Christmas Bells by Jennifer Chiaverini - ebook, historical fiction, realistic fiction, hybrid. This book combines historical fiction about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his family with a number of present-day storylines, tying them together with the Christmas carol "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." I had no idea the lyrics from this song were from Longfellow's poem "Christmas Bells," which was written on Christmas Day in 1863 and inspired by personal tragedy.
The present-day storylines involve a Catholic church children's choir in Longfellow's town of Cambridge, Massachusetts, that's going to perform the song. The choir director is also a public school music teacher, about to lose the latter job to budget cuts. Her volunteer accompanist, a civil engineer, is secretly in love with her. Other narrators include two children in the choir, their mom, and the parish priest who is a friend of their soldier dad who is missing in Afghanistan; the widow of a wealthy Senator who's been a benefactor of the parish; and an elderly nun at the parish.
I've found Jennifer Chiaverini's strictly historical fiction books about real people (as opposed than those about fictional characters in a particular era) to be rather dry. She does much better with contemporary realistic fiction, and blending the two, as she's done in this book, works well. I also liked the way Chiaverini incorporated O. Henry's classic "The Gift of the Magi" into this story. It's a book written for the holiday season, so the ending is positive and hopeful, as it should be.
The Christmas Key by Lori Wilde - ebook, romance - Military vet Mark Shepherd and Naomi Luther, sister of Clayton, who died under Mark's command, both sleep with a Twilight Christmas kismet cookie under their pillows on Christmas Eve and dream of each other - the legend being that's your one true love. Then they meet by accident in Twilight - when Mark visits to fulfill a mission to return a decorative white key to the Luther family, at Clayton's request.
There are not as many references to things I can identify in my town of Granbury, Texas (the inspiration for Twilight), although author Lori Wilde does mention the Fort Worth Stockyards and Billy Bob's (page 26) and Highway 377 (page 27). She's right that "There was no Uber in Twilight, or even taxis for that matter" (page 33). However, there's no downtown marina and no houseboats or sailboats (page 36) either. There is a First Presbyterian Church here (page 36), and it's old and historic, but it's very near the historic courthouse square, not a ways down Ruby (Pearl) street on the west side of town.
The snow-covered scene of the front cover isn't appropriate for our holiday season, but it's a Christmas story, so there's gotta be snow, at least on the front cover. There's some sex and the romance is predictable (although this one only has a few tropes I can identify, the mistaken-identity military orphan hero with scars seeking redemption). Nevertheless, I'm always gonna read the Twilight Christmas books. I enjoy seeing old characters from former books reappearing, and trying to figure out which establishment a place like The Teal Peacock is supposed to be.
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki - magical realism, 2013 Man Booker Prize finalist. Gift from Laurie Sharp. Bullying. Set in Japan and in Whaletown, British Columbia. A mysterious diary written by a troubled schoolgirl in Tokyo has washed ashore on the Pacific Northwest coast of Canada in the wake of the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami. The diary is discovered by a novelist named Ruth (the author), who becomes obsessed with discovering the girl's fate.
The Long Flight Home by Alan Hlad - local book club, historical fiction, e-book. Alan Hlad's debut novel was inspired by a news story about the remains of a WWII carrier pigeon found in a chimney in England in 2012, and the mysterious coded message it carried (still not decoded). That led Hlad to research Source (later Operation) Columba, an effort by the British to enable Resistance groups in Europe to use homing pigeons to get messages back to England. This historical romance is wrapped around that premise.
War is Over by David Almond, illustrated by David Litchfield - children's, early reviewer, advance reader edition, historical fiction, picture book. Audience: Children's - Grade 4-6, Age 9-11. 117 pages. Originally published in 2018 in the United Kingdom for the centennial of World War I, War is Over will be published in the United States in May 2020. Set in 1918 in Newcastle, England, John is a little boy whose father is at the front in France and whose mother works in the local munitions factory. Most of his community is pro-war, at least on the surface. John and some of his friends wonder how they, just children, can be at war too.
One day John picks up a sketch shown earlier by a local conscientious objector ("conchie" in local slang) of a little boy named Jan, from Dusseldorf, Germany. John writes and mails him a letter (page 63): "Dear Jan, I am a boy like you. I am not at war with you. You are not at war with me. Your friend, John." The consequences - especially when viewed from today's world - are not surprising, but are heartbreaking nonetheless. With the end of World War I, however, the book's conclusion is hopeful.
Although it's 117 pages long, I'd still classify this as a picture book, thanks to the numerous compelling black-and-white illustrations by David Litchfield. The cover (which does have a little cover) shows birds interspersed with bombs, a motif that also appears (although with falling leaves becoming falling bombs) in an illustration at the bottom of pages 68-69, where children playing at war become soldiers fighting. I do wish a few of the illustrations had the color of some on Litchfield's website, though, as I think the color there adds to their impact.
The intended audience is children in grades 4-6, ages 9-11. I think this book could be used in teaching about World War II as well as World War I; I forgot as I read it which war it was. And that's a point of the book. Author David Almond has a link to some teaching resources on his website. I heartily recommend this book.
The Library of Legends by Janie Chang - LTER, ARC, historical fiction - This story takes place in China in 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Universities in areas being bombed were evacuated, and students (called liuwang), professors, and staff all walked to safer interior areas. Hu Lian is a 19-year-old student at Minghua University in Nanking, and her school is also carrying the Library of Legends, a collection of Chinese folktales and mythology, to safer quarters. There's much adventure (good and bad) along the way, and, in danger, Lian eventually escapes (along with wealthy student Shao and his maidservant Sparrow) to find her mother, a refugee in Shanghai.
There's an element of fantasy in the book, as one of the characters is actually a spirit from one of the legends in human form. The book drags a bit, especially in the middle, but these fantasy elements are just enough to maintain interest but not overwhelm. Author Janie Chang was inspired by her parents' experiences - her father was a liuwang from Nanking and her mother a war refugee in Shanghai.
© Amanda Pape - 2020
