Historical Fiction: Anne of Green Gables

 

This is my all-time favorite book. In 2009 Johns and I went to Prince Edward Island to fulfill a lifelong dream of seeing where Lucy Maude Montgomery lived, worked and wrote her famous novels. In this post, I will focus on how historical fiction can help us understand the socioeconomic/historical/political events of a time period. Any time the subject of east coast Canada comes up in conversion, for example, I feel some familiarity with it. To be fair- since 2007 John and I have taken frequent trips to Toronto to see his sister- but even before I went for the first time in 2007 I felt familiar with it- because I had read and reread the Anne books so many times I could already picture the landscape and understand a little of the politics. Here are some examples of history revealed within fiction.

The description of Mrs. Rachel Lynde on page 3 of Anne of Green Gables is our first glimpse of what woman do with their daily lives. “She was a notable housewife; her work was always done and well done; she “ran” the Sewing Circle, helped run the Sunday school, and was the strongest prop of the Church Aid Society and Foreign Missions Auxiliary. Yet with all this, Mrs. Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen window, knitting “cotton warps” quilts- she had knitted sixteen of them.”

In a glimpse of what higher education was like in the early 20th century, the students applying for teacher-license entrance took an exam and the pass/fail results were published in the local newspaper. “Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten minutes ago- it came out on the afternoon train, you know and won’t be here tomorrow by mail- and when I saw the pass list I just rushed over like a wild thing. You’ve all passed, every one of you.” (Diana Barry, 204)

A description of the high-fashion dress that Matthew gave Anne reveals the fashion taste of the era: “Anne took the dress and looked at it in reverent silence. Oh, how pretty it was- a lovely soft brown gloria with all the gloss of silk; a skirt with dainty frills and shirrings; a waist elaborately pintucked in the most fashionable way, and a little ruffle of filmy lace at the neck. But the sleeves- they were the crowning glory! Long elbow cuffs, and above them two beautiful puffs divided by rows of stirring and bows of brown silk ribbon 156.)

A description of the birch path in Avonlea is one example of a vivid illustration of scenery- realistic enough to give the reader a picture of what the terrain really looks like. “It was a little narrow, twisting path, winding down over a long hill straight through Mr. Bell’s woods, where the light came down sifted through so many emerald screens that it was as flawless as the heart of a diamond. It was fringed in all its length with slim young birches, white-stemmed and lissom boughed; ferns and starflowers and wild lilies-of-the-valley and scarlet tufts of pigeon berries grew thickly along it; and always there was a delightful spiciness in the air and music of bird calls and the murmur and laugh of wood winds in the trees overhead, 83.”

Historical Fiction, children’s literature and the importance of a diverse library of books

 

Little House In the Big Woods is the first book in the original nine-book series: Little House on the Prairie is book three in the series.

When my two girls were just babies I bought the complete Little House on the Prairie series. This taught me two things: Always gauge your kids’ interest in a book before buying the complete series and even if the kids are not interested in a series it can be worthwhile to buy it anyway. Although my girls didn’t care for the Little House books, I think owning this series is worthwhile.  I started a new habit of only buying one or two books in a series and then waiting to see if the kids want to read more. This has saved me from having shelves of unread books on hand. In the case of the Little House books, these books appear on required reading lists throughout school. When my daughter was assigned a book review of a chapter book in second grade, she had already read Little House in the Big Woods at least twice- on audiobook in the car and with me before bedtime. The book review was very easy for her for this reason. I imagine other opportunities like this one will appear throughout her education.

There is a version of this book that is for language learners younger than second grade. It is a series of picture books that take vignettes from the early Little House stories (mostly the Big Woods) and adapt them into simple picture books. For my younger daughter, these stories are captivating- she loves the color pictures and the little girls. She has mimicked Laura’s curlers in her hair (from a vivid color picture) and created her own paper dolls like the ones that Mary and Laura played with. I bought her the paper doll collection of Little House (sold on amazon) and it has created hours of entertainment for her.

The Little House on the Prairie series is worthwhile on several levels. The most simple is reading level. At an early age, kids listen to it read out loud. When I put the audio CD in the car while driving, both girls would remain in the car long after I had returned home. They found they were more drawn in by the frontier tales than they thought they would be. (They would never listen to it if not strapped in their car seats.) Like all historical fiction, The Little House books use language from the historical period as well as technology relevant to the story. In Little Town on the Prairie, book seven in the series, Pa jokes, “By jingo, that plow can handle the work by itself (9).” This quotation illustrates at least two significant components of historical fiction. The slang “by jingo” is period specific- nobody says that. The second is discussion about the plow. Today Pa’s joke is reality- the handler just drives the vehicle. Back then, plowing was physical labor- and hard labor. “Pa had a new plow, a breaking plow. It was wonderful for breaking the prairie sod. It had a sharp-edged wheel, called a roller coulter that ran rolling and cutting through the sod ahead of the plowshare....Now after a whole day’s work, Sam and David gaily lay down and rolled , and pricked their ears and looked about the prairie before they fell to cropping grass. They were not being worn down, sad and gaunt, by breaking sod that spring.  And at supper Pa was not too tired to joke (9).”

In the Little House picture book “Sugar Snow” their Grandpa is making maple syrup/sugar from scratch. The process of sapping a tree is illustrated with a color picture (see below). Perhaps there are rural people who sap their trees today but I have never seen it before- and my family owns a rural farm. This is a wonderful example of showing children how there was a time before Ralphs and Whole Foods.  In learning how items were made from scratch the kids are exposed to a different way of gathering supplies- and a background on what happens to their food/household items before they reach the modern grocery store.

Another reason to read historical fiction is to understand the socioeconomic and historical events going on during a particular period, during a particular time. I will elaborate on this in my next post about Anne of Green Gables.

Future of this blog

 Here are some books I hope to cover on this blog in the coming months:

Older Classics:

Anne of Green Gables

Emily of New Moon

Charlotte’s Web

Island of the Blue Dolphins

All of the Road Dahl books: The Minpins, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, George’s Marvelous Medicine, The Giraffe and the Polly and Me, Esio Trot, The Twits and more

Little House on the Prairie and the rest of the books in the series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Modern Hits:

The Princess in Black

Princess Pulverizer

Amelia Bedelia (the chapter books by Herman Parish)

Diary of A Wimpy Kid series

Whatever After (the series)

Three Keys (sequel to Front Desk reviewed on this blog)

Front Desk by Kelly Yang

 

Mia Tang sits at the front desk of her family’s motel and checks in guests as they arrive.

This book was introduced by my daughter’s fourth grade teacher earlier this school year. My daughter asked for it for Christmas and it was gifted to her by my mom, along with the sequel called “Three Keys.” I read it out loud (for the second time for her) before bed to my older daughter. Themes that caught the attention of my nine year old are emphasized throughout this story: 1. Struggle to fit into the world- this little girl’s struggle (Mia) is compounded by her status as an immigrant, her fluency (or lack thereof) of English and her family’s financial struggles as managers (but not owners) of a small motel near Disneyland. 2. Bullying: This is a huge problem in all schools and with all ages of kids right now. In this book Mia is actively bullied by a boy at school who happens to be the son of the owner of Mia’s motel. 3. The American dream: Mia is actively trying to get her family off of the “bad rollercoaster” as she calls it and onto the “good rollercoaster.” At age ten she understands the concept of socioeconomic status- and she can see that her family’s position as managers of a motel will never allow them to progress into any kind of status within American culture.

My daughter loved this book. We live in Southern California in an upscale neighborhood with mostly white, educated families. While her dad (my husband) is an immigrant himself, his situation is different- he is highly educated and works in a professional job with other high tech professionals. He came on a work visa because his education is relevant to our high tech industrial culture. We are largely sheltered from the reality of coming to American with no prospects for making a living, no income and no family support. But, the reality of her dad’s family situation is that most of his close family live very far away or overseas and the emotional/moral support we receive is from afar. I am sure this is the case for many families here in Southern California as we have many people come from Mexico and Asia among other places. We are a culture of immigrants. 

Mia is barred by the manager of her hotel from using the pool. When the laundry machine breaks, the owner makes them pay for a new machine themselves. Mia must make snap judgments about potential clients of the motel as they walk up to her front desk. Because managing the motel is so much work, it is the ten-year-old daughter who does the check-in process. And letting just one bad person through their security layer could mean huge headaches later for everyone. (As happens when they let a drunk man into their office.) As other immigrant relatives arrive from China, they hide them in a room of the motel reserved for this purpose- and almost get caught by the manager. Intermittently, Mia has spats with the owner’s son who is in her class at school. Her saving grace is her friend Lupe and her interest in learning English and writing. Her goal is to write an essay that will allow her family to buy the motel from its current owner, Mr. Yao. 

While Mia’s essay does not win the essay competition, she finds she is able to raise 300,000$ (or the cost of the motel) from investors- first her immediate family and friends in the vicinity (including the regulars at the motel).  Next, she sends it to the other entrants in the essay contest- those people who wanted to win their own motel but were not chosen. From this pool of people she raises all of the money- with a small complication of having Mr. Yao raise the price of the motel when he learns they have collected the entire amount. Very briefly tempted by the risky loans of the loan sharks, the family is rescued by Mr. Yao’s son Jason (previously the bully) who reveals the secret that Mr. Yao needs to sell the motel immediately- and cannot afford to wait to find a wealthier buyer. 

This book describes reality for many many immigrant families in Southern California. The interlocking of Hispanic, Asian, black and white cultures. The intersection of people living and working in the tight quarters of a motel and the challenges and rewards that those relationships bring. 

I recommend this book for parents to buy/borrow for their fourth grader. It could be read by older kids as well. The age range is probably 8-12.

Starting a Life-Long Love of Reading

 A person might ask this question: How can I, at the current ages of my children right now, instill in them a love of reading. Where do I start finding books they will want to read? What if they don’t have any interest in books whatsoever? Is there a way to combat this problem? Let me start by telling you what worked for us.

When my girls were just babies I played CDs in the car. At some point, someone gave me one of the Jim Weiss short stories on CD and we listened to that while driving around doing simple errands and such. Two things happened simultaneously to introduce us to full-blown audiobooks in the car: The first was that someone gifted us with the radio play of Lion, Witch and Wardrobe- which is very well done with sound effects and the right amount of modification from the original chapter book.  The other was that I browsed the used/for sale book section at our local library. 

As I drove around in my car- my kids (strapped into car seats so they couldn’t get out and change the CD) listened to the radio play of Lion, Witch and Wardrobe by CS Lewis called affectionately, “Narnia” in my household. My then 3-year-old found the movie storybook of Narnia stored away in her closet- I had purchased it at the used/for sale library sale  (for about 1$) with a stack of other books (for the future I thought) and put it in her closet for when both girls were older. It was the 3-year-old who loved the vivid pictures in the movie storybook version of Narnia. That, together with the radio play, instilled in them a love of audiobooks. Narnia was our first and accidental love affair with children’s literature. 

It may not be that way for you- but its never too late to pop in a CD of an audiobook in the car while your child just happens to be riding with you.  Pick one you think they might like- boys might like “Lord of the Rings” while girls might appreciate something more like a fairytale. You never know what might stick in their minds and inspire them to pursue reading on their own. 

If you have access to a library, check to see if they sell books donated by the community. Our library has a foundation to collect used books to raise money. When the girls were too young to look for themselves, I selected a wide variety of picture books and purchased them for about 50 cents each. This was a great way to have a variety of books on hand- and test out which were their favorites. I no longer buy these books because I know exactly what type of book each one likes. They each have vast libraries of books in their rooms and I know which ones they gravitate toward. Sometimes it changes and something collecting dust on their shelf becomes a new favorite- but in general, certain books are read and certain books just sit on the shelf.

My goal in this blog is to talk about different books I have picked out and books they have found themselves. During the pandemic we are doing online school which limits their access to hard copy books. The library is also closed for people to browse the used/for sale books. This has inspired me to pay 8$/month for a subscription to a service online called “Epic.” This online library is like an amazon for children’s books- it tracks what they read and what they like. Through this service, my older daughter discovered “Whatever After” by Sarah Mlynowski. In these chapter books, the author takes a classic fairy tale and turns it into a story for older kids. The children in the story effectively “mess up” the classic fairy tale and the ending is different from the expected. These are especially popular for both my girls right now because they are in audiobook format and they listen in the bath tub, while playing with other toys like legos and dolls and include old familiar stories we’ve read as bedtime stories since they were born. 

Children’s Literature Is Travel for Kids- An instant trip to wherever they want to go

 

The book that inspired this blog

A friend and I recently reconnected during the pandemic through an organization we both joined in college. This group was meeting over Zoom very informally- many of us haven’t been in touch in decades. This connection spurred a discussion over her Covid project- reading the complete works of William Shakespeare. I encouraged her to start a blog with her own summaries, historical connections and general observations/comments and she said, “That is a great idea- and you should blog about all the children’s literature you read.” 

There you have it- a secondary connection breakthrough. Someone in my outer circle recommending something to me that I am actually doing. And this is but one example of the importance of a secondary network- the guy who runs on the treadmill next to you, the girlfriend you haven’t seen from college in two decades, the person who happens to bump into you at the grocery store every time you go. These people are part of our networks- and we don’t have them in our lives (in general) during covid. 

One unexpected perk of the pandemic is that she and I reconnected. The group of women from college is highly professional and very dedicated to family and extracurricular activities, not to mention our day jobs. Therefore, only a crisis like Covid would allow many of us to be available for regular zoom socials. 

And so it comes to be that I am blogging about what I am reading, what my 7 and 9-year old daughters are reading. And- what we are reading together.  I firmly believe that with the right approach and effort, any family can develop a love of reading. It is a journey. It is about knowing how and when to select books, where to find these books, and having the right book available for the right moment.