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(an epistolary review of an epistolary book)

Oh how I love Mabel Riley: A Reliable Record of Humdrum, Peril and Romance by Marthe Jocelyn.  Set in Canada in 1901, and with a protagonist who aspires to be a writer someday, the comparisons with Lucy Maude Montgomery's beloved Anne Shirley are unavoidable and apt. While Montgomery's Anne books start in 1878 and span nine books and forty-two years in the main character's life, we only get a glimpse into three months of the life of Mabel Riley, but an amazing three months they are! As we learn from the "identification" page in the front of the novel, which poses as a diary, Mabel Riley is a forward looking girl. Besides listing her hat and glove size, birthday and hair color ("I wish I could say raven but really it's dung-beetle brown") we learn that a person she finds noteworthy is Miss Nellie Blye. Blye was a pioneering female journalist of the time who is most noted for her record-breaking trip around the world that followed the path of Phileas Fogg (Around the World in Eighty Days, Jules Verne) and for faking insanity in order to study a mental institution from within, eventually exposing the inhuman treatment and conditions of the women being held there. And finally, after the prompt titled "Wish:" Mabel writes, "To see the world and have the world see me!" This should give you a pretty good idea of what you are in for, but even so, I was surprised and delighted by Mabel and her adventures. 

On Friday, August 30, 1901, fourteen year old Mabel Riley and her older sister Viola leave their home in Ambler's Corner and travel to Sellerton where Viola will take the post of teacher in the one room school where Mabel will take her eighth grade examination and assist with the younger scholars. The two will board in the home of the Goodhands, a farming family. As they are disembarking, Mabel notices a young lady stepping off the train only to be greeted with a shout and a fierce hug from her beau. The hug turns into a kiss and the two are promptly accosted by a woman with a "hefty bosom and a stern look" who scolds and jabs the couple with her parasol. This scene, early in the book, is a perfect example of the world Mabel is living in as well as a harbinger of things to come. Even in this small town, social customs are being challenged and liberties are being taken by the young. Mabel and Viola settle in with the Goodhands and their twenty year old son, Alfred. On her first Sunday in Sellerton, the sisters are visited by many of parents of students at the Sellerton school who have come to the Goodhands to appraise the new teacher. The first visitor is Mrs Forrest, the parasol wielding woman from the train station, who makes her displeasure known from the start, telling Viola that she was not happy to hear that a woman had been hired to fill the position previously held only by men. Viola answers her with, "I expect there will be more women every year training to be teachers. Times are changing, it seems." To which Mrs Forrest sniffs, "We're not pleased with the notion of change." Before she has even started teaching, Viola faces a formidable foe. However, in the end, Mrs Forrest turns out to be Mabel's foe, not Viola's.

Shortly after arriving in Sellerton, Mabel begins her romantic novel with characters inspired by Helen and Philip, the lovers at the train station. Mabel's story is entertaining and her writing exciting if a bit florid at times, but is most interesting how, while meant as an entertainment for her friend Hattie back in Ambler's Corner, it turns out to be parallel to the lives of those she comes to know in Sellerton. One of the people Mabel meets and is instantly taken with but also troubled by, is the local "widow," Mrs Rattle, who lives down the road in a cottage she has named "Silver Lining." Although the other women in town snub her, Mrs Goodhand, due to a sense of Christian Duty, sends her a loaf of cornbread every Sunday and Mabel takes on the role of delivery girl. The two bond instantly when Mrs Rattle confesses that she never eats the hard, dry corn bread, but instead feeds it to her ducks. They bond further when Mabel spies Mrs Rattle's Underwood typewriter and learns that she had been a journalist but was fed up with the society column she was forced to write. When Mrs Rattle asks Mabel to help her serve tea at the next meeting of her book group Mabel is excited and honored. Her good feelings turn to fear when she realizes that the book group is a front for the meeting of suffragists hoping to improve the working conditions of the women at the Bright Creek Cheese Factory, owned by the Forrests. Mabel is saddened by the stories the women, including Mrs Rattle who has taken up a job there, tell of their long days with few breaks and fines for tardiness and talking, but she is also horrified when the women talk of striking to call attention to their plight.

Mabel struggles with her fear of the adult situations she has gotten herself into as well as the knowledge that her actions could jeopardize her sister's teaching post, the salary from which is crucial to the welfare of her widowed mother and four siblings at home. She desperately wants to do the right thing but is constantly reminded of the negative attention she draws to herself and the difficulty she has already made for her sister as well as the Goodhands, who sell their milk to the Bright Creek Cheese Factory. One of the reasons Mabel is such a wonderful character is that, much like Anne Shirley, she is an iconoclast who, through her actions and beliefs makes the world, or her small corner of it, a better place. On top of it all, Mabel (or Marthe Jocelyn) is a thoughtful and descriptive writer. While reflecting on the death of Mrs Goodhand's father, Mabel remembers her own father who only recently died and reflects on the nature of memory itself. She writes, "I do remember the sudden hole of not having him. The sound of my mother's leaky sniffling in the night, the discovery of his cap on its nail a month after he died, the charred tobacco in his pipe, sucked dry by his very own breath that was not breathing anymore." When Mabel is forbidden from visiting Mrs Rattle and feeling distressed by this she writes, "Viola thinks I'm sulking, but it's not so simple as that. I am forlorn and thwarted. Like holding a pitcher full of feelings and having nowhere to pour." I don't think I've ever read a better description of an emotional state than this one, in children's or adult literature.

However, my favorite passage comes at the end of the book when Mrs Rattle and Mabel are saying their goodbyes. Sensing Mabel is about to cry, Cora says to her, "Dear Mabel Riley, when I was your age, I knew nothing beyond lessons in French and drawing with my governess. I was filled to the brim with other people's knowledge. I would have made a good parrot, but my head was as empty as this room. That is why I find you so admirable, Mabel. You are already asking questions and seeking answers. I wish you had been my friend when I was fourteen so that I had not wasted years having a lazy mind." While there were times in the course of the novel where it seemed that involving Mabel in her causes was reckless of Mrs Rattle, ultimately these women were living in times when seemingly reckless behavior was what ultimately resulted in expanding their freedoms. I think that is one of the most subtle and important aspects of this book. Marthe Jocelyn finds a way to create a magnificent character and tell an exciting story while opening young reader's eyes to the hardships and injustices faced by women and ways that society and individuals faced the modernization of their worlds in the last century.

Readers who like this book will also enjoy two of my (other) favorites: 

A Drowned Maiden's Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz and Nancy Springer's wonderful Enola Holmes series about a very determined, intelligent girl going against the social strictures of Victorian England.

The Fabled Fifth Graders of Aesop Elementary School

Readers who enjoy this book might also like Louis Sachar's Wayside School books:

Candace Fleming is a diverse writers who's newest book, Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart, which is filled with fascinating facts and photos about this trailblazing American hero.











Fleming is also the author of the stunning The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary, which I reviewed in 2009.










On top of that, she is a fabulous picture book author with three of my story time favorites, the bunny tales, Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! and Tippy-Tippy-Tippy, Hide, and the much lauded Clever Jack Takes the Cake,  all of which are illustrated by the marvelous G Brian Karas.

A little bit like the movie "Oceans 11" for kids, Gordon Korman's Swindle starts with a twelve-year-old boy with a big chip on his shoulder who is out to right a wrong and get back what's his. It's his drive, intellect and ability to bring people together that makes the heist work and watching it all come together and biting your nails as they pull it off makes for a fast paced, funny and fun read.

Griffin Bing has always been "the Man With a Plan" and he is furious that the town council of Cedarville won't even give him and his friends the time of day. Without even looking at the plans for the stake park the kids have drawn up to be put on a soon-to-be-vacant piece of land, they vote to build the Cedarville Museum. As a way to show them that they can't push kids around and disregard them, Griffin comes up with another plan. The soon-to-be vacant lot is home to the soon-to-be demolished, crumbling Rockford Mansion. Griffin invites all of the sixth grade to join him in spending the night in the Rockford Mansion before the wrecking ball smashes it to bits the next morning. He doesn't miss a detail, from the cover lie to give to parents, what supplies to bring and how to enter the boarded up building. When Griffin's best friend Ben is the only other kid who shows up, even after the class bully, Darren Vader, dared everyone to go, he deals with his frustration by exploring the dark house in the middle of the night. Bumping into a desk, he triggers the mechanism of a secret drawer where he finds a very old baseball card. The next morning the boys are awakened by the sound (and feel) of the wrecking ball smashing into the house. The boys flee the scene as quickly as they can, grabbing their belongings and the card and head over to Palomino's Emporium of Collectibles to see what the card is worth.

S. Wendell Palomino, soon to be known as Swindle, is the less than reputable proprietor of the Emporium who explains to the boys why the card is not valuable and offers to take it off their hands for $100. Griffin talks him up to $120 and the boys leave with their cash. When Griffin finds out, via a televised news conference, that the card he sold Palomino is actually a rare Babe Ruth card that might bring in over a million dollars at auction, he is beyond angry. For years Griffin's family has been in financial decline, ever since his father quit his engineering job to dedicate his time to inventing an elaborate device for picking fruit. That card could have been his family's ticket to financial freedom and Griffin is not going to let it slip away so easily. When Griffin confronts Swindle with his deception, Palomino has his lies in order and Griffin leaves the store as angry as ever. He becomes the Man With the Plan again and this time he is going to break into Palomino's Emporium and, using his dad's blow torch, liberate his card. He only has to make it past the murderous doberman, Luthor, disarm the elaborate alarm system, break the safe and get out of there. How the boys execute the plan and what they do when the card isn't in the safe is pretty believable and and exciting. 

What they decide to do next is where the "Ocean's 11" reference comes in. Utilizing the various talents of his classmates, Griffin comes up with a plan to break into Palomino's house and get the card back. The kids and their various talents make up a motley crew. There is Savannah, the dog whisperer, Antonia, the rock climber, Melissa, the computer expert, Logan, the actor and Ben, the "tight spaces specialist." When Darren Vader sneaks into the team meeting and threatens to rat them out, he becomes a dangerous but necessary member of the team as well. Executing the heist takes up several chapters of the book and the tale is filled with twists and turns that kept me reading well into the night. Korman does a fine job of keeping the story as realistic as possible, although the character development does not go too deep in this fast paced novel. What I love most about Swindle is Griffin Bing and his insistence that he be taken seriously by adults. Instead of the usual kid's mystery where they stumble upon a crime, old or new, and decide to figure it out, Swindle begins with a kid as the victim of a crime and deciding to take action. 

The gang returns in Zoobreak, where Griffin and Ben help Savannah get back Cleopatra, her stolen monkey that has become part of an illegal floating zoo. In Framed a new principal, also a football fanatic, has turned middle school into boot camp. When his precious Superbowl ring is stolen from a display case on campus and Griffin's retainer is left in its place, Griffin is hauled off to a state school for juvenile delinquents. For once Griffin isn't the Man With the Plan. Book 6, Jackpot, comes out January, 2014!

Source: Purchased

I came across Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde while shelving in the Teen Department at work several years ago and was so intrigued by the premise that I snapped it up and read it right away. And loved it. Although technology changes at light speed these days, Heir Apparent, which was published in 2002, employs video gaming as part of the plot and still feels contemporary and relevant almost a deacde later. Despite the gaming aspect of the plot, Heir Apparent is really a fantasy novel with a medieval setting with a contemporary, wise cracking, fast thinking fourteen year old heroine. The book begins with a printout of a gift certificate for $50.00 to one of the many Rasmussem Enterprises Gaming Centers and is made out to one Giannine Bellisario. This is a birthday gift from her father, who had his secretary call and ask Giannine what she wanted as a gift. Raised by her grandmother, Giannine has a few choice comments to make about both of her absentee parents as well as the parental nature of the futuristic society she lives in, but, ultimately, this is an adventure story and not a social commentary.

On the particular day that Giannine has chosen to use her gift certificate, CPOC (Citizens to Protect Our Children) happens to be protesting in front of the Rasmussem Gaming Center and the remote operated, computer driven bus will "not allow a minor to disembark  into a situation that might be hazardous," the polite and "only lightly metallic" voice tells her as she approaches her stop. Giannine outsmarts the bus, disembarks one stop later, claiming she is going to the art museum, muttering under her breath as she exits the bus, "Your mother was a toaster oven." As she enters the building, CPOC protesters accost her with signs that read "MAGIC = SATANISM," "VIOLENCE BEGETS VIOLENCE" and "INAPPROPRIATE FOR OUR CHILDREN," as well as quoting Bible verse at her, "complete with yeas and thous and wicked ones." The book ends with a page that reads, "If you've decided that this book and others like it are dangerous, clip along this line, glue this page to cardboard, and fasten onto a stick. Start your own protest demonstration!" Below the line reads, "Don't corrupt the minds of our children! Down with fantasy!" A pertinent premise almost a decade ago when Harry Potter and other fantasy novels for children (as well as games) were coming under attack, the argument against electronic games is still relevant, especially with the Supreme Court's recent ruling rejecting a ban on violent video games for children. However, Heir Apparent, the game Giannine decides to play, is very tame by today's standards. It could not be considered a "first person shooter game," and the violence is mostly limited to the Heir Apparent of the game being killed off by other characters hoping to gain the throne. However, there are a few battles from the ramparts of the castle and the beheading of the Barbarian king, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Giannine picks a Total Immersion game which requires her to be hooked up to all sorts of wires and connected to the computer while she relaxes on a couch and challenges her to last three days within the world of the game. During this time she must find a stolen treasure, save the kingdom from a barbarian invasion, make up a poem for the statue of St Bruce the Warrior Poet without having her head cut off, wrangle an army of ghosts, outsmart her jealous half-brothers and steal a crown from a vicious dragon. Of course, Giannine knows none of this at the start of the game and it is fascinating to watch the plot (of the game and the book) unfold as she plays her way through the story, trying to stay alive and unravel the connections between people and places that will unlock the challenges that she must face to reach the end of the game. Shortly after she starts the game in which she is named Janine St Jehan, a smelly sheep herder who discovers she is the illegitimate child of the dead king who named her heir to the throne, her game is interrupted. As she stands in the throne room meeting the Queen and her three half brothers, a white robed figure who turns out to be Nigel Rasmussem himself, floats out of the sky calling her real name. He warns her not to panic but also tells her that CPOC protesters have broken into the building and damaged some of the equipment leaving her in a compromised situation. Safety measures have been taken, but there is a risk of "fatal overload." Not only does Giannine have a limited amount actual of time to play through the three days of the game to completion, she must play to the end and win. Not wanting to cause her to panic, which would make completion of the game even more difficult, Rasmussem gives her a few words of advice, cryptically saying, as he floats upwards, "Kenric and Sister Mary Ursula don't work well together. And next time, don't forget the ring."

As Giannine says, "The point of Heir Apparent is to make good decisions, choose capable and trustworthy friends and advisers, and survive long enough to be crowned king." Watching her work her way through the game making discoveries about who to trust and who to manipulate is fascinating. As I read Heir Apparent for the second time, I kept having this flip-floppy-meta-feeling as I followed Giannine through the plot of the game while simultaneously thinking about the plot of the book, especially how the book would read if it was a straight fantasy novel without the conceit of the video game woven through it. It is as though Vivian Vande Veld has invited the reader into the writing process of Heir Apparent  itself through the unfolding plot of the game Heir Apparent. As Giannine plays her way through the game she figure out how to get to key events that will allow the plot to take her, ultimately, to the throne room in three days time. Each time she makes her way farther into the plot, dying and starting over frequently, she carries with her knowledge from her previous game lives (as well as some knowledge from her actual life) and she must choose how to use this information while at the same time remembering that, in this newest incarnation of the game, she knows things she is not supposed to know. The more I write about Heir Apparent the more brilliant and genius I think Vande Velde is. And I haven't even told you about all of the amazing and intriguing plot points and characters that she creates. However, to do that would rob you of the surprise of discovery that makes this book even more fun to read. 

The Secret Series, as this quintet of books (the fifth book to be released on September 20, 2011) is called, began in 2007 with The Name of this Book is Secret, authored by the mysterious Pseudonymous Bosch (which reminds me of the imaginative Dutch painter Heironymous Bosch) and perfectly illustrated by the wonderful Gilbert Ford. The Name of this Book is Secret was published the same year as Trenton Lee Stewart's Mysterious Benedict Society and the two have some similarities - intrepid, quirky main characters who uncover the mysterious machinations of devious, maniacal adults. And, of course, both series owe a nod to Lemony Snicket and his Series of Unfortunate Events. However, of the three, The Secret Series has to be my favorite. Bosch's narration and frequent interruption of the story to protect the reader, give advice and share background information on the characters as well as word definitions is entertaining and the appendix he provides at the back of the book is brilliant. But, it is the characters of Cass and Max-Ernest (can't help but think of the German Surrealist artist Max Ernst) that I love best about the book.

Chapter One in The Name of this Book is Secret looks a lot like a secret CIA document that has been released to the public, consisting entirely of XXXXXs (and punctuation.) Chapter One and a Half is titled "Apologia," complete with humorous definition of the word and explanation, of sorts, for the level of secrecy. From there, we are cautiously introduced to Cass, who never goes anywhere without her backpack. She is a prepared survivalist and is always on the lookout for potential disasters. She has even been known to ask the school principal, Mrs Johnson, to evacuate the premises when a toxic spill is suspected. Cass's mother Mel is raising her alone, with the help of Grandpa Larry and Grandpa Wayne, neither of whom are actually her grandfathers. Larry and Wayne run an antiques store out of an old firehouse and this is the setting for the start of the mystery when Gloria, a local real estate agent, drops by with a box of odds and ends from a house she is selling that once belonged to a magician. Each book in The Secret Series has a link to one of the five sense and in The Name of this Book is Secret the sense of smell is at the center of the plot. Amidst the junk that Gloria leaves at the firehouse, Cass uncovers an old wooden box with the words The Symphony of Smells etched across the top and ninety-nine small vials of liquids, powders, plant life, shards of wood, even a human hair - all of which have a distinct smell that can elicit a specific response, especially for people who are synesthetic. Synesthesia is a condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to an automatic, involuntary experience in a second sensory of cognitive pathway. So, a synesthetic might assign colors to numbers and letters. Another might assign colors, numbers or letters to smells, as in The Name of this Book is Secret.

The discovery of the box and her exploration of it leads Cass to befriend Max-Ernest, a compulsive talker and joke teller who has never gotten a laugh out of anyone. Max-Ernst is a child of two divorced parents who, believing that a child should be raised by two parents in one home, have divided their house down the middle and expressed their widely different design tastes accordingly. A strange alliance, they set off for the magician's house in search of more details. Their hunt leads them to ultimately rescue a synesthetic classmate who has been kidnapped by the Masters of the Midnight Sun, a secret organization searching for the ultimate secret - immortality. Cass and Max-Ernest learn the sad story of the magician, Pietro Bergamo, who came to America from Italy when he was nine along with his twin, Luciano. They boys were also synesthetes and were taken in by a circus where they developed an act based on their secret skills. This attracted the attention of one Ms. Mauvais, Master of the Midnight Sun, who stole away Luciano for her nefarious purposes. When the children meet up with Ms Mauvais and Dr L many decades have passed but neither of them has aged. Bosch brings together a multitude of influences and ideas in The Name of this Book is Secret, but the informative, friendly tone of the narrator keeps the story from ever being weighed down with details. This series of books has a HUGE following and are always flying off the shelves at the store where I work, as are the Series of Unfortunate Events and Mysterious Benedict Society books, all of which have detailed, unique characters who are intelligent, if not always lucky, brave and ultimately able to outsmart slightly demented adults with elaborate plans. If you are a writer out there looking for a plot, think about it. However, be warned, I am certain that writing books like those by Bosch, Snicket and Stewart may seem much easier than it actually is...

And, happiest of all, as a major skeeball fan, I was THRILLED to discover the website for The Secret Series, which has a wonderful selection of carnival games related to the book, including a computerized version of skeeball that allows you to win really cool downloads of printable paper toys!!