Deceptively packaged, this book presents itself as one of those finds beloved of historians—the untouched trunk in the attic full of journals, letters, and souvenirs. It is, in fact, a work of the imagination, pretending to cover the memories of six generations of women on an Indiana homestead. Here’s the concept: Marianne, a French aristocrat, marries pioneer Joshua Metcalfe in 1835 and happily departs for the Indiana wilderness to chop wood, draw water, tend chickens, clean, and cook. She also sets the scene for a family Christmas whose traditions will continue to the present. Another tradition: an end-of-year journal summing up annual events and appending recipes or household hints (making candles, ink, suckling pig). Both rituals are picked up by succeeding generations, usually daughters-in-law of different ethnic backgrounds—German, Irish, English, Swedish—who can add cultural variations to the Christmas celebrations and reflect in their annual summations the progress of civilization at the farm: indoor plumbing, electricity, automobiles, computers. Sons go to war, daughters support suffrage, the stock market crashes. There’s a birthday celebration with cocktails (recipes provided) during Prohibition, instructions for tie-dyeing during the 1960s, and a Green Christmas, devoted to “creativity, conservation and thrift,” during the 1990s. No matter how accomplished the woman—the alleged compiler of this book was a high-profile TV journalist—each daughter-in-law is happy to settle into the slow rhythm of High Meadows Farm. Author Murphey (Bean Blossom Dreams, 1994), incidentally, is a former BBC producer who now lives on an Indiana farm. Beautifully published, with each woman’s entries in a different handwriting and authentic-looking photographs and memorabilia reproduced, here’s a charming reconstruction of the flow of history as it affects one particular family. Too bad it’s not the real thing. (Photographs, illustrations)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8118-2097-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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