this last line. It was indeed a bit bold for a writer back then to remind kids that animals don't deserve to be exterminated for, basically, existing. And to show the different ways people treated Ben for being 'different.'

I read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH when I was a kid and loved it. I enjoyed it just as much when I read it aloud to my 10 year old a couple years ago. We also recently watched the movie, but I definitely like the book better. I found the whole scenario about saving her family quite scary. Having farmers in the family meant I knew what those tractors did. For some reason the "lee of the stone" is something that has stuck in my head all these years. I also thought the whole bit about how the rats were made intelligent and their escape from the lab was fascinating. Still was.

I know that the month is already past and we're on to new winners and such, but I just wanted to say that it doesn't really matter if you haven't read A Wizard of Earthsea before The Tombs of Atuan, because the main character of A Wizard doesn't show up in Tombs until halfway through. The main character in Tombs is someone else completely and the setting is also very different. That said, if you haven't read A Wizard of Earthsea, read that first. But Tombs is probably my favorite of the original Earthsea trilogy.

Thank you!

These threads never close, and someone might appreciate that advice. After a few months I do archive the threads, which simply means that one has to scroll down further to see them in a different folder.

Finally got a chance to read The Planet of Junior Brown. From my review:

What a brilliant and disturbing book. I feel as if Hamilton has all too much intimate familiarity with mental illness herself. Probably a few friends or family members, but not her own self, because letting us see the world through the eyes of all these messed-up folks takes both talent and discipline.

But was it an enjoyable or satisfying read? No. Did it even end on a note of hope? Not in my opinion.

One thing that is interesting is that I am also currently reading The Best of Simple, by the brilliant man best known for his poetry, Langston Hughes. This is also about two 'black' men in Harlem, friends-by-circumstance who develop a closer bond over time, a generation or two earlier. At least that book is about adults who are somewhat more responsible for their own choices (don't omit the affects of Jim Crow). That's an interesting & illuminating 'story.'

This one, well, I just can't rate it.