When I was a child, my parents showered me with books: picture books, animal adventures, biographies of famous people, and fairy tales, featuring the classics of the times. My brothers, who were two and four years younger than I, were also showered with books. Suffice it to say, parents, grandparents and babysitters had plenty of stories to read to us, and when we grew older, we never lacked for fresh stories to read ourselves.
I don't remember any of them.
What I remember--in terms of lasting impact--was an ancient adventure book for boys written in 1887 by Kirk Munroe. It remains in print today and can also be found in the Project Gutenberg archives and on Kindle. "The Flamingo Feather" was a popular, illustrated historical novel about a young man who sails to Florida with the historical René Goulaine de Laudonnière in 1564 as part of the doomed attempt by the French to establish a permanent presence in Florida at Fort Caroline (near present-day Jacksonville).
If often wonder if I would have discovered this book had I not grown up in Florida where school children learned at a very early age about the five flags of the state's history: Spanish, French, British, Confederacy and United States. (The "five flags" history doesn't include the state flag, the current design of which is based on an early Spanish Cross of Burgundy flag that flew over the state in the 1500s.)
I lived in Tallahassee 164 miles away from the fictionalized exploits of Réné de Veaux and the real Hugenot colony that suffered from hard times even before the Spanish saw it as a threat to their intended domination of the territory and wiped them out in bloody battles. The battles between the French, led by Jean Ribault and de Laudonnière against the Spanish, led by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, were engraved in stone. Yet, as I read "The Flamingo Feather" multiple times, I never failed to hope that somehow the ending would be different.
When the book came out, the "Atlantic Monthly" reviewer wrote in 1887 that "The Flamingo Feather, by Kirk Monroe (Harpers), is an historical romance, the scene laid among the noble savages of America in the sixteenth century. A young French lad sales with Laudonniere, and has amazing adventures among the Indians. As the writer has very few facts to build upon, there is no great harm in such a tale, and Southern Landscape makes a better background for high romantic jinks that New England does."
The book survived this lukewarm review and, to my young eyes at least, Munroe--who lived in Florida for many years--knew enough about the French/Spanish conflict as well as Chief Saturiwa and the Timucuan Indians to tell a darn good story with more than "very few facts." Laudonniere escaped the Spanish, returned to France and published a memoir in 1586 about his Florida adventures, L'histoire notable de la Floride, contenant les trois voyages faits en icelles par des capitaines et pilotes francais.
Did Kirk Munroe ever read it? I've never been able to find out. As a boy, of course, I knew nothing about a French memoir published in 1586, but I just about memorized a novel published in 1887, one that captured my imagination and, perhaps, gave me a penchant for lost causes and fiction about wild places.
Timekeeper II by John Atkinson
In John Atkinson’s 2008 novel Timekeeper, Johnnyboy leaves his dysfunctional Virginia home at fourteen after his father “Bugdaddy” beat him again. In Oklahoma, Chief calls him “Timekeeper” and sends him on a vision quest to find himself. He does, but he is not yet whole.
At the beginning of Timekeeper II, scheduled for a September 21, 2010 release from il Piccolo editions, Atkinson writes, “I went to the Sacred Mountain in the flesh, but didn’t see it clearly until I returned in a ghost world dream.” Timekeeper II isn’t a clock-time, linear novel. It’s a dreamtime novel where all the dualities that haunted Johnnyboy must be brought into harmony in order for Timekeeper to face the world and himself as a fully integrated person.
The dualities arise in Timekeeper’s mind like opposing armies: a humiliated, illiterate man in a world where the ability to read is not only mandatory, but presumed; a man of mixed white and Native American parentage who is unaccepted and foreign in both worlds; a seeker on the path who left home to find himself while leaving his mother and first spiritual teacher Morning Song behind to face the wrath of an abusive father who once said, “Don’t turn Indian on me, boy! I’ll kill you dead in your tracks.”
Timekeeper II is a rare treat, a window that opens and re-opens into a dreamer’s world where events and personages from the world of form and the world of spirit mix and interact and sometimes contradict each other. Neither Chief nor the illusive and powerful Round Woman will give Timekeeper clear and definitive self-help lessons. Instead, he must take on the role of a shaman and enter the ghost world and find spirits who will help him heal himself.
Once again, John Atkinson has conjured up a gritty, highly original story where reality itself turns in upon itself and carries both his protagonist and his readers through the fires of transformation into a world where all conflicts disappear. Highly recommended for all adventurous readers.
Awakening of the Dream Riders by Lynda Louise Mangoro
As Lynda Louise Mangoro’s magical novel “Awakening of the Dream Riders” begins, fourteen-year-old Kyra is trying out her new talent: “Her favorite unicorn poster suddenly loomed directly ahead. Pulling back, she slowed just in time to avoid a collision with the wall and sent herself tumbling backward through the air, rolling head over heels in a clumsy display of aero-gymnastics.”
Before Kyra discovers what she’s doing, veteran readers of paranormal fiction will guess that her joyful and liberating flight is astral projection. But she’s too elated to concern herself about technical terms. She can’t wait to share her stunning discovery with her best friend at school.
This well-told story moves at light speed, as fast as a person flying in their “light body” can soar across town in the blink of a thought. Soon, Kyra and her friends, Ray, Lauren, Crystal, and even the science-minded Noah are talking about “dream riding.”
On the back cover of “Awakening of the Dream Riders,” Mangoro describes Kyra’s world as “a quiet street in a picturesque English seaside town.” As Kyra and her friends discover, that’s only one reality, and it’s heavy and dense when compared to dream riding.
But unknown shadows await them within the infinite scope of the bright reality that knowing how to fly has offered them. Kyra and her friends will discover their unique dream riding talents, talents they must develop quickly in order to survive a tragedy their freshly opened eyes do not yet see.
“Awakening of the Dream Riders” plunges the reader into an inventive paranormal adventure. The high-energy magic of the story arises out of the fact that Kyra’s world on the ground and in the air appears very real. And there’s more to come: Mangoro’s debut novel is the first in a projected series of open-your-mind fantasy adventures for young adults and adults.
The Long Night Moon by Elizabeth Towles
Sassy, high-spirited and boy crazy, seventeen-year-old Darcie Edglon is abruptly taken away from the Charlotte, North Carolina world she knows three weeks after her parents are killed in an automobile accident. Responsible for her now, her older brother Ian orders her to pack her things without discussion or questions and prepare herself for an extended stay in the family’s mountain house near the Nantahala National Forest in Western North Carolina.
While the house is spacious and mountains near Franklin, Dillsboro and Cherokee are beautiful, this is hardly recompense for being wrenched away from her friends and activities in Charlotte. Her opinion begins to change, however, when she meets a recently widowed young Cherokee man named Wa’si.
“The Long Night Moon” is a magically told story about a teenager woman with a secret on the cusp of womanhood. The Cherokee and high-country themes run through the novel like pure mountain water, and are a compelling counterpoint to the rebellious, city-wise Darcie. With her attraction to Wa’si–whom her brother Ian has told her to leave alone–Darcie cannot help but be drawn into a culture and a place that will support her during the trials to come.
Darcie is a strong-willed, inventive and intelligent young woman. When the person she is becoming is severely tested, these traits will serve her well. While Darcie’s final test is wrapped up somewhat abruptly and the novel’s concluding chapter could have been more expansive, Elizabeth Towles’ novel is a very satisfying story.
On a personal note, I was drawn to this book partly because my family has made dozens of vacation trips over the last 50 years to the Western North Carolina mountains where the story is set. We owned property in the area, found lasting friendships and–of course–explored the Nantahala and Pisgah national forests, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the trails along the Blue Ridge Parkway to Mt. Mitchell. Elizabeth Towles really makes this land come alive in “The Long Night Moon.” If we had a time machine, I believe the Cherokee ancestor in my wife’s family would agree.
The March of Books
Copyright (c) 2003-2010 by Malcolm R. Campbell. Some images copyright (c) 2003-2010 by www.clipart.com. Copyrights for tips are retained by their respective contributors. All Rights Reserved.
Timekeeper II,The Fire, Awakening of the Dream Riders, We Hear the Dead, The Long Night Moon, The Soul of the Night, Wolf Hall, The Hellraiser of the Hollywood Hills, The Flamingo Feather
she's gay. I'm sane, she's certifiable. I try to keep a roof over our heads, she's the human hurricane who keeps trying to blow the roof off. Next life, I'm coming back as an only child. Count on it.
--
When some low-life malware from the wrong side of the Internet comes after your fancy laptop, you call for McAfee antivirus software. When some Tinsel town ne’re-to-wells hassle your hot teen recording artist, you call for Kerry and Terry, the McAfee twins.
They have red hair, a pink Harley and a street-wise attitude seasoned with more wisecracks and putdowns than the law allows. At 25, they’ve already been around the block a few times (when it comes to crime fighting) because they run Double Indemnity Investigations of West Los Angeles.
When Bethany (aka “the gum-pop phenom”) walks in front of their camera in disguise during a routine stakeout of an apartment in the bad part of town, she jumps to the conclusion the twins are “stinking paparazzi.” Just moments earlier, Kerry had been thinking how well they blended into the neighborhood in their trashed rental car, just a couple of “harmless crackheads or hookers making an honest living.”
A fight ensues—and without giving away why the three women end up at a no-tell motel that smells “like the place where mildew goes to die”—the story is soon racing like a Harley out of hell through a plot jam-packed with twists, turns and hijinks. It’s a plot to die for.
And people are dying, mostly around Bethany, and as a discerning reader, you might ask if “psychopathic killer” ought to be added to the rich and spoiled singer’s long list of issues. Bethany’s on the run and while the twins are chasing her the cops—who don’t see the humor in this caper—are trying to pin the murders on Kerry and/or Terry.
The snap, crackle and pop you hear while reading “The Hellraiser of the Hollywood Hills” is not your breakfast cereal, it’s Jennifer Colt’s smart, high-energy writing. The characters, while a bit over the top at times in a good way, are memorable even though they aren’t the kind of people you’ll have over to dinner, and there’s plenty of snappy dialogue for everyone.
It’s nice to see the McAfee Twins back in their fourth very enjoyable novel that will keep you guessing until the last page.
The Hellraiser of the Hollywood Hills
by Jennifer Colt
Satire With A Twist
I read "Wolf Hall" after coming across The Booker Challenge site and realizing that I hadn't ready any of the Booker Prize winners. Mantel's approach to Thomas Cromwell looked like a good place to begin.
I will not attempt to compete with scholars of Tudor England and others who know the literature about this period so well.
Briefly, though, I found the novel ambitious as to its focus and subject matter, and so extravagent in language and detail, that I wondered more than once if Mantel was Cromwell in a past life and was simply channeling old memories.
Whether young writers are interested in England of the 1500s or not, the book--in addition to being very readable--is a masterpiece when it comes to the art of showing rather than telling. Mantel's sense of dialogue, character and place is so apt, one can easily feel s/he is watching the story unfold on film. It's a novel to study as well as enjoy.
"Wolf Hall" is a marvelous achievement.
I'm Kerry, the better half of a private investigation duo known as the McAfee Twins...Terry and I are identical females, twenty-five years old as of this writing, orphans who live on North Beverly Glan Boulevard in West Los Angeles...I'm straight,
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantell
"Mantel's abilities to channel the life and lexicon of the past are nothing short of astonishing. She burrows down through the historical record to uncover the tiniest, most telling details, evoking the minutiae of history as vividly as its grand sweep. The dialogue is so convincing that she seems to have been, in another life, a stenographer taking notes in the taverns and palaces of Tudor England."
-- Ross King, LA Times
"We Hear The Dead"
by Dianne K. Salerni
"I began the deception when I was too young to know right from wrong. No one suspected us of any trick, because we were such young children. We were led on by my sister purposely and by my mother unintentionally."
--Maggie
Rap twice for “yes.” Rap once for “no.”
If spirits weren’t talking through raps, taps and other assorted sounds in the darkened rooms, how were the girls doing it? Some said Maggie and Kate Fox were frauds when they first claimed to hear the dead in Hydesville, New York in 1848.
Perhaps Maggie, the protagonist, had a gift for counseling and perhaps her more adventurous sister Kate truly had the evolving abilities of a medium, even though the whole thing began as a prank. Their mother believed more than they believed. Their older sister Leah saw that if “spirit circles” were properly presented, there was money to be made.
Welcome to the world presented in living color through the well-focused lens of Dianne K. Salerni’s very readable novel “We Hear the Dead.”
While the dashing military hero and Arctic explorer Elisha Kent Kane, who had his eyes on Maggie, did not believe the rapping came from the spirit world, many of the rich and famous did. The Fox sisters, who were born on the wrong side of the tracks, became sought after by high society. One of the strong points of this novel is the dynamic interplay between historical and fictional characters in believable settings as the sisters travel and attract press attention and large audiences.
Before you begin reading “We Hear the Dead,” you will know that the story is true. As you read, you’ll quickly discover that the Salerni’s wonderful historical novel not only brings the Fox sisters to life, but the dead with whom they spoke as well.
“We Hear the Dead” is real because Salerni knows how to weave solid research and meaningful historical details into a novel that begins with two confessions, moves on to the haunting, and remains strong and vital throughout.
The Childhood Novel that Impacted Me the Most:
Kirk Munroe's "The Flamingo Feather"
"On a dreary winter's day, early in the year 1564, young Réné de Veaux, who had just [flamingofeather] passed his sixteenth birthday, left the dear old chateau where he had spent his happy and careless boyhood, and started for Paris. Less than a month before both his noble father and his gentle mother had been taken from him by a terrible fever that had swept over the country, and Réné their only child, was left without a relative in the world except his uncle the Chevalier Réné de Laudonniere, after whom he was named." -Kirk Munroe in "The Flamingo Feather" (1887)
Old Favorite
To know is only half, as the naturalist John Burroughs said; to love is the other half. The pages that follow are an example of knowing and loving, a personal pilgrimage into the darkness and the silence of the night sky in quest of a human meaning. It's a quest rewarded with fleeting revelations, intimations of grace, and brief encounters with something greater than ourselves, a force, a beauty, and a grandeur that draw us into rapturous contemplation of the most distant celestial objects...It's a pilgrimage in quest of the soul of the night.
If you love the night sky, you will love this book. Chet Raymo looks up at the stars with the knowledge of a scientist, the eye of a mystic, and the heart of a poet.
Originally published in 1985 by the author of "365 Starry Nights," this book has been an ever-presence source of wisdom on my desktop, Still available in paperback, it's has obviously appealed to others as well.
According to author Stuart Litvak, "Chet Raymo has made astronomy understandable and appealing to those who have little knowledge of the science." The book appeals to me because it's more than simply "good science." It is, rather, a gospel to the night.
"There's a tendency for us to flee from the wild silence and the wild dark, to pack up our gods and hunker down behind city walls, to turn the gods into idols, to kowtow before them and approach them and approach their precincts only in the official robes of office," writes Raymo. "And then we are in the temples, who will hear the voice crying in the wilderness? Who will hear the reed shaken by the wind? Who will watch the Galaxy rise above the eastern hedge and see a river infinitely deep and crystal clear, a river flowing from the spring that is Creation to the ocean that is Time?"
Each purchase of this mountain adventure novel benefits Glacier National Park's 2010 Centennial Committee.
Katherine Neville's The Fire (Ballantine Books, 2008) is an adequate, multi-storied sequel to the author's stunning chess-and-alchemy 1988 page-turner The Eight.
The "current day" story focuses on Xie, the daugher of Catherine Velis, the protagonist in The Eight. While Catherine was a take-charge heroine in solving the alchemical mysteries of a chess set that once belonged to Charlemagne in The Eight, Xie--for all her spunk--is swept along by events orchestrated by others. Her best friend Nokomis Key has a much better role and is much more instrumental in keeping the good guys on track through the plot's twists and turns.
The multiple historical time periods in The Eight worked well because the story and its style of presentation were fresh and new. Knowing the history of the chess pieces then actually helped solve the present-day mystery. But, in The Fire, the alternating 1820s story is dangerously close to being a dead weight of backstory, there more for the alchemical symbolism than for the present-day action.
While many fans of The Eight will find much to like in The Fire, it is more like a TV "reunion show" for a beloved old series that can't possibly equal the original work. The Fire tells us where everyone ended up without taking the kinds of storytelling risks that made The Eight such a stunning achievement.
For example, one payoff for readers of The Eight was learning that the secret behind the chess set was the formula for the elixir of life. The alchemical payoff in The Fire, while certainly accurate within the deeper meanings of Great Work, is pale (in the way it's presented) by comparison. The wisdom Xie gains from the "great secret" of the chess set is no more exciting than the common-sense platitudes found in many self-help books.
Had Neville been willing to go out on an alchemical limb, the payoff might have been one worthy enough to justify all the centuries of fighting and intrigue that culminated in The Fire. Among other things, such a limb would have included giving Xie a stronger role, one that not only gave her the lead in winning the temporal game in the plot, but forced her to go through the transformation a seeker on the path experiences when they are renewed by fire.
