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!