The Boxcar Children Collection Volume 2: Mystery Ranch, Mike's Mystery, Blue Bay Mystery

The Boxcar Children Collection Volume 2: Mystery Ranch, Mike's Mystery, Blue Bay Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner

Mystery Ranch - their grandpa has not got along with his sister. The children go to visit her. She takes a liking to the children and decides to leave the ranch to them. There was a friendly guy they saw on the train. He was a uranium prospector who discovered there was Uranium on the land. They set up a mine, while keeping land for the aunt. They also defeat the attempts of others to swindle the ranch from the aunt for cheep.

Mike's Mystery - The kids return a year later to find the ranch is now a big uranium mining operation. One of the swindlers returns to try to damage the ranch and take revenge on Mike who "talks to much". They are able to catch him and get Mike's mom set up in a pie making business.

Blue Bay Mystery - Grandpa takes the kids on a trip on a ship to the south seas. They do their schoolwork on the ship there. they are then dropped off on the island with Grandpa and an experienced man to spend time living and learning there. They discover another boy is on the island. He had been shipwrecked many months ago. He had lived for some time with a sailor who recently disappeared while swimming. (He may have fallen to sharks.) They take the boy back when the are picked up and are able to reunite him with his family.

Throughout the stories, the children are often able to quickly job whether a character is good or evil by looking at them. Is this a skill that has been lost as people attempt not to be prejudiced? It is an interesting line to be drawn. The kids also have a huge amount of optimism and everything seems to turn out well in the end.

Owls in the Family

Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat

A family in Saskatoon adopts some baby owls. These owls think of themselves more as humans than owls and take a long time to realize that they can fly. There are many funny events that ensure. In one case, Crows and Ducks think they can outnumber the little owl and come to cause ruckus. (This is brought to an end with a gun.) The family eventually must move and they end up finding a new home for the owls. The book is similar to other animal and friendship stories, but owls are fairly unique as bets.

The Odyssey

The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fitzgerald

I've always had trouble focussing on the Odyssey. I know key points, like the Cylcops and "NoMan" as well as the sirens. However, I have trouble recalling whether I just read it, or have just absorbed it from popular culture. This is the long book about homecoming, with the voyage of the victors being as challenging as the war they just fought. The translation is not too long and is fairly accessible if you can pay attention.

Little Bear's Visit

Little Bear's Visit by Else Holmelund Minarik (Author), Maurice Sendak (Illustrator)

Little Bear goes to visit his grandparents. There is some dozing off on the part of grandpa and Little Bear. The book also includes a couple stories told by grandparents. There are some nice pictures with the simple story.

The Sneetches and Other Stories

The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss

Stories:

The Sneetches - a story of the silliness of racism. The star-bellied Sneetches think they are better. Then a salesman comes in with a machine that can take stars on or off. The Sneetches eventually realize that the stars are irrelevant and they become friends together.

The Zax - Too Zax only walk one way. When they run into each other, they refuse to move. They stay in place as the world changes around them.

Too Many Daves - All kids are named Dave. There is a wish that they had different names, with all the names given. This is the weakest story in the book.

What Was I Scared of? - A kid keeps running into a pair of pants without anyone in them. The story has a great rhythm that brings up the suspense and fear before finally reaching a happy ending.

There is a theme in all of these stories of the benefits of being flexible and willing to disregard prejudice to make appropriate changes. It is a great example of a Seuss book.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs

Reading this book is so depressing. The author pointed out the flaws in the suburban planning more than a half century ago. And what has happened since then? Most of the US has been developed with the same bad planning. Central planning. Parking lots. Separation of concerns. Now there has finally been a little bit of observation that some of these things were bad. Why did it take so long? Why did we destroy actual communities earlier on? Now with phones and devices we are even more separated. Maybe that has been the final nudge that we need to realize that we want some community in our physical life.

Many times cities are "killed" rather than suffer natural deaths. Planners confuse "density" with "overcrowding". High density areas are often very successful, especially if people care. Neighbors will "self-police" to ensure everyone meets standards. People can also have a degree of anonymity in cities that they cannot in small towns. They can be private, yet still part of a tight-knit urban community.

The author criticizes the "garden city" and other movements that would likely be considered "new urbanism" today. Instead, she advocates pure urbanism. Keep big sidewalks for people to travel, play and spend their time. Let cities have many different concerns together. She spends some time looking at alternatives to public housing. Her position would look much more libertarian, with the government less involved than they are now. One key point is that people would still be able to live in the community once they earn too much to qualify. (Would this change incentives to hide income?) There seem to be some flaws, though she admits that it is a starting point and should be revised as needed. in some places, we do allow people to remain after earning more. There are attempts to have more "mixed income housing". However, the entire public housing system still suffers many of the same problems that the author identified in the the early 1960s. 

Go, Dog Go

Go, Dog Go (I Can Read It All By Myself, Beginner Books) by P.D. Eastman

This classic book has simple language and colorful pictures. A good number of the pages can be "read" just by looking at the pictures. This can help build confidence for reading some of the more complex pages. The book has various descriptions of dogs doing human things. There is recurring theme of a girl dog asking a boy dog if he likes the hat. The text and illustrations are fun to read.

Jorge el Curioso

Jorge el Curioso by H.A. Ray

This is Curious George in Spanish. It doesn't go easy with the words. Some I didn't recognize. (But perhaps I didn't know the dialect.) The pictures are all the same. It is fun to read out loud to practice Spanish reading. "Monocito" just has a nice ring to it.

A for Andromeda

A for Andromeda by Fred Hoyle and John Elliot

A for Andromeda is the novelization of a BBC series from the early 1960s, set in the 1970s. The original series is mostly gone, but the Internet Archive has a recreation available. Part of the appeal of the book is seeing what they expected of the future. The expectations of truly massive computer that uses punch cards seems so quaint. They also expected a future dominance of industrial cartels as the cold war continued.

The world state, however, is just background for the story of alien communication. There is a message from space. It seems to be communicating a form of mathematical code that continuously repeats. A scientist is able to interpret it as code for building a computer. They manage to get defense military funding to build the computer. (I guess they used their understanding. Theoretically, modern people could have built a small microcomputer.) The computer was better than anything of the day. It also helped them respond to missile threat from the east, making the military brass very eager to continue funding.

Things start getting out of control. The computer had asked questions about the planet and life. Then it gave details for synthesizing a lifeform. After some efforts, humans were able to complete the synthesis and the lifeform survived. Later after gaining more knowledge, the machine gave instructions for synthesizing a human-like being, Andromeda. She could learn quickly and interface directly with the computer. The computer has a plan which seems to involve the colonization of earth. The current population are likely to be in the way. A scientist wants to destroy the computer, but others like the value it provides. 

The computer has planned for various contingencies. It shows it has the ability to kill people that cause problems, while also having the ability to heal. A scientist eventually helps Andromeda discover some sort of emotion and eliminate the computer. Then Andromeda seems to reach her own ending by drowning (though it ends suddenly.)

Though the book focuses on extraterrestrial intelligence, it does seem applicable to modern concerns with artificial intelligence also.

James and the Giant Peach

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

Like in his other books, Dahl ramps up everything to the extreme. James is living an absolutely miserable lives. His parents have died and he is stuck living with his totally evil aunts. One is extremely fat. The other extremely skinny. Both treat James as their personal servant boy. Then he happens to run into somebody that gifts him some magic crystals. Alas, he drops them near the peach tree. This leads to the tree producing a giant peach as well as some bugs becoming human size. And from here the fun begins.

The "evil women" try to make money off the giant peach. They still leave James to do work. He ends up entering the peach where he discovers the giant bugs. They set off in an adventure in the peach. Alas, as the first part of the adventure, they happen to roll over the James' guardians, thereby freeing him. They tumble through the ocean, manage to get carried by birds, escape cloud men and finally land on the empire state building (where they are mistaken for alien invaders.) 

The book moves along at a fast pace. Some things don't necessarily add up, but there is enough to keep it somewhat credible. In the end, everyone (bug and human alike) live happily ever after.

The Curve of Time

A widowed mother travels boats around the Pacific Northwest with her childen in the pre-World War II era. They come across as seasoned mariners, who understand the unique weather patterns of the northwest and are comfortable going into areas that are uncharted at times. They encounter some "harrowing" experiences, including running into a "clergyman" who turns out to be a bear. (They quickly escape to their boat.) There are also numerous storms and various encounters with animals and isolated "pioneers" in the area. The book covered the experience of Northwest sailing and personal relationships. However, I was hoping for more specific geographic details.

Bronze Bow

A Jewish boy (Daniel) vows vengence against the Romans. He joins a band of mountain robbers that are fighting for the cause of freedom. One task he has is to help capture a large slave being transported by some traders. This slave ends up being one of his "burdens" (though he later realizes he is a friend.)

He ends up caring for his disabled sister after her previous caretaker dies. He comes to know life in the town better. He also knows the people who are being hurt by the acts of the robbers. However, he still supports them and their cause of freedom. One day, one of his friends (Joel) is caught. When the leader of the band of robbers refuses to help him, Daniel organizes a group on his own to rescue him. He does it, but at the cost of the black slave and another friend.

During this time, he also meets with Jesus. He marvels at his understanding of doctrine and his simple explanations. He hopes he will be their leader. However, he is not willing to drop the hatred that he feels towards the Romans.

His sister had made great progress towards normalcy. However, it turns out she had been talking with a homesick Roman legion. This drove Daniel nearly to the breaking point. He wanted to kill the Roman to seek his revenge. This hatred, however, nearly led to the death of his sister. Finally at the end of the story, after his sister has been healed by Jesus he gets the courage to forgive the Roman and let him know about his sister.

The story provides the powerful contrast between the force of hatred and the force of love. The Roman legion was also serving from a conquered land. He was just a normal person with normal emotions. Daniel's hatred made it difficult for him to see through the uniform to the person beneath.

Daniel observed that some people may not really want to be healed from their ailments. (Perhaps the blind man would be disturbed by what he would see.) However, he failed to see the same with his country's condition. (The Romans were rather benign rulers and their overthrow could leave somebody even worse in power.) The blinders of hatred can cause bad things to happen and end up destroying the hater even more than the target of their vengeance.

Stranger In A Strange Land

A child conceived on an ill-fated mission to Mars is raised by Martians. As a young adult, he is chosen to return to earth on a reconnaissance mission. However, he doesn't know his true purpose, and ends up becoming a pawn in the goals of many nefarious characters. Due to his martian upbringing, he behaves differently, and seems to have many "supernatural" powers. Also, due to some legal precedents, he has enormous wealth and power. A journalist and a nurse "rescue" him from a hospital and team with a renaissance-man lawyer and his "harem". The "man from mars" eventually founds his own religion (which seems seems more in line with a hippie free-love movement) and is "martyred" by an upset public.

The book starts out as a fairly standard science fiction book, but then starts to get very tedious as he meanders around his Martian-influenced morality.

A Grief Observed

C.S. Lewis originally published anonymously these reflections on the death of his spouse. He finds his reaction is different now that he is feeling loss than it was before he experienced something first-hand. The reflections seem to be created shortly after his loss, and are rather raw. He comes across much 'insecure' and exposed than his other writings. Unfortunately, this is also one of his weaker works.

some good kids books (I Love Trucks, I Love Planes, Madeline, Madeline in London)

• I love Trucks by Philemon Sturges and Shari Halpern
• I Love Planes by Philemon Sturges and Shari Halpern
• Madeline in London by Ludwig Bemelmans
• Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans

The "I love" books both follow a simple formula, with simple drawings and simple text covering a variety of different "vehicles"

For Madeline, the first book is the award winner, but the story in "London" is more original. The drawings are simple, with plenty of scenery from the "big city" (Paris or London) where they take place. The text also has a charming feel, with some "forced" rhymes that actually work.

(Original post had Amazon images that are no longer supported. Replaced with links in 2024)