The Silver Bowl

The Silver Bowl by Diane Stanley.
Youth New Book Shelves – Lower Level – STANLEY

Molly was only seven when her rough father decided she was too much trouble to take care of anymore. He got her a job as a scullery maid at the castle. During their brief farewell, Molly’s room-bound mother gave her the lovely silver necklace her father had given her and told her to wear it, but keep it hidden. It’s a small link to the family heritage of seeing visions that Molly has just found out that she and her mother share. It takes some quick learning to fit in at the castle, but knowing she has nowhere else to go, Molly is motivated. She makes friends with another lowly castle employee, Tobias, the donkey boy. After a few years as a scullery maid, she is taken by Thomas, the silver master, to help with the silver polishing. There she is given the job of polishing the great silver bowl, used by the royal family for washing hands before meals. It’s filled with intricate designs, and every time Molly polishes it, it grows warm in her hands and draws her into visions. Through these she learns that the bowl is filled with curses aimed at the royal family, which the visions want her to break. As she pieces together what a person of her lowly position might be able to do about this, the plot heats up until the life of the prince and the fate of the entire kingdom are resting in her hands. This is a lovely below-the-stairs medieval fantasy, with class playing an important part. Even when Molly and Prince Alaric are put in a position where they have to talk to each other, there’s great consciousness that this is not the normal order of things. Earlier on, her efforts to stop things going wrong in the first place are seriously hampered by her position as a young serving girl, as well as her unorthodox methods of knowing things. Though this is definitely a fantasy, Molly’s visions aren’t something that anybody else in her world could be expected to believe. There’s some second-hand gore here, so while most of this is suitable for middle grade students, those highly sensitive or on the lower end of the age range might want to avoid it. The writing holds up beautifully for readers of the intended age and up.

Diane Stanley is a prolific and diverse author whose work includes picture books, fairy tale retellings, biographies, and novels for youth. Some other books of hers that I have enjoyed include:


The Giant and the Beanstalk
Petrosinella: a Neapolitan Rapunzel

Cinnamon Baby

Cinnamon Baby by Nicola Winstanley. Illustrated by Janice Nadeau
Youth New Book Shelves – Lower Level - WIN

Miriam is a baker. She sings and bakes every morning in her bakery, all different kinds of delicious bread, always finishing with her favorite cinnamon bread. One day, Sebastian rides by on his bicycle. Lured in by the smell and Miriam’s sweet voice, he buys bread from her every day for a year. Then, they marry and have a baby. Though it’s not noted in the text, Sebastian is dark-skinned and Miriam pale; their baby comes out the color of cinnamon. After a few blissful days, the baby starts crying. Nothing either Miriam or Sebastian can do soothes it. Finally, Miriam wakes the exhausted Sebastian early in the morning to bring the baby with her to the bakery. When the sweet smell of cinnamon and the sound of its mother’s voice fill the air, the baby is finally soothed. The thin and swirly watercolor lines of the art add a vintage Paris kind of feel, as well as expanding on the story told in the text. The sweet story and beautiful art combine to make this a book to be savored.

Turning the Tide: How a small band of allied sailors defeated the u-boats and won the Battle of the Atlantic

Turning the Tide: How a small band of allied sailors defeated the u-boats and won the Battle of the Atlantic
by Ed Offley Adult Nonfiction – Upper Level 940.545 O

The Battle of the Atlantic often receives short shrift in histories of WWII. There are a couple of reasons for this. First of all, it lasted the entire duration of the European war, from 1939 to 1945. Secondly and more importantly, few people who weren't fighting actually saw it. There were no Edward R. Murrows or William L. Shirers broadcasting live from the scene of u-boat attacks. There was no Bill Mauldins drawing cartoons of weary sailors fighting both seasickness and the enemy. Only the sailors along with a few aviators killing or being killed in the middle of a vast ocean.

In Turning the Tide Ed Offley makes a convincing case that this oft-ignored front was in fact the most important in the European Theater. Losing this battle would have forced Britain into starvation and surrender, and without a threat keeping Nazi troops in the west, Russia may have lost or made a deal with Hitler. In any case the results of the war would have been very different.

Rather than cover the entire Battle of the Atlantic, Offley focuses on a few convoys in the spring of 1943 where the allies finally managed to take the iniative and put the u-boats on the defensive for the duration of the war. Offley writes clearly and well; while the names of boats and sailors can get confusing, the main narrative is a real page-turner.