In Praise of Tib

In some of her writing notes Maud Hart Lovelace discusses the way her friend Midge Gerlach - the inspiration for Tib - saw Maud and their other friend Bick Kenney (Tacy). "She appreciated us. She admires us. She realized how wonderful we were." And rereading BETSY TACY AND TIB, I appreciate anew how wonderful Tib is.

[Here are those notes from the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota.]

The reasons I love Tib are many - first of all, she is fearless. Even when she knows there will be consequences, she errs on the side of adventure. When the girls are considering mussing themselves up to go begging, Tib mentions that her mother won't like that. But Betsy realizes, "She meant that her mother wouldn't like her to muss up her dress. She didn't mean she wouldn't do it." [p.9] You do NOT want to play chicken with Tib Mueller, for you will surely lose.

It can take Tib awhile to catch on. When there is a street fair in town, Tib's mom takes them to see the Flying Lady. Mrs. Mueller is taking her sweet-ass time getting them into the tent for the show. The barker is freaking Betsy out with is talk of the show being about to start, but she knows she shouldn't nag. She mentions it once and then shortly thereafter when she can take it not one second longer, she nudges Tib to get her to nag her mom. But Tib is a little slow on the uptake - "What do you want, Betsy? What are you poking me for?" [p.31] But not to worry, Mrs. Mueller is no dummy and she lets them go into the tent where they wait another age and a half for what seems to be a really dull show. But it was the height of special effects for the time. 

My favorite bit of early Tib-ness is in the Learning to Fly chapter. After Tib risks life and limb to learn to fly and Betsy shirks at the end and tells a story designed to get her out of the tree without having to risk almost certain danger, Tib tells Betsy, "I know a joke on you." [p.27] And points out that Betsy got so caught up in her story that she never jumped from the tree. Oh, poor, slow Tib. But she finds it a hoot. Instead of owning it, Betsy looks to Tacy to change the subject, "but Tacy was looking the other way. She was looking the other way hard." This cracks me up every single time. 

Sometimes I feel a little sad for Tib that Betsy and Tacy clearly have this wordless shorthand from such a young age. But Tib seems happy just to be included. Of course, Tacy is understanding about the trip to Milwaukee in BETSY IN SPITE OF HERSELF. And in BETSY WAS A JUNIOR, when Tib moves back to Deep Valley, she and Betsy bond over their boy-crazy-ness in a way that may have made Tacy feel a bit put out. It makes me wonder if Tacy and Tib every got together without Betsy and what that must have been like. Of course, since we are reading from Betsy's perspective, we don't really know. I smell a fanfic opportunity!

Below is a letter that Midge wrote to Maud after having read BETSY TACY for the first time. It shows such Tib-like appreciation. I am heartbroken that I didn't seem to take a picture of page 3. Someday I will go back and look for it. But for now, let's just pretend it talks about the weather. 

I had every good intention of transcribing this, but I am too lazy right now. If you click on the thumbnail, it will open bigger in a window. The Joan who is mentioned is Tib's niece - daughter of Dorothy, Midge's younger sister who was not represented in the books.  (She is referred to as Dolly in Sharla Scannell Whalen's BETSY -TACY COMPANION.) . BETSY TACY AND TIB was dedicated to Midge and Joan.

And in the spirit of the season, I will also put up Midge's Christmas letter. It has to be post-1950 pre-1955 because she references EMILY OF DEEP VALLEY, but mentions the research for BETSY'S WEDDING.

There are some really interesting tidbits here - Midge mentions Maud's wedding, but isn't really clear on when it was so perhaps they weren't as close at that time. Also, the war... And when she talks about the series, she calls it Betsy Tacy & Tib, which I would too! She mentions the hideous Russell McCord (you may know him as Bob Barhydt) and her fear that Maud was going to marry him. There is a bit of heartbreak here when Midge says, "Maybe I should have married Gil and been bored stiff the rest of my life. At least my marriage was exciting and as I could never have any children, my life has been full of action & adventure & I've never been bored." Midge and her husband Charles [Jack Dunhill] separated in the early 1920s and he died in 1929. She never remarried.

To close, I just want to be clear that I am not the Barbara who Midge mentions Maud described as "unusual" in the post script.  But I am thrilled to see my name written in Midge's hand! And I echo her wishes for a Happy New Year to one and all.

Patricia Clapp Makes Me Love America

There are certain writers that I think I love because when I reread their books from my teen years they TAKE ME BACK! These are the books that I read, not so much because the writing is good (although I know for a fact that Marilyn Singer, Robin McKinley and Maud Hart Lovelace all hold up) but because the stories are so entrenched in my teen experience that I suspect I can't separate my inner 14 year old from the quality of the writing.

I am trying to reread the books of my youth with a modern eye. I can't wait to reread SUMMER OF MY GERMANSOLDIER. It seemed earth-changing to me as a young woman. They had Jewish people in the SOUTH?? During WWII? I thought they all lived with the All of a Kind Family on the Lower East Side. Or on the Upper West Side with the Norma Klein girls whose stories I used to have to hide under my bed! (I was seriously obsessed with New York and desperately wanted to be Jewish when I was in middle school. Someday I will tell the story about when we moved from Ohio to Long Island and I met my gym partner, Laura Greenberg. Most awkward-ly well-meaning-ly pro-semitic conversation ever.)

I have a bunch of one-offs I have loved for years. RONNIE AND ROSEY by Julie Angell, TUNE IN YESTERDAY by the gloriously named T. Ernesto Bethancourt and THE BOOK OF PHOEBE by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith.

Then there are the authors where I read some, but not all, of their books. I read and re-read the ones at my library, but didn't have access to all of them. There are the well-known classics of Beverly Cleary, Edward Eager and, I would argue, Ellen Conford. And then there's my beloved American history guide – Patricia Clapp.

First of all, did you know that CONSTANCE: A STORY OF EARLY PLYMOUTH was her first book and she wrote it when she was 56? And it was a runner-up for the National Book Award for Children's Books? What a great second, or third act for Mrs. Clapp! And how does she not have a wikipedia page? I find it hard to believe that the lovely girl from my town who came in third on American Idol has 3000+ words and yet the woman who gave the world page 70 of I'M DEBORAH SAMPSON has nary a mention.

To begin, CONSTANCE. In 1988 I interviewed to be an historical interpreter at Plimoth Plantation in

Plymouth, Mass. One of the bennies of going to interview is that I got a free day-pass to the site. I wandered around, it was beautiful. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to take the job – it would have meant a hour plus commute. But I had to go to Plimoth after having spent so many hours there with my pal Constance as a kid.

Imagine my joy when I MET Constance Hopkins Snow and told her I had read a book about her. She was very dismissive and said something like, “Many half-truths are told by people claiming to know me.” Which clearly showed she was a dud. I would have been like - “Let me tell you about the time the Edwards dueled nearly to the death for my love!”

I just reread CONSTANCE around Thanksgiving this year. I don't connect with Constance as a character, but I respect and admire her and other than some ham-handed Native American descriptions, it was till A-OK with me.

I AM DEBORAH SAMPSON – good Lord, this book was steamy. I mean, not the parts with the war, or the lonliness of colonial poverty, but the Deborah and Robbie love story was smokin'! The used copy I bought a few years ago flips right open to page 70 and it is an ex-libris book from the Sacramento Public Library, so clearly I was not the only historical horn-dog of the late 1970s...

Rereadng this last month I was surprised at how much better it was than I remembered it. I read it as an adolescent obsessed with the romance, but the details about colonial life were fascinating to me as an old bag. Deborah's life being taken in by an emotionally distant relative, her friendship with the local pastor, her eventual boarding with a loving family and her daring to defy gender roles to join the fight that took her beloved away were all beautifully rendered. I remain a huge fan.

I am in the midst of reading JANE-EMILY – a ghost story set in Lynn, Massachusetts, a mere two towns over from where I now reside. I liked it fine as a kid, but it was kind of an also-ran next to CONSTANCE and DEBORAH. Maybe because the main character is neither Jane nor Emily, but rather 18 year old Louisa, Jane's aunt. Louisa has had to leave her Edwardian-hipster boyfriend Martin to take her orphaned niece Jane to stay with Jane's grandmother Mrs. Canfield in her hella-haunted house in Lynn.

The ghostly presence is Emily – a spoiled brat who died of self-inflicted pneumonia when she was 12-ish. Emily sucks. Alive or dead, she is a treacherous little beastie – a melter of wax doll faces and a hogger of reflecting garden balls. She did the world a favor by expiring early, but she has a hold on Jane that is pretty creepy.

I am noticing the turn-of-the-20th-century details more this time around. I am currently on page 87 of my modern-day reread. So far, no hot humping on the farm a la DEBORAH, but there is a slightly mansplainy doctor who is taking an interest in Louisa who seems promising. I'll power through.

My love for Patricia Clapp remains constant. (Ha! Get it? Like Constance?) If you will excuse me, I think I will go try to make a wikipedia page for her.

TEX...rhymes with sex...

But not in a creepy way. Of course.

When TEX came out I was 13 - the same age as Jamie Collins! And I did have it bad for Tex. He was a bad boy, well, not bad but misunderstood. Okay, strike that too. I think we all understood him. He was a screw-up. I can't remember who I heard describe a kid once as "addicted to consequences" but it works here. Tex makes bad decision upon bad decision - and yet he is still appealing.

But first - blond Emilio Estavez?? What the heck??? Nope - book before movie. Except this picture - S.E. Hinton cuddling blond-Emilio. They both look cute as buttons here. But trust me when I say that I could barely watch the Johnny Collins parts of the movie because E.E.'s hair was so distracting. And I had other issues.

As a high school librarian, I hear stories. Kids, particularly kids who don't have dependable adults in their lives, will just drop shit into conversations that curl my graying hair.

• I got in a fist-fight with my aunt's boyfriend this weekend.
• Sorry I was late, I had to get up early to clean my mom's shunt.
• I had to drive to New Hampshire because there was no food at my dad's house so I had to visit my grandparents.

And these are regular events in these kids' lives!

As the mildly-helicoptored daughter of suburban professionals, when I read TEX as a kid - it seemed so unrealistic to me. What kind of father leaves his high school kids to live on their own with no money? For some reason THE OUTSIDERS was okay, there were a bunch of them and Darry seemed to have let his dreams die in order to take care of his brothers in a way that Mason just can't. But TEX was a little too depressing. I still loved him, but I knew I didn't stand a chance against Jamie. She was mean as a ruptured spleen and she was adorable and a feminist. A thirteen-year-old role model to be sure. I thought if I transferred my affection to Johnny, Tex's best friend and Johnny's little sister, I might have a better chance. (A better chance of what, you may ask, with a fictional character. What can I say, even in fiction, I tried to set my sights realistically.)

So there are a lot of things going wrong in Tex's life. Here is a spoiler-y list of his issues:

• He lives in Oklahoma. (Kidding! I love Oklahoma! But Hinton paints it beautifully bleak.)
• His mom is dead. (Don't go outside after a fight with your husband or you will DIE! Just sulk in the bedroom like a normal person.)
• His dad is off chasing rodeo dreams.
• His brother sells his horse so that they can eat.
• He keeps getting in trouble for doing stupid shit like gluing caps on the typewriter keys at school.
• His best friend's (and potential girlfriend's) dad thinks he is poor white trash and is a bad influence on his children.
• Part of him believes this.
• He picks up a psycho hitchhiker.
• He goes on a drug-run with an old school-mate.
• He gets shot. 
• He has a hard time navigating a pay phone. 
• He learns his dad was in prison when his mom got pregnant so who and where his biological dad actually is is a mystery.
• He has this continuing worry that his high-flyer big brother is going to go away to college and what will become of him?

In the movie version you can add:

• His house clearly smells of mildew 24/7.
• His best friend has very distracting blond hair. 

To sum up the book - dang! It is a heartbreaker with a tiny glimmer of hope at the end. He realizes that Mason is the sort of person who needs to go and he is the kind that needs to stay. But what is going to happen to him when Mason goes? Seriously, there is no safety net for this kid. Bleaky-ety-bleak-bleak.

The movie, for being pretty crappy, makes it seem more hopeful. There is a non-cannon sub-plot where Tex hides Mason's college application so he can't go and then fills it in himself and gets Mase into school. I have to say that Indiana State must be hard-up for basketball players if Tex's app can get him in. Or Mason is the greatest white-boy basketball player since Larry Bird. Whatever, suspend your disbelief, Barb. You've done it before.

For one thing, the kids in the movie look older. Matt Dillon was 18 when he made the movie - only three years older than his character. But blond-Emilio was 20, Mex Tilley was a cougar-y 22 and Jim Metzler, who played Mason, was 31. No wonder I felt like he would never let Tex slip through the cracks. He probably had a wife, a toddler and a 401K hidden in the barn.

The dad in the movie was also a bit more stable. The book dad was a complete screwup - if he knocked up Tex's mom (with Mason) right out of high school (which he surely must have) he would have been 37 or 38 in the book - and still with plenty of wild oats to sow. In the movie he was played by Bill McKinney (who played "Mountain Man" in Deliverance - cue banjo music) and he was 51. I guess it felt to me more like he was willing to settle down. 

Tim Hunter directed this and he was the guy that directed RIVER'S EDGE - a 1987 movie that left me very unsettled. Don't want to discuss it here - let's just say that it makes TEX look like FERRIS BUELLER. He went on to direct a lot of TV including episodes of three of my all time favorite series - MAD MEN, BREAKING BAD and HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREETS. 

Speaking of HOMICIDE:LotS - Zeljko Ivanek, who played stalwart DA Ed Danvers has a small part as the psycho hitchhiker in TEX! He doesn't look particularly dreamy in this picture, but he has a charming baby-face. I really like that actor, but if you google-image him, you are going to find a lot of not-very-attractive pictures, so maybe it is just seeing him young and long-haired that made me think "Helloooooo handsome psycho hitchhiker!" I would totally have a chance with the fictional psycho hitchhiker. You know, before he left me in a shallow grave on the side of the Oklahoma dirt road...

At any rate, as ever - what was appealing to me as a teenage reader of S.E. Hinton is rather terrifying to me as an adult reader. And I am going to have to give a bit of credit to the film version of TEX because seeing the setting made it feel a bit richer. I have written a little bit about THE OUTSIDERS but it is so familiar to me that I didn't get that "new eyes" feeling that I did with TEX. 

I have THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW on my to-be-read pile and I didn't even know there was a movie version. Hot dog! And I may even revisit RUMBLE FISH, although I have only read it once because I HATED it when I read it as a teen. No idea why... maybe because it wasn't THE OUTSIDERS. I could be unforgiving...

I am Curly by Maud Hart Lovelace

This summer I went to the University of Minnesota and looked at Maud's papers in the Kerlan Collection. 

There was so much, and I got to to the point where I just started taking pictures of everything so that I could read it later, with an eye towards doing something with it later. Not sure what that will be. Sometimes doing research (and weeping fangirl tears of joy) is reward enough.

One interesting thing I came across was this short story which is a precursor to the High School books.

I always wondered why the books were in the third person - Betsy is such a good friend, it sometimes feels to me as if they are in the first person because Betsy's inner life is so beautifully rendered. This story really struck home why Maud made this choice as a writer. In the first person Curly/Betsy/Maud seems...well...frankly...annoying.  There is just too much of her there.

I love the chatty tone for sixteen pages, but wow would that get tired over the course of even one book, much less 4 High School books or the whole megillah...

There are a LOT of parallels to the high school books. Curly is clearly Betsy - she bemoans the fact of her straight hair that - in the style of huge guys named Tiny the world over - is the basis for her nickname. She is disgusted that the great minds of the day have not yet invented the permanent wave. She has a horse called old Mag. But her little sister is named - wait for it - Pussy. And her older sister is Nannie. I truly didn't think it would be possible to make Julia more insufferable, but clearly, she improved with judicious editing. Mrs. Ray is called "Mom" here. Well, that is just wrong. But she is Mrs. Ray down to the waltz and two-step that make up her piano repertoire. Anna is still the hired girl and "Dad" (gross) makes the standwiches for "supper" on Sunday Nights.

The crowd still exists. Betsy's...erm...Curly's best friend is Bee. (Careful, Bee - your name is CURSED!) and she is Irish, hates boys and has red braids that used to be ringlets when she was younger.  Then there is Gretchen who has blond, fluffy hair, dances like a dream and can do housewifey things. Dot's father is a banker (probably a stick, youknowwhatI'msaying?) and they are Presbytarians, Peg is tall thin and full of the dickens and Erma has a figure not unlike that of Miss Anna Held who takes the milk baths. Geeze, these gals seem familiar...

So the story centers around Curly's first dance at Schubert Hall - hopefully followed by ice cream sundaes at Schmitz's candy store. It's bizarro Deep Valley. But first Bill.


Bill is a TomCabTonian fellow who seems dull as snot while also being overtly spooney and also a tease. He is a 1910 Lax-Bro with a heart of gold. He is not "cute" like Chauncy Olcott. Gross again.

This is Chauncy Olcott in 1908. He looks like Dame Edna.

So the story progresses, Naaaaaaaaaaaaaannie comes home from the U only three weeks in. She is homesick. Also, there is a dance in Deep Valley (Or whatever it is called in this story Bland Boise, perhaps?) and she wants to be the big fish once again. Yes, I am unjustly accusing, but wait - it gets seriously dramatic. Her popular girl problems are vast - the sororities are rushing her mercilessly and there are TWO FELLOWS in love with her!

There is a cute bit here where she says she wanted to come home to talk to Curly because Curly has such good sense. Curly thinks, "I have, too. Isn't that funny?, when I'm so romantic?" She also says, of Nannie's love tempest at college - "And I have to follow her at the U! Sometimes I get discouraged." Hee...

Turns out the boys are coming down for the podunk-hometown dance because of Nannie's charms. Nannie asks Curly to go to the dance with the boy she likes less because clearly she has no respect for her sister's ability to get a date.

But wait, says "Dad". Isn't Curly supposed to go with Bill? But Curly blows off Bill and he doesn't even seem to care. A free sundae at Hei-Schmitz's to the person who can correctly guess who Bill is going to take to the dance! Turns out Erma has just as much luck as Irma with boys ditching her last minute because of life-threatening illness.

So the college MEN show up and according to Curly they have padded shoulders and the "killingest slang" but they only have eyes for Nannie. Especially Curly's date - the aptly named Phil Downer. I don't know who Maud knew in real life named Phil, but I bet he was as shallow as a puddle in the desert.

Even with the lousy company, Curly is thrilled to be with a U man. And Gretchen - who she calls her partner in crime - plays it up to the crowd girls, which gives Curly a big charge. I love that Maud is always realistic about how Betsy or Curly - or whoever she is channeling her own character into - loves the feeling of being popular. It feels cool to be perceived as cool. Even in the Bull Moose era.

They go to the dance. More weirdness. The local hack is driven by Buzz Hickey, Mr. Thumbler not existing yet. All Curly's dances are taken because, well, it makes for a good story. At one point she dances with the boy Nannie likes, Ted, and he tells Curly her head smells like a drug store. Which is a hoot because she mentions that she just douses herself with perfume. But he also says she's a great dancer and invites her up to the U for some frat parties. Seems like Ted is a bit of a player.

But the good feeling doesn't last as Phil the Downer punches Ted and storms off. Nannie has to sneak Ted to Dr. Willard's (Hey, where have I heard that name before?) and Curly is charged with getting the girls' wraps and scarves and slipper bags out of the dance and slinking away in shame.

But wait! As she leaves the hall, who should be on the stairs but Bill! He has noticed that Curly had all her dances taken and he offers to go to the doctor's, grab Nannie and her dirty dog, Ted and then go for Merry Widow Sundaes! Turns out he was doing a favor for football star "Hank" who couldn't dance with Erma, but was still down to walk her home and try to get a little milk-bath action. (Okay, sorry, that sounded horrible.)

And so that is how it wraps up. They eat sundaes and act nuts. And Bill threatens Curly with a curling iron he brought to the dance as a gag. Oh how they laughed! And on the way home he tells her that he likes her hair straight. Which to Maud Hart Lovelace is the greatest compliment any human can give another.

Yes, it is slightly adorable, but it's no Betsy Tacy high school story. If you would like to read the whole thing, you can find it here.  I don't think it is copyright protected, but it is property of the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota. The glorious, glorious Kerlan Collection.

Like Sands Through the Hourglass...

Illustration by Lois Lenski, annotation by MHL, designed by Julia Nephew.

First of all, Betsy Tacy friends are everywhere. I was looking for the image above and found a WordPress site with a slick bibliographic rundown of BT and then started poking around the site and found that it was created by Julia Nephew who I have heard speak at conventions and who is an all around lovely person.  The bibliograpic info is here and there are some great links up top too!

Now if you haven't read Betsy Tacy, this is not going to make sense. So go read it. Just the first one... Although, really, you might just want to devote the next few days to reading the whole series. Or 40 years of your life to obsessively reading it. Whatever your comfort zone is.

There is a group re-read on the Facebook as I type this and it is fascinating. I like the conversational tone of it. I have done group reads of the BT books before, but it has been on the list-serv where people write in long form and then others reply, or we have a series of questions that sometimes go off into "What in your life was inspired by this plot point or character?" kind of discussions which are interesting in other ways. Both methods have their selling points.

I am in the process of typing out the longhand notes I took whilst doing a very close read of BETSY WAS A JUNIOR last winter and it is a slog. First of all, what kind of human being can't read her own handwriting?? The Ohio Public Schools failed me with regard to penmanship. Thank goodness that the computer revolution has killed handwriting. I would hate to have to take the rap for that crime alone, but a case could be made. Secondly, I get into some weird shit. I am not sure if I am doing the world a favor of a disservice in opening up the workings of my brain.

So I am going to consider this a test run. I will look at the way that sand runs through the book - like, well, sand through the hourglass! Ha! If this were a drinking game, take a shot when I reference the title of the blog post. Hey, it can only help...

So...sand...

One of the the things I love about BT is that is shows how self-entertaining these girls are. They make their own fun. The storytelling, the piano box, the dressing up and going calling - all these things show a kind of imagination that has been, for many kids,  squelched by the constant stream of available entertainment.

As a kid, I could see my mother's internal struggle - does she tell me to put down the book and go play or just bask in the glow that she gave me a hunger for reading that precluded physical activity and just allow me to turn into a novel eating larvae that rarely got off the couch? (Spoiler - she chose door number two!) How much harder is if to fight against 4,000 channels of TV, YouTube and video games?

But I digress. (Get used to it.)

After Easter egg dying, Betsy saved the dye because possibly she was a tiny hoarder but you never know when you are going to need it. And since there was sand available due to a new building project (more on that later) she and Tacy decided to color it and sell it.

Part of Maud's gift is showing how these girls mature. When they dye the eggs, Katie and Julia are in charge. They "put on big aprons and acted important, but not too important. They let Betsy and Tacy help, coloring the eggs." (p.57) Oh, you just know that B & T LOVED being "let" to help. They were having fun, but their eternal resentment of their sisters' bossiness was still a tiny flame burning in their hearts, I am sure.

Payback is a bitch, as we all know and later on when Julie and Katie come down from their big business on the Big Hill to see the magnificence of the sand they say, "Well, for goodness' sake!" which is practically admitting that Betsy and Tacy are the coolest kids in Deep Valley. They had it coming...  Julie and Katie offer to help put it into bottles after dinner. Who are the boss-ladies now, big sisters?

[Yes, I have an older sister. Yes, she was perfect. Yes, Maud perfectly hit the tone of love/resentment/idealization that is ever so familiar to all of us who are middle children - over and over again!]

SO now they are going to sell their art. But who is their demographic? Well, from the illustration on page 71 it is clear that Mrs. Benson is clearly their market. Her house is as busy as a Oriental Trading Company catalog. This woman is LONGING for more crap to buy. And also, she is the best.

Mrs. Benson doesn't appear to have kids. Or if she does, they are grown and gone. But she knows just how to interact with little girls. Later on, when Betsy and Tacy dress up and go calling she is just brilliant in the way that she never breaks character. She treats them like the grown women that they are pretending to be and it is just perfect.

They make a butt-ton of money selling some of the sand to Mrs. B. It is at least 9 or 10 cents. These riches lead to their near-purchase of the chocolate colored house and the eventual friendship with Tib.

The sand is available because of the new build on the house - for Robert Ray Junior - aka Margaret.This is foreshadowing which I can't believe I never noticed before. Good grief... So many new relationships. And the end of others. (RIP Baby Bee, I can't even with the bird flying to heaven.)

The most important new person is Tib. When B&T call on Mrs. Benson, they also drop off TWO of Mrs. Ray's calling cards at the chocolate colored house. Because they have no idea that they are making Mamma look like a stalker. But on the bright side, Mrs. Mueller "returns" the call and that is how they meet Tib. They are nervous about this kid. Julia and Katie love her when they meet her, but she sounds like kind of a prig. They go to see her, though. And she can stand on her head. Nailed it, Tib!

One final thing, in the chapter where they take a magic milk cart for a ride, I was trying to think of the way that "Deep Valley" is laid out and I was thinking - "Wait - this isn't how the town is laid out! I can't believe that she is describing a turn from Front Street to Broad Street - they run parallel!!" And then I remembered - when you are a kid, you don't know how streets are laid out, unless they are right in your neighborhood. Betsy has no idea how streets downtown are laid out at this point in her life. Nailed it, Maud!

MEN, MEN, MEN, WE'RE MANLY MEN...

FARMER BOY by Laura Ingalls Wilder illustrated by Garth Williams (1933) and EDDIE AND HIS BIG DEALS WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRARED BY CAROLYN HAYWOOD (1955)

There is a lot to unpack here with gender roles. I will focus more an Almanzo Wilder, marginally fictional person, at a later date after I revisit him in the other Wilder books. But as for what it means to be a boy, a farmer boy, if you will, you've come to the right place. And Eddie's journey of discovery from girls being “poison” to accepting them as fellow humans also has some things to say.

First up – FARMER BOY. Okay, y'all know who Laura Ingalls Wilder is, unless you live under a rock or have never picked up a book. And what the heck are you doing reading this, if that is the case? She is famous, look her up. I rarely look at illustrations, but I can pick Garth Williams out of a line-up. My favorite story regarding him is that, on the back of the Harper Collins versions of the LITTLE HOUSE books, it says that when he was hired to put in new illustrations, he “followed the travels of the Ingalls Family across the midwest” (or something like that). My pal Hillary (a reputable academic librarian) said that when she was a little girl, she thought that meant that when the Ingallses were crossing the prairie, Mr. Williams followed them and observed them “from a respectful distance.” It make me hoot every time I think about it.

So the book is full of the charms of hard work and farming and being self sufficient. Father is a tough hard-working man who has made quite a success of his farm and is passing along his knowledge to his kids. Because Royal, Almanzo's big brother, is now at the academy (it took me awhile to realize this was boarding school), the focus is on Almanzo's education. Not his schooling – he hates that shit – but on the work of the farm. And that kid works HARD! He does all these things:

• pitches hay
• milks cows
• breaks calves
• makes shingles
• pumps water
• cuts ice
• sorts potatoes
• cleans the cellar
• sows seeds

and this is not even halfway through the book!

At one point he is hauling logs and has to get his calves out of a ditch, is nearly knocked unconscious by a falling log and works hurt for a whole week, just shaking it off. He also doesn't speak at meals unless spoken to. (Seriously, in the last chapter there is a part where his father asks him a question during a meal and it is as suspenseful as any Stephen King thriller!) He eats like he is going to the chair throughout the whole thing.

There is a lot here about how his father trains him to be self-sufficient and make his own choices and the big question at the end is if he will take a position as an apprentice buggy-maker in town which will lead to a life of wealth, or if he will decide to stay a farmer like his Father. And it reads like a moral decision. Should he take a cushy life where he depends on others' desire for buggies, or work the land like a real man? (Not even considering that buggy-making is hard work as well.) I bet you can guess which way he goes!

There is a good bit about “girls' work vs. boys' work” but the inclusion of sister Alice, who likes boys' work just fine as a rule, is a nice touch. She is Laura-like in her desire to have the best of both worlds. It seems to me that Almanzo learned to appreciate a bit of spunkiness in his womenfolk that led to his choice of a future wife.

Eddie, on the other hand, has been trained to loathe girls. He has three older brothers with the super-butch names of Rudy, Joe and Frank. When a new kid, Sidney, moves in next door, Eddie is ecstatic! Sid has a wound on his head, collects stuff and has a bunch of animals. They are going to be BESTIES!!

Then Eddie finds out that Sidney is a girl and his world crumbles. What kind of horrible joke is the universe playing on him?? Girls suck!

I can't entirely blame Eddie for his shitty attitude. At one point, when Sidney comes over, he hides in the closet (paging Dr. Freud) and his dad helps him get away with it, saying, “She should be ashamed of herself...If she could be a make-believe boy yesterday, why can't we have a make-believe boa constrictor today?” (There was a snake involved in the story.) He also feeds Eddie pancakes when he is hiding from Sidney under the breakfast table. If you are keeping score at home, Eddie also hides under the bed. Eddie clearly has issues facing up to his fears.

A bunch of stuff happens, there is another girl involved who snatches a printing press that Eddie desperately wants out of his clutches. He has to procure a wig and a doll to make a trade for what he really wants, there is a rogue peacock. Eventually he comes to grips with the fact that girls are not, in fact, poison. And he even discovers that you can be friends with him.

I predict a lot of relationship issues in Eddie's future. And maybe a nice golden retriever and a summer house in Provincetown for Sidney. Maybe some consciousness-raising for Anna Patricia in about 25 years. But I think they'll be okay.

The illustration are absolutely delightful. My favorite one is where Eddie has to read out loud in class and he has lost his place. It is a simple drawing, but you can see his frustration level with just a few details. Haywood is really gifted at bringing an emotional bite to her work. And her writing is clear and accessible.

It's hard to say how today's kids would respond to these books. They are both loaded with gender stereotypes, but in FARMER BOY they are clearly historically-based. In EDDIE, they are presented as contemporary (which they are clearly not) in a way that might be confusing for kids and certainly off-putting for parents with any sort of social conscience. I honestly don't know if there is as much gender separation in today's elementary schools. I know in good old liberal New England, we don't allow that nonsense, but perhaps not everywhere. Even 40 years ago I took cooking and wood-shop in middle school and still remained the picture of femininity that I am today. And people on the internet are quick to call out stereotyping of all kinds. This is a cute story about a kid with real interests and passions and for a discerning reader who recognizes that it is a work of its time, it could be enjoyable.

SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE A MOTHERLESS CHILD...

JOURNEY TO AN 800 NUMBER by E. L. Konigsburg [1982]

MARY'S STAR by Wilma Pitchford Hays [1968]

E.L. Konigsburg has been in the news recently. Her most famous work FROM THE MIXED UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E FRANKWEILER just had maybe it's 40^th anniversary and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (where it is mostly set) was featuring it. That book is freaking brilliant. As a kid I was also obsessed with JENNIFER, HECATE, MACBETH, WILLIAM MCKINLY AND ME, ELIZABETH which I recently tried to reread and found too stressful. This woman can choose titles, that is for sure!

JTA800N surprised me with it's weirdness and appeal. Once again, there is a kid who I would want to slap about the head and neck if he were real, and yet, his curiosity and obstinance are strangely appealing on the page. Basically, Max's mom is getting married to a rich guy who can keep her (and Max) in the style to which she is very interested in becoming accustomed. So Max is to spend the summer with his father who is a camel keeper.

The camel, Ahmad, is kind of the MacGuffin of the story. Woody, Max's dad, travels around bringing Ahmad to events like the state fair, a convention of travel agents and eventually a Vegas show featuring Max's mom's friend from her hippie days, Trina Rose - who I can't help picturing as Cass Elliot.

Max meets Sabrina, a fascinating girl about his age, and her mother Lilly, a chameleon whose job leads to the meaning of the title. Sabrina collects stories about freaks and Lilly, well, it is too good a twist – I am going to recommend you read this weird little book.

There is a bit of a language problem – the word “retarded” is used pejoratively and there is even a pretty crude joke about Downs Syndrome – both by Max. But in the context of him being kind of an asshole, a bright kid is not going to think, “Hey, despite what is told to me by every decent person, I guess it IS okay to talk like this!”

The secondary characters, hell, ALL the characters are kind of fascinating. The world is bizarre but realistic and I love Trina Rose so much, I want to be her. I was continually taken by surprise throughout as Max learns about the rich lives of people to whom he feels a bit superior and about his own origins. The title seems a stretch and the cover art is just horrible, but the book was a pleasure to read from cover.

MARY'S STAR is pretty conventional historical fiction from the 60s. There is a girl, a distant older brother, an orphaning (is that what you call it when you become an orphan?), some nice neighbors, a horrible nouveau riche landowner, a scrawny yet appealing apprentice, some happy negro servants (wouldn't want to be unpleasant and call them slaves, or enslaved people), a Revolutionary War, and, of course, a horse.

Honestly, that pretty much sums it up. There is NOTHING happening in this book that you don't see coming a mile and a half away. Ooh, Mary wears pants sometimes. Because she is a bit of a tomboy. But don't worry! At the end she realizes that being a girl is okay because if you look pretty, people will do things for you. And check out the sequal MARY'S STARLIGHT LOUNGE where she finds out that that can lead to an orphan girl working the pole. Okay, that is a lie. But it saddened me that in an otherwise slightly dull tale of a girl with a bit of gumption, the denouement is basically she gussies herself up and things take care of themselves. Perhaps I'm jaded. Mary still talks of adventures and still rides astride, but it is 1781 and I know that it is going to be a good 200+ years before Mary would be allowed to be herself and just enjoy being who she is without worrying about conforming to gender roles.

COULD THESE BE THE MOST DEPRESSING PAIR OF CHILDRENS BOOKS I HAVE EVER READ?

ON THE BANKS OF PLUM CREEK by Laura Ingalls Wilder [1937]

STEPPING ON THE CRACKS by Mary Downing Hahn [1991]

So let's begin with Ms Hahn. She was 7 when WWII ended, making her my dad's age. Not tremendously old, so she may be alive and she may even read this someday! So I will say, right up front, I really liked this book. The setting was beautifully rendered and the main character was appealing without being perfect or cloying. The time period was lovingly set and I think this is a wonderful representation of the era. It is not the fault of any of those things that I felt I needed a handful of valium at the end of this book.

Wow, this book was depressing. And I kind of appreciate it now that I am finished (weeping). War is hell, and not just for poor Jimmy who dies in the Ardennes or Stu who is a pacifist and nearly dies in the woods rather than be sent overseas to kill in the name of America. Margaret is in sixth grade, I believe. She is kind of timid, the much younger sister of Jimmy. She is living as a wartime only child with her parents in College Park, Maryland. (Called College Hill in the book.) Her best friend Elizabeth is that kind of asshole best friend who makes bad decisions and makes you feel like the asshole for being reluctant to go along with it. Their nemesis is Gordy, the worst bully in their class who is (spoiler) acting out because of a spectacularly horrible home life.

The war in Europe and the Pacific is a constant backdrop to the war in College Hill agains Gordy and his hench-brats, Crabbe and Goyle, I mean Toad and Doug. Seriously, Toad. They spit on (or maybe near) the girls and call them Magpie and Lizard. (Come on, Toad, should you be throwing stones?) The brutes tear down Magpie and Lizards kick-ass tree house and steal the boards. Elizabeth decides to get even by invading their turf, the woods.

OH – the lure of the forbidden woods! My fifth grade friends and I used to go to the woods behind Spruce Elementary School with our Dad's filched cigarette butts to not inhale and talk about boys. It was glorious. I still remember that pit-of-the-stomach feeling the day my mom took my little sister biking and caught us. The horror.

Well, the woods in this book have a secret – Stuart, Gordy's older brother, the aforementioned young deserter. The boys have built him a shack where he can hide out and are sneaking food to him. Because he is kind and good. And he really is. Even Margaret loves him in spite of the fact that he is hiding from the violence that her brother faces every day.

When Stu becomes violently ill, they enlist the help of Barbara, a war widow who was married to a friend of Jimmy and Stu. She takes him to the hospital and nurses him back to health with the son her husband never knew attached to her hip. The romance that blossoms (off screen) between the pacifist and the widow is one of the few bright spots in the book.

Gordy's dad is a drunk abuser who nearly kills Stuart, who has risked his life to protect Gordy, his mother and his younger siblings from his violence. At the end of the story, Gordy's mom moves the kids away and they never see him again. And Jimmy is dead. And Margaret's dad can't deal with the loss. War is hell, indeed. But the book is a quiet indictment that proves it calmly and thoroughly.

WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH THIS COVER???

ON THE BANKS OF PLUM CREEK is similar in that a ton of really bad stuff happens, but I have never before realized how bad it got. Shall we recap?

• The Ingalls family has to sell their horses.
• Oxen are horrible and dull.
• Their new house is a hole in the ground.
• Pa nearly drowns Laura to teach her a lesson.
• (It doesn't stick.)
• Laura fights a badger.
• Laura gets grounded for planning on going back to the water. (Even though the badger-battle prevented her from actually doing it.)
• Stupid effing Pete the ox steps through the roof of the house.
• Laura and her sister Mary develop a straw-sliding addiction.
• Laura and Mary have to scare cattle away from the straw they have just learned to leave alone.
• The stupid, STUPID oxen nearly kill Ma and baby Carrie by nearly running of a ledge. (Like, three hours after the oxen revolt!)
• They have to wish for horses instead of presents for Christmas because Ma is a huge killjoy.
• Laura nearly drowns in the creek.
• Pa builds a house on credit. I know, it seems nice, but credit makes you BEHOLDEN TO OTHERS!!
• Laura is attacked by and old crab and bloodsuckers.
• They have to eat fish all the time.
• They have to go to school
• Two words – NELLIE OLESON. Seriously, she is the WORST!!
• Nellie pulls her hair.
• Nellie has a party and is a stone cold bitch.
• Nellie dismisses the perfection of vanity cakes.
• Nellie doesn't die of leech poisoning.
• Sunday school sucks.
• The sermon lasts forever.
• Pa gives his boot money to Reverend Alden to buy a church bell.
• GRASSHOPPERS ARE COMPLETEY DISGUSTING AND EAT EVERYTHING!!!
• The wheat crop is gone and they lay eggs so there won't be wheat next year either.
• Pa has to go away to work.
• That stupid shit-head baby Anna steals Charlotte.
• SSHB Anna just drops Charlotte in a puddle to DIE! (But it turns out to be good in the end...)
• The grasshoppers are back and as disgusting as ever.
• Pa goes away again.
• Fire tries to get at the hay and Laura, Mary, Ma and Mr. Nelson have to fight it off.
• They just eat turnips all the fucking time.
• There is a blizzard when Ma and Pa are in town and the girls carry all the wood in because they are afraid of freezing to death.
• There is another blizzard when Pa is out of town. When will they learn to just stay home?
  Fireballs come down the chimney during the blizzard and freak everybody out.
• Turns out Pa was under the ledge right by the creek the whole time nearly freezing to death.
• Pa eats all the oyster crackers.
• Pa eats all the Christmas candy.
• There are oysters left.
• And the final indignity, the whole last three pages is mostly song lyrics. And Laura's eyes are shiny. I'm guessing someone is going to go blind pretty soon.

I love this book, but man, that family suffered! Here is a picture of me wading in Plum Creek to cheer you up.

Short People Got No Reason...

THE SHRINKING OF TREEHORN by Florence Parry Heide illustrated by Edward Gorey (1971) and THUMBELINA by Hans Christian Anderson illustrated by Adrienne Adams (1961)

Oh the tiny folk! Their problems are not so different from ours. Why if I had a dollar for every time I had to spurn the advances of a horny mole, I would be a wealthy, wealthy woman!

But let up begin with the saga of Treehorn. To be honest, I chose this book because it was illustrated by Edward Gorey. He of the Grisleyhorn Nasties or whatever they were called... I love his weird animation at the beginning of Masterpiece Mysteries. I thought this book would have a bit of a dark side. And I was not disappointed.

Treehorn is shrinking. At first his parents pooh-pooh his concerns, but eventually they begin to blame him for his smallness. His school principal monologues at him about helping with his problems in the most ineffectual way. He is getting no support on the whole WTF-is-happening-to-me? Question. Luckily his tininess allows him to locate a game under his bed that appears to have made him become miniaturized, he takes another couple of turns and is, blessedly, back to his normal size. Oh magical games, from BIG to JUMANJI, you are constantly screwing with kids who are just looking for a good time.

According to the Publisher's Weekly review, this book is about children being ignored by the adult world. I suppose those were the days. Now children are being obsessed over by the adult world. I guess that makes this particular gem from 1971 a bit outdated.

As far as who Florence Parry Heide was, her wikipedia page assures me that not only was she 50 shades of awesome – She was beloved for organizing a fourth of July parade in Kenosha, Wisconcin every year (a patriot!) - but she also wrote at least 2 other Treehorn books! Edward Gorey, also dead, was quite famous and you can't swing a dead cat on the internet (And how beautifully would he have illustrated that!) without finding someone who is exultantly talking about him. In addition, I believe there might be a museum in his honor someplace in western Mass.

THUMBELINA is a little girl sprung full formed from a barley-corn/tulip hybrid flower into the life of a lovely woman who longed to have a child and even paid a witch a schilling to give her advice on how to get one. You think this is child trafficking? Just wait!

First Thumby is stolen by amphibians to be the (child) bride of a toad prince who can only say “Brekke-ke-kex!” At the very least his parents should get him some speech services and stop obsessing about getting him an interspecies wife.

Then she enslaves a butterfly to help her escape and ends up with a field-mouse who seems nice, but is in fact going to pimp her out to a mole. If not for the Lazarus-like resurrection of a underground swallow, she would be Mrs. Mole right now. And not to be gross, but that mole was, like 10 times her size.

Eventually, she ends up over some mountains with some flower spirits and the king of the flowers gives her his crown because she is so beautiful and she marries him about 20 minutes after meeting him. And he changes her name to Maia because Thumbelina is an ugly name. Which it kind of is, but still, how about asking her if she wants a new name before just decreeing it?

Several things are gross about this. First and foremost, she is just born and still sleeps in a walnut shell cradle when this whole marrying-her-off debacle begins. She has no skill set outside of being pretty and able to sing a little bit, and yet she is the Taylor Swift of pond, wood and fairy-land.

Second, her adoptive mother, who loves her so much, is never mentioned after she disappears. That poor woman probably has Thumbelina's picture on tiny little milk cartons all over Denmark and at the end, her name is changed. They will never find each other again. Sad.

Third, Thumbelina is worried that the butterfly who rescues her from the toad mafia is tied to the leaf that they used as a getaway car and you never find out if the butterfly escapes. Leading me to believe that it died in service to Thumby. RIP, butterfly.

Fourth, the swallow leaves the King of the Flower Spirits and his newly named arm candy in their, whatever, magic area, and goes to Copenhagen and blabs this whole half-assed story to Hans Christian Anderson. And he makes a mint off it.

Finally, there is a big bug called the Cockchafer, who grabs her off a leaf, leading to her eventual incarceration by the field-mouse madam. Yes, you read that right, a Cock-chafer. As in, it chafes cocks. Which we all know are male chickens. But still...

You know Hans Christian Anderson, he who brought us the tale of THE LITTLE MERMAID, the fairy tale that teaches us that if we have to give up our voice and our ability to breathe underwater to get a man, it's totally worth it. Even if it feels like our former fish tail is being sliced by a knife with every step we take on land – just do it! You need a man!!! I am not going to even link to his wikipedia page or his museum. Bite me HCA. Bite me in Danish...

As for Adrienne Adams, she seems perfectly nice and her pictures are pretty. But they can't save this torrid tale of treachery and disempowerment. My future granddaughters will get to look at the pictures as I tell the tale of a tiny badass who topples a toad crime empire, brings a dead bird back to life as she defies a power-mad rodent and his hench-woman, and finally takes over a kingdom badly in need of a new monarch after the reign of a wishy-washy figurehead with zero impulse control. I can't wait!

NOBODY'S FAMILY IS GOING TO CHANGE by Louise Fitzhugh

There is no way this book could have been published today. Emma, the main character refers to her younger brother as a "faggot" on the first page and uses the N-word in conjunction with a Nijinsky as another way of mocking him later on. In her defense, she is a large, black eleven-year old in 1970-something. The gender roles are retro, and Emma's feminist awakening and her search for black identity take a back seat to her longing for a revolution where kids can take the reins of their own destiny without having to worry about parental approval.

Of course, what she really longs for is that parental approval. But her mother, who lets her own love of her brother and her family history be shoved to the side for the approval of her domineering husband, doesn't approve of her weight. And her father doesn't approve of women lawyers.

This book is woke.

Louise Fitzhugh is mostly known for her classic HARRIET THE SPY which was published in 1974,  NOBODY'S FAMILY IS GOING TO CHANGE was published just prior to her death, later that year, of an aneurysm at 46. Kathleen T. Horning wrote an interesting article on Fitzhugh for Horn Book. It gets a little HARRIET-specific, but most writing on her does. M. E. Kerr's autobiography is referenced therein, leaving me with no choice but to ILL that thing.

Horning refers to NFIGTC as "interesting" in her article, the classic example of damning with faint praise. Certainly from an adult perspective it is uneven, but I remember reading it as a kid and thinking, "Yes!" from the illustrations of what it was like to be the sibling of an adorable child to the descriptions of the black-out feeling of binge eating while thinking or reading, it spoke the truth to me.

There is some awkward dialog, the setting claims to be contemporary (although it really feels timelessly retro) and then you have the whole thing of a white woman writing from the perspective of a child of color. The ending is horrifying - Emma realizes that "nobody's family is going to change" and so she resigns herself to having to get all her strength from within.

Her parents do seem to love her and want what's best for her, but they don't allow her to weigh in on what that might be. They are such prisoners of their own attitudes that she really is deserted. She has her new group of friends - her consciousness raising group - and even though she doesn't seem to think much of them, they will offer her a sense of community.

Willie fares better, his mother finally stands up to his father about Willie's dancing when he is offered a role in a Broadway show. But the question of if he will be allowed to perform is left unresolved. It seems that Mrs. Sheridan is willing to go to bat for Willie because he wants something that is familiar to her. She comes from a family of performers and she "gets" Willie's longing enough to stand up to her husband. Emma is a different story. She says she doesn't want to marry, doesn't want to have children, and her mother takes that as a criticism of her own choices. It's a mess.

I loved this book as a kid. Maybe it was the fat-girl connection, maybe it was the family in turmoil, maybe it was because Emma was fatter and more friendless than I was, but it spoke to me.

This book was made into a Broadway play, THE TAP DANCE KID, when I was in high school on Long Island and I am 87% sure I saw it. (It is terrible to be old and forget things...) So I am on the fence with how I feel about it now. But I have to say that it did give us this clip from the NBC SPECIAL TREAT episode - "The Tap Dance Kid" from 1977. It was the STRANGER THINGS of my youth. (Just kidding, it pretty much sucked, but you should look anyway...) I definitely remember seeing this because I was incensed that because they wanted to use the star power of Danielle Spencer (If you're under 50 - she was Dee from WHAT'S HAPPENING - I'll wait while you google it.) and instead of hiring a fat child actress, they just put her in overalls. But she does a great job, particularly when you compare her performance to those of the other kids in the cast. Yeesh!