Spell the Month in Books – July

Spell the Month in Books is hosted by Reviews from the Stacks and occurs on the first Saturday of each month or maybe later. This month, I chose books I read when I was about sixth grade.

Just Dial a Number by Edith Maxwell (1971). I don’t think any teen who read this book ever forgot it:

“Someone tried to kill me,” Cathy gasped into the phone.

Meet the Austins by Madeleine L’Engle

Title: Meet the Austins
Author: Madeleine L’Engle
Publication: Laurel-Leaf paperback, originally published in 1960
Genre: Juvenile
Setting: New England

The original cover

Description: The Austins are a close-knit family of six – John is 15, Vicky, 12, Suzy 9, and sensitive Rob about five – they say grace at meals, Mrs. Austin reads aloud to all four at bedtime, and Dr. Austin is an old-fashioned country doctor with an office in his home as well as at a local hospital. Their lives are disrupted when their courtesy-aunt Elena calls to tell them her husband and his copilot were killed in a plane accident.

Six Degrees of Separation: from What I Loved to the Joys of Love

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where one ends up.   This month’s starting point is What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt (2018).  It is written from the point of view of Leo Hertzberg, an art historian living in New York and focuses on themes of love and loss, so I decided to do likewise.

Today's Game

List ten famous people you've met, encountered, and/or interacted with.

ONE is a lie.

Here's mine:      

Mr. Rogers

Julie Andrews

Jimmy Carter

Madeleine L’Engle

Ric Ocasek

Beverly Cleary

Kenny Loggins

Charles Barkley

Tip O’Neill

Jacqueline Onassis

What's your guess?

Madeleine L'Engle

A lot has been written about Madeleine L'Engle since her death last Thursday, some in appreciation of her children's books and some in appreciation of her more religious or adult work. I was privileged to meet her in 1990 at an autographing for The Glorious Impossible at the old Scribner's, then a Brentano's on Fifth Avenue. She signed the picture book but now I wish I had asked her to sign the beautiful Giotto inspired poster that went with the book, and which I later had framed. There were so many people in line (I remember the group behind me had driven all the way from KY) that we did not get more than a minute or two with the author but it was still very exciting to talk to her. She seemed interested to hear that my favorite book was And Both Were Young, which she said was an unusual choice and was partially based on her own boarding school experience.

A Washington Post writer in a nice tribute implies that we readers love Meg Murry because she is like us: awkward and gangly. That may be true but it ignores two important things - 1) all of L'Engle's heroines are slightly awkward - they are mostly late bloomers, quirky and intelligent, and 2) A Wrinkle in Time is about much more than Meg and her teenage angst. L'Engle wrote about Meg, not so her readers could identify with a heroine but because she saw herself in Meg and because there was a strength in Meg that transcends the science/magic in that novel. Meg's sister Suzy, much prettier and more easily brilliant, is never the heroine (although memorable in her own way; I did quote her feelings about eating pigs in an animal rights paper I wrote several years ago).

Similarly, Flip, in And Both Were Young, at first inarticulate and awkward, eventually blossoms in an alien environment once she gains confidence. Encouraged by a French boy she meets on the mountains and by an art teacher who recognizes her talent, she becomes the means through which all the other characters are fulfilled. She actually changes and matures more than Meg, although less dramatically. Although this book is part of the boarding school genre I love, it is by far one of the best, both in its realistic portrayal of the negative aspects of school life and its cast of diverse and multidimensional characters (including the actual presence of an attractive teenage boy).

One article, written by a family friend, quoted her as saying, "Did you ever realize that if you spell live backwards you come up with the word evil?" she once said with a devilish grin. "To live, you know, you have to be just a teeny bit evil and wicked."

That is my kind of author!