WWII: Part 1

I'm faced with a buttload of World War II books. I was going to try to read through a few more before my first write-up, but the last one I read annoyed me, so I'm just doing these four for now.

The WWII section of the Dear America series and its spinoffs begins with a "Special Edition" by Barry Denenberg. There's nothing about this book that really makes it a special edition and I can't remember if any others ever were. It's well-written, but the first half takes place in Vienna and Julie's Jewish, so you're in for some hard to read stuff. The epilogue is also hard to read. Very good, very important story, but definitely hard to read.

Dear Canada's first WWII book is much more light-hearted. It's practically not about the war at all. The family takes in an English War Guest child and their neighbors get her brother, so there's some detail about the Blitz, but it's not like they're actually taking part in it. The older brother goes into the...navy, I think? It's been a bit since I finished this. So there's the worrying about a relative aspect, but a lot of this is just daily life stuff. It's not bad, just not that involved.

Gonna be honest and admit that I just skimmed this. Sometimes I'm in the mood for war stuff, and this time I wasn't. The boy war books just don't interest me. Argh. The Dear America ones tend to be better, but I Am Canada just seems really repetitive and, as I've mentioned before, formulaic. And there are four more of them in the series and every single one is WWII. I should force myself to read the others. I think two of them are ones I never even read, but I know I've read this one before.

And this one. This is the book that annoyed me so much that I had to get these reviews done.

This is Barry Denenberg again, but this time he fails horribly. He's got engaging, interesting characters, but the book is quite simply TOO SHORT. Not enough time is spent with them, events are covered far too briefly, some things aren't explained and all, and worst of all, the epilogue is pathetic and gives only the barest info about three of the characters. Not even the entire family!

I feel like Denenberg bit off more than he could chew. He was producing a book a year for these series and I'm thinking there were some he rushed through. In 1996, he did the Civil War, then the Irish mill girl (another short one) in 1997. In September 1998, he did the Revolutionary War, followed by the Japanese internment camp in 1999, Julie's diary in 2000 and then this Pearl Harbor one in 2001. I think this was his last gasp and it suffered really terribly for it. Thankfully, the one after was the blind girl and hers was good. I just wish he'd put much more thought into this book and realized how bad the epilogue in particular was. It's like he just didn't care about the characters he created and didn't think that maybe his readers might!

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.

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*

DEAR CANADA: Landslide

All Fall Down follows Abby and her family as they travel from Montreal to the town of Frank in Alberta and start a new life there. The father of the family is killed in an accident and when all his debts are discovered, the mother decides to write to her brother for help. He's started a hotel in Frank with his wife and son, so they're glad of the help.

Abby's main job is taking care of her younger brother Davy, who has Down Syndrome. He's the second such character in the series of DA and its spinoffs, although Gideon from Down the Rabbit Hole was much older. Olivia and John, the eldest siblings, practically hate their younger brother, and it takes months for them to grow out of their father's bad influence. The father was really an asshole character, while the mother is nice.

Everyone pitches in at the hotel or finds other local jobs. Olivia has boyfriend drama. Abby makes a Native Canadian friend. John's kind of an ass.

Throughout the book, there's a big secret and John is the one that finally reveals it. Abby isn't related to them. She's a baby that was brought to the mother by her father. She was one of the few survivors of a cholera epidemic aboard a ship and the mother's father brought her the baby, knowing she needed someone to care for, as her husband was pulling her own children more under his influence and away from her. (Told you he was an asshole.) The father never likes Abby and makes his children not like her much either. Thankfully, their time together after his death fixes all those shitty things.

Right when Abby is dealing with this shocking news, the landslide happens, killing many people, though all the main characters survive. Abby talks to her mother about her history after they've recovered from the tragedy and finally learns what little her mother knows.

The book is well-written and the characters, while not all likeable immediately, all eventually end up well. The landslide comes at the very end, so mostly this is just the story of a girl and her family.

DEAR CANADA: Home Girl

I think this was the first Dear Canada I ever read, though I'm not positive.

I love this one. It's written by the daughter of the family with the Home Girl, not the Home Girl herself, who really wouldn't have much time to write in a diary.

Victoria is obviously a well-to-do girl, but she's still a likeable character. She's like Triffie from a few books ago, although not as wealthy. Victoria wants to be a writer and her diary reflects that well, because her writing is very engaging.

The entire cast of characters is well-rounded and interesting. Few go without a backstory or development.

The action and drama are fun, but also believable, unlike some of the other DA series books.

Definitely a high recommend for this one. The follow-up Christmas story is also a nice addition, because that is written by the Home Girl herself, not Victoria. Marianna is given a diary by Victoria and she does find a little time to write in it, although she mentions that she doesn't have much free time, still having her duties to perform.