Elizabeth Gray Vining (1902–1999)

Opening in January of 1775, in the city of Edinburgh, Meggy MacIntosh: A Highland Girl in the Carolina Colony - one of eight Newbery Honor Books selected in 1931, along with such titles as The Dark Star Of Itza, Queer Person, and Mountains Are Free (amongst others) - follows its eponymous orphaned heroine as, unhappy with the well-meaning but emotionally distant relatives with whom she is living, and determined to know something of adventure, she sets out to make a new life for herself in show more the Americas. Hoping to join her personal heroine, Flory MacDonald, whose famous rescue of Bonnie Prince Charlie had long been one of her favorite stories, Meggy runs away from home, substitutes herself for her cousin Veronica on a sea voyage, and generally finagles her way to North Carolina, only to discover that the new world isn't quite what she expected. With the colonies in turmoil, and fast heading into open revolt, she finds herself in a quandary: although sympathetic to the cause of the Patriots, she has great love for her fellow Highlanders, who, under the leadership of none other than Flory MacDonald, are staunch Loyalists. Where does Meggy really belong, and which side will she eventually choose...?

Seeing Elizabeth Janet Gray resolve that question regarding her heroine's loyalties - indeed, her very identity - is what made this book worth reading for me. I appreciated the complexity of emotion that she managed to capture, in her depiction of her Meggy: her uncertain and vacillating beliefs, when it came to the Patriot and Loyalist causes; her evolving feelings for and perceptions of Ewan, whom she hero-worshiped in Edinburgh, and for whom she felt almost a maternal kindness, by the end; and her simultaneous pride in, and disagreement with, the Highlanders who settled in North Carolina, but sided with the British. This latter, in particular, was terribly poignant. The scene in which the grizzled old soldier, a veteran of Culloden, speaks of being on the "winning side" this time, was terribly moving. Knowing what I do about the aftermath of the Jacobite rebellions, and of Culloden; and aware of which side really did triumph, in the Revolution, I found myself close to tears, while reading. A fine achievement on Gray's part!

All that said, I also found much that was dated and distasteful in Meggy MacIntosh, particularly in the author's depictions of the slaves, who are described, at various times, as "black monkeys," and who hardly emerge as human beings, in the story, let alone as sensitively depicted ones, with complex emotional lives. That contrast, between the nuanced view of the Revolution - the sensitive appreciation shown, for the idea that people on different sides of an issue can partake equally of high ideals and noble qualities - and the simplistically dismissive take on slaves, who are depicted (when they enter the picture at all) as incompetent and stupid, particularly struck me here, and I came away with the impression that this was authorial prejudice, rather than just a realistic depiction of the prejudices of the day. After all, it isn't characters who say or think that the slaves are like "black monkeys," it's the narrator.

It really is a shame, because I do feel that the book has merit, as a work of historical fiction. But unlike Downright Dencey (another of the books I have read for this Newbery project), I'm not sure there is enough merit to compensate for the racism - especially when the racism here seems so much more consciously held, on the part of the author. Recommended primarily to Newbery completists like myself, and to fans of historical fiction, with the proviso that there is some pretty sharply anachronistic content here. show less

"A road's a kind of holy thing..."

Adam of the Road is a 1942 Newbery Honor book, and tells the story of a young boy in thirteenth-century England. While travelling with his minstrel father Roger, Adam becomes separated from Roger and from his beloved dog Nick, and spends the rest of the story searching for them. His adventures give the reader a taste of a wide variety of professions and lifestyles in medieval England. We follow Adam as he sings in great houses, works as a farmer's boy, falls show more in with the wrong kind of minstrels, is robbed by bandits, visits St. Giles's Fair, watches a mystery play, sees life at the University, and more.

Twining his experiences together are Adam's songs and tales that he tells as a minstrel. He wants to be a minstrel like his father, and learns one of his father's primary lessons as he travels: he must learn to fit his song to his audience. Along the way he also starts maturing as a person.

This is a somewhat sanitized version of the Middle Ages. Gray mentions how Adam's father Roger avoids all the rude and crass fabliaux that characterized many minstrels of the time, instead preferring the French romances about courtly love and heroism. As he travels, Adam finds that people are generally kind and even the poorest will take you in for a meal and bandage up your head after you fall. I did like how Adam never does get his harp back the last time, and has to learn to play the bagpipes instead (which is hardly ideal for a minstrel who plays to accompany himself singing).

For the most part, the crueler aspects of medieval life are muted. There was a moment when Adam wonders if a noblewoman destined for an arranged marriage wants to marry the knight her father has chosen, and another boy says that she's just a girl and has to obey. Adam compares this to the tales of courtly love and honor paid to ladies in the romances, and wonders how the two ideas can coexist. But it is just a passing thought and never takes over the story (as in some agenda-driven tales). Perhaps it is not so much that the medieval world was idealized, but that we are seeing it through the eyes of an eleven-year-old boy. He probably wouldn't understand all the crass or harsher parts of life, and so for him they did not exist.

There are several loose ends left at the story's conclusion. We never get back to Jill and John Ferryman. What happens to Agnes and Margery? Why doesn't Jankin get a better comeuppance? What is Squire Simon's fate, and is Emilie happy in her arranged marriage? I guess this is true to life... we touch so many people in passing and never learn what becomes of them in later life.

This is a well-written story and I recommend it. show less

I was seven when my parents signed me up for the Calling All Girls Book Club so I would have books in English to read when the Air Force sent my family to Honduras. The Cheerful Heart was one of the books I received. Alas, I am 68 now and have arthritis in one ankle, which I turned last week. I can't fetch my copy.

Tomi Tamaki and what's left of her family (elder sister killed, elder brother missing and presumed dead), are trying to get their lives back after the end of World War II. Their show more original home was bombed out. Japanese regulations regarding resources permit only a small house to be built. Tomi, her parents, her grandmother, and her little brother (most precious to the family with elder brother gone), must crowd into it somehow.

I read the book many times. It taught me something about both the human spirit and Japanese culture. I still remember the saying, "bee sting on a crying face" for a misfortune that follows an earlier misfortune - not unlike our "adding insult to injury".

Yes, we have a custom of "hostess gifts" for visits or going to a dinner party, but imagine having to give a gift just for visiting someone else's house. The family loses one of its surviving treasures because of such a visit, but they would be shamed if they were like a visitor to their house who had brought only dried squid.

I learned about various festivals. The one where little figures of teru teru bōzu, the priest who makes the sun shine, are tied to trees in the hope of good weather helped me decades later, when I ordered a Tetsuwan Atomu [Astro Boy] calendar. The famous robot, his sister, Uran [Astro Girl], and Prof. Ochanomizu [Dr. Elefun] visit different planets. One of them is the rain planet. Uran carries a little teru teru bōzu as they slog through the water. I explained it to a fellow anime fan.

I think it was at New Year that they played a card game where famous poems are split and printed on two cards. The object of the game is to find the other halves of one's cards. Tomi is growing up because she suspects something about what her dad does during the game every year.

One of the incidents in the book is when Mr. Tamaki, who works with an American man named Mr. Kitchen, tells the family that the American finds the meaning of their family name [jewel tree] funny. He tells them what the American's surname means in Japanese. The family roars with laughter until their sides ache, and Mrs. Tamaki sets them off again with a joke about it.

Tomi is given a bicycle to help her run errands. The bicycle gets stolen. The family gets a black puppy with big feet to grow up and be their watchdog.

Winters in Japan had to be suffered without the benefit of central heating units. Poor Tomi's hands are so full of chilblains that she can hardly hold her brush to write during lessons. Imagine having a hibachi pot of coals under the table and tucking a quilt around one's lower body to try to stay warm.

I learned about netsuke, those carved ornaments used as toggles on the obi, or sash, of a kimono, from what happens when Tomi finds her bicycle at a shop, but the shopkeeper can't afford to just give it back. He bought it in good faith. An American woman would pay a good price for a girl child's kimono for her granddaughter. Must elder sister's childhood festival kimono be lost in order to get the bicycle back?

At last the Tamaki family have permission to make their house bigger. Tomi is rejoicing in finally having her own room, however small, when something unexpected happens.

This is a very good book for children and adults alike. We all need to experience other cultures. show less

I've owned this since I acquired it as a library discard when I was in junior high, and that's when I last read it. I'd really forgotten all details of the story.

This Newberry Award winner from 1943 follows Adam, an 11-year-old minstrel, son of a minstrel named Roger. As the book starts, Adam is being educated in an abbey, eager for his father to return from what is essentially a business trip to France. He loves his spaniel Nick and his harp best of all things in the world. When Roger show more returns, they set off on a road trip. Another minstrel steals Nick, and when father and son set off in pursuit, they are soon separated. Adam spends months on his own, meeting a variety of people around England in 1294.

Foremost, I was surprised by the wealth of medieval details worked into the book. Gray's research was immense, and she gracefully incorporates everything. This is also very much a boy's adventure book. Girls and women have almost no roles, and Adam regards all girls with outright disdain after one thinks cats are better than dogs. The ending feels weirdly tidy and abrupt. I do adore the Robert Lawson illustrations throughout--he's one of my favorite illustrators and authors of this period.

I don't think this is a book I need to keep on my shelf after thirty years, but it was good to read it again. show less