This month's book reviews
The story behind the sightings through
the years
of the Loch Ness "monster"
The story begins in March of 1930. It was
on the west coast of Scotland and just after a big storm.
Kirstie and her younger brother, Angus, along with Grumble,
their grandfather, were walking on the beach to see what
the waves might have washed up on shore. Kirstie saw it
first - a large egg covered with moss and seaweed. They
dropped it in the bag along with other stuff they were
collecting.
When they got home, the kids put their find
in a bucket of water. Since the bucket wasn't quite big
enough, after their evening baths, they put the egg in
the bath tub, where it could be completely covered. The
next morning to their astonishment, they found a creature
about the size of a kitten swimming in the tub. It didn't
look like anything they had ever seen before. It had a
long neck, a head like sea horse, and a body like a turtle,
only without the shell.
When the strange creature swam around and
made a chirping sound, Angus realized the creature might
be hungry. He had already decided that it looked like
a sea monsters pictured in one of his books. It was just
a baby monster, that's all, and not a monster monster.
What kind of food to feed it? Sardines from a can in the
kitchen pantry!
While the kids were trying to explain to
their mother about the little sea monster, Grumble found
it in the bath tub. He was fascinated by it immediately.
He told the kids it was what legend described as a water
horse. He had always wanted to see one, but, of course,
never did, until the kids found this one. He had come
to believe that the stories were just stories, and that
water horses did not really exist. He cautioned the kids
not to let anyone else know about the creature. They had
to keep it a secret.
Well, as you can guess, the creature began
to grow rapidly. Angus came up with the name "Crusoe"
for the water horse, short for Robinson Crusoe. Soon Crusoe
could no longer be kept in a bath tub. The problem became
where could they keep him until he might become big enough
to turn lose in the sea.
The rest of the story is concerned with
the adventures that Crusoe and the kids get into. They
had to move Crusoe from location to location without anyone
else finding out about him. As Crusoe became bigger and
bigger, their problems with him became increasingly difficult.
They loved him like a pet, and he was careful not to hurt
them, since he saw them as part of his family. Still,
how do you keep an animal happy that is becoming bigger
than an elephant?
"The Water Horse," written by author Dick
King-Smith, has been a popular kids' book in Britain and
in Australia and New Zealand. The author also wrote "Babe,
the Gallant Pig," which had been made into a popular movie.
Now, playing in theaters, is the movie "The Water Horse,
Legend of the Deep," based on the book we are talking
about here. The movie has a lot more action and is scarier
than the book. If you have a choice, you probably should
read the book before you see the movie. However, both
are very entertaining.
Two friends deal with labor problems in
the mills
of early 1800's England
The story in "Trouble at the Mill" is told from two differing
points of view. Lizzie Sprott, a teenager, worked in the
cotton mill for sixty hours per week. Her younger brother,
although only nine, worked fifty hours per week in the same
mill. Their father had been an engineer in the mill and
had been responsible for running the heavy boilers that
powered the equipment used to make thread and cloth from
the cotton. However, he had been fired recently because
he had dared to make some remarks in support of workers
who were protesting the harsh working conditions.
The family, like all the other workers, lived in a cottage
that belonged to the mill owner. They paid rent to the owner
and were forced to buy groceries from stores operated by
the mill owner. Not only were the workers forced to work
long hours for low pay, but their employer took back their
earnings through charging high rent and high prices for
food. There were no schools for children of the workers,
even before they started working at the mill.
Josh Grumstone was the son of the mill owner. He was just
six months older than Lizzie. When they were much younger,
the two had met out in the fields around the village. They
played together and, over the years had become friends.
Josh had a secret hiding place on land that was part of
his father's large estate. The two of them had sometimes
played together there. Naturally, their families knew nothing
of the friendship. Especially, Josh's father would have
never allowed Josh to associate with a member of a worker's
family.
These events were taking place during a period called "the
Industrial Revolution." People who had supported themselves
on small farms over the previous centuries were now working
in the newly-developing mills. They were forced to live
in villages close to their workplaces. There were no labor
unions and workers had to accept whatever conditions were
imposed upon them if they wanted to earn a living. Gradually,
a movement called "the Chartist movement" began to try to
develop laws to help protect the workers from the greed
of the mill owners.
Lizzie Sprott and Josh Grumstone represented two opposing
sides in the struggle. Lizzie was trying to see that her
family could work reasonable hours and have a decent place
to live and enough to eat. Josh had been sent away to boarding
school. He was being groomed by his father to protect the
mill owner's income, accumulating property, and claims to
high social status.
In reading, first, Lizzy's account and, then, Josh's account,
a reader comes to understand the feelings of people at both
extremes of this historic struggle for economic justice.
Interestingly, this struggle, although it takes differing
forms, continues even to this day not only in England but
in America as well.
A boy travels to the Amazon to help his
dad study
and protect jaguars
Fourteen-year-old Jacob Lanza was thrilled when his father,
"Doc" Lanza, sent airplane tickets for him to fly to Brazil.
Jacob knew his dad was part of a group that was trying to
establish a preserve deep in the Amazon jungle to help save
the large cats called jaguars from extinction. Jacob certainly
would rather be down there with his dad than left behind
to attend school while living with his grandfather in a
residence home for old people.
Although the visit was only supposed to be for a few days,
events dictated that Jacob would be allowed to go with his
father on a river trip far into the jungle. The original
boat that the party was to travel on had been blown up.
An important member of the group had been killed and Jacob
would be needed to help if the trip was to leave as scheduled.
Luckily, a mysterious stranger named Jay Silver had offered
to take the group up the river when he heard their boat
had been destroyed.
The researchers had planned to use a light aircraft to
fly over the jungle and keep track of those animals that
the group was able to attach electronic signals to. Their
flyer had been crippled in the boat explosion, so Jacob
was to be trained to take his place and fly the aircraft.
It was pretty evident that someone was trying to sabotage
the expedition. The blowing up of the boat was just the
beginning. So young Jacob would not only face the normal
dangers of such an undertaking, but also would have to be
alert to outsiders who were willing to commit murder in
order to cause the expedition to fail.
In spite of the book's title, "Jaguar" by author Roland
Smith, it was clear very early that it was not the large
cats that offered the biggest threat to Jacob and his friends,
but unknown persons who did not want to see a large tract
of the Amazon jungle turned into a nature preserve. You
need to read the book to see if Jacob and his conservationist
father could stand up against those who wanted to exploit
the jungle for their own profit.
A New England girl reluctantly experiences
the California gold rush of 1849
Twelve-year-old "Lucy" Whipple's real name is California
Morning Whipple. When she is forced to move to California
from Massachusetts, after the death of her father, she insists
that she be called "Lucy." She hates California so much
when she gets there that she certainly doesn't want it as
her name. She couldn't understand why anyone would want
to leave a warm comfortable home in Massachusetts and loving
grandparents to go live in tents in hot and dusty California.
Her mother was the adventurous type; happy to be a pioneer
on a new frontier, but Lucy certainly was not.
Lucy's mother and her small family found out pretty quickly
that the gold that brought so many to California was not
all that easy to come by. Long hours of digging a mine or
panning for gold in rivers might or might not lead to any
gold at all. However, fixing meals and running a boarding
house for those who were arriving to hunt for the gold did
promise a fairly steady income. So that's what Mrs. Whipple
did. For a salary and a place to live, she took a job running
a boarding house for Mr. Scatter, one of the mining town's
business men.
Early on, of course, the boarding house was just a large
tent with divided rooms. The Whipple home was just a tent
also. It took a while before actual wooden frame buildings
could be built for businesses or homes to live in. Naturally,
the Whipple kids, including Lucy, were expected to help
out in any way they could. Lucy worked hard, but she was
not happy at all. She dreamed of saving enough money to
move back to Massachusetts with her grandparents and aunts
and uncles.
One of the things Lucy missed most was books. She loved
to read and her best moments were when packages arrived
from the East with books in them. She finally accumulated
enough books that she would loan them out to some of the
miners who were hungry also for something to read.
One who reads Lucy's story comes away with a much better
understanding of what life was really like for those who
moved to California in the middle 1800's. It took a lot
of hardships for Lucy to endure and a long period of time
and slow changes in her attitude before she came to the
point where she did not want ever to leave California.
