Dr. Radway’s Sarsaparilla Resolvent by Beth Kephart

Beth Kephart has billed Dr. Radway’s Sarsaparilla Resolvent as a prequel to her earlier book Dangerous Neighbors. I’d bill it as more a study in contrasts.

So, where do I begin? Dr. Radway describes the energy of Philadelphia in the early 1870s, the energy of factories surrounding you wherever you are, pouring out its dirt and smoke, spewing its noise, the streets full of stray animals and unsavory people and the language of this book matches this sooty energy (a different feeling than I’m used to from Beth). It is about William and his family, a product of this industrial society, which wears you down and spits you out; where it’s a struggle to make ends meet.

Dangerous Neighbors, on the other hand, has a more refined energy (and language)–that of Philadelphia in the midst of its tumultuous 1876 Centennial which drew millions of visitors, which seemed to take away the dirt and smoke and replace it with music and blue skies and prancing horses and soaring birds, although ever present Shantytown abuts the fairgrounds. The language of Dangerous Neighbors is the more refined, descriptive language that I’m used to in a Beth Kephart book and it totally matches the aura of the book.

The former book describes William’s relationship with his older brother, Francis, who would mysteriously provide for his family (the father being in prison) and then with his mother after Francis’ murder at the hands of the police. How William feels helpless in trying to avenge his brother’s death. It describes William’s mother’s descent into depression at the loss of a favored son and her subsequent ascent when there is someone else to care for.

The latter, describes the relationship between twins Anna (the older) and Katherine (the younger) who, in a seeming reversal of roles, looks after her older, more free spirited sister. It describes Katherine’s helplessness at the loss of her sister and her descent into depression and her subsequent rise. It describes their mother, immersed in her worldly causes, to the neglect of her children.

Dr. Radway contrasts William’s life, scrounging for food, while living in the working class section of Philadelphia with Katherine’s upper class upbringing, having a maid (surrogate mother) in Jennie  Bea, going on shopping sprees or to the opera.

What both books do so well is describe one city, Philadelphia of the 1870s, although two different worlds. Both books delve into their main characters, William and Katherine, making them come alive. And both books use language as only Beth Kephart uses language.

It was a luxury reading the books one after the other, because it highlights the contrasts that otherwise would have been hidden. So, Dr. Radway’s Sarsaparilla Resolvent and then Dangerous Neighbors. The one-two punch in books.

Read Full Post »

The End of the Point by Elizabeth Graver

Susan mentioned that she likes reading the inscriptions at the beginning of books and that made me take particular note of the inscription in Elizabeth Graver’s latest novel, The End of the Point. “When I began to tell you children about the different ways in which plants sent their young out into the world, I had no idea that I should take so much time and cover so many pages with the subject.” This is a quote from Mrs. William Starr Dana, author of the children’s book Plants and Their Children (more about this book later), and purportedly the great grandmother in Graver’s story. The quote, however, summarizes, in part, what Ms. Graver’s book is all about…sending our children out into the world.

It is also about ‘home’. The End of the Point is the second family saga set in Cape Cod that I’ve read recently, the first being The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home by George Howe Colt, the former being fiction and the latter non-fiction.

The End of the Point describes the Porter clan who summer in Ashaunt, MA, near Buzzards Bay. It is in four parts, each narrated by a different person:  1942 narrated by Bea, the Scottish nanny to the Porter’s youngest daughter, Janie; 1947-1961 narrated by Helen, Janie’s older sister; 1970 narrated by Charlie, Helen’s son, named after her brother who died during WW II and 1999, told in the third person. Bea describes how the second World War intruded on the serene life of Cape Cod and her life in particular…the opportunities taken and possibly the regrets for those not taken. Helen, always the strong willed daughter recounts her life, her struggles to achieve in a man’s world and how her treatment of Charlie may have been part of his struggle to find himself, although the 1970s were certainly an era in which many college students were ‘lost’. In the last segment, Helen, Janie and their other sister, Dossy, are in their later years, one suffering from cancer, one from mental instability.

In all of their worlds of turmoil, though, the one place that seemed to bring peace and calmness is Ashaunt, the Big House (funny, in both books, the main house was called the Big House). Even amidst the hubbub of growing and extended families, Ashaunt was the refuge from troubles, its natural beauty (even in the face of land sales and new home construction) and sense of home easing the mind.

Graver has provided stories of some very strong women: Bea, in her quiet way, has her strong sense of duty to the Porter children, at times to the detriment of her own life; Helen, the wild child has the drive to succeed in academia’s male world; Gaga (Helen’s mother) runs her family while her husband is wheelchair bound for most of his later life and Janie, seemingly the sanest of all Porter girls makes a strong life for herself, her husband and six children. Even Charlie, a lost boy since his early teens, ‘finds himself’ in the end. Each character could very well be the focus of a novel, each has a story to tell, especially Bea and Helen.

I know the strong feeling of wanting to provide a ‘home’ for our children, a place that they can seek refuge and comfort, regroup and go back out into the world rejuvenated. The Big House(s) described in these books and the families that occupied those houses gave their children their sense of well-being and being home. I’m suggesting you read both books, The End of the Point by Elizabeth Graver and The Big House by George Howe Colt.

Now I said I’d mention Plants and Their Children by Mrs. William Starr Dana (aka Frances Theodora Parsons).

Frances Theodora Parsons was an American botanist and author active in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was an active supporter of the Republican Party as well as the Progressive Party. She was also an advocate of women’s suffrage. Frances started taking walks in the countryside after the death of her first husband (William Starr Dana). These strolls inspired her most important and popular book, How to Know the Wildflowers (1893), the first field guide to North American wildflowers. It was something of a sensation, the first printing selling out in five days. The work went through several editions in Parsons’s lifetime and has remained in print into the 21st century. Plants and Their Children, written in 1896 was named one of the 50 best children’s books of its time and was suggested for reading to young children in the classroom. The inscription at the opening of The End of the Point (I only gave you a snippet of it) interested me so I did a little (very little) research and after reading that Plants and Their Children was named one of the 50 best children’s books of its time, I was compelled to buy it. I’ll let you know how it is.

Read Full Post »

The End of the Point by Elizabeth Graver

I have to begin this review by thanking Beth Kephart.  When we met her at the signing at Books of Wonder she mentioned that she was currently reading The End of the Point by Elizabeth Graver. She told me that she was loving it. Well that was enough for me because she has impeccable taste.

The End of the Point is a beautifully told family saga that follows the Porters of Ashaunt Point, Massachusetts from the tumultuous years during World War II up until 1999 (mentally insert Prince lyrics here – I know I have a warped mind – this book has nothing in common with the song except the year.)

When we first meet the Porters they are spending their summer in their second home on this tiny point of land that juts into Buzzards Bay.  Graver draws each family member from Bea the Scottish nurse to the Porter children, to Gaga the matriarch with a fine brush. Each member is integral part of the whole and truly human with desires, faults, and frailties.  What draws them together and keeps them whole is this ill-gotten parcel of land, bought from Native Americans before the Porter’s  ancestors came ashore by the first settlers for “thirty yards of cloth, eight moose skins, fifteen axes, fifteen hoes…” a true bargain. It’s the land that draws the family back year after year, summer after summer.  It’s the land that holds them together, shelters them, comforts and holds them.  A land that will change over time with hurricanes,  wars, and impending development – changes that take place outside of the Porter’s control.  The land  that is at once a  permanent member of Porter family, but their hold is tenuous at best.  A land that, like the Porter’s themselves,  is subjected to being disturbed and destroyed by the heavy hand of human intervention.

Graver gently reminds us that the earth doesn’t belong to us, we inhabit it and are entrusted with stewardship.  The house and the land that the Porters return to grounds them and sustains them, but in the end it will go on when they no longer exist.

There are books that as you read them you think “I could have written this.”  The End of the Point is a novel that reminds one that writing is a gift bestowed upon the few who are true artists.  Each word, each character, each event is deftly placed and beautifully done.  This is a book that is wholly human and elegant. Graver is a master and The End of the Point a masterpiece.

Read Full Post »

Using Words to Paint a Picture

I was thinking about this this morning. But it really started yesterday when I was chatting with Beth Kephart at Books of Wonder (which is a marvelous children’s bookstore–be prepared to buy when you get there…but that’s another post). Beth asked me how I liked a book by another author who was signing there and I said I liked the book, but it wasn’t literary.

That started me thinking. What made Beth’s book worth buying and having in my personal library while the other book was enjoyable but borrowed from my public library? Most of the authors I read tell you stories. By the end of the book you know what happened, have a good sense of the characters, their thoughts and feelings and come away satisfied.

With Beth’s books, though, you know more. You know what the characters look like, whether they have straight or frizzy hair, whether they comb it to the side, whether it looks like a bird’s nest or a waterfall. You know what the sky looks like, its color, texture, whether there are clouds and if so, what their shapes are and whether they are moving or static. You know what the trees look like, the sound the leaves make as they sway in the wind, the texture of the bark.

Of Estela in Small Damages I wrote: “…perfection. The image of brusque, plump Estela, the cook who does not give love easily, but once she does it is with her whole heart and soul, is vivid.”

About Flow: The Life and Times of the Schuylkill River, I quoted “Blueback herring and eel, alewife and shad muscle in to my wide blue heart, and through… The stony backs of snapping turtles on the shore, muskrat, shrew, and from the unlanterned forest, the bark of a fox, the skith skith skith of snakes over leaves…..”

One author uses pen and paper (do they still do that or is it keyboard and monitor?) to relate a story, a set of events. Another converts that electronic medium into a canvas, rich in color and texture. While there is room for both kinds of books, it is this latter kind of book that ends up in my bookcase.

I’ve described some of Beth’s books as ‘ethereal’ in texture. Some more so and some less. But they are all canvases upon which you will see a broad array of colors and textures, shades and lines through which you will visualize the world you are reading about.

Read Full Post »

Beth Kephart

I have been a fan of Beth Kephart and her writing ever since I read House of Dance several years ago. I don’t even remember what prompted me to read it. However, since then I own and have read all of her young adult fiction and most of her adult non-fiction. As I said, I’m a big fan.

This virtual world of ours allows us to become “friends” with people without ever having met them in person or spoken one word to them. And so it has been with Beth and me for several years now. We have let each other into our lives a bit, gotten to know each other through “status updates” and emails and especially through Beth’s blog posts. I’ve come to admire Beth because of her marvelous books, tales of her teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, her ability to balance a crowded business life, writing life, dance life and family life and most of all for her obvious caring about family, friends and fans. All of this through online activity.

Well, today I had the pleasure of meeting Beth in person and it truly was a pleasure. Many of us have had the opportunity of meeting someone we’ve admired from afar and that person has not lived up to the high expectations we’ve set for them. Not so with Beth. I found her to be charming and warm and it felt like we were old friends right from the beginning. Along with being a talented author, Beth nurtures other authors and seeing her banter today with A.S. King makes one understand why writers, both established and novice, seek out her guidance.

I don’t lavish praise often, Beth, but meeting you, finally, has been a highlight. You have made my life brighter through your writing and your friendship. Thank you! I hope our friendship lasts for many years and we meet often.

And for those of you who are uninitiated, while I love all of Beth’s books, I’ll admit that I have certain favorites. In the Young Adult arena, they are (in alphabetical order) Dangerous Neighbors, Nothing But Ghosts and Small Damages and in the adult arena Flow, Ghosts in the Garden and Still Love in Strange Places. Susan’s favorites are Undercover and You Are My Only.

Today was a very special day for me for many reasons, meeting Beth being just one of them. I hope everyone had something special happen to them today. More coming soon.

Goodnight to all.

Read Full Post »

Still Love in Strange Places by Beth Kephart

If you were to ask me what Still Love in Strange Places is about, I’d think for a minute and tell you it’s a family saga, a la James Michener’s Hawaii, but shorter and more succinct. I’d tell you it’s about a wife’s attempt to understand the pull of her husband’s native land, a war-torn, volcano/earthquake prone El Salvador, on him, his present, past and future. I’d tell you it’s about a mother’s desire to leave her son a legacy from a far off place, stories, relatives, knowledge. I’d also tell you it’s about the good people, people who care about others less fortunate, loyalty, and humanity. And I’d tell you that most of all, it’s about family.

I, like Ms. Kephart, grew up in suburban America and the family stories and history I can leave my children are scant. They never really knew their grandparents who were born here, let alone my grandparents who were eastern European transplants. There were never stories passed down to me that I can pass along to the next generation. So I understand Ms. Kephart’s desire to give herself and her son something more. And it’s quite a family that Ms. Kephart married into: extensive, successful, caring, loving.

Still Love provides some history for context, but it’s mostly impressions and feelings. Being a shy person myself, I can’t imagine her first visit to El Salvador, plunked in the midst of a group of Spanish speaking family she’d never met and not understanding the language. Add onto that, its violent history and abject poverty, and any suburbanite would be  ’out of his/her element’, to say the least.

Beth brings all this together in a wonderfully written, entrancing memoir. El Salvador becomes real. The family becomes real. Ms. Kephart’s photos at the beginning of each chapter add vision to what the mind imagines as you read the book. However, there are photos one would love to see that aren’t there. She mentions a time when she and Bill are sitting in a tree and someone took their picture. Or the beautiful girl, Ana Gabriella, Beth’s niece by marriage, whose mother has disappeared.

The one thing I can understand is the El Salvadorian’s ties to the land. She describes the painstaking process her in-laws went through to buy farmland and get it ready for planting coffee. I can understand the draw of growing crops, the beauty as they mature and bear fruit. Spending a lot of weekends in farm country, the beauty of rolling hills, of black dirt, of row upon row of growing things is overwhelming and, were I to own a piece of that, I would do everything in my power to keep it. So it is no surprise that after an earthquake destroys their farm, the first thing Bill’s mother thinks about is rebuilding.

I just realized how much I’ve rambled, so I’ll end by saying Still Love in Strange Places will take you to far off places and bring you back home again, all the wiser for the journey.

Read Full Post »

Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz

Are you in the mood for just the right amount of magic and puppetry and suspense and thievery? If that’s the case, then you’re in the mood for Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz, whose previous book, Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village was a Newbery Award winner. Splendors and Gloooms is no slouch either, being a 2013 Newbery Honor Book.

Since I’m having trouble these days describing books, I’ll take the description off of the Association for Library Services to Children website: “Lizzie Rose, Parsefall and Clara are caught in the clutches of a wicked puppeteer and a powerful witch in this deliciously dark and complex tale set in Dickensian England, where adventure and suspense are interwoven into nuanced explorations of good versus evil.” It is deliciously dark and scary. You can feel the London fog wherever Lizzie Rose and Parsefall travel.

Parsefall is the perfect Dickensian ragamuffin and Lizzie Rose is his prim and proper, although poor, partner in crime, both dominated by greasy, master puppeteer Grisini–a perfect name for him. When these three perform at Clara’s twelfth birthday party and she  disappears soon thereafter, the plot thickens. How the bigger than life Cassandra, the powerful witch in her remote castle, enters into the story is for readers to find out. Even Ruby the spaniel is adorable.

Readers will feel like they are living through an 1860s London winter.They’ll certainly feel like they are part of the story, not merely reading it. They might find themselves shouting out loud, “No Parsefall, don’t do that!” or “Watch out. Grisini’s hiding there!” Even I was afraid of Grisini.

My daughter recommended this book to me, before it was voted an honor book, indicating her good taste in books. For some reason, Splendors and Glooms, to me, was a middle school version of Night Circus because they had that same foggy aura (although their subjects are somewhat different).

So, my 2013 has started off with a bang. I’ve finished Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool and now Splendors and Glooms. Next up is Courage Has No Color, The True Story of the Triple Nickles: America’s First Black Paratroopers by Tanya Lee Stone which is getting great reviews and The Spindlers by Lauren Oliver which has gotten great reviews. And then coming down the pike soon is Beth Kephart’s Dr. Radway’s Sarsaparilla Resolvent, a prequel to Dangerous Neighbors. I know, also, that Susan Campbel Bartoletti’s new book, Down the Rabbit Hole: The Diary of Pringle Rose, is due out in March.  If my reading keeps up at this pace, 2013 is going to be a banner year.

Read Full Post »

Best of 2012 — Better Late Than Never

I’m not one of those people who keeps track of the number of books I read. To me, it’s not a contest. And many times, by year’s end, I forget the books I read at the beginning of the year and wonder whether I’ll have to scramble to come up with 10 books. So it was a nice surprise that I had 9 books which I gave the top rating of 5 in Librarything. What was even nicer, was that there were even more 4s, so 2012 was a darn good reading year from my perspective.

Reading’s a personal thing, as you know and there are a myriad of factors that go into enjoying a book: your mood when you read it, your favorite author, impeccable wording, an engrossing plot, believable characters. These top 10 books have it all: I was in the right mood, it was my favorite author (or singer, in one instance), the plots ranged from family, to heroism, to illness and the characters were pretty much all people I would like to meet. So, here goes:

Although the top 5 are all magnificent books, I’ll always put a Beth Kephart book on the top of the list. She’s an incredible author whose words, many times, are poetic and lyrical and she outdid herself in Small Damages about a young pregnant girl who finds out that the true meaning of family isn’t always biological. If you read one of Beth’s books, you’ll find you have to read them all.

John Green’s Fault in Our Stars takes us through the harrowing ordeal of cancer but the love and friendship and perseverence that its characters exhibit is incomparable. It might just make you shed a tear. I described it as a book of strength, of philosophy, of humor and determination. It is all of those and more.

At the end of Wonder by R. J. Palacio, Mr. Tushman, Director of Beecher Prep School, addresses the 5th grade/6th grade classes with a quote from J. M. Barrie’s The Little White Bird: “Shall we make a new rule of life…always try to be a little kinder than is necessary.” That is the theme of this gem of a book. It is the realistic story of a boy born with a serious facial deformity, overcoming the odds by mainstreaming into the local school. Told from various points of view, once you start it, you won’t put it down.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein comes in at number 4. It is a touching story about two young girls during World War II, one a pilot and the other a spy behind enemy lines in France, if you will. Their heroism and their friendship, while to them small, is huge. It is not like any other war story you’ve read. It is captivating (no pun intended) from the beginning.

Rounding out the top 5 is Natalie Merchant’s Leave Your Sleep. A five year labor of love, Merchant put to music children’s poetry written from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s and released a wonderful CD of the same name. She then, with illustrator Barbara McClintock, published a book with some of the poetry and beautiful illustrations. I’ve heard Merchant sing these poems several times in concert and have the CD, and as she said ““Poetry speaks of so much: longing and sadness, joy and beauty, hope and disillusionment…But poetry on the page can be difficult to penetrate; sometimes it needs to be heard.” But once heard, reading it and seeing the colorful illustrations adds a whole new perspective.

Since this is getting long, I’ll briefly mention the next 5:

The Bully Book by Eric Kahn Gale: if you’re the “grunt” who gets picked on, you want to find the Bully Book and destroy it. Bullying seems to be an epidemic and Gale tries to reverse the tide in this excellent book.

Period 8 by Chris Crutcher: Crutcher seems to have found his stride again in this honest book about honesty and relationship. Not as ‘in your face’ as Whale Talk or Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes (my two favorites), it’s still up there with his best.

Stay With Me by Paul Griffin: Violence is a fact of life to some people. Some people are good and some aren’t and what happens to them doesn’t always make sense. Stay With Me had me rivited and, it indeed, did bring on a tear or two.

No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson: A marvelous picture book and more about Nelson’s great-uncle Lewis Michaux, a driving force for educating Blacks in Harlem. Michaux started out with nothing and built a tremendous bookstore in Harlem that attracted the likes of Malcolm X.

Almost Home by Joan Bauer: Bauer is one of the foremost writers for middle school readers and her stories are uplifting. In Almost Home Sugar Mae Cole survives her mother’s depression and a foster home by spouting the words of her grandfather, King Cole. A must read–plus the dog on the cover is adorable.

And the last of them are:

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith

Ask the Passenger by A. S. King

Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley

I read so many more great books in 2012, but this is the best of the best, to me. I hope you enjoy some of them.

Read Full Post »

Ghosts in the Garden by Beth Kephart

My last post was about an anthology of pulp mysteries from the 1920s-1950s. What, you are wondering, does this have to do with a Beth Kephart book? A good question. One of the things you realize as you read pulp mysteries is the authors’ abilities to tell a story in a small space. Some of the stories are 10 pages, some 20. But they all have one thing in common. Through the spare use of words, the right words, they’ve told their tale and captured the readers imagination.

And so it is with Beth Kephart’s works. Every word is thought out, is necessary. In a spare 120 pages, Beth has transmitted to us her musings as she wanders the Chanticleer Gardens near her home. But first, a word must be said about the photos in the book. As you as gaze at them, some are vividly clear. Some have a focused foreground with a blurry background and some, vice versa. But, isn’t that life? Some things in our life are crystal clear, some have moments of clarity amidst a misty, blurry background. As I read Ghosts in the Garden, I felt that that’s part of what the author was trying to say.  William Sulit, her husband, has created a wonderful counterpoint to Beth’s words. (I won’t tell you about the poem he wrote to her which is included in the book!)

But onto the words themselves. Who would have described a garden as a symphony? Certainly not I. But, in Beth’s hands, “After that, to the right, are the strut and tempo of the cut-flower and vegetable garden. The flowers in rows. The vegetables in an enclosure. The upraised arms of espaliers–apples, pears–because something has to conductd this orchestra.” Can you not picture the branches raised, holding a baton?

Or “Now when I went to the garden I’d sit at the bottom of the hill with a book on my lap–sometimes reading, sometimes just looking out on things: a gathering of bees, the sleepy drooping of big leaves, the geometry of the pebble garden that cascaded away from the so-called ruins, down toward the pond.” I can’t count the times I’ve stared at ‘nothing’ while sitting under a tree.

There’s the old cliche about ‘taking time to smell the roses’ and while we all agree its a necessity, here’s someone who did, the result of which is this marvelous book…and hopefully a clearer picture of the life she wants to lead. Ghosts in the Garden is a must read.

P.S. Beth. You say you “…would like to write a book (a page) that is an acorn only. That ripens from green to brown and supposes a tree, yielding something like a garden.” I think you have.

Read Full Post »

Flow by Beth Kephart

If you have never read a memoir of a river, then Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River by Beth Kephart is a must. In my mind, Kephart is known for two things: writing wonderful Young Adult novels and loving Philadelphia and its surroundings. (Just took a break to sit outside under the porch overhang, listening to the rain and Natalie Merchant, sipping Kahlua. Very enjoyable! I’m back now.)

Although not novels in verse, her books have a poetic quality to them. So it is with Flow, which is not classified as YA, but may appeal to teens. The River begins its memoir by describing its youth. “Blueback herring and eel, alewife and shad muscle in to my wide blue heart, and through… The stony backs of snapping turtles on the shore, muskrat, shrew, and from the unlanterned forest, the bark of a fox, the skith skith skith of snakes over leaves…..” Poetry in motion, literally, as the River winds its way from it source to the Delaware River.

The River conveys to the readers the joy it feels as people stroll its banks and see their reflections in its clear, blue waters. It conveys its frustration and dismay as its waters get diverted to Philadelphia homes, as it becomes the receptacle of all the detritus and refuse from the stockyards, smelters, anthracite processors that supported the Philadelphia populace. It is angry as its route gets altered to serve the needs of the population. As if human, it is disheartened with its inability to save a drowning person and becomes joyous when it, indeed, does get a struggling swimmer to the opposite shore.

Emotions are a funny thing. The beauty of nature can elevate us and the ugly results of our neglect can deflate us. The River is perplexed that something man-made can be seen as more beautiful than what nature has provided us. (I would feel the same way.)

Flow is not only a tribute to a beloved river but it is a tribute to Ms. Kephart’s writing ability. She has truly brought a river to life. I’m tempted to tackle her book Ghosts in the Garden next. Hmmm!

P.S. Ms. Kephart has put footnotes at the bottom of many pages so that you get a sense of historical context of the region as you read the memoir.

Read Full Post »