Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters by Leslie M.M. Blume

Loved the title when I first saw it and the adorable French Bulldog on the cover. Was very curious to learn what a youthful Oxford and Cambridge-educated author had written.

I pretty much flew through this book. Cornelia is actually not a dog, contrary to what the cover of the hardback might make you think. But she is a winsome young character who lives in the sophisticated world of concert pianists in Manhattan, which is interesting enough. Leslie M.M. Blume, the author, adds something, though. And what she adds really makes the book....

Now, here is where I start to worry about the many articles, blogs, books, etc that I read. Somewhere sometime somebody in the very recent past compared some piece of literature (or some story or something else) to the magical residence of Sarah Crewe's next-door neighbor in A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. (You see how hazy my memory is?) And I'm not sure if it was this book, Cornelia, that that person was comparing Princess to or not.

Regardless, let me appropriate the comparison and use it here. Basically, Cornelia finds a "world" next door to the swanky apartment she shares with her pianist mother. It's an even swankier, and considerably more exotic (there are palm trees growing out of the floor), apartment occupied by an elderly writer. The woman's tales and incredible apartment have a huge effect on Cornelia's life.

While it's not exactly a novel idea for a child character to undergo a metamorphosis after meeting a wise older person, Blume's tale joins in strong form the roster of these kinds of stories. The descriptions of the apartment are vivid. The old lady's stories are engaging. The characters and images are drawn such that many can be seen particularly well with the mind's eye.

If I, an adult, had this reaction to Cornelia, I can imagine that a child reading this book would be as absorbed in it as the title character is entranced by neighboring apartment with palm trees growing out of the floor.

Blogger is frustrating!

Just a note to say that I try to maintain a sane amount of spacing between paragraphs, but Blogger is not cooperating. So I apologize for posts with miles of white space between graphs and, especially for those in which the graphs run on and on, one on the heels of another. Irritating....

Another old-fogey rant

Remember the Katie John books? And The Phantom Palomino? What about Mystery Aboard the Ocean Princess? And By Secret Railway?

I can see you shaking your head. And I'm not surprised that you don't remember. These were great kids' books; as that animated tiger used to say (the one that used to advertise cereal at just about the time I read these books), "They're g-r-r-r-eat!!!"

These examples of kids' lit have gone the way of that marketing campaign: oblivion. Not to sound like some aged teeny-bopper who's become sour and resentful in later life but there are some perfectly good books that ought to be shared with our youngsters along with today's servings of literature. Dare I say, better books, in some cases?

These are lost books that no one except former child bookworms fondly recall. I was in the bookstore today and heard a disheartening exchange between a girl of about eleven or twelve and her father.

Girl: (Shows a book to her dad.)

Father: Hmmm. (In dismissive voice) "That looks like a book your mother would have read as a child."

Father and daughter thus place said book back on the shelf and continuing searching.

The books was a Bobbsey Twins mystery.

I should have had a lovely sitcom moment at the time and done something one of the many bold, mouthy characters of television would have done. I should have pivoted to face that man, cocked my head critically and said something sassy like, "Was that meant to actually be helpful or do you just work undercover for Cecily von Ziegesar?" I didn't.

I mean, what's he trying to do? He didn't look like someone who would, because he wanted desperately to be thought hip by his pre-teen daughter, diss retro kid lit. I think he was serious. But with what motive? Is he worried that his daughter will grow up thinking she has to be prim and proper and vacuum while wearing pearl necklaces while her husband is out earning money? I just don't think she's likely to become June Cleaver just 'cause she read an old book.

I found two books from the Katie John series at the store today. Unbelievable. They were in the bargain books section where I (and Pop and the little girl with good taste) were browsing. How the store's buyers found an unused edition of Depend on Katie John copyrighted in the 1970s, I don't know. It's presence in that store is not a ray of hope as much as a reminder that these retro kids books are dying, if not already dead.

And, really, it's no wonder. It's the way of the world, isn't it? Youth tends to inherit its spoils prematurely. What fifty-year old executive isn't looking behind his back to make sure Junior doesn't take his place? Is it really any different for things as likely to be dated as books?

Still, and you knew there had to be a 'still,' there are many children today who'd enjoy these older books. Maybe it would be for their old-fashioned qualities or their wholesomeness. Maybe it would be for today's kids, as it was for me, because of the charmingly outdated terminology used. (Remember when Nancy Drew used to "don frocks" instead of putting on dresses?)

Kids aren't, after all, frozen in their own time. They aren't focus groups. They're individuals. And today's old-fashioned adults were once yesterday's old-fashioned kids often mistaken by elders as only interested in the whatever fads were contemporary to that era. Not every one of today's kids wants to read the A-List books; some are quite yearning for the Green Gables series. Some prefer the romance of Jean and Johnnie to that of Twilight. And more might, but they're not being given the opportunity to discover it because publishing executives are ramming what they see as most profitable down the small throats of children.

Miss California isn't the only looker on the block

Well, is it pageant season or what? I'm not sure there even is such a thing. Certainly pageants have been in the news with the big Miss CA controversy that never dies.

The allure of pageants died for me long ago. And this blog is about books, not looks. Still, I spied a picture of Charlotte Bronte today and thought to myself, What a looker! So, I thought I'd open the topic of literary lookers. Reader, I'm asking your opinion: Which writer was to-die-for great looking in addition to talented with pen or quill.

My nominations go to the aforementioned Charlotte Bronte and to a gentleman who's not my favorite author, but whom I always thought of as quite something in the beauty department: Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Who's caught your eye?

A happy find in the children's non-fiction section....

Hot on the heels of reviewing Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls, Moving Day, I had to read a Meg Cabot bio. And, since the only biography that seems to have been written is, understandably, geared toward children, it was that one I borrowed from the library. It's part of a series called, Who Wrote That? and the book is written by Camille-Yvette Welsch, an English teacher from Penn State, according to the back cover.

It's not so simplified that an adult would find it frustrating, but it does do what children's biographies tend to do: make the subject into a paragon of, if not virtue, then role model-hood. But that's fine. Kids need role models and Cabot seems a fine one. The book is colorful, with many sidebars under the subtitle Did you know... and photos. This 136-page book is recent, with a copyright of 2008, so you don't feel like your reading one of those ancient dusty bios the neighborhood librarians just can seem to take off the shelves, or afford to replace.

There are many other authors bios in the series, like Judy Blume, Beverley Cleary, E.B. White, L.M. Montgomery, C.S. Lewis, Charles Dickens and the list goes on for about two and a half columns of bold-faced type. It seems a happy thing to have happened upon this series, a good resource in research for kids and adults alike.

Library book sale treasures and no buyer's remorse!

The library book sale I went to today, in a neighboring town, was small with little selection, especially compared to the annual sale in my own town. But it was worth the lengthy and beautiful walk I had to make home. A lovely excursion on a Saturday morning: I knew I'd like poking around at old books, the older the better.

Well, there were precious few really old books. And I thought the library was overpricing its wares at $1 a paperback and $2 for a hardcover. It used to be that you could get a book for fifty cents and it felt like a steal (a great feeling) and you were more likely to load up on them. But, perhaps, I'm being a Scrooge. In any case, I purchased two books, one old, one ancient-looking. I was prepared to pay the $4 for the two of them, but right when I got to the counter, the gentleman who had been doing the transactions was relieved for a break by a woman. Lucky me. Because she felt the books I'd selected were so out of shape that she seems to have made an executive decision and let me have them for half off. Happy thing for me! I sometimes feel foolish after I buy used books, deciding I don't want them after all and giving them away. I hate that wasted money feeling.

I am quite sure, quite sure, that there is no monetary value to the books I purchased. Their value is entirely personal. One is is Louisa May Alcott from 1908 with some pretty frontispieces which I plan to make part of a LMA collection as Alcott things seem to turn up a lot of places; I already have two others.

Thrifty book buyer that I have become, I thought hard and relatively long about whether I wanted these two. I couldn't let the Alcott go; I anticipated relative disappointment then. But, I realized as I pretended to browse the other books on the tables while I deliberated, if I'd found that the other book had gone missing there would have been near-visceral disappointment. What is this mystery book?

I have to laugh and say it's really nothing special. IT terribly tattered, missing its back cover, looks like it fell in someone's bathtub a hundred years ago. It's like something pulled out of a traveler's trunk that's been rescued from a long-ago sunken sea-faring vehicle.

But that's why I love it. It's as old as it looks. The copyright is 1859 with no later years listed. The first page is blank save for the inscription its owner made, presumably many years ago. The book appears to have been a text entitled A Greek Reader by Anthon and Jacobs. Its owner was Chas. L. Babson who wrote his school name below his, East Corinth Academy. Below that a Latin inscription and its English translation - Labor Omnia Vincit - Labour (British spelling) Conquers All Things.

So, was he studious, this Charles L. Babson. Did he place the Latin quote in his Greek text to motivate himself? And where was East Corinth Academy? And could I find out anything more about him in the wired world of today?

In times like these, Google is a friend, indeed. So, I found out that East Corinth Academy was located in East Corinth, Maine. Also, a Chas. L. Babson (that same spelling) was a town selectman in Brooklin, Maine circa 1864. I fancy he was in high school when he used the book and five years later, finished with school, became an involved member of the community. Of course, this brings up more questions. Can I find out more about him? Did he harbor grand ambitions as a antebellum young man? Had he dreamed of having Lincoln's job before Lincoln himself had it?

The search will, when I'm bored and want to putter around the internet, continue. Would Chas. L. Babson ever have guessed that one hundred and fifty years after inscribing that book, his signature and text would be on display for anyone to see who happened upon a place called GBBS?

Artsy-craftsy idea for people with clothes they don't want and books they do in fifteen easy steps

Step 1: Take inspiration from CS Lewis and decide to create magic wardrobe.

Step 2: Resolve to call your armoire a 'wardrobe.'

Step 2: Haul out the bell-bottoms, hot pants, pill-box hats, poodle skirts, Nehru jackets, tie-dye shirts, polyester pantsuits, coats bulging with shoulder pads, and other vintage items hanging in your armoire. Fish out that snood swimming at its bottom. Clear the whole place out and determine to wear bravely your old new-found period apparel in public or to give it away.

Step 3: Scour attic and basement and boxes beneath beds to find all your precious long-lost books.

Step 4: Spread said books out on the floor of the largest room in your house so it looks like you're re-tiling with a literary theme. Open windows and allow the poor books to breathe in the open air that wafts through. If it's winter, keep windows closed but at least let the Glade-scented inside air do its thing.


Step 5: While books are breathing, measure your wardrobe.

Step 6: Joyfully sashay to your local thrift store with the intention of making your wallet happy and the owners of the store, too, in this rotten economy. Buy stinky old bookcase.

Step 7: Rope a neighbor into hauling the bookcase home for you.

Step 8: Attack the bookcase with Clorox and sandpaper and staining supplies.

Step 9: Place your fabulous 'new' bookcase in your wardrobe.

Step 10: Load books onto the bookcase.

Step 11: See the happy books in their proper habitat.

Step 12: Close the wardrobe doors and decorate with pictures of Jane Austen, photos from various movie adaptations of novels, bookmarks, etc.

Step 13: Bask in that satisfied sense of having sheltered your babies from dust and mildew, provided a comfortable home for them with pretty aesthetics, and allowed new-found accessibility to loving readers.

Step 14: Visit occasionally and transport yourself to new worlds Lucy Pevensie-style via your new magic wardrobe.

Step 15: Buy more books!