Children's Books discussion

Come join us to discuss the Medal Winner,
Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson
and/or the Honor books:
The Fledgling by Jane Langton,
A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle.

I imagine these are avl. on openlibrary.org; could someone please check?

I have read them all in the distant past and will try to again. None felt special to me back then, but all these discussions on GoodReads have helped me appreciate more books more deeply, so maybe this time I'll get more out of them.

I always feel a bit uncomfortable when a book that is not the first but much further down in a series wins the Newbery Award or an Honour. I mean, with Madeleine L'Engle's A Ring of Endless Light if you have not read the first and second novels of the Austin series, you are kind of lost, and really, if you have not read The Moon by Night, the entire Zachary Gray scearios in A Ring of Endless Light do not make all that much sense (in my opinion).

A Ring of Endless Light

Yes and definitely, I do very much appreciate that in the fourth of the Austin Family novels, that in the 1981 Newbery Honour winning A Ring of Endless Light Madeleine L’Engle switches her narration once again back to the first person (to Vicky Austin), and that while there most certainly is quite a lot of sadness and pain to be textually encountered since in A Ring of Endless Light aside from Commander Rodney’s death (and other similar tragedies both human and animal based), the Austins cherished grandfather is also dying of a very aggressive type of leukaemia and that there is nothing that can be done to change this, that the grandfather will indeed die and very soon, there is also featured very much love, tenderness and in my humble opinion really essential lessons about life, death and how to approach and handle the latter without too much devastation. But indeed, that in A Ring of Endless Light all of this equally is narrationally shown and rendered by Madeleine L’Engle’s words, or actually by her narrator Vicky Austin’s words not ever pedantically or awkwardly, but beautifully, gracefully and with delightful feeling and sweetness, with both pain and joyful pleasure (that death is part of life and vice versa and that to be alive also means accepting the end of life, also means coming to terms with death).

However, and as much as the presented musings from Madeleine L’Engle’s pen regarding in particular life and death have been wonderful (and yes, even the pain and sadness often encountered in A Ring of Endless Light, they have generally been both heartwarming and thought provoking, and not to mention that the scenarios Vicky encounters with the dolphins are indeed simply lovely), I truly and really do wish that Madeleine L’Engle had not made Zachary Gray reappear in A Ring of Endless Light. For in my not so humble opinion, Zachary Gray is absolutely a spoiled rotten rich kid, an entitled and silly brat of an individual I for one do totally hate hate hate, whose presence definitely lessened my reading pleasure in The Moon by Night and whose reappearance in A Ring of Endless Light and with a similarly self indulgent, arrogantly condescending and nasty demeanour and worldview (and that Zachary is also at least partially responsible for Commander Rodney’s fatal heart attack), this most definitely has made my reading pleasure regarding A Ring of Endless Light considerably less, and especially so since Vicky Austin still seems to be taken and almost obsessed with Zachary Gray and is most annoyingly and frustratingly still constantly making all kinds of excuses for him. And well, I guess that part of my textual displeasure is that Madeleine L’Engle keeps featuring Zachary as a character even though I really do oh so much despise reading about him (and that Zachary Gray later even makes an appearance in one of the Time Quintet novels, that he also shows up and makes Poly O’Keefe’s life pretty miserable in An Acceptable Time is personally rather infuriating).

Jacob Have I Loved I am looking forward to reading but considering that The Fledgling looks like another in the middle novel of a series, I am not all that interested.

So personally, with Madeleine L’Engle’s Austin Family series, considering that the only novel of the series I totally loved without any reservations is the first one, is Meet the Austins I do find it a bit off putting that A Ring of Endless Light won a Newbery Honour and not the first novel, as for me, all of the sequels are not nearly as interesting and as relatable as book one, as Meet the Austins.

I believe I have read all 3 but nothing about them rings a bell. I MUST have read the Hall Family Chronicles. Sounds right up my alley.

I really liked Jacob Have I Loved when I read it some years back. My only complaint was that it was not long enough.

Jacob Have I Loved is really special because I was able to empathize with a main character who is often unpleasant. Many other books have failed to do that, but Patersen got me!

The first person narration by a self-centered character leaves all other characters flat and undeveloped. Does anyone know if this shortcoming is remedied in the other two books of the trilogy? It's the singing sister's story I want to read.

Jacob Have I Loved
This is one of my very favorite Newbery books and my very favorite of all of Paterson's novels. I have read it 3 or 4 times. For some reason, this story struck an emotional chord with me. I loved the characters, and had sympathy and empathy for the main character, who was trying find her own identity and get out of her sister's shadow. Fantastic story.

I also have read the Fledgling, but don't plan to re-read it. I may try to get to Ring of Endless Light, as I am a big L'Engle fan. I have read it before, many years ago, so I may try to make time to read it again.

I started to read Ring of Endless Light, and it seems beautiful, and I did not feel lost at all.

But I cannot & will not read about young men and 15 yo girls.

Steve wrote: "The first person narration by a self-centered character leaves all other characters flat and undeveloped. Does anyone know if this shortcoming is remedied in the other two books of the trilogy? It'..."

To which book are you referring?

Cheryl is a gaining a handle on stressors. wrote: "Steve wrote: "The first person narration by a self-centered character leaves all other characters flat and undeveloped. Does anyone know if this shortcoming is remedied in the other two books of th..."

Jacob I Have Loved

Steve wrote: "The first person narration by a self-centered character leaves all other characters flat and undeveloped. Does anyone know if this shortcoming is remedied in the other two books of the trilogy? It'..."

Goodreads does not show this book as being part of a series. What are the titles of the other two books?

Apparently it is not part of a trilogy. I have no idea where I got that erroneous idea. I plead 78 years of age.

Fair enough Steve!

I finished Jacob Have I Loved and I still don't get it. I'm not able to figure out or empathize with any of the characters, honestly. For example, how did our girl go from writing poems to being determined to be a doctor?

In a way it seemed more episodic. Nothing connected for me. There was no growth in process, just reporting after it happened.

And what's the joke mean (after FDR's death) What did St. Peter say to Franklin D. Roosevelt?

Interesting tidbit about people who 'measure their wealth in children.' Is that a thing? In post WWII America?

I tried to track down some of the biblical references, but without a grounding even the explanations made no sense to me. And the descriptions of peelers, floats, etc. didn't, either. And I'd never heard of paregoric.

paregoric? That one I know. It's a Victorian era medicine used as an emetic. It's one of the things to buy in the American Girl Pleasant Pastimes (girl size) game "What do you buy?" Thank you, as always, Pleasant Rowland for making me a giant super nerd! Now I have to read Jacob and ask my mom a lot of questions about growing up after WWII and maybe... my grandmother's brain will be in there somewhere and she'll know what some of those obscure references are.

Jacob Have I Loved

Yes, I have indeed very much enjoyed reading Katherine Paterson's 1980 (and 1981 Newbery Award winning) novel Jacob Have I Loved. But honestly and truly, I also really do wish that I had in fact encountered Jacob Have I Loved in the early 1980s, when I was not only a lonely and often intensely unhappy teenager but equally a teenager ALWAYS feeling totally and utterly like I was basically just some inconvenient and ridiculous alien interloper in my family of origin.

Because if I had read Jacob Have I Loved then (between say 1980 to 1985), not only would Katherine Paterson's presented text and first person narrator Louise Bradshaw's voice have totally and massively fit me like a proverbial glove, textually seeing and experiencing in Jacob Have I Loved Louise's issues with her family and that she feels unloved, unappreciated and totally unwanted by EVERYONE, yes, for me from the age of fourteen to nineteen, Jacob Have I Loved and Katherine Paterson's thematics and writing would have been not only a huge and all encompassing personal vindication, it would also have made Louise Bradshaw into much more of a personal kindred spirit than Mary Lennox, Anne of Green Gables, Emily Byrd Starr and Josephine March ever could hope to even somewhat be.

And while I at my current age and as a much more critical adult reader of course realise that I should probably consider Louise Bradshaw as having been conceptualised by Katherine Paterson as appearing and functioning in Jacob Have I Loved as somewhat of an unreliable narrator, well, in particular my so called inner child definitely in fact and indeed firmly does choose to believe the vast majority of Louise's complaints regarding her family and that all of her family issues are thus also mostly true and factual, with for me and to me Jacob Have I Loved being a brilliant and also a painful account of Katherine Paterson depicting a dysfunctional family where one member, where Louise does not really fit in and is cast as the despised scapegoat and whipping post so to speak, someone to bare and shoulder shame etc. (and equally and sadly also thought of as deserving of this because of not falling in line and acting accordingly and "appropriately").

Beverly wrote: "Jacob Have I Loved
This is one of my very favorite Newbery books and my very favorite of all of Paterson's novels. I have read it 3 or 4 times. For some reason, this story struck an e..."

I really wish I had read this when it first came out. It would definitely have been book therapy for me.

Steve wrote: "The first person narration by a self-centered character leaves all other characters flat and undeveloped. Does anyone know if this shortcoming is remedied in the other two books of the trilogy? It'..."

Of course, we only have what Louise writes and muses about in Jacob Have I Loved. But even though that technically means Louise is an unreliable narrator, I personally choose to believe her and that her anger at her family is legitimate for it feels rather close to my own biography (and gosh, I really would have found solace in this novel had I read it and been aware of it when it was first published, in the early 1980s).

Really find it infuriating that Jacob Have I Loved has repeatedly been challenged and sometimes banned. But I guess we should not be surprised either that certain puritanicals and fundamentalists cannot handle characters in a novel having issues with their faith and questioning God with me always thinking that if you want a novel banned for religious questions your own faith is likely pretty shaky.

Jacob Have I Loved is one weird book.
Sara Louise is SO angsty all the time without ever explaining to he family why. I remember yelling and crying a lot and being eager to escape my family and my hometown but not to the extent she does. She's horrid to her sister for no reason. Her feelings for old Mr. Wallace are super creepy and come out of nowhere.

I don't see Caroline as being deliberately smug except for when she's making fun of the girl who sang the solo at Christmas. I bet Caroline feels smothered by all the attention and doesn't understand why her twin sister is so mean and angry.

There aren't enough details about the watermen and jargon until late in the book. I really didn't know what was going on except they were crab fishing. The local color is done very well though.

The grandma is super crazy. Religious melancholia perhaps or even dementia. She's horrible to Sara Louise who is justified in her hatred of her grandmother. The whole island full of Methodists is weird and as someone who comes from a state full of Catholics, I didn't quite understand the grandma's hatred of Catholics.

I agree with Cheryl that Sara Louise's journey doesn't make sense. She wanted to get off the island and get a better education, she loved literature but also seemed to love the island and the waterman culture. She would be a good memoirist. I don't see how she got from there to wanting to be a doctor and then becoming a nurse in yet another rural small town.

I also didn't get Caroline and Call but I gather from her conversations about marriage of convenience that that may have been the case with this couple.

I'm surprised the book is banned for profanity and the final scene with the newborn twin baby. It has banned for language and moral/religious reasons:
1989 - New Jersey - Challenged at Bernardsville schools for being offensive to several parents on moral and religious grounds.

1993 - Pennsylvania - Challenged in the Gettysburg public schools for offensive language

QNPoohBear wrote: "I didn't quite understand the grandma's hatred of Catholics."

There was an awful lot of distrust between Catholics and Protestants back in the day. I heard a lot about it from my boomer parents.

QNPoohBear wrote: "1989 - New Jersey - Challenged at Bernardsville schools for being offensive to several parents on moral and religious grounds.
1993 - Pennsylvania - Challenged in the Gettysburg public schools for offensive language ..."

Wow, I had no idea that I was supposed to be offended by this book.

Beverly wrote: "QNPoohBear wrote: "1989 - New Jersey - Challenged at Bernardsville schools for being offensive to several parents on moral and religious grounds.
1993 - Pennsylvania - Challenged in the Gettysburg ..."

Pretty ridiculous ...

Phil wrote: "There was an awful lot of distrust between Catholics and Protestants back in the day. I heard a lot about it from my boomer parents.
..."

Yes I know. I keep hearing about Kennedy and blah blah blah from my dad and how "everyone" hates Italians. I just live in an ethnic (Irish, Italian, Portuguese and now Latino) Catholic bubble so it always surprises me to read about 20th century religious prejudices. The grandma seemed especially nasty though. No one else is as full of religious mania than the grandma except Call's mother but we never meet her.

QNPoohBear wrote: "Phil wrote: "There was an awful lot of distrust between Catholics and Protestants back in the day. I heard a lot about it from my boomer parents.
..."

Yes I know. I keep hearing about Kennedy and ..."

My mother is Catholic and my father is Lutheran. There is some ultra Catholic group that does not accept the changes of the Second Vatican Council and members also have a major hatred of so called mixed marriages like my parents. We stopped attending our local Catholic Church in Calgary when some members of this group would constantly stand up in church and yell that my mother married the Devil (my Lutheran father) and that us children were mongrels and the spawn of Lucifer (and the resident priest was too much of a coward to kick these lowlives out).

Manybooks wrote: "There is some ultra Catholic group that does not accept the changes of the Second Vatican Council and members also have a major hatred of so called mixed marriages like my parents. .."

That's terrible! My parents haven't mentioned anything like that. I don't even think anyone has thought about my mom NOT being officially Catholic. They had two officiants at their wedding to make it church legal for both of their religions.

QNPoohBear wrote: "Manybooks wrote: "There is some ultra Catholic group that does not accept the changes of the Second Vatican Council and members also have a major hatred of so called mixed marriages like my parents..."

The majority at that church were of course not like that, but when none of the priests etc. wanted to try to silence the cult members we had no choice but to leave.

QNPoohBear wrote: "That's terrible! My parents haven't mentioned anything like that. I don't even think anyone has thought about my mom NOT being officially Catholic. They had two officiants at their wedding to make it church legal for both of their religions."

That's unusual flexibility. My sibling and my best friend both married Catholics, and in both cases the Catholic priest told them that they had to convert in order to marry a Catholic. My best friend converted, but my sibling did not. Her husband left the Catholic church for their wedding.

Phil wrote: "QNPoohBear wrote: "That's terrible! My parents haven't mentioned anything like that. I don't even think anyone has thought about my mom NOT being officially Catholic. They had two officiants at the..."

My father did not have to convert, but the children had to be raised Catholic. That was in 1960s Germany, and I know that now, in Germany, the children do not have to be raised Catholic anymore either, unless that is what the parents want.

And I do think that this pressure to convert is a North American thing, as I know quite a few “mixed” Catholic/Lutheran families from Europe and in none of the cases was there ever mention of mandated conversion (from either side).

My mom never converted or has mentioned any pressure to. My best friend was never baptized but her dad's family was Catholic (French-Canadian) and her grandmother taught her her prayers. She chose to do it because the only thing her husband had an opinion on for the wedding was to be married in the church. She was baptized and confirmed at the same time. If they had had children, they may not have raised the children with religion but at the time it was important to him.

It is interesting that novels set on islands often seem to feature scenarios of families where there is not enough communication for whatever reason. I noticed this in Katherine Paterson's Jacob Have I Loved but it is also similarly present in Patricia MacLachlan's Baby.

Manybooks wrote: "It is interesting that novels set on islands often seem to feature scenarios of families where there is not enough communication for whatever reason. I noticed this in Katherine Paterson's [book:Ja..."

I wonder. Maybe, in a small isolated community, everyone is always in each other's way. And therefore they feel a need to keep some things private, for themselves. And they don't always choose well what to communicate to others, and what to keep personal. If that makes any sense.

Oh, and they might also unconsciously assume that, because they're together so much, and that they all have so much in common, that everyone already knows everything they need to. And therefore nothing needs to be explained out loud.

I'm part of a small family and we have kind of that sort of thing going on.

(omg, thank goodness we don't have that religious business to deal with.... my first husband was Boston Catholic but fortunately not devout... his parents didn't object afaik when we got married by a justice of the peace, in 1982)

Sorry that I lost track of the month. I did read The Fledgling several years ago, so here's my review:

January 15, 2018
Took advantage of an opportunity to read this now, years before the Newbery club gets to it. Maybe this read will serve to 'warm me up to' the read with the group. Maybe not.

It just didn't do anything for me. I mean, who doesn't want to fly? But somehow it doesn't seem all that interesting the way Georgie does it. And what purpose do the adult 'villains' serve? Nutso.

The only interesting bit, imo, was Eleanor's reaction to the invasion of the tea-party, and that was only interesting while I thought her objections sincere. Oh, and Georgie's mother's reaction could have been interesting, if I could have managed to understand it at all.

Cheryl wrote: "Manybooks wrote: "It is interesting that novels set on islands often seem to feature scenarios of families where there is not enough communication for whatever reason. I noticed this in Katherine P..."

Lack of communication is an issue in my family as well, that and favouritism which is why relate to Louise.

Finally got around to rereading The Fledgling and, honestly, I've got nothing to add. I wouldn't have liked it as a child, I don't now, and I don't know who would.