“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English.”

The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall
David Fickling Books (2006)
234 pages

This is such a sweet, charming story. I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did. I picked it up at the bookstore on a whim — I liked the cover and the subtitle: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy and I was surprised by how much I was delighted by the whole whole story.

It follows the story of the Penderwick sisters, who are in Arundel with their widowed father, and the dog Hound, for the summer holidays. Rosalind is the eldest and pretty much the mother figure, practical and responsible; Skye is hot-tempered and stubborn; Jane is dreamy and is always writing, or reciting out loud what she will write; and Batty, the youngest, shy and innocent and never goes anywhere without her butterfly wings and Hound, the dog.

The girls meet Jeffrey and his controlling mother and befriend the boy, and he becomes an accomplice of sorts in their adventures. Here they’ll have to deal with first crushes, horrid mothers, secret meetings and soccer games. One scene I won’t be able to forget: Batty and the bull (”nice horsie”) — that was exhilarating and funny (and honestly a bit scary too). There are problems to be solved and lessons to be learned, and all in great fun. And it’s pretty much true to life: disobeying your parents (sometimes!), trying to run away from home, hijinks of all sorts, keeping secrets, and quiet days together. It reminded me of my childhood a lot, this book, and all the fun I had with my siblings.

A lot of gentle humour is scattered throughout the book: I love their father, and how he handles his daughters (and Jeffrey, too, when it comes to that). Some parts were poignant and sad, and each time Rosalind dotes on Batty (she’s twelve and Batty is four), I’m always touched. I have about the same age gap with my youngest sister. I don’t think I could have had Rosalind’s patience at that age. It leaves me a bit sad when I think that she has had to grow up a bit faster than the other girls her age, after losing her mother just a few weeks after Batty was born.

Batty is adorable without being annoying. I am so glad she speaks in full sentences! Not, I suppose, very true to life, but in any other way, she’s very much a shy four-year-old, peeking at strangers from behind Hound or Rosalind all the time. I love all four of the girls, really, and their father and Hound and Jeffrey.

The writing’s solid, the characters are real, and the whole book was one wonderful ride. I’m glad to know that we’ll see more of the Penderwicks: The Penderwicks on Gardam Street is coming out in April. Now that’s something to look forward to. :)

Over the course of the Christmas/new year’s day week, I read three books by Christopher Pike. My sister also read the same three books. We used to read a lot of his books when we were younger — though apparently not really that many! We went through the titles and couldn’t recall many of them, causing a great deal of shrieking (with laughter, of course) as we went through the plots we remembered. Here, for your pleasure — all three of you reading this — are recaps of the books. Uh. Beware of spoilers?

See You Later

This one I never read before. I, uh, will not try to be kind. This one, while it has a seriously WTF-is-going-on-here plot, was still predictable. Of course you knew who the girl was! Who wouldn’t? This had to be the worse of the lot, at least plot-wise.

It also felt like Pike was trying to smack the back of our heads with some sort of personal philosophy. Reincarnation! Trying to rationalise cause and effect to explain the paradoxes set by time travel! Those weren’t the things I needed paragraphs of rambling upon, thanks.

My sister read this book after I did. I had a blast watching her expressions as she flipped through the pages — she’s a very expressive girl. There was a point I was sure she was going to throw the book across the room, but of course she didn’t.

Among other reactions from my sister: “What kind of title is See You Later? It doesn’t make sense! See who later? Yourself? And what the heck is on the cover? The Eye of Sauron?” Ahahaha.

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Spellbound

This I definitely read before. This one has your standard shaman, transfer students and people turning into animals and of course the quiet, pretty transfer girl is obviously the one to look out for. Beware of English chicks. Seriously.

It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t really good either.

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Gimme a Kiss

I probably read this one before. A mystery/thriller, this time, instead of horror or something with supernatural elements. Rather slipshod when it came to resolving the whole story, but maybe my twelve-year-old self wouldn’t have been too critical about the too-nice girls always being the evil ones. (Or maybe I would have been. I was one of those too-nice girls once.)

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. . . but this is not why we are here

I am here to tell you the reason why I am thankful for Christopher Pike. Strange thing to do, I suppose, after rather dour recap of three books.

My first language isn’t English. I never had much trouble with English, and languages in general, since my parents liked books and I had always liked to read. When I went to school, though, I pretty much despaired at the state of some of my classmates’ command of the English language. The good ones were very good. The bad ones were really, really bad. It didn’t seem possible that after six years of classes in primary school, you can’t get a sentence like “This are is a cat.” right. In another school, it probably would have been more believable — yet still not acceptable, if I have any say in the matter — but I went to one of the boarding schools, one of those supposedly “good” schools where you got in based on merit.

There was a girl I was rather close to when I was in the second form. She would come to me with her English homework, asking me for help, and I would feel more like a harassed teacher instead of a friend when I had to underline and cross out things in her essays and workbooks and struggle to explain to her why this is correct and that is not. (I was not a good teacher and never will be. I lack the patience to explain the same thing over and over after I’ve explained it once, and I don’t have the grace to give a kind word when needed.) I never corrected things for her. I only pointed out what was wrong and forced her to fix those mistakes until she got everything right — I think her English teacher was a bit suspicious how she managed to write as well as she did. She would come very close to giving up sometimes, looking sadly at the sentences I kept underlining.

She didn’t read many English books, this friend. (I can’t remember what was required reading when we were in the second form, but I certainly know that you should never force The Red Badge of Courage on lower secondary students who had naught of American history. Even the abridged version.) I tried recommending books from the school library but they were either too hard or she wasn’t interested in them, so that was a dead end. I figured if I could get her to read more, it would solve a lot of her problems.

One day I found her reading an old copy of one of Pike’s books I had brought from home. I was quite surprised — I didn’t think she would have liked horror. I can’t even remember which book it was. I couldn’t tear her away from it. She asked me if I had any other books like that book, and I had shoved all the Pike books I had to her. Her English improved. She started reading other books. She got an A for the exam we took in third form. I was happy for her.

She’s a teacher now. No, she doesn’t teach English, but she probably could have if she wanted to.

See? These books can be useful, after all. XD If you can use them to get a kid to read, then I’m happy enough.

The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman
Laurel Leaf (1988)
230 pages

I found this book on the coffee table at my parents house when I went back for the Christmas/new year break. Apparently my littlest sister found some used books on sale and bought this book and three Christopher Pike books (more on those later).

I loved His Dark Materials. I especially loved Lyra. I gave this book a chance because of the strength of Lyra and Pan and Will and a great deal of good storytelling, and perhaps that was too high a comparison to make, and The Ruby in the Smoke fell short.

This book — and the next two in the Sally Lockheart trilogy — centre on a sixteen-year-old girl named Sally Lockheart in Victorian England. She’s a strong-minded, practical girl, especially in a world where there are expectations on how women are supposed to act. Sally defies these conventions, of course, as she tries to solve the mystery surrounding the death of her father.

It’s a straightforward mystery, most of the time. (I suppose when it’s not, it’s just the opium leaving people high, instead of something really mystical going on.) Sally is a plucky heroine: clear-headed and brave with a good business sense, but most of the time I felt rather distant from her. In fact, I felt detached from the whole story — it didn’t pull me in like His Dark Materials did. (It should be noted that this book was written about ten years before the His Dark Materials trilogy — you can learn a lot in ten years!) The narrative comes off as rather dry at points, and the villains not very villainous. I was rather disappointed with how everything was resolved.

Still! I have high hopes for the next two books. High hopes!

A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle
SquareFish (2007)
224 pages

Hm. This was one strange book. Maybe I’m just too jaded — my imagination refuses to go with the images and themes this book presents . . . is that the price of growing older?

I read this book very early in January 2008. The details are already vague right now, and I am tempted to just skip this and the next few books. Fortunately (or not so fortunately), I found this entry under the heading 3 Jan in my planner: “A Wind in the Door (ref to Malory?) by M L’Engle” in my messy scrawl, and the following notes: “perhaps too heavy-handed at points? YA lit, SF, likeable characters, slightly ‘out there’ concepts”. :P I guess I meant the mitochondria part. That gave me strange flashbacks to a book by Isaac Asimov I read once upon a time ago — I can’t even remember what it’s called now. I can’t recall anymore which parts struck me as heavy-handed.

The edition I read has a really lovely cover — in the same style as the one for A Wrinkle in Time. Looking at it actually made me recall more of the plot! Like the first book, A Wind in the Door is well written. Despite the whole plot being rather surreal, it’s a good adventure story, with a lot of interesting new characters. I love Meg even more. She’s such a brave girl. I’m surprised I still like Charles Wallace; I tend to dislike precocious children in fiction, especially the really, really, really smart ones, but he’s just so pleasant and trusting and well-meaning. He reminds me of my brother a bit.

I’m not sure if I care enough to read the rest of the quartet. anchan218 says she did like Many Waters, and another friend loves A Swiftly Tilting Planet, so I’ll probably have a go at them if I manage to find a copy at the library.

Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
Illustrated by Barbara Brown
Puffin Books (2005)
240 pages

A lot of the authors I read when I was a child tended to be British instead of, say, American or Malaysian or any other nationality, despite having spent four years, from ages one to five, in the United States. I guess I was a little too young to read then, and all the books my father brought back from the States were probably his own books about journalism and suchlike. Funny thing to bring up now. I guess it’s one of those curious things you realise years and years later.

I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by Philippa Pearce, though. I found this book, and picked it up, quite randomly, while I was browsing through the children’s shelf at a bookstore, and decided to buy it. The cover looked interesting, and the blurb sounded interesting and it had won the Carnegie Medal in 1958. What was there to lose?

I loved it at once. Tom’s brother Peter is ill with the measles, and Tom is sent away to live with his uncle and aunt. Tom’s very resentful about this — he had planned to spend the summer in the garden with Peter, but now he has to spend it in Uncle Alan and Aunt Gwen’s flat, which is owned by Mrs Bartholomew. The flat has no garden, and Tom is bored. One night, unable to sleep, he listens to the landlady’s grandfather clock chiming downstairs, and realises with a start that it had chimed thirteen times. Tom discovers that there is a magnificent garden as he opens the back door, which no one else seems to know exists and is only there when the clock chimes thirteen. Soon he realises that time doesn’t move the same way in the garden as in his waking world — it’s night in the flat, but when he goes out of the back door it’s afternoon, and time does not seem to have passed when he returns to the flat. He meets a lonely girl named Hatty in the garden — the only person there who could see him — and they become friends. Tom notices other things too: how time skips when he’s in the garden — tonight it is spring and the next night it’s winter, and Tom is curious and wants to find an explanation to this.

Almost sounds like a ghost story? Not quite. It’s more about a young boy and a young girl and their growing friendship and how things change over time. I love how the whole story is handled. Tom’s friendship with Hatty, his relationship with his aunt and uncle, his reluctance to leave them and the garden. How Tom slowly pieces things together and figures out some things about Hatty, and the explanation how everything is possible makes sense and does the author credit. The last scene is especially beautifully done.

Some things will seem a little dated — the book was first published in 1958 — but Tom’s Midnight Garden still has a timeless, magical charm to it. I’m glad I read it.