Zeroteenth Birthday Book Quiz, Part 3!

The third, and final, part of our quiz!  Scroll down for the answers.  Part 1 can be found here and Part 2 can be found here.

1.       Which of the following is an epistolary novel?

a.       Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

b.      Heidi

c.       Daddy Long-Legs

d.      In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson

2.       In Sisters, Raina is afraid of:

a.       Snakes

b.      Spiders

c.       Cockroaches

d.      Dogs

3.       In Half Magic, the children must hold what when they make their wish?

a.       A magic wand

b.      A coin

c.       A letter

d.      A key

4.       In The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Jamie cheats at which card game?

a.       Poker

b.      Crazy Eights

c.       War

d.      Spit

5.       In The Pain and the Great One, both children think:

a.       The other is keeping a secret from him/her

b.      Their parents love the other one best

c.       The other is smarter than him/her

d.      The other is actually adopted

6.       Eloise lives in which New York hotel?

a.       The Plaza

b.      The Waldorf Astoria

c.       The Soho Grand

d.      The Chelsea Hotel

7.       Little Women is set during which war?

a.       The Revolutionary War

b.      The War of 1812

c.       The Civil War

d.      The Spanish-American War

8.       The last book in the Anne of Green Gables series AND the 4^th and 5^th books of the All-of-a- Kind Family series take place during which war?

a.       World War I

b.      The Vietnam War

c.       The Korean War

d.      World War II

9.        In which TWO books, is someone cured of paralysis and can walk again?

a.       The Secret Garden and A Little Princess

b.      Heidi and The Secret Garden

c.       Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and A Little Princess

d.      Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Heidi

10.   In The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Claudia and Jamie try to figure out the    provenance of what kind of artwork?

a.       A sculpture

b.      A painting

c.       A photograph

d.      A collage
   

Bonus question: What book does the word "zeroteen" come from?

a. Ramona's World
b. Anastasia, Ask Your Analyst
c. Completely Clementine
d. Smile


























Answers:  1. c, 2. a, 3. b, 4.c, 5, b, 6. a, 7. c, 8. a, 9. b, 10. a
Bonus: a.

How did you do?

It Only Took A Year...

It only took a year, but we did it!  My daughter and I finished reading all 8 books in the Anne of Green Gables series.  I gave her the first book last year, in early June, for her 9th birthday, and I was determined that we should finish before her 10th, as more literary gifts await her.  Thankfully, we met the deadline with over a week to spare.  I had visions of us staying up late in the night before her birthday in an effort to reach my self-imposed deadline.

No, we did not read Anne every night.   My younger daughter is too young for Anne, so if I only had time for joint reading, Anne didn't make the cut.  And there were times when we needed a break, a palate cleanser, when my daughter was in the mood for picture books (which she still loves, much to my delight), or something else entirely.

At times it was tough going.  The language is flowery and old-fashioned.  The middle books tend to be gossipy stories about people Anne interacts with and less about Anne herself.  And the final book, set during World War I, has lots of arcane (to my 9-year-old) references to military personnel, politicians, and battles.

But it was worth it.  There's a kind of satisfaction in finishing a series.  The other series we have done this with are the Betsy-Tacy books, the Ramona books (multiple times, but a much quicker read) and the All-of-a-Kind Family books (ditto, and sadly, the last book was quite disappointing).

I know lots of people have done the same with Harry Potter.  What other series have you read aloud to your children in their entirety?  How long did it take you?

Anne Gets a Makeover

As I was walking past the "popular/recently returned children's books" shelf at my local library the other day, my eye was immediately grabbed by two new versions of the Anne of Green Gables books.  Take a look at the new one on the left versus the edition I owned as a child on the right.

In addition to the new cover illustrations (which I love, and for me are reminiscent of the Betsy-Tacy books, which are set slightly after these; it must be the pompadours!), these books are bigger - trade paperbacks, rather than mass market paperbacks.  The best thing about the bigger size for some of us is the bigger print!  As you can see from the link above, there have been many different covers over the years, but the one pictured above is the one I had as a child.  It is very "well-loved," isn't it?  I don't know what size the other versions are; do you?

I haven't had a chance to check, but hopefully these new editions also correct the typos present in the old versions, especially the appalling, and appallingly frequent, example which appears twice in the single page to the right.  Can you find it?

I do wish that the publisher had added interior illustrations and possibly introductions by contemporary writers who themselves read and love the books, as in the new editions of the Betsy-Tacy books.  Alas.  They are certainly still worth purchasing for those of us whose copies will likely not survive being passed on to the next generation (see photo above!).

These new editions are published by Sourcebooks, a publisher I've never heard of.  Have you?  It appears that Sourcebooks has republished only the first five books of the series; I hope the rest follow soon.

Interestingly, my daughter prefers the older books - whether purely on aesthetic grounds or because she had already developed a sentimental attachment to them I am not sure!

Which Fictional Character Am I?

I'm a lively, talkative - no, loquacious - young girl with a great imagination.  I have a tendency to get into "scrapes," but I feel tremendous remorse about it.  I love words and poetry.  I'm a wonderful, loyal, friend.  I'm not conventionally attractive but people find my looks compelling, particularly my unusual eyes.  I was taken in by two adult siblings, one of whom is (seemingly) firm and nearly heartless, one of whom is softer but lacks the spine to stand up to the former very often.

Which famous fictional character am I?  If you said Anne Shirley, otherwise known as Anne of Green Gables, you'd be right.  If you said Rebecca Rowena Randall, aka Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, you'd also be right.

Why hasn't Rebecca had the same staying power as Anne?  Anne is beloved, even something of a cult figure.  Rebecca is known, but not read nearly as much these days.  Even the 100th anniversary edition of Rebecca, published in 2003, is already out of print.

I think the reason is the language.  Rebecca is written in much more complex language.  Kate Douglas Wiggins not only uses harder vocabulary, but treats mature themes, such as the child's attitude toward God, and addresses them with complexity.  Take this sentence: "To become sensible of oneness with the Divine heart before any sense of separation has been felt, this is surely the most beautiful way for the child to find God."

I can't imagine too many children today between the ages this book was geared for - say, 8-12 or perhaps even up to age 14 who could read this to themselves and fully comprehend it.  But it does make a perfect read-aloud.  I have stopped to explain words, paragraphs, and entire pages more often while reading Rebecca aloud than any other book I have read to my children.  But my 8-year-old has usually grasped the gist of what is going on, and often more.  And exposure to writing like this can only be a good thing.

Moreover, we shouldn't underestimate our children.  One night when my 6-year-old could not sleep, she came out of bed and listened while I read Rebecca to my older daughter.  As I floundered a little while trying to explain the sentence "Miranda Sawyer had a heart, of course, but she had never used it for any other purpose than the pumping and circulating of blood," my 6-year-old piped up, "She never loved anybody!"

Rebecca is a wonderful main character, full of life, and easily related to by children.  It is worth looking up a few words and stopping for explanations while reading in order to get to know her.

Have you read Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm?  Have your children?  Do you see similarities between her and Anne?  Do you have a preference?

Braids in the Inkwell

A boy in my daughter's class is tormenting her.  He's not a bad kid, but he likes her and, of course, he doesn't know how to express it other than by teasing her.

In order to comfort her I resorted, of course, to books.  Unbeknownst to her,I have been saving a beautiful illustrated edition (to which I cannot find a link) of Anne of Green Gables (which she hasn't read yet) to give to her for her 9th birthday, so without mentioning the name of the book, I told her how, when Gilbert teased Anne, she broke her slate over his head.  I then offered to buy her a slate.  [Note to this boy's parents: I do not actually condone my daughter breaking a slate over your son's head.]  Laughter ensued.  Mission accomplished, at least in part.

Cover Art Abomination

Amazon has published an edition of Anne of Green Gables with a cover that turns Anne into a blonde (!!!) vixen..  Are they trying to attract a male audience for the book?  If so, the boys will be sadly disappointed by red-headed, skinny, hot-headed Anne.  The rest of us will love her just as she is.

When the Character Ages Faster Than the Reader

A friend recently mentioned that she and her daughter stopped reading the Anne of Green Gables books because her 7-year-old was not interested in Anne's courtship by Gilbert, her career, marriage, or motherhood.  That comment got me thinking about series that follow a character from early childhood through to adulthood.  In addition to Anne, Betsy-Tacy and the Little House books came immediately to mind.  While, Type-A personality that I am,  I am a big believer in reading a series start to finish, it is hard when the character ages faster than the reader!  We are reading Little Town on the Prairie right now, in which Laura is 15, just meeting her future husband, and planning for her career as a teacher (which back then could start at age 16!).  So far my daughter still seems interested, but I wonder if and when that interest will wane.

Did you/your child read these series straight through or return to them later?  Can you think of any other series that present the same issue?

Heresy (Or, How Laura Ingalls Wilder and I Don't Have Any Chemistry)

Right now, I'm reading Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder to my 6-year-old and having the same reaction to it that I did 30 years ago: it's okay.  Yup, just okay.  I know this is heresy to legions of Little House devotees (dare I say fanatics?), my sister among them, but these books just don't have the emotional resonance for me that the Ramona series or the All-of-a-Kind Family series (which a friend called, correctly, I think, "the Jewish Little House books") or, for an older audience, Anne of Green Gables, do.  Laura herself was bored during those long winters - why did she think they'd be any more interesting for her readers?  To be fair, the books are not nearly as boring as they could be, but they just don't do it for me. 

And yet, I am finally reading them to my daughter for a number of reasons.  Peer pressure was one - many of her friends are reading it too.  But I also I felt that it was part of the children's canon, books that every (girl) child should read in order to be culturally literate. 

I'm not sure what accounts for the series' appeal, but the hardships faced by Laura and her family and their lack of technology, not to mention what we consider basic creature comforts (like indoor plumbing) are fascinating to some.  But not me.  I can relate to many books that I "shouldn't" be able to - books set in a time and place I know nothing about, like Anne of Green Gables and The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate but not these.  I love plenty of spunky heroines (Anne and Calpurnia again being prime examples) but for me, Laura isn't one of them.  I guess it just comes down to chemistry.  It's just not there between me and Laura.

If you or your child loves the Little House books, why?