Listening for Madeleine

Listening for Madeleine is a pointillist portrait of the Newbury Award-winning author, whose work for both children and adults is among my very favorite. It starts off with a short biography by the editor, but is mostly composed of lots and lots of thoughts by individuals who knew her, gained from letters and interviews. They are divided up by how people knew her: from childhood, as a writer, matriarch, mentor, friend or icon. They include friends from childhood, editors and publishers, writers like T.A. Barron and Mary Pope Osborne, her daughter, granddaughters, and former son-in-law, and lots of people whom she was friends with or mentored over the years. Many people referred to an unflattering profile of L’Engle that was published in the New Yorker in 2004, which I hadn’t read, but which I was able to pull up on Gale’s Biography in Context without any difficulty. (“The Storyteller”, by Cynthia Zarin.) Family members acknowledged the frustration of living with a writer whose published version of their life together – the writer’s perspective, warts airbrushed out – became the version that readers everywhere believed was true; the fictional works inspired by family life felt more true to reality than those published as nonfiction. Outside the family, people were generally horrified that family members were willing to air as much dirty laundry as they did while L’Engle was still alive. But the fact that these discussions are in the book give me the comforting feeling that this isn’t a hagiography, even though most of the people contributing to the anthology cared about her. For all the painful things voiced by her relatives, they were still there caring for her in her increasingly dependent old age. Balancing that were the many, many tales of her writing from the publisher’s side and of her support for young and aspiring writers especially.

The most negative profiles came in the Icons section. These, dealing with L’Engle’s writing, were perhaps ironically tougher for me to read, as a devoted fan of her writing who never met her in person. Jane Yolen, a writer whose work I also love, wrote about her horror at L’Engle’s spoken belief that there is magic in the world, as opposed to Yolen’s use of magic as metaphor in her books. Library professor and lesbian Christine A. Jenkins wrote about how she had to discourage her students from writing about L’Engle because L’Engle fans were almost universally unable to look at her work with anything but uncritical adoration. (Probably guilty as charged, I’m afraid.) She also had understandable problems with L’Engle’s attitudes about homosexuality – which were liberal, I’ve always thought, for someone born in 1918. There was also a final word from Cynthia Zarin, the author of the infamous New Yorker profile, talking about her experience writing the piece, coming at is as a fan but ending up with a piece that many fans found offensive. In any case, fans of L’Engle’s works, critical or uncritical, should enjoy this broad and varied look at her from so many perspectives.

Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough

Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough: The Medical Lives of Great Writers by John J. Ross, M.D.
New Book Shelves - Upper Level - 820.9 R

This is a fascinating book! Did you know that Shakespeare's handwriting became shakier and shakier throughout his adulthood? He may have had syphilis, and the treatments in the 17th century were quite barbaric. This book gives all the gory details. John Milton went blind, probably due to a detached retina. The book gives a short day-in-the-life snippet of each author's life, followed by a medical fact about him. Some background on the history of the time, treatments of the time, and the author concludes with a diagnosis of the author's malady, and what probably caused it. Chapters can be read independently, so you can pick your way through your favorites in any order you like. One part medical history, one part literary history, all parts unique and interesting!

The Peculiar

The Peculiar by Stefan Bachmann
Youth New Book Shelves – Lower Level - BACHMANN

This is a Cybils Award finalist in the middle grade science fiction/fantasy department. This is also the book that came from the library with the last 30 pages missing – I had to take it back and wait for it to be reordered before I could finish it! If you were one of the two people to check it out before I got it – we have all the pages now.

Not so very long ago, as our story goes, the Faeries invaded England, and there was war. The humans won, but as the faery stayed in the first place because they couldn’t get back, they now have an uneasy coexistence with iron and church bells used to constrain the faeries. Both sides despise the other and despise worst of all the changelings or peculiars, half-breed children. One of our heroes, Bartholomew, is just such a child. He himself could pass for human at a distance, but his little sister Hettie has pointed ears and branches for hair. Both of them stay hidden, as the hatred of peculiars is so deep that lynchings are common. One day, watching from his attic window in a Bath slum, Bartholomew sees a sinister lady in plum velvet with a tiny, wicked face in the back of her head. As he watches, she draws the little neighbor changeling with thistle hair out of his house, and disappears with him in a flurry of black feathers. When Bartholomew’s good intentions go awry, he knows that he and Hettie are in danger as well. Meanwhile, in London, Mr Jelliby is a wealthy and idle member of the Privy Council, which includes some faery members. His conscience is pricked, however, when he watches the faery Mr Lickerish redirect council interest away from the mysterious string of murdered changeling children. As much as he fears trouble, he is drawn into investigating the murders himself. There are some steampunk aspects to the book as well, with a setting that feels 19th-century and clockwork birds used to communicate, clockwork horses, and a dirigible. This is dark fantasy with a whole lot of creepy mystery that kept me on the edge of my seat, and occasionally made me decide to save this for morning and pick something calmer for bedtime reading. It’s definitely not a world I’d want to live in, but it’s beautifully drawn, with characters and setting having equal importance to the exciting plot. I cared about both Bartholomew and Mr Jelliby. I will note that even with the last 30 pages, it does not end conclusively, so those who like to wait until a series is complete to start reading will want to hold off for a bit. There is a whole lot to like packed neatly and cleverly into this book, and I am very glad that it made it to the second round of Cybils considerations.

Major Taylor: Champion Cyclist

Major Taylor: Champion Cyclist
By Lesa Cline-Ransome
Illustrated by James E. Ransome
jBio—Lower Level—Taylor

In the late 1800s in Indianapolis, Indiana a young cycling phenom began his career. “Major” Marshall Taylor was extraordinary for a number of reasons. By age 13, he was the fastest rider in town. In races, no one came close to keeping pace with him.

At the same time that he swept local bike races, society discriminated against him because of his race. Major Taylor overcame the odds. He competed on cycling’s world stage and was the second African-American athlete to become a world champion.

With exciting text and beautiful illustrations, Major Taylor: Champion Cyclist will delight anyone who knows the feeling of freedom that riding a bicycle can bring.