Reading Freely

Most of this week’s reading has been of books I read in the 1990s, or at least were books from series I read in the 1990s. I never read Amber Brown, though, possibly because by the time they were published I was too old for them. I wanted to take a look, though, given that the author did the Matthew Martin series. In the first one I tried, Amber Brown is Not a Crayon, we meet the main character, who writes in the first person. The great drama of the book is that her best friend Justin is moving to the other side of the country. I suspect if I’d read this as a kid, I would have strongly sympathized, as I had two best friends move away on me in elementary school, back when we had to resort to letters to stay in touch. (Fortunately the internet arrived and with it, AOL Instant Messenger.) Amber Brown Is Green with Envy was a different story, as it’s about Amber’s problems with her now-divorced parents, her unease with her mother moving on, and her resentment that her dad suddenly wants to be back in her life despite being work-obsessed in her younger days. Divorce and split families was thankfully something I never experienced, save through books. Despite the I could see going back to this series when I do another kidlit sweep, as I like the way “I, Amber Brown, tells stories”.

Matilda, with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was another re-read. Given that it’s by Roald Dahl, though, absolutely nothing is lost. I understand that Netflix is attempting some drama based on this, but I can’t imagine it rivaling the original movie with Mara Wilson and Danny DeVito. Matilda is the story of a precocious young girl who from an early age exhibits extreme talents in both reading and math, despite the fact that her parents dislike her, regard book-reading as a noxious habit, and would be happy she would sit enthralled in front of the television like normal children. Matilda finds her joys at the local library, reading through Dickens, but it’s when she’s sent off to school that things get interesting. Although Matilda’s teacher Miss Honey is The Best Teacher Ever (sorry, Mrs. Jewls) and recognizes her gifts, the school headmaster is The Worst Ever and tries to stick Matilda in a torture-closet called The Chokey. Simmering with rage, Matilda unexpectedly discovers she has other gifts. When I first read Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone back in 2007,* Harry’s magical talent manifesting itself in times of stress immediately brought Matilda to mind.

Some quotes:

So Matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.

“Fiona has the same glacial beauty of an iceberg, but unlike the iceberg she has absolutely nothing below the surface.”

*The friend manically laughing at the top of that post is the same friend who ran off on me. That was from one of our many AIM convos!

At some point in 1996 or ’97, I got to watch Harriet the Spy. I also began keeping a journal in 1997, which is not an accident, though I found California Diaries at the same time. As part of this week celebrating children’s literature of the 1990s (or at least, children’s books I read in the nineties, never mind when they were published) , I wanted to go back to the original book and see what it was like. I can’t compare the book and movie because I remember nothing about the plot of either, only that Harriet was constantly scribbling in her notebook. Harriet is the only child of a fairly wealthy home (wealthy enough that she has a nanny and a cook!), who wants to know Everything in the world and has a spy route in her town. She’s found different hiding places (trees, dumbwaiters, etc) to access and eavesdrop or watch on them. Harriet would be a menace had she been born in a different time, because she writes down seemingly everything she sees or thinks, and it’s often disparaging of her classmates and neighbors — but reveals a child’s inexhaustible curiosity and frank observations. When her classmates read her notebook, she promptly becomes persona non grata at school, exiled from all social interactions and subject to the slings and spitballs of outrageous fortune. Even worse, her chief ally in the world, her nanny Ol Golly, has gone and fallen in love, so she’s on her own. Harriet doesn’t have much in the way of emotional self-control, so when she engages in a vengeance campaign against her classmates (involving planting frogs in desks, cutting their hair, etc) her parents sent her to a shrink. Things get better, though. This was a….chaotic read, with some good writing, though I wasn’t sure where the story was going.

Janie Gibbs was Harriet’s best friend besides Sport. She had a chemistry set and planned one day to blow up the world.

Harriet was getting tired of standing up and screaming. She wished she could sit down but it wouldn’t have done. It would have looked like giving up.

There is more to this thing of love than meets the eye. I am going to have to think about this a great deal but I don’t think it will get me anywhere. I think maybe they’re all right when they say there are some things I won’t know anything about until I’m older. But if it makes you like to eat all kinds of wurst I’m not sure I’m going to like this.

“[Love] feels…it feels—you jump all over inside…you…as though doors were opening all over the world…. It’s bigger, somehow, the world.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Harriet sensibly. She sat down with a plop on the bed.
“Well, nonetheless, that’s what you feel. Feeling never makes any sense anyway, Harriet; you should know that by now,” Ole Golly said pleasantly.

Her mother came to the door. She looked down at Harriet lying there with the chair on top of her. “What are you doing?” she asked mildly. “Being an onion.” Her mother picked the chair up off Harriet’s chest. Harriet didn’t move. She was tired. […]
“It’s for the Christmas pageant…is that it?” “Well, you don’t think I’d just be an onion all on my own, do you?”

You’re eleven years old which is old enough to get busy at growing up to be the person you want to be.

Next up, an old Very-Favorite: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! I was pleased to discover that my library has a copy of the original edition which I read back in he day, with the same illustrations by Joseph Schindelman that I remember as a kid — and they’re imprinted enough on my mind that neither of the movies really took over the characters in my head, except for Julie Dawn Cole as Veruca Salt. She owned that role. I can’t tell you how many times I read this book as a kid, and its original dramatization is one of the first movies I ever saw, as we watched it in class. I’m sure anyone reading knows the story: our character is Charlie Bucket, who is desperately poor and starving, living with his four grandparents (all of whom are in their ninenties) and his parents (who aren’t old enough to be the kids of 90 year-olds, but this is in a book that involves snozzberries, Ooompa-Loompas, and magic elevators). Willy Wonka, the eccentric genius candymaker, has offered five children a chance to tour his factory — those who find the Five Golden Tickets in his candy bars. Charlie is lucky enough to come across one, and he joins his four fellow tourists for a tour of a wonderful place with a very eccentric owner and guide, one is mischievious and sometimes manic. The other kids have serious character flaws which lead them into ghastly accidents, and soon Charlie is all alone and — well, I’ll not spoil the rest. Wonderful writing. I remember reading James and the Giant Peach and this book’s sequel back in the day.

Everything in this room is eatable, even I am eatable! But that is called cannibalism and is in fact frowned upon in most societies.

Whipped cream isn’t whipped cream at all if it hasn’t been whipped with whips, just like poached eggs isn’t poached eggs unless it’s been stolen in the dead of the night!

I wish I could tell you when I met Henry, Beezus, and Ramona, but it’s been 30+ years and a child’s early life is full of firsts, too many to hold on to. I do know that it was Ribsy that I found first, a novel with a skinny looking dog on the cover. The story was of that skinny dog getting lost from his boy Henry and then trying to find his way back home. As a boy who loved dogs — who almost always had one, and who pined for one when he didn’t — I devoured the book and was only happy to read more stories about Henry and Ribsy from the library, and when I ran out of Henry stories I moved on to the girls — to that of Beezus, Henry’s friend, and of her kid sister Ramona. I loved these books, constantly re-reading them and remembering odd little details from them decades later — like Henry carrying a box of kittens, of Ramona staring at a clock and trying to figure out the time. They sometimes inspired or informed my own adventures: how many of my attempts to build a fort in the yard (including the one involving post-hole diggers and ending in my finding the water main and..um, “mass irrigating” two lots) were based on Henry and the Clubhouse? For a while I even declared Beverly Cleary my favorite author.

Beezus and Ramona is the original book in this meta-series, I think, introducing us to Beatrice (“Beezus”) and her holy terror of a sister, Ramona. As a boy I would have preferred Henry among the three characters, but it’s Ramona I remember best as an adult. She’s such a chaos-machine that she makes for great fun reading, though I’d pity her parents (and the neighbors) if I knew her in real life. Beezus and Ramona‘s main story is about Beezus about to have her birthday, but Ramona’s creativity and spontaneity cause…erm, challenges, destroying several cakes and invoking a teeny tiny parade of three and four year olds who Beezus is compelled to entertain. I couldn’t have asked for a more memorable return to the series.

In Henry and the Paper Route, we find young Henry pining for a job of his own — not for money, but because it’s a responsibility, and he wants nothing more than taking on something that proves he’s grown up and responsible. When he learns that there’s a spot opening, he hastens to apply — but doesn’t count on running into a litter of the cutest little kittens on the way, kittens that he just has to take care of. He can put them in his pockets and the newspaperman won’t even notice them, right? … well, read and find out. At any rate, Henry has stiff competition for the job from a new arrival — a boy so brilliant he’s creating a robot. But then there’s Ramona, the little anarchic wildcard, and hilarity and exasperation both ensue.

Ramona and her Father, the last in this revisit set, proved to be more serious. It’s later in the series, and Ramona is a slightly less manic kid, closer to ten than four: she’s old enough to be seriously bothered by her father’s being laid off, especially when she learns in class that smoking is bad for you and she sees him doing it a lot. To make matters worse, she’s a sheep in the school play, and her mother (who is now working to provide some income while Mr. Quimby is searching) can’t make a good costume, so she has to settle for an embarrassing sort-of-sheep.

And lastly, in Henry and Beezus we have an earlier story in which Henry also helps with a paper route, but he’s younger still and is tied up pining for his own bicycle. He knows the very one he wants, but it’s $50! Scooter has offered to let Henry take his route for a weekend, which will get him a little money for the bike fund, but faithful pooch Ribsy knows how to fetch so well, that whenever Henry throws a paper out — well, Ribsy brings it right back. In addition to de-training Ribsy to fetch, Henry is also trying to sell hundreds of gumballs he found in an empty lot (….nothing sketchy about that, nope…..) and looking for a beater bike in the meantime. Beezus helps him out at an auction, but lands him a girl’s bike. No boy can be seen cycling without a crossbar!

While I wasn’t able to revisit much of this series (my library hasn’t held on to much Cleary, unfortunately), I enjoyed each of these thoroughly. The appeal of the books hasn’t diminished in the least.