DEAR AMERICA & MY NAME IS AMERICA: Dust Bowl

Well, we're still in the Depression, but some areas of the country have upped the ante and their residents are suffering from humongous dust storms.

We have both Dear America and My Name Is America tales from this time period, but they face the problem in different ways.

The Dear America book tells of a family who won't leave the Texas panhandle, despite numerous setbacks, while the MNIA story is about a family that leaves Oklahoma for California.

The different experiences overlap, of course. The girl in the Dear America has a friend who tells her about the California experience, and the boy from MNIA has a friend and an aunt who remain in Oklahoma.

I preferred the characters and stories from the Dear America book, although I did like the traveling bit in MNIA. Naturally, the characters in the MNIA deal with more abuse. Californians were embarrassingly unwelcome to these poor people that needed help. Too bad they couldn't have been shipped off to live in dust for a month and see how they liked it. But history always has been and always will be full of assholes!

Next up, we're up in Canada for a girl who has polio and then we begin the loooooonnnng stretch of World War II.

DEAR CANADA: Depression

Oh, man, this took forever to get through. Definitely one of the most boring ones.

This book isn't so much about the depression as it is the problems Jews faced in Depression-era Toronto. I feel like she's talking about the same thing over and over, and she talks so much about her cousin that it may as well be his diary.

It's just not interesting. I appreciate that the author used the experiences of his parents to write a book, but it was not enough to make a good story.

The Christmas short story for this is actually better than the book itself, because they lay off the talk about Hitler and riots and "stick with your own kind" for a change.

DISNEY PRINCESS BEGINNINGS: Ariel

The newest book in the Disney Princess Beginnings series released today and the focus character is Ariel.

Ariel's sisters are some of my fave Disney characters and I have the original chapter book series featuring them, so I didn't love this book, because they changed the ages and personalities of the sisters from what I've known and loved for years.

I'm consulting Google with the original order, because my memory's a bit fuzzy on some and my books are behind some of my Disney Fairies dolls on my shelf, so they're not easily accessible, but the person who wrote them also knows the personalities from the book series, so I think they're accurate.

So original order: Aquata, Andrina, Arista, Attina, Adella, Alana, Ariel.

Aquata was the leader and Andrina the sporty funny one. Arista is a bit difficult to describe. She loved seahorses in the book. She's maybe the sassy one? A bit bitchy? Attina is the bookworm and the smartest one (and my favorite). She's the most level-headed. Adella is the boy-crazy, vain one, but she's my second fave anyway. Heh. And Alana is the shy, sweet one who loves animals.

That's what I know and love. I know the third movie changed things, which is why, despite my owning it, I've never watched it. I'm guessing this book takes from that third movie instead of the earlier source material (mistake!).

The order in this book is: Attina, Alana, Adella, Aquata, Arista, Andrina, Ariel.

Attina is now the eldest and she seems to have a stick up her fin way more than Aquata ever did. Andrina is still the funny one, but now she's second youngest. Aquata went from leader to the athletic one. Arista seems a little bit the same, and Adella and Alana aren't characterized enough to really say.

I just hate what they turned Attina into. UGH.

Anyway, Ariel, Aquata and Andrina are caught in a rogue wave and have to find their way back home. Ariel summons up the courage to put forth her ideas, even though she's usually intimidated by her older sisters and their level of confidence. A lot of cute stuff happens and I'm just going to let you read it and find out!

I really do love this series and I'm excited for Jasmine, who's up next. It's not the fault of this particular book that Disney stupidly changed the ages and personalities of my beloved mersisters.

DEAR AMERICA: Depression

I was going to pair the Dear America and Dear Canada depression books, but I just finished Minnie's and figured I'd go ahead and review it.

First thing, look at that picture on the cover. If you ever wanted a real life Kit Kittredge, there you go.

Like Kit, Minnie's a young girl during the Great Depression. However, Minnie comes from a much larger and wealthier family. Their house is so large that they've had to close off rooms because they can't afford to heat them all.

Minnie has three older sisters: Gwen, Clem and Lady (Adelaide). Her younger brother is Ozzie. Their father is an accountant. At the beginning of the book, they get a telegram and are surprised to learn an orphan is coming their way. Their cousin Willie Faye arrives the next day by train and she's a teeny little thing, though actually older than Minnie.

Willie Faye is easily the best character in this book and that's saying quite a bit, because every one of the characters is very likeable. Minnie's family is like Kit's. You just love everyone.

The depression hasn't hit the Swifts as badly as other families. They don't have the best food, but they do always eat, and it's probably halfway through the book before the father loses his job. There are plenty of depression stories of bad things happening to other families though.

Minnie's book is very unusual for a DA, because it takes place over just a single month. Minnie writes a lot though, so it's still a sizeable book.

Minnie is one of the few DA girls who got a rerelease book that actually has her art look somewhat like her original photo. Although she looks quite a bit older here!

I'd give this one a high recommend. It's a bit of a whirlwind story, what with taking place over only a month, and the cast is pretty big, but it's a very good read and well worth reading for the character of Willie Faye alone.

DEAR AMERICA: School for the Blind

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall is very good, but it has to be one of the shortest books in this series, which is frustrating, because you want it to continue.

Bess is blinded after running into a tree in a sledding accident. She eventually attends the Perkins School for the Blind, where she learns a lot of useful things, as well as typical school subjects.

The cast of characters is enjoyable and it's interesting learning along with Bess.

The funniest part though is that Bess is set to perform in a play at her school, a play based on one of the author's other Dear America books. I found this quite amusing.

DEAR CANADA: Immigrant in Saskatchewan

I'm pretty sure this was one of the earliest DCs I read. Ivy is still one of my favorites from the series. She is a Character. Her book is pure slice of life and not exactly historical fiction, but she is so fun that rereading this is always a delight. I didn't learn a thing from it, but I loved all the characters so much that it didn't matter. There are no real tragedies in this, just random life in Saskatchewan for a family of English immigrants.

I give it a very high recommendation.

DEAR CANADA: Gold Mountain

Mei-ling's story is quite good. She's in Canada with her father, while her mother and younger brother wait in China. She works hard, both in school and out. She tries to help earn money to bring her family together again in Canada.

Mei-ling's world is small. Most of the scenes take place in just a handful of locations with maybe a dozen characters. But that doesn't mean the book isn't well-written. It very much is! It just doesn't have huge historical elements to it. It's a slice of life for a Chinese immigrant girl in Canada in the early 1900s.

While I didn't learn much from the book, it was still a great read, unlike some of the others that focus less on history.

DEAR AMERICA: Great Migration North

Another one of the good Dear Americas. Color Me Dark is about a family that moves north to Chicago from Tennessee after a member of their family, a black soldier returning home from the war, is murdered. They moved to escape the lynchings and discovered that while some things were better, other things remained the same.

I like the characters in this a lot. Nellie Lee and her sister have a good dynamic.

My only nitpick is a minor one. I actually was convinced this was written by the same author that did Patsy's diary, because Nellie Lee says "Can you imagine?" a lot, which reminded me of Patsy's frequent exclamations of "Imagine that!" It's two different authors though.

Color Me Dark is one of the few that got an HBO short special. I've never seen this one though.

I actually finished this several days ago and am almost done with the next one, so I'll likely review that later tonight. We've got a couple more random topic ones, then we hit the Depression and after that, the Dust Bowl.

DEAR AMERICA & DEAR CANADA: Spanish Flu

Lois Lowry wrote one of my favorite series, the Anastasia Krupnik books. While they're my favorite bits of her writing, Like the Willow Tree is definitely one of the best of the revamped Dear America series additions.

The catalyst of the story is the Spanish flu, which wipes out the main character's parents and infant sister near the beginning of the book. The main character and her older brother are taken in by their maternal uncle and his wife, although the wife is an utter bitch for no reason that's ever explained and the uncle finally gives in to her pressure and takes the children to the Sabbathday Lake Shaker community.

The Shaker way of life is interesting and watching Lydia adjust to it is an enjoyable read. There are elements I like, but definitely plenty I don't. Like Lydia, I think the no pets rule is silly, especially because dogs and cats are called "unclean." Now if they had that rule to avoid an animal showing favoritism to one Shaker or another, I could see it, as they're all big on equality there. But unclean? That's a load. I also didn't like that they took her grandmother's ring from her. She even offered to not wear it, just to keep it in a drawer to look at, but they wouldn't allow it, yet she was allowed to keep a box that her brother made. Why one thing and not the other? I don't like their dismissive attitude toward the children's families, as there's nothing wrong with honoring where one came from.

And of course, there's the completely illogical idea of a celibate community. How do you think you're going to continue to grow if you don't create your own new generations? Clearly they didn't think that one through, which is why there only two of them left. Really. Just two people. There were three, but one died earlier this year.

My nitpicks of their society aside, this is a great book. I always prize ones that teach me something and I learned a lot here.

Fiona's Dear Canada book is a little more involved in the flu itself, with it not just flashing by causing devastation like it did in the DA book. Hers also has a lot of family drama. The grandmother character is a grade A bitch. The father actually loved the mother's twin sister, but ended up married to the mother instead, because both he and the sister were being pigheaded idiots. The mother and aunt are one of three sets of twins. The main character and her sister are identical and their older sisters are fraternal. The mother isn't in the book, having died after the birth of the only brother, but the aunt stays on to help the father raise the family. Fiona slowly uncovers their family mystery and the father and aunt get married in the end, which finally drives the godawful grandmother out of the house. So all this is going on after a long lead up, which culminates in the younger set of twins being sent to two different places to escape the Spanish flu. However, Fiona uses her twintuition to realize that something's not right and ends up going home, where she sees her sister has the flu. With Fiona's help, Fanny makes it through, but not long after, one of the older twins catches it and dies. It's after her death that the drama really starts up.

It sounds complicated, but it makes sense as you read it. This is definitely one of the more dramatic DCs though, although not to the level of some of the rerelease DAs.

So with these two, we finally wrap up World War I. I think there were six that centered on the war and the stuff going on at the same time. I'm getting a little break from war with the next nine books, but then we jump into World War II, which has a whopping fourteen books set between 1941 and 1944. And after that, there are only a handful left! This is the last leg of the DA reread.

I AM CANADA: WWI

Another formulaic Dear Canada war book. Boy goes off to war to be like his childhood friend, who was a few years older. Learns that war means having to actually kill people and watch others die and shell shock and all that. He gets caught up with some deserters after wandering off in shock during a battle and the book is framed as him telling his story to an officer that's come to sit with him in his final hours before execution. It's decent as the war books go, I guess, but as I've mentioned before, they don't interest me much.

Next, we've got two books about the Spanish flu epidemic and then I think we're finally through all the crap that happened during the WWI years.

DEAR CANADA: Halifax Explosion

Man, a lot of crazy shit went on during WWI. Not only is there this huge war, but there's the drama of the suffrage movement, this giant explosion that destroyed a good chunk of Halifax, and a nasty flu epidemic that's coming up in a couple books.

Like most of these Dear Canada topics, I didn't know anything about the explosion until I read this. The diary starts out normally, but once that explosion hits, the writer's family is basically wiped out.

I think the author does a good job of showing different types of PTSD amongst the survivors, and the unraveling family mystery keeps the story from being mired in sadness.

This is definitely one of the better Dear Canadas, because it taught me about something I knew nothing about and did so using engaging characters.

DEAR AMERICA: Suffrage

Suffrage is one of those topics that tends to frustrate me, since it's hard to read about the horrible treatment of the women when all they wanted was something so simple.

A Time for Courage handles the topic well, because the main character is too young to really participate and has to live her life while the older members of her family fight for suffrage, go off to war, etc. She writes about simple things like field hockey and Latin, but also family drama involving a divorce between her aunt and uncle, and watching her mother work for women's suffrage.

The book is well-written and engaging, although it still has the same frustrating elements that always irk me about the topic.

Catching Up

I got quite behind in my reviews, so I'm going to put them all together.

Of this batch, the book I read first, Prisoners in the Promised Land, was by far the best.

Did you know Ukrainians and other immigrants from that area were forced into internment camps in Canada during World War I? Because before I read this, I had no idea.

Anya's story is a difficult journey, but it's the most moving and I think the most important of the books here.

Anastasia's Royal Diary brings that reread to a conclusion. I confess that I skimmed this. I've been reading these while sick and recovering from being sick, so I just wasn't in the mood for another story with a sad ending after the three Titanic books! I do remember enjoying this when I've read it in the past, but it's not one of my favorites from the series.

It did get one of the only Royal Diary rereleases and the cover is so crazy that it's worth taking up the space here.

I mean, seriously. The original cover looks like a young teenage girl of that time period. It looks like it was based on actual photographs, which I'm sure it was. Then there's this thing on the left. It's a pretty picture, but that is absolutely not Anastasia.

Dear Canada has the first entry of the three World War I books.

Eliza is an interesting character, as she's the middle child of seven. She has two older brothers, both in the war, and one older sister, plus twins (one male, one female) that are younger and finally, one youngest sister. Her father is a minister, so the family is moderately well off, but not excessively.

About halfway through the book, Eliza loses her eldest and favorite brother to the war. After that, she turns into the confidante of her other older brother, who's involved in some drama over in England. Both he and his best friend love the same woman. That turns into a rather soap opera-level mess.

The story is engaging, but it's not the best home front sort of story, although I do appreciate the different ways the men are shown being affected by the war.

A lot of the war-themed I Am Canada books are rather formulaic. The male character is in his mid-upper teens at the start, goes off for training, goes into whatever type of battle, grows up enduring horrific things. Sometimes a woman is involved. They come home men. This one is more of the same. I ended up skimming it, because I feel like I read it not that long ago, even though it came out back in 2013. Good, but not one of the best. Boys doing war stuff is not the most interesting topic for me.

You can always tell a Dear America from the tail end of the line. The books lack that fabric bookmark I love so much.

I couldn't remember a thing about this book when I picked it up. I doubt I've ever reread it before. Simone is a society girl from New York City who wants to be useful, so she eventually finds her way to being a hello girl over in France. Her time over there is interesting, because it's not something covered in any of the other books. Simone is also very unusual in that she's seventeen at the beginning of the diary. Most DA girls are much younger! But the story doesn't work unless she is that old, because they don't let kids do what she does, of course.

The book is quite short and a very quick read, but it's somehow more fulfilling than others that are much longer. Simone's family is a handful of good characters, she has a love story with some adventure, she has a tragedy that actually got me sniffling, because it's been years since I read this and I'd forgotten. It's a good book. Definitely more than what I was expecting when I picked it up.

Okay, now I'm caught up! And the next DA is...suffrage. *groan*

TITANIC TRIFECTA

I've been sick this whole week, but I finally finished all three Titanic books and it's time for my reviews.

Margaret Ann Brady's diary was one of the first, possibly actually THE first, Dear America I ever read. I started with the Royal Diaries, then branched out.

Margaret is a great character. She's a sassy orphan, whose only living relative is an older brother, who's over in the US. She's in an English orphanage, through which she ends up with a position as a companion to a rich American woman who's returning home early after the birth of a grandchild.

Margaret gets a whole new wardrobe and gets caught up in the posh life. She takes to things with cheek, instead of being overwhelmed, often exasperating her employer. She really doesn't do that much companioning, mostly walks the little dog.

These books are all a bit formulaic. Each one takes the same tour of the ship, where you go see the pool, the exercise room, the fancy staircase, etc. Then you see all the famous people.

Margaret makes it off the boat because she's a young girl, but she has to be forced into one of the lifeboats by her steward, a young man named Robert. Their moment before she gets on the boat is so touching, I typically tear up.

This is by far the strongest of the three books.

It was one of the rereleases, as you can see the cover here. I don't like this art of Margaret. That brooding girl on the original cover looks like someone who could be sassy. This yellow dress chick does not.

Being an English girl, Margaret's book also got into the My Story series (English Dear America). This girl on the cover is a far better Margaret. I'll always favor the original, but this one is definitely good, too.

The My Story version actually has not one but two different reprint covers, but I'm not going to shove them here.

Margaret was one of the lucky four to get a Madame Alexander doll.

Which unfortunately looks nothing like her. The other three dolls (Caty, Mem and Abigail) were all designed to look like the actresses from the HBO specials, but Margaret's book never got a TV special. Probably would have been a bit too high budget to do! Why they made her look like this then, I'm not sure.

The Dear Canada book is depressing. At least with most of Margaret's, she's her cheeky fun self, but Dorothy's book begins in May, when she's been punished and removed from her school for the rest of the year. She slapped a brat who told her horrible things about the Titanic, envious of Dorothy's fame. Nasty little thing never did get any comeuppance. I hate that.

Anyway, Dorothy is supposed to write in the diary she was given and tell about what happened on the Titanic, because it might help her. She refuses to do so for quite a bit of the book.

Instead, we get to read about a little girl who has OCD-type behaviors that are clearly from post-traumatic stress disorder. That's not fun.

Eventually, Dorothy gets to her story and we learn that she blames herself for the death of the woman that was chaperoning her. The woman was an employee of her father's and was going to England, so Dorothy's family sent her along and she stayed with her grandparents, then both were to return home on the Titanic. (The parts describing her time with her grandparents are really the only good ones in the book.) The employee woman is rather insufferable and keeps trying to tell Dorothy what to do, which is not right. In retaliation, after being sent back to their room, Dorothy makes a giant mess of the woman's things and then goes to bed. When she wakes, the ship is sinking. The stewardess rushes her out, while another steward is trying to get the woman to realize the seriousness of the situation. Dorothy and the stewardess get into one of the lifeboats and make it to rescue. It's only later that Dorothy realizes the older woman never made it. She blames herself, because she thinks it was the mess that made the woman run so behind and never make it off the ship.

Thankfully, Dorothy's parents are able to track the stewardess down and they surprise Dorothy with a visit from her. While they're talking, it comes out that the stewardess had cleaned up the mess before the employee woman ever got back to the room. So her death wasn't Dorothy's fault at all.

Apologies for the lack of names here, but I'm too lazy to get up and look them up.

This diary has some enjoyable moments, but mostly, it's rather painful to read.

The final version is from a male point of view. This is a bit of a challenge because there's got to be a good reason for a male protagonist of the age the I Am Canada boys usually are (a bit older) to have made it. Not many men got into the lifeboats.

Jamie's from a well-off family, so this book's got a lot of the same scenery as Margaret's. Jamie's a boy though, so expect the usual boyish trouble. For example, he meets a boy onboard who has a pet rat and the rat escapes, so they chase it, etc.

It's a decent book, but there's something about it that I find much less engaging than Margaret's. Maybe because a lot of these boy-fronted stories seem rushed.

Jamie survives because, while he hits the water, he quickly manages to make it to an overturned lifeboat, which he and a bunch of others stand on for hours until rescue.

The older brother at the end is just a complete asshole, too. I don't think he was a necessary addition.

So. Titanic. Three books. Margaret's is honestly the only one I'd recommend and I do recommend it highly.

DEAR AMERICA: Shirtwaist Worker

I'm going to say right off that this isn't a bad book, but it was hard for me to get through.

It's yet another immigrant book.

Yet another immigrant book set in New York City. (I love New York, but I'm tired of it after all these!)

And it's yet another factory book.

There are two subjects in history that really don't interest me. The first is factory work. It sucks. We get it. I don't need eight books to tell me that it sucks. The second is suffrage, which I'm going to be groaning my way through shortly. Trails are another that I'm not too fond of, but that was mostly because I had to slog through how many of them in a row?

Anyway. Angela's Italian family are good characters and I like her and her friend Sarah. It's just tough to read something that you know isn't going to end well, because you guessed it, this ends with the Triangle fire.

Unfortunately, I'm just beginning a run of This Does Not End Well. The next three are about the Titanic and then we've got the last of the Royal Dairies, which is Anastasia's. It pains me to read things about her, so I may just skim that one! I'll be combining the Titanic books into one big entry, because why not? We've got the Dear America, Dear Canada and I Am Canada versions of the story. I can't remember if I've actually ever read the I Am Canada one. I know there were some of those I got around the time I decided to start this reread/review and I never read them.

DEAR AMERICA: San Francisco Earthquake

One of the newer Dear America additions, A City Tossed and Broken is about the horrible earthquake that devastated San Francisco in 1906.

However, don't look for a lot of information about that here.

The book reads more like fiction than historical fiction. Like several of the newer DA offerings, it has a dramatic story that the author makes take precedence over anything historical.

Minnie Bonner's father loses the family tavern in a card game and the 14-year-old is forced to come with the new owners to San Francisco, working as their maid. But don't get attached to any of the rich family because it's not long after they reach San Francisco that the quake hits. Boom, they're all gone. The daughter had stolen Minnie's suitcase and dressed in her maid's clothing, about to run off with her boyfriend. Minnie, without her suitcase, was wearing one of the daughter's many nightgowns, so when she's found, the family lawyer, who's never met the daughter, assumes that Minnie is her.

Minnie plays the role of Lily while she tries to work out the mysteries surrounding her. It turns out the rich father had hired the man who cheated Minnie's father at cards. The entire thing was orchestrated by them and Minnie finds proof of many crooked dealings in a ledger, which she buries along with a load of cash and a million dollars in bonds.

Despite the heavily dramatic story, the incidents take place over just a handful of days and Minnie does get her happy ending.

Read this one if you're satisfied with more drama than history. It's not a bad book. I just don't think it qualifies as historical.