When the Nazis came to Poland, they did not close Joseph’s school. Instead, they removed the Polish textbooks and banished the Polish language from the school. They also hung portraits of Hitler in all of the classrooms. When, during a Scripture lesson, Joseph turned Hitler’s picture to the wall, someone reported him. A few nights later, the Nazi stormtroopers came for Joseph and took him to Zakyna. Margrit and the children were left to fend for themselves. After many trials and failed escape attempts, Joseph finally escaped out of the prison camp. It was then that the Nazis came for Margrit.
Author: Sara Masarik
Curators of things Good, True, and Beautiful
Andrew Henry’s Meadow
The black and white illustration in this book is enchanting. The details on the dragonfly’s wings and the lovely pictures of nature demonstrate real artistic merit. Each page has a scene which is a story unto itself. The art is perfect.
The Stout-Hearted Seven: Orphaned on the Oregon Trail
Wow! What a story! I would have been impressed if The Stout-Hearted Seven had been fiction. To know that it is non-fiction is exhilarating and tragic all at the same time. Reading true stories like this makes things like Marvel movies seem ridiculous. True courage and fortitude are not found in superheroes with capes but in stout-hearted people with a will to follow God’s leading and their own conviction.
The Trumpeter of Krakow
Written in a style that reminds me of Lloyd Alexander and Tonke Dragt, this novel for young readers is a lovely example of historical fiction. As the quote from Louis Bechtel indicates, it blends true events and real people beautifully with legend and an interesting fictional story. Fifteenth-century Joseph Charnetski is the son of Pan’ Andrew Charnetski, a Polish noble from Kresy (modern-day Ukraine). The Charnetski family is fleeing their home because madman Peter Button-Face has burned their village to the ground under the orders of Ivan III of Russia (Ivan the Terrible). The family hopes to find refuge with their cousin, Andrew Tenczynski in Krakow.
Our Cat Flossie
This book celebrates the often humorous ways in which cats worm their way into our hearts. Flossie isn’t killing birds and catching fish. Rather, she has a hobby of “bird watching” and “fishing.”
Blizzard at the Zoo
This unassuming picture book by Robert Bahr is excellent. Written in 1982, it has the quality of an older science reader-type book but it captures the more modern event of the 1977 blizzard at the Buffalo Zoo in New York.
To Say Nothing of the Dog
To Say Nothing of the Dog is pure delight. Connie Willis’s writing is elegant and refined. But it is also deeply informed by theatre and movies. And so what we have is a very witty, entertaining, and creative story that whisks the reader out of reality and into a delightful comedic drama that could only be set in the Victorian English Countryside. Equal parts ridiculous and brilliant, I have enjoyed reading again and again over the years.
The Thief
The 1997 runner-up for the Newbery Award was an unusual and subtly complex novel about political intrigue, geopolitics, mythology, and human endeavor. Commended by the American Library Association for its “subtly placed clues and artful misdirection,” it culminates in “a stunningly clever climactic twist.” The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner is interesting and well-told. And,…
Torben Kuhlmann Mouse Adventures
The Mouse Adventures series includes four stories of daring and creative mice who are as fascinated by science and technology as we are. In each book, the main mouse considers an engineering and invention question at more or less the same time as the famous human counterpart. In each book, it is the mouse who solves the problem first, and who then leaves clues behind for the famous scientist. Whether it is the mouse who leaves scraps of paper behind for the “floppy hats” at NASA to find as he blasts off to the moon, or the mouse who leaves a riddle each night for Einstein to solve, helping him work out his theories on relativity, the mouse is always just one step ahead of the human in the most charming ways.
Noah’s Ark
Spier kept the illustration full of whimsy and still very suggestive of real things. It was the perfect balancing act. Two things struck me while I enjoyed this book…
Lucy Maud and the Cavendish Cat
Lovers of Anne of Green Gables and other Lucy Maud Montgomery stories will not want to miss this exquisite treasure. Both the story and the illustration would be Anne Shirley approved.
Echo
It is here that we begin to subtly get clues about the word “echo.” As one sister played the harmonica, the echo continued while the next sister played, and so on. Because this is an enchantment, that echo goes out into the world sending waves of magic with it. And as this blessed harmonica transfers from Frederich in 1933 Germany to Mike in 1935 Philadelphia and then to Ivy Maria in 1942 Southern California, the magic reverberates through many lives, possibly saving many souls. Until, at last, it works its final magic and the enchantment is broken.
Blueberries for Sal
If I were asked for the ten picture books that are not, for any reason, to be missed, this would always be on my list. The story itself is completely charming and a joy entirely on its own. The illustration, however, is not “as good as the story.” The illustration is in fact absolute perfection.
Plumfield Library Membership Cards
When we started this library journey, I thought that since we lived way out in the woods, no one would want to drive out here very often. I assumed that I was going to need to drive the books into town and do meet-ups with patrons. That still may happen, but so far, every time I propose it to my patrons, I am met with shock. “No! I want my kids to have a real library experience!” After hearing this half a dozen times, I knew that people were coming here for the kind of experience that I had at Spies Public Library. And, I knew that we would need library cards.
Landmark: Daniel Boone
What a way to open a book! John Mason Brown assumes that we know something of Daniel Boone. Because, honestly, what American in 1952 didn’t know something about Daniel Boone? Today, it is probably a different story, but that doesn’t make the opening any less exciting. Presuming that we have a sense that Daniel Boone is a frontiersman and a hunter (the cover alone suggests that), Brown makes us think that this first scene is that of a great hunting expedition. And, it was. But not the kind we are thinking of. Instead, he is telling us about young Boone (not yet 21, we are told) traveling with the British regulars and General Braddock to take Fort Duquesne from the French in the French and Indian or Seven Years War.