A Gaggle of Book Reviews

This is another twist on the topic of War in Children’s Books – this is the story of Ben Franklin, and his role in the American Revolution. But it’s told from the perspective of a mouse living in Ben’s hat!

Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin by His Good Mouse Amos is a (probably) fictionalized novel by Robert Lawson. As a youngster, I had loved this story about Ben Franklin, as told by a mouse named Amos who lived in his hat. I had forgotten about the book for a long time, and then a homeschooling friend (who is studying the American Revolution with us) mentioned how much her daughter had enjoyed the book.

Ben and Me begins when Amos (the mouse) leaves his poor, church mice family and ends up in the home and hat of Benjamin Franklin. Ben keeps him in his fur hat as Amos helps him through diplomatic discussions and plans for the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War. They have a falling out over Ben’s experiments with electricity (which is incredibly amusing!), and Amos does not travel with Ben on his first diplomatic trip overseas. This trip does not succeed, so Ben comes home to ingratiate himself with Amos again. Once they have made up, Amos continues to help him, and they go to France in an attempt to get funding for the American Revolution. Since Amos is there to help him, it all goes well, and the story is simply wonderful.

All three of my girls (preschooler through third grade) loved Ben and Me. When my brother was a boy in that age range or a little older, he really enjoyed the book, too – this book seems to be a great read for any child with imagination and an interest in history. Ben Franklin is a fascinating character on so many levels – many adults have read Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, but this book is a much more approachable one. Some of the “facts” included in Ben and Me have been disproved in the time since Robert Lawson wrote the book (ie: electricity discovered by kite flying with a key), but the book serves as a wonderful introduction to the life and legend of Ben Franklin and his impact on American History. If your kids are very interested in the science aspect, we suggest The Ben Franklin Book of Easy and Incredible Experiments: A Franklin Institute Science Museum Book so they can do some of Ben Franklin’s experiments themselves.

Robert Lawson has written many more books about American Historical figures from the point of view of an animal, and we are excited to read about other characters as we continue our study of American history.

We reviewed two lovely picture books in which Death is a main character. Death is also a main character in The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak, but that is the only thing the three books have in common.

The Book Thief is a thick (550 pages), dark, intense read. This is a story about a German girl in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The book begins with her on a train with her mother and brother, her mother is planning to leave them in foster care for a reason that is not disclosed. Her younger brother dies on the train, and when they are burying him in the cold, snowy earth, the gravedigger drops a book, and Liesel steals her first book – The Gravedigger’s Handbook. As the book goes on, her brother’s death haunts her, and she has her foster father (Papa) teach her to read the stolen book.

Markus Zusak writes a wonderful book, with amazing character development and a vivid use of imagery – you can picture yourself walking down the dingy streets of the poorer section of town where Liesel lives. Death continues to narrate, coming up with amazing quotes like “sometimes it kills me, the way people die”. He “holds their souls”, and he talks about how overworked he is in Nazi Germany. But he still finds time to go back and watch Liesel, as she has fascinated him.

This book is listed as young adult, but it would really require a very special young adult to get through this book. If a teen has been fascinated by Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, and Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, then this book might be a good next book.

While this book is fiction, it does have some bases in reality – several real events have been fictionalized as a part of the book. The realistic feel of the book makes it a good companion to The Diary of Anne Frank, as they are both about girls about the same age living in Nazi Germany. Anne is Jewish, Liesel is not, but her family does hid a Jew for a time, and she and her Papa try to help the Jews walking through their town on the way to Dachau.

A note – this book is narrated by Death, so it should come as no surprise that the last 30-50 pages require a goodly amount of tissues. If a young adult has issues with Death, this would not be an appropriate book.

However, if a young adult or adult is interested in WWII and Hitler’s Germany, and wants to see the war through a different perspective, this is a well written, amazing book. I highly recommend it, but I would also recommend reading a lighter book before/during/after.

The Birth House: A Novel by Ami McKay is currently on everyone’s “best books” list for 2006. Have you read it yet? If not, you should. Really. Go buy it or reserve it online at your library. I’ll wait.

This is a beautiful book about a young girl/woman as she grows up in Nova Scotia, Canada during WWI. She is apprenticed by the local midwife, and learns from her. This apprenticeship is not exactly a prime assignment – the midwife is thought to be akin to a witch, but there are too many mouths to feed in Dora’s home (the protagonist), and she doesn’t have many marriage prospects, so off she goes.

Dora and her midwife mentor cope with challenges from the community and from a new obstetrician who moves into the area and deems women “hysterical”. I especially loved a passage in which the doctor told a pregnant woman that morning sickness is just women wanting attention from their husbands. Yeesh.

There are so many wonderful stories, unexpected twists and turns, and fabulous passages within the book that there is no way for me to adequately describe it. However, the book does include pregnancy loss, so I would not recommend it to anyone who is currently pregnant.

It was a beautifully told story, with wonderful characters that were really brought to life in the pages of the book. I was so sad when the book finished – I wanted more! I hope you enjoy it just as much. It’s a beautiful read.