This
month's book reviews
A Jewish girl of immigrant parents grows
up
in the Boston of 1918 
To appreciate this little novel, a reader should
be aware that three things were occurring in our country during
the year of 1918. First of all, for some time, many people
from European countries had been arriving in big eastern cities
like New York and Boston. They lived in very crowded conditions
in sections of these big cities. Secondly, the nation was
at war fighting the Germans in World War I. Thousands of young
men were serving in the army overseas in Europe. Third, during
these turbulent times, a terrible world-wide influenza epidemic
hit people of all classes, killing thousands of men, women,
and children.
The story of Hannah Gold takes place during
the events mentioned above. Hannah lived with her aunt, Tanta
Rose, and two younger sisters. Also living with them was Vashti,
a longtime friend of Tanta Rose. Vashti was well-known as
a healer - a woman who used various plants and herbs to treat
all kinds of illnesses. While Tanta Rose was patient and loving,
Vashti seemed to be always critical and to speak harshly to
the children. They were all poor and lived in crowded conditions
in a basement apartment. They were Jewish and followed the
customs of their religion as they had lived them in Europe.
Hannah longed for the return of her parents.
Her mother had returned to Russia just before the outbreak
of the war in order to care for a relative. Her father had
joined the army, hoping to fight the Bolsheviks, who were
conducting a violent revolution in his country. Hannah's mother
had hoped that Tanta Rose and Vishti could care for the children
until she and her husband could make it back to Boston.
As we read Hannah's story, we see the influenza
epidemic gradually spreading through the neighboring families
in the surrounding apartments. We know that soon it will reach
Hannah and her family members. Just who survives and who succumbs
to the terrible disease provides part of the suspense in the
novel.
Hannah, under orders from Vishti, is forced
to board a train to go live with relatives in the country.
She boards the wrong train, is taken ill with the flu, and
ends up in an emergency hospital. As she recovers from the
illness, she loses her voice. She is taken in by a elderly
German farmer. Hannah, at first, is frightened of him because
he is German. Some of his neighbors treat him badly because
he is German. Hannah, however, learns the old man is kind
and caring and helps her deal with her physical weakness and
her sorrow over being separated from her family members.
Where does the name "A Time of Angels" come
from? At critical times in her young life, Hannah is sure
she is being helped by a beautiful angel in blue. She comes
to believe that somehow the angel will see that she is reunited
with her sisters and, eventually, her mother and father. You
need to read the book in order to fill in the details of Hannah's
story.
A young girl risks her life to save an
ancient sequoia tree
The
story in "Riding the Flume" takes place in 1894 in northern
California. It's a time when lumber is in great demand to
build houses throughout California and the nation. It is also
a period of economic depression and jobs are hard to find.
Men in the lumber business are under pressure to cut down
the state's giant sequoia trees, some of which are thousands
of years old, perhaps the oldest living things on earth.
Francie Cavanaugh, who is only fifteen years
old, is the daughter of a hotel keeper in a town near the
groves of ancient trees, many of which had already been cut
down. Francie loves the trees and wants to see that the few
giant trees left are protected. Her father, as a business
man in the community, does not want to make the lumber mill
owners angry, since they help keep his hotel in business.
While counting the rings in one of the huge
stumps of a felled sequoia tree, Francie accidentally discovers
a note that her older sister had left there. Six years earlier
the sister, Carrie, had been killed in an accident in the
woods. At that time, Francie had been to young to understand
what had happened to her sister. The note proved that Carrie,
when she was killed, had been trying to save the sequoias
from being destroyed. Finding that out, only made Francie
more determined than ever to do what she could to save the
trees.
In that part of California, lumbermen built
miles of elevated wooden slides, called flumes, which had
water running over them. The flumes were used to swiftly carry
the logs down from higher elevations to the lumber mills down
below. Few men were able to ride the logs down the flume without
being seriously injured or killed.
Against her father's wishes, Francie, gets in
touch with a newspaperman in a larger city down below where
she lives. She is working with others to stir up public opinion
in an effort to save the remaining trees. When she discovers
that the largest and oldest of the trees is growing on land
that the lumber company does not even own, she must get to
the city to obtain proof. She had to have the right papers
and the help of the law to keep the vicious lumber foreman
from ordering this special tree to be cut.
What do you suppose is the quickest way to get
the help she needs? You guessed it - Francie must make a terrifying
ride down the flume, if she is to be in time to save the largest
and oldest of the sequoia trees. How can she do it, when full-grown
men are afraid to try?
A young orphan girl ends up riding with
a famous Mexican bandit as she teaches him to read 
Annyrose Smith and her older brother, Lank,
had arrived in California as orphans in the 1850's. Their
mother had died of fever when the small family had crossed
Panama on mule back to reach the ship that was to take them
to California. When they did reach California, the two kids
lost their belongings to thieves and Annyrose broke her leg
in an accident. Annyrose was taken in by what appeared to
be a friendly old lady, while Lank headed to the gold fields
in northern California. He was to send stagecoach fare back
to his sister to join him later.
The nice old lady turned out to be O. O. Mary,
a notorious dealer in stolen horses and anything else she
could steal or cheat people out of. When Annyrose recovered
from her broken leg, she found out that she had become a hard-working
slave on O. O. Mary's ranch. When a notorious Mexican bandit
turned up at the ranch with plans to rob the old lady, O.
O. Mary ran off. Annyrose saved herself by pretending to be
a boy and joining the gang of bandits headed by Joaquin Murieta.
She figured anything was better than being O.O. Mary's slave.
When the bandit chief found out that Annyrose
could read, he decided to keep her around to teach him how
to read. Remember, at the time, Murieta thought Annyrose was
a boy. As the bandits moved northward towards the goldfields,
Annyrose was able to travel safely with them. Of course, she
didn't approve of the robbing and stealing that the bandits
were doing, but she managed to teach Murieta to read English,
which was his goal.
All kinds of things happen on the way north.
Of course, the evil old lady, O.O. Mary, turns up again. Also,
to her surprise, Annyrose finds out that Lank has become a
lawman and is riding with the rangers to try to catch Murieta.
Can she and her brother ever get together and go on to lead
happy lives? What will become of Murieta, since everybody
thinks he is a vicious bandit and deserves to be hanged?
A famous kids' author tells of some "stunts"
that took place in his childhood
Kids'
author, Gary Paulson, believes that twelve and thirteen-year-old
boys seem to be almost programmed to do stupid and dangerous
things. He thinks this might have been even more true in an
era where there was no television to watch. Paulson tells
of five events that he says he remembers from his childhood
days growing up in northern Minnesota, not too long after
the end of World War II.
The first story is the one that gives the book
its name. Carl Peterson decided one day that he was going
to beat the speed record for skiers that was seventy-four
miles an hour. He was going to do it using home-made skis
and while being towed by a hot-rod car. Well, he did get up
to 75 miles per hour. The new nick-name came after he told
his friends while he was in the hospital that he had "heard
the angels sing." That's Carl's picture on the cover of the
book.
Other "extreme sports" feats include shooting
a waterfall in a barrel, hang gliding, skate boarding, jumping
a bike through a ring of fire, and wrestling with a bear.
Of course, Paulson tells of these events in the funniest way
he knows how.
As a reader, you have to decide how much of
this famous author's stories are true and how much is just
his wild imagination at work.
