Book Review: Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland

title: Luncheon of the Boating Party
Author: Susan Vreeland
Publisher: Penguin Books
Publication Date: 2008

There are paintings throughout history that are very well known by everyone. Pierre August Renoir's painting Le Déjeuner des canotiers also known as The Luncheon of the Boating Party is one of those paontings that helped make the Impressionism movement as well known as it is today. Author Susan Vreeland has taken this painting and the creation of it and written a narrative that takes readers back to Paris in the 1880's when Renoir undertook the large scale creation of a painting that he envisioned showing in the yearly salon. In this painting, he had fourteen friends model for him on the terrace of the restaurant La Maison Fournaise. Bt including a mixture of men, women, and high society as well as working class men and women in his painting, Renoir showed the changing ideals of Parisian society. The author  draws her readers into the life of Renoir and life in Paris after the Prussian War in a beautiful and engaging way.

I adored this book, personally. I grew up in a home that adored the Impressionists. My artists father had prints of many of Monet's paintings hanging up. I spent much time as a child in the Impressionist gallery of the Art Institute as a child and teenager looking at the paintings on display by Monet, Renoir, Mary Cassualt, Georges Seurat, Édouard Manet, and Edgar Degas. I still have a love of this art movement and it's influence on future movements such as the post impressionists and the Neo-Impressionists.

 I started with an audio copy which has a wonderful reader. However,  and I I ended up switching to a print copy as I was having trouble keeping characters and events in mind and the book let me easily flip back to remind myself of events and people. I found this to be an interesting narrative of the composition and execution of this painting. I really feel like I got a glimpse into Renoir's life and mind while he was painting.

Book Review: Spring Pearl The Last Flower by Lawrence Yep

Title: Spring Pearl The Last FlowerAuthor: Laurence YepPublisher:Pleasant Company PublicationsPublish date: August 21, 2003

Twelve year old Chou Spring Pearl's life is in upheaval. Recently orphaned, she is taken in by the family of her scholarly father's friend and benefactor Master Sung. Raised in a bamboo hut located in the "rat's nest' poorer neighborhood of Canton Spring Pearl has been raised in an unorthodox manner for girls of her time. The daughter of a scholar who was known for his paintings she knows how to read , and write, and can speak some English, due to her father's business with British and other foreigners before they were pushed out of the city, but does not know how to sew, embroider, or play music. Spring Pearl's home was humble compared to the home of the Sung family and her foster sister's and the servants tease her about her humble beginnings.

However, during her time in the Sung household, Spring Pearl finds herself slowly being accepted as a part of the family. Her dedication to reviving the fading garden in the compound and her honor and loyalty to Master Sung show her to Mistress Sung in a more favorable light than that of the "leech" the mistress had thought of her when she first came into the household. Caught in a place where she isn't a servant, but also isn't one of the wealthy family, Spring Pearl fights to find her place in the household she has become a part of. When Master Sung is arrested for treason, and the French and British attack Canton again will Spring Pearl be able to use her talents and knowledge to help the family that took her in to stay safe and keep their home during the turmoil?

Spring Pearl the Last Flower is one of the Girls of Many Lands book series produced by the American Girls company between 2002 and 2005. This line of books and dolls was aimed at older girls and spanned several countries and time periods. I picked this book up from bookmooch to add to the books I was leaving at a little free library near the school I student taught at last spring. However, I hung onto the book to read because I thought it looked interesting and was written by the author of Dragonwings and Dragon's Gate which I read years ago when my younger sister cleared out her book collection prior to a move and had enjoyed very much. I found this book to be an interesting one that takes place at the start of the second Opium War in China. Spring Pearl is a positive strong heroine and would be a good role model for any tween. The book itself might be a little hard at times to read, there is a lot of historical detail included, and Spring Pearl's behavior is not what a modern reader might expect.

I wish that this line of books and dolls hadn't been so short lived. I love the range of countries and ethnicities included in the series. While this book looks at China in the late 1850's other books introduced Tudor England (1592), 18th century France (Pre Revolution),  Yup'ik Alaska (1890), and Partition era India (1939).

As an adult reader I found this book to be fairly easy and informative historical fiction reading. I think it would be great for middle school aged readers with an interest in historical fiction.

Book review: Evensong by M. L. St. Sure

I received this book through the goodreads first-read program. It promptly got misplaced when many of my books were packed into storage. 

Christina, is the daughter of a once famous Austrian opera singer and a minor French aristocrat. After the horrors her parents endured during World War I they emigrated to America. There they worked a small farm in Kansas and raised a family. Christina is taught to sing by her father, and has dreams of escaping from the farm to a life of success. 

After her father dies when the family is caught in a severe storm, Christina gets work at a hotel in town as a singer to the guests. There she meets two men. The elderly Senator Liam Caradine and the Frenchman Laurent de Gauvion Saint Cyr.  The Senator  sees Christina as a daughter while Christina loves him with her whole heart. While Laurent has fallen head over heels in love with her and is consistently rejected.

When Christina's mother and brother fall into grief fueled drinking and let the farm fall into ruin, Christina auxins to her need to protect her younger sister Nicholette. With the help of Senator Caradine, Christina flees the country with her sister and arrives in France just before Germany invaded. The girls uncle, Philippe Petain, has been named the French Premier. He is willing to ally his country with the Nazis. 

Christina and Nicholette find themselves thrown into war. Their uncle wants Christina to sing for Hitler. However She wants nothing to do with her uncles plans no matter the consequences. When her sister is taken by the Nazis Christina throws herself to helping Laurent in the French résistance with the goal of rescuing her sister. 

Evensong is the first book by M. L. St. Sure. It dives into very powerful subject matter. The story delves into the horrors of war, and the struggles and sacrifices made during the hardship of war. While the idea of love is introduced to the story, this is by no means a romantic story. As Christina travels further into war-torn Europe looking for her sister we see her grow from a dream filled girl into a determined woman haunted by the death and terror surrounding her. 

I thought this was a strong first novel. There were times when characters and their motivations felt a little flat. However the story was intriguing and really pulled me in as a reader. It is not a happy romantic look at WWII. 

It does however portray in a realistic way what a soldier who is living through unrealized horrors might be feeling as they are entrenched in the war.

Book Review: The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery

Title: The Teahouse Fire
Author: Ellis Avery
Publication Date: 2006

Nine year old Aurelia Corneille has had a hard life. She is the daughter of an unmarried Frenchwoman who immigrated to America to be close to her brother, a catholic priest in New York city, after she has been disowned by her mother for shaming her family. She has grown up living on the charity of the nuns in the convent at the church her uncle Charles ministers at.

When her uncle is given a posting to go to Japan as a missionary in 1866 he plans on taking  Aurelia and her mother with him to help as servants. Given Aurelia's gift for languages (she speaks English and French) he hopes she will learn the tricky Japanese tongue quicker than the brothers of the mission party and help comunicate with the "heathen Japanese" when her mother is unable to go with due to failing health, Aurelia and her uncle engage on their journey across the world.

In 1866, Japan was still closed to foreigners. The missionaries are smuggled into Miyako the old Imperial Capital of Japan (now known as Kyoto). Unhappy with her new life with her uncle, Aurelia flees a fire in the building she and her uncle are living in. She runs far into the unknown city. Fatigued, she stumbles into one of the small tea houses owned by the Shin family as a part of their tea ceremony school. She is discovered by Yukako, the  Shin family's daughter, and is adopted into the family as servant to Yukako.

The Teahouse Fire follows Aurelia as she becomes "Miss Urako". The book takes place during the fall of the samurai culture and the opening of Japan to outsiders.  Urako, servant to the household that she is, becomes a "little sister" to Yukako her closest companion. She sees the struggle Yukako goes through as a female in a male dominated world. The book chronicles the tumultuous changes that Japan goes through as it enters a period of enlightenment and progress. The story spans twenty-five years of Aurelia's life in Japan after her fate has been changed by tragedy.

I loved the first lines of this book:

"When I was nine, in the city now called Kyoto, I changed my fate. I walked into the shrine through the red arch and struck the bell. I bowed Twice. I clapped twice. I whispered to the foriegn goddess and bowed again. And then I heard the shouts and the fire. Wha had I asked for? Any life but this one. "

with that I was pulled into historic Japan, and had a hard time pulling myself out to take care of classwork. I found the book engaging and interesting as the changes to Japan are shown through the eyes of someone living them. Aurelia struggles with not being completely Japanese through most of her life, to find herself known as a foreigner and pushed away from her home in Japan due to rising nationalism brought about because of the influx of foreign influences to the country.

Book Review: Amelia's War by Ann Rinaldi

Another book set in the American Civil War. I'm loving the fact that my "to be read soon" basket had a second book from the same time-frame as the Halifax Connection (which I reviewed last week) from another viewpoint of the war, in a totally different setting. I was wanting to read more historical fiction from this era of history after finishing The Halifax Connection

Scholastic Press
Publish Date 1999

Amelia Grafton’s life is changing in ways she didn’t expect. She and her family live in the Pro-Union state of Maryland. Her family supports the Union. But as the Civil War progresses and comes closer to her hometown it seems like everyone is slowly choosing sides with the Union or the Confederates. Everyone, it seems except her good friend Josh. Who is determined to keep a neutral outlook on the war in order to write well informed and truthful stories about the battles being fought around them for his father’s paper the Hagerstown Mail.

The War moves closer, with Lee’s forces invading Hagerstown three times. The final time there is even fighting in the town square! Amelia and her family struggle to keep their lives going as they had before the war. Her older brother Wes runs off to join the Union forces and Amelia is faced with the fact that he may not survive the battles being fought. Through it all, Amelia must decide how she can stay true to her own belief’s and figure out what she can do to help the war effort when the right time comes.

Amelia’s War is written by Ann Rinaldi, who has written many historical fiction stories. She based her story on the ransom of Hagerstown, Maryland, which happened the first week of July in 1864. She writes an informative story that sets a fictitious family into a well documented part of the American Civil War. This is the second book written by Ann Rinaldi that I have read, and I enjoyed it a lot. She has a way of writing that puts the reader right into the lives of her characters. I enjoyed seeing the war through the eyes of a young girl. It gave me a different insight to what was happening during that time frame. This is a fantastic look into how the Civil War affected the everyday life of the people who lived in the areas being fought on. I would recommend this book for any older child who is wanting to learn about the American Civil War.

Book Review: The Halifax Connection by Marie Jakober

Publishe: andom House Canada
Publish Date: 2007

Canada in 1862 was not the proud country we know today. It was still collection of colonies run by the British crown. To the south of Canada in the United States, the Civil War is becoming more volatile. As the fighting gets hotter, people from both sides, Yankee and Confederate alike cross the border into the British Colonies for many reasons. Among the southern gentry flooding into the cities of Halifax and Montreal, there are many spies and military personages. These men and women have ulterior motives to put into action secret plans against the Yankees. Secret plans that may or may not start a war between England and the United States. If a war is started between the two countries, the Confederacy would have an ally in fighting against the Yankees.

Former theater manager and ex-British aristocrat Erryn Shaw finds himself recruited as a spy for the British crown. His job is to befriend the Southern rebels and learn their secret plans. While on a mission to Montreal, he hears about an exceptionally sinister plot being planned by the Confederates. A plan, which the men in charge believe with all their hearts will win them the war.

While in Montreal, Erryn meets and courts a woman he finds intriguing and charming named Sylvie Bowen. Sylvie has recently emigrated to Canada, escaping life of drudgery working in the cotton mills of England. Sylvie also stands firm in her hatred of the Southern rebels. Because of their piracy, she and her aunt Franny were forced to land on Nassau. Only Sylvie would then travel onto Halifax. Her aunt left behind to be buried in a mass grave, for the victims of a Yellow Fever epidemic that was raging through the island when the women were forced ashore by the sinking of the English trader they were traveling on by the confederate ship the Alabama.

Erryn finds himself drawn deeper into the intrigue surrounding the plot he has uncovered. Meanwhile his feelings for Sylvie deepen as he spends more time with her. He finds himself in a race against time. Can Erryn Shaw find a way to stop the Rebel’s plans and keep England from starting a war with the United States? Can he do so and pull out of the spy game before his beloved Sylvie discovers he is a “Grey Tory” siding with those she despises? Or will he run out of time and loose both Sylvie and the hope of defeating the plan that the Rebels believe will end the war.

The Halifax Connection draws its story from actual events in Canada’s history. I was fascinated by the story, as much of my Civil War knowledge had ended with Canada being one of the end points of the underground railroad. This book is a fantastic example of historical fiction. It is superbly written and transports readers back in time to an exiting time in Canada’s colonial history. Author Marie Jakober takes us into the ballrooms and parlors of the bustling city of Montreal to the dirty, military garrisoned port town of Halifax. I originally won this book as a part of the first Hidden Treasures contest held by West of Mars back in the summer of 2007. I’m finding myself sorry for letting this book languish for so long in my “to be read soon" basket. This is one of the best examples of fiction set during the Civil War that I have read in a very long time. Author Marie Jakober has a love and passion for the Civil War and her own country’s involvement in it. This passion shows through in an extremely well crafted and exiting adventure of a story.

Book Review: Rusty Son of Tall Elk by Charles H. Bertram

Reviewed for Armchair Interviews

When ten-year old Russsell “Rusty” Weaver set off on a logging trip with his uncle Evan, and his two older brothers, the last thing on his mind was Indians. His job for the two week trip to float the log rafts down to St. Louis was to scout ahead, find good landing spots, and start dinner each evening. But when river rats steal the boat, Rusty ends up attracting the attentions of a group of Cheyenne Indians that are headed back West after buying guns.

Rusty, is taken back with the Cheyenne. He finds himself adopted into the family of Chief Tall Elk. The chief, father to a red haired daughter of mixed ancestry, believes that to have two red haired children will bring good luck to his family and tribe. Rusty, finds himself hundreds of miles from home, in a new “home” where he doesn’t speak the language, doesn’t know the customs, and where everything seems to be new and unusual.

Rusty Son of Tall Elk transports readers back to a time when much of the United States was still unexplored. The story explores the differences between the lives of the settlers, and the Native American tribes that were still fighting for the survival of their culture in the threat posed by Westward expansion of the United States. Rusty is faced with hard decisions for a child to make. Can he find a home with these Cheyenne? Is there a way for him to enjoy the freedoms and responsibilities that his new life is allowing him to experience? Will his family back in Illinois ever find out the truth of his disappearance, or will they believe he is dead? I found Rusty Son of Tall Elk a great start to an encompassing story. This is the first in a four book series, and I look forwards to reading more in the continuing adventures of Rusty.


ISBN-13: 978-1-933255-43-9
Publication Date: April 2008
Publisher: Nartea Publishing
Author's Web Site: http://www.charleshbertram.com

Book Review: Silk by Alessandro Baricco

Read and reviewed for Armchair Interviews.

In 1861, the journey to obtain silk was a treacherous one. Due to an epidemic that infected most of the European stocks of silk worms the men who buy the eggs of the worms were forced to travel further from home to replenish their stock.

Hervé Joncour is one such man.

Hervé Joncour is a buyer and seller of silk worm eggs for the silk mills in the French city of Lavillediea. Every year his travels take him away from home to Egypt and other African ports to buy the stock of his trade. Because of the epidemic, he is forced to undertake a dangerous and desperate journey over half the known world to buy healthy eggs from Japan. It is a dangerous and desperate trip. Travel, since the Suez Canal ha not been completed, takes months to get to Japan from France. Once there, Joncour is smuggled into the country as Japan’s ports are not yet open to foreigners. The price he will pay if caught taking silk worm eggs out of Japan is his death.

There he meets a woman, the mistress of his host. They do not touch, they do not speak to each other, and he can not read the letter that she gives him. Once Joncour hears what it says, he becomes a man possessed. When in France with his wife Helené Joncour is a man changed by the Orient. While in Japan he is trying to find ways to meet his host’s mistress without raising the suspicions of the townsfolk, and their lord.

Silk is an enthralling love story. It is haunting in it’s telling of two star crossed lovers fated to meet but never to act upon their love. It is told with simplicity and a moving plot that transports its readers to France in the late nineteenth century.

This edition of Silk is a movie tie in with the upcoming release of the film adaptation of the book (September 14, 2007). It has a new translation from its original Italian by Anna Goldstein. Silk was originally published in 1996 as Seta, with its first translation to English in 1997.