The New Treasure Seekers (1904)

The New Treasure Seekers. E. Nesbit. 1904. 252 pages. [Source: Book I Bought]

The New Treasure Seekers is a collection of short stories starring the Bastable siblings. Some stories are set BEFORE The Story of the Treasure Seekers; some stories are set AFTER The Wouldbegoods. The stories vary in quality, in my opinion. On the one hand, there are a few stories that are truly wonderful. I absolutely adore "The Conscience Pudding," even though the end of the story has a not-so-nice word in it, a product of its time perhaps. If you'd like to read my favorite parts, I shared them as my Christmas gift to you! I do enjoy Oswald's narration. But reading The New Treasure Seekers and The Wouldbegoods so close together, while nice in some ways, was a bit too much. I found myself getting a bit bored by the misadventures after a while.

© 2014 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

The Wouldbegoods

The Wouldbegoods. E. Nesbit. 1901. 156 pages. [Source: Book I Bought]

“Children are like jam: all very well in the proper place, but you can’t stand them all over the shop — eh, what?” These were the dreadful words of our Indian uncle. They made us feel very young and angry; and yet we could not be comforted by calling him names to ourselves, as you do when nasty grown-ups say nasty things, because he is not nasty, but quite the exact opposite when not irritated. And we could not think it ungentlemanly of him to say we were like jam, because, as Alice says, jam is very nice indeed — only not on furniture and improper places like that.
The Wouldbegoods is the further adventures of the Bastable children: Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Alice, Noel, and H.O. Add in a few neighbors for a recipe of trouble and mishap. It is not that the Bastable children set out to be bad, to make trouble for themselves and for their father, far from it. The children intend to be really, really good, which is why they form a club about being good, recording and rewarding their good deeds. The chapters read more like a collection of stories than a novel. Each chapter contains an adventure or misadventure!
For readers looking for old-fashioned family-oriented stories, this one is a quick, fun read. It is not my favorite E. Nesbit novel. But. Oswald is a good friend.  

© 2014 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Reread #1 The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899)

The Story of the Treasure Seekers. E. Nesbit. 1899. Puffin. 250 pages. [Source: Bought]

This is the story of the different ways we looked for treasure, and I think when you have read it you will see that we were not lazy about the looking. 

I first reviewed The Story of the Treasure Seekers in August 2011. I definitely enjoyed it more the first time, perhaps, but it is still fun to revisit E. Nesbit. I really, really love some of her children's books. 

Original review:

I just loved The Story of the Treasure Seekers. I loved the Bastables. There are six children: Dora, Oswald, Dicky, Noel and Alice, and H.O. (Horace Octavius). The children have a father, but no mother. But the father, for the most part, is absent from their day to day lives. This one has a simple plot. The children know that the family is in desperate need of money, and, well, they decide to look for treasure. Each child has an opportunity (or two) to come up with a plan for 'finding' treasure (getting money). Some of the plans are silly and over the top. (Like Noel's plan to marry a princess when he grew up.) But many of their plans lead to a FUN adventure!

I definitely enjoyed this one and would recommend it! It's a great adventure story with many satisfying moments. IF you've only read Nesbit's fantasy, you should give this one a try. 

This novel ends with Christmas!

Quotes:

Oswald spoke first. 'I think we might stop people on Blackheath--with crape masks and horse-pistols--and say "Your money or your life! Resistance is useless, we are armed to the teeth"--like Dick Turpin and Claude Duval. It wouldn't matter about not having horses, because coaches have gone out too.'

I am afraid the last chapter was rather dull. It is always dull in books when people talk and talk, and don't do anything, but I was obliged to put it in, or else you wouldn't have understood all the rest...
The best part of books is when things are happening. That is the best part of real things too. This is why I shall not tell you in this story about all the days when nothing happened. You will not catch me saying, 'thus the sad days passed slowly by'--or 'the years rolled on their weary course'--or 'time went on'--because it is silly; of course time goes on--whether you say so or not. So I shall just tell you the nice, interesting parts--and in between you will understand that we had our meals and got up and went to bed, and dull things like that. It would be sickening to write all that down, though of course it happens.

I have often thought that if the people who write books for children knew a little more it would be better. I shall not tell you anything about us except what I should like to know about if I was reading the story and you were writing it. Albert's uncle says I ought to have put this in the preface, but I never read prefaces, and it is not much good writing things just for people to skip. I wonder other authors have never thought of this.

Albert is always very tidy. He wears frilly collars and velvet knickerbockers. I can't think how he can bear to.

THE PURRING CLASS (Instructive Article) If I ever keep a school everything shall be quite different. Nobody shall learn anything they don't want to. And sometimes instead of having masters and mistresses we will have cats, and we will dress up in cat skins and learn purring. 'Now, my dears,' the old cat will say, 'one, two, three all purr together,' and we shall purr like anything. She won't teach us to mew, but we shall know how without teaching. Children do know some things without being taught.--ALICE.

It is a mistake to think that cats are playful. I often try to get a cat to play with me, and she never seems to care about the game, no matter how little it hurts.--H. O.

© 2014 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Sunday Salon: The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles

The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles. Julie Andrews Edwards. 1974. Scholastic. 288 pages. [Source: Bought]

It was a crisp, sunny October afternoon and Benjamin, Thomas, and Melinda Potter were visiting the Bramblewood Zoo. 

Have you read The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles? What did you think of this children's fantasy novel? I personally loved it a good deal! I enjoyed spending time with Ben, Tom, and Lindy. Their adventures begin with their excursion to the zoo. At the zoo, the children happen to meet a strange man, a professor it turns out. They are resting and discussing among themselves WHAT animal they would take home with them, if they could. This strange man interrupts them and asks if they've ever "considered" a whangdoodle. A what?!?! they essentially respond. That encounter might not have changed their lives too much, been easily forgotten in a week or so, IF, it hadn't been followed up by a trick-or-treating adventure soon after! Lindy was dared by one of her brothers to knock on the door of the local "haunted house." The haunted house, you guessed it, is where this strange professor happens to live. He himself started the rumors so that children would leave him to his work. He's busy making advances in genetics and marveling in studying the nature of DNA...remember this is 1974!

Friendship. These three children find a friend and fellow adventurer in Professor Savant. Someone who challenges them to open up their minds to the world of possibility, a world that allows for just about anything and everything that you can imagine. The four decide to go big, they will work to imagine themselves all the way to Whangdoodleland. Half the book focuses on their time in Whangdoodleland. Readers meet many fanciful creatures...but will they meet...at last...a Whangdoodle?!

If you enjoy fantasy novels with action and adventure and a LOT of imagination, then this one shouldn't be missed!

© 2013 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Sunday Salon: Reading Anne of Windy Poplars

Anne of Windy Poplars. L.M. Montgomery. 1936. 288 pages. [Source: Bought]

Anne of Windy Poplars is such a lovely little epistolary novel. Readers are privileged to share in some of Anne's letters to her beloved Gilbert. In these letters there are hundreds (if not thousands) of character sketches sharing details about Anne's life and new experiences as she teaches at a high school in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. (Highlights include Rebecca Dew, "Little Elizabeth" (Grayson), Katherine Brooke, Aunt Chatty and Aunt Kate, Jen Pringle, Mrs. Gibson, Lewis Allen, Teddy Armstrong (Little Fellow), Gerald and Geraldine (the twins she babysits...once), Jarvis Morrow, Dovie Westcott, Miss Minerva Tomgallon, etc.) Some people just get a brief sentence or two, but oh what Montgomery can do with just a few sentences or even a few words! Montgomery, at her very best, can bring more life and humanity to a character than a good many contemporary writers do in an entire novel. Other characters have whole episodes about them. For example, readers really get to spend some time with Katherine Brooke! One of my favorite episodes--if episode is the right word--is Anne and Lewis out canvassing for subscriptions to the drama club. They meet a "little fellow" named Teddy Armstrong. That story just gets me every single time! Montgomery can bring me to near tears and yet not feel manipulative. How does she do that?!

Have you read Anne of Windy Poplars? How do you think it fits in with the rest of the series? Do you have a favorite character?

Favorite quotes:

I have a scratchy pen and I can't write love-letters with a scratchy pen...or a sharp pen...or a stub pen. So you'll only get that kind of letter from me when I have exactly the right kind of pen. 

You know I've always been one to whom adventures come unsought. I just seem to attract them, as it were.  

School begins tomorrow. I shall have to teach geometry! Surely that can't be any worse than learning it. 

Isn't it queer that the things we writhe over at night are seldom wicked things? Just humiliating ones.

I don't like reading about martyrs because they always make me feel petty and ashamed...ashamed to admit I hate to get out of bed on frosty mornings and shrink from a visit to the dentist!

Nobody is ever too old to dream. And dreams never grow old.

I said drenched and I mean drenched.

Oh, no, babies are never common," said Anne, bringing a bowl of water for Mrs. Gibson's roses. "Every one is a miracle."

It seems so strange to read over the stories of those old wars...things that can never happen again. I don't suppose any of us will ever have more than an academic interest in 'battles long ago.' It's impossible to think of Canada ever being at war again. I am so thankful that phase of history is over. 

Nobody is ever too old to wear just what she wants to wear. You wouldn't want to wear it if you were too old. 

© 2013 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Sunday Salon: Reading Wind in the Willows (1907)

The Wind in the Willows. Kenneth Grahame. Illustrated by David Roberts. Candlewick. 256 pages. [Source: Review Copy]

I enjoyed spending time with Mole, Rat, Toad, and Badger. I believe this was only the second time I'd read this children's classic. It was a good read. Some chapters I liked more than others, of course. But overall, it was a book that I enjoyed. I'm not sure I loved it however.

Do you have a favorite character? A favorite scene? Do you like Toad despite his obsession with motor cars?! Do you think his friends are right to try to convert him?

Favorite quotes:

He thought his happiness was complete when, as he meandered aimlessly along, suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed river. Never in his life had he seen a river before—this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver—glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.

'Believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING—absolute nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.

Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not.

Packing the basket was not quite such pleasant work as unpacking' the basket. It never is. 

for it is impossible to say quite ALL you feel when your head is under water. 

Early or late he's always the same fellow.

"What are we to do with him?" asked the Mole of the Water Rat.
"Nothing at all," replied the Rat firmly. "Because there is really nothing to be done. You see, I know him from old. He is now possessed. He has got a new craze, and it always takes him that way, in its first stage. He'll continue like that for days now, like an animal walking in a happy dream, quite useless for all practical purposes. Never mind him.

At this very moment, perhaps, Toad is busy arraying himself in those singularly hideous habiliments so dear to him, which transform him from a (comparatively) good-looking Toad into an Object which throws any decent-minded animal that comes across it into a violent fit. We must be up and doing, ere it is too late. You two animals will accompany me instantly to Toad Hall, and the work of rescue shall be accomplished.' 'Right you are!' cried the Rat, starting up. 'We'll rescue the poor unhappy animal! We'll convert him! He'll be the most converted Toad that ever was before we've done with him!'

At first Toad was undoubtedly very trying to his careful guardians. When his violent paroxysms possessed him he would arrange bedroom chairs in rude resemblance of a motor-car and would crouch on the foremost of them, bent forward and staring fixedly ahead, making uncouth and ghastly noises, till the climax was reached, when, turning a complete somersault, he would lie prostrate amidst the ruins of the chairs, apparently completely satisfied for the moment. As time passed, however, these painful seizures grew gradually less frequent, and his friends strove to divert his mind into fresh channels. But his interest in other matters did not seem to revive, and he grew apparently languid and depressed.

Try and grasp the fact that on this occasion we're not arguing with you; we're just telling you. 

© 2013 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Sunday Salon: Reading Our Island Story

Our Island Story. H.E. Marshall. 1905/? 512 pages. [Source: Bought]

Our Island Story blends fact and fiction. It is technically a history book, an introduction to British history. But included in this "history" book are legends and myths. Marshall definitely attributes motives to various historical figures and makes definite judgments. It is a subjective history book with an emphasis on story and personality. It isn't exactly scholarly and accu-rat. (In fact there were a few chapters here and there where I was singing right along with "It's Not True.") But it is almost thoroughly enjoyable all the way through. True, I didn't always agree with her conclusions, and she was very reliant on Shakespeare's history plays perhaps. But. Still I think this one offers an enjoyable overview of a large period of history--over a thousand years! It covers Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans, and all the rest! Every monarch gets covered, some more than others. So even if you find yourself disagreeing with a fact or two in a couple of stories, chances are you'll find something to appreciate at least! The narrative style is "for children" in that it is simplified and written in a traditional story style. It is a tame presentation of history in a way. If you're familiar with some of the monarchs, you'll understand why that might be needed!

The edition I read went through World War I and discussed the founding of the League of Nations. I cannot find a date for a subsequent edition or reprinting.

© 2013 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews