Summer ReReads P4

Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Ah these classic books with beautiful covers, I make a point of reading them every year. While Anne is obviously the most famous and I prefer the first five books of the series, it is worth a read of all 8 books just for Montgomery’s lush descriptions of Prince Edward Island. Also, it adds a certain extra dimension if you know of her personal life. In book 7, Rainbow Valley, she has her society ladies gossip about a preacher man and his wife, an unflattering story that closely resembles the unhappy marriage she had with her own minister husband.

The Emily of New Moon trilogy also has its beautiful descriptive passages, but it is more of an ode to writerly dreams. While Anne gives up her romantic fantasies, Emily is persistant in her goals and the way she describes that intense fever speaks to the passion Montgomery herself felt for her craft. It also adds some supernatural events and interpersonal dramas that make Emily a separate heroine from Anne to root for.

Jack and Jill by Louisa May Alcott

This is a less well-known book than Alcott’s famous Little Women series, and it is not quite up to par to it in all honestly, but I think this is a nice short novel that would help get kids into her work. It follows Jack and Jill after they roll down the hill and break their bones. The sledding accident leaves them bedridden. It has several of Alcott’s main themes as seen in her other novels, of being a good, virtuous person, and other teenage fun. Well fun for teenagers in the 1920s.

The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry

This is a fun mystery book in the turn of the century featuring young incorrigable women sent to the titular Prickwillow Place to get rid of their ridiuclous notions of science, flirtations and any sort of indepedence and become proper ladies. A hard lesson to learn when their headmistress dies from poison! Luckily, they are not proper young ladies and after burying the body, they scheme to find out who did it. Great fun.

The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi

This was an utterly unique fey story I believe with a focus on brownies, and ogres and human chomping boggins. It can be witty but mostly adventurous, focusing on the bonds of family and estrangement. One should also check out the return of the Grace kids in Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles.

Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckley

This is one of the best fractured fairytale series I have read (Ties with Half Upon a Time which I’ll get to in a different post), full of humor and heart, redemption, and death. That’s the part I most admire in this series as Buckley isn’t afraid to go there in making death permenant and having a civil war between fairy tale characters long before that Avengers movie. I also enjoy how he easily imagines how the fairytale characters would grow up, what careers they might choose in the human world etc. Plus it’s not just fairytale characters, there’s Shakespearean ones, Puck being a main character as well as some non Western ones like Sinbad. I still wish for a sequel spinoff with the briefly mentioned Anderson Triplets.

NERDS by Michael Buckley

Another humorous series, NERDS (National Espionage, Rescue and Defense Society) takes the geeks, dorks and freaks and use their special capabilties to defend the world because as said multiple times, their smarts are what will allow them to suceed and kids are always estimated. I really admire the message it sends with how even with the bullies, even though those school years seem to be the worst, everyone is capable of being powerful and nerds are truly the cool ones.

The Two Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine

Following a more epic sort of princess tale with ballads and dragons, the shy and more timid Princess Addie sets off on a quest to find a cure for the plague that has befallen her braver, older sister Princess Meryl. Due to their obvious differences, Addie sorely wishes Meryl was better because this adventure is exactly what she’d go for, she’s not brave enough, not strong enough. You can tell what Addie learns as she outwits the last dragon in Bamarre, fight ogres and talk with fairies. She was a lot more braver than she had ever thought and she may be the princess Bamarre needs.

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxan

Nina Hill is perfectly content with her small life with a book in her hand and a bookshop she loves. She’s living the dream. However, after her absent father’s death, the will brings her to the lawyer’s office to meet an extended family she had never met. And she doesn’t want to meet them. She’s quite anxious and introverted, but as these siblings insist on getting to know her and a potential romancer comes closer in her heart, Nina must learn to expand her life and let go of her fears. A cozy fiction.

Calico Captive by Elizabeth George Speare

This fictional novel is based on the real life biography, A Narrative of Captivity by Mrs. Johnson. Mrs. Johnson is Suzanne Willard Johnson who was captured by Abekanis, and subsequently rescued, going on to write a book on her experiences.

This novel comes from the point of view of Mrs. Johnson’s younger sister, Miriam who had also been captured that night. While it is unknown what happened to the real Miriam, here Miriam and Susanna are separated from their other family members and are sold in Montreal during the brink of the French and Indian War.

It may not have aged well especially in its portrayal of Abekanis but it is a worthwhile piece of fiction about the time period.

The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen

This is part uplifting book realistic fiction that serves to remind people that losing a limb is not the end of your life. After Jessica is in a car accident, killing one of her best friends and amputing one of her legs, she believes her life is over. She hates the physical therapy and is in a deep depression over the loss of her trackstar dreams. What’s more, she doesn’t know how to handle the stares of people who pity her or are in awe of her new prosthetic. But this is not the kind of book that seeks to focus on the insecurity and agony of how different Jessica is now. It is about rebuilding herself and finding new dreams, that she is just as capable as before and I believe that’s a message we all can follow after being through a setback in life.