Season Of Love (short stories)

Season Of Love

Sylvie Schuman, il. William K. Plummer (jacket)

1961, Franklin Watts, Inc.

A short story collection divided into seasons. Very readable and likable, with a generally positive tone and upbeat resolution.

Winter

In "Second Love," Linda yearns after the girl-blind boy next door for years, only to see his first love be a glamorous newcomer.

In "A Living Doll," the crusading Marianna is impatient with her mother, who prefers to donate her hand-crafted dolls to a charity auction rather than show up at a fundraiser, but gains a glimmer of understanding when her boyfriend grows impatient with the stand she's taken on a malicious rumor.

In "Sister Act," Joan is terrified that her natural born flirt sister will snatch away a boy she's fallen for.

In "Won't Somebody Notice Me," Barbara discovers her little sister's value through the eyes of a boy she wants to impress.

Spring

In "End Of A Season" Margaret's happy security is threatened when her father grows ill and decides to sell their large family home; at the same time, she becomes aware that her heart doesn't belong to her boyfriend, now in college, but to herself.

In "The Shy One," Janey runs off to her uncle's for comfort when she simply can't stand being around her confident sister Joan one more moment.

Summer

In "Her Name In Lights," Linda chases stardom after seeing an old friend end up a movie star. But does she really want to put in the time and effort?

In "A Different Sort Of Girl," Jenny's first real relationship monopolizes her life, including the hobby she shares with her father - refinishing old furniture.

In "People Don't Live On Lakes," Terry is frustrated with her own dislike of her first real job - and tired of explaining to people that she does want to work, it's just that...

Autumn

In "Sweet Lorraine," Lorraine is estatic that her summer romance with the enigmatic, older Mike isn't over - then a little tired of dating an older guy.

In "A Time To Love," Joan's sudden popularity make her neglect an old friend and her family.

In "A Girl Of Spirit," Trudy visits her big brother at college and, away from their middle-class suburban hometown, is torn between the expectations of her parents and her own desires to be a doctor.

In "One You Love," Jennifer loses her summer romance and takes comfort in the experience of a friend, who recently became engaged after being desolate over another boy.

Vanished Worlds

The author was the editor for the teen magazines where these were originally published: Ingenue Magazine, Deb, and Co-Ed. Three words that have largely passed from use.

Other Books

For Girls Only

The Ingenue Date Book

The Country Cousin

The Country Cousin

Betty Cavanna, il. Joseph Cellini (cover)

1967, William Morrow and Company

"You have this body in a raw silk right now," Eddie said of a sample he called a "very strong dress," apparently meaning it had been especially successful in the summer line. "Now we're doing it in a light-weight wool."

17-year-old Mindy Hubbard is disconsalate on her brother's wedding day. Jack, at 22, has always been her buddy and her shining star. Now, watching him move off into a new life, she's aware that it's past time she made her own mark. But how, stuck as she is on her family's beautiful but remote Berks County, PA farm?

The answer comes when a sympathetic cousin, Alix Moore, asks her to come stay and work at her dress shop, The Country Cousin, on Philadelphia's Main Line. Mindy, aware she's a little overweight, goes on a diet and sets in to learn the dress shop business. Through her mistakes and trips to New York City's garment district, Mindy learns quite a bit about the business of selling clothes, but it's through Bob, the friendly son of a dressmaker, that she realizes what she wants to do - design. He's also the first person to drop the name Parson's, and give the recent high school graduate an idea of where she'd like to further her education.

On the romance front, the newly svelte Mindy dates a bored but handsome Peter Knox, the son of a wealthy Main Line family who resents the idea of anything changing his beloved foxhunting region.

A dark, remarkably handsome boy with imperious eyebrows and the golden bloom of an early summer tan. Peter seemed aware that most girls thought him attractive, so he made no special effort to be charming, behaving correctly out of habit but barely concealing a deep-rooted ennui.

Mindy, while wistful over his good looks, quickly learns he's a jerk, but takes some convincing that shaggy-haired, bespectacled Dana is the right choice.

And here you have a perfect meeting of the old and new - the sixties hair and pseudo-intellectual glasses are overtaking the perfect physical specimen. Cavanna, you must admit, was game to change with the times. In her older books, Mindy would have wrinkled her nose at shaggy and gone tripping after Peter.

Minor quibbles - Mindy's unnervingly amiable at being told she's too fat by her cousin, and there's a feeble attempt to conceal the obvious nepotism of Alix just happening to choose her family member out of all the store's staff to go to Paris with her. If it's about family, just admit it, already.

About the Author

Cavanna grew up in southern New Jersey, attended Rutgers and worked for the Westminster Press in Philadelphia. The store in this book really did exist; The Country Cousin was a dress shop in Bryn Mawr and Strafford, PA, owned by Dorothy Lewis Lummis. The Bryn Mawr location closed down around 1996, according to the Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society History Quarterly Digital Archives.

Other Books

Accent On April

Almost Like Sisters

Angel On Skis

The Boy Next Door

A Breath Of Fresh Air

Fancy Free

Jenny Kimura

Mystery At Love's Creek

The Scarlet Sail

Passport To Romance

Stars In Her Eyes

A Time For Tenderness

Fashion note

The brand John Meyer is mentioned several times. This was a women's wear company based in Norwich, CT, and one of the places Perry Ellis worked.

Links

Merion Cricket Club (site of wedding reception)

Photo, exterior, Merion Cricket Club (clearly, the bride's family was not poor)

Parson's

Versailles

Beany Malone (1948)

Beany Malone

Lenora Mattingly Weber

1948, Thomas Y. Crowell Company

The Second World War is finally over, but the Malone family is still struggling. Eldest daughter Elizabeth is awaiting the return of soldier husband Don while raising their now 3-year-old son. Their father, Martie Malone, is still recovering from the near-fatal bout of pneumonia which he survived only because Mary Fred missed a year of high school to nurse him. Johnny is racing time with old newspaperman Emerson Worth write a history of Denver. And 16-year-old Catherine Cecilia or Beany is hopelessly in love with Norbett Rhodes, a moody senior who has a history of hopeless adoration for Mary Fred.

This is Beany's story. Martie goes off to recuperate further, leaving the entire clan in her hands, a less-than-responsible but typical thing for Denver's most self-righteous crusading columnist to do. Before he goes, though, he triumphantly carries out a campaign against Norbett's guardian, the city's safety manager, for not enforcing traffic laws. By the time he's done, Norbett has sworn vengeance against the entire family, a vividly unpleasant problem for lovestruck Beany - and possibly for the complicated Norbett, whose guardians are not the warmest or most loving of people.

Beany: "You wouldn't feel right if you didn't have an excuse for hating the Malones."

Norbett: "I'd hate you whether I had an excuse or not, Beany. Because you're everything that I'm not. You like people - and everyone likes you. You're like that breakfast food on the radio - you're strengthened from the inside."

She, meanwhile, has come under the influence of a new friend's mother. Faye Maffley looks and acts more like her daughter's sister than her mother, and says that she's stayed so young and happy by not getting involved in unpleasantness. Beany, constantly harassed by unpleasantness like an old drunk reporter bunking on the sofa or the pain of losing foster kids back to their real parents, decides that from now on the Malones will look out for themselves first and not stick their necks out for others.

And she'd see that the other Malones didn't lay themselves open to disappointment and hurt.

This is, of course, not possible. Beany learns how impossible - and undesirable - it would be to change this aspect of her family, and gets her guy.

About the Author

1895-1971

The Beany Malone books

Meet The Malones

Beany Malone

Leave It To Beany

Beany and the Beckoning Road

Beany Has a Secret Life

Make a Wish for Me

Happy Birthday, Dear Beany

The More the Merrier

A Bright Star Falls

Welcome Stranger

Pick a New Dream

Tarry Awhile

Something Borrowed, Something Blue

Come Back, Wherever You Are

The Belford books

Don't Call Me Katie Rose
The Winds of March
A New and Different Summer
I Met a Boy I Used to Know
Angel in Heavy Shoes
How Long Is Always
Hello My Love, Goodbye
Sometimes a Stranger

Stand Alone books

My True Love Waits

Happy Landing

Sing For Your Supper

Nonie: An Autobiography

Wind On The Prairie

The Gypsy Bridle

Podgy And Sally: Co-eds

A Wish In The Dark

Mr. Gold And Her Neighborhood House

Rocking Chair Ranch

Riding High
My True Love Waits
For Goodness Sake! - cookbook
Beany Malone Cookbook - cookbook

Links

New editions available through Image Cascade

Healing Water (2008)

On October 11, 2009, the long process by which the Catholic Church mulls declaring a person a saint culminated in the canonization of Father Damien, famous as the 'leper priest' of Hawaii. His feast day will be May 10. His story is part of a very good new young adult novel whose young protagonist is a 19th century boy diagnosed with what is now called Hansen's disease and sent off to exile on the isolated colony of Molokai.

Healing Water
Joyce Moyer Hostetter
2008, Calkins Creek

"You're as good as dead already. And you are, too!" I shouted to a little girl with a thin face and wide eyes. I tried not to notice that she looked like my sister. "And you and you and you!" I pointed to anyone who dared to stare at me. "You're all going to die - all of you. Your grave is waiting on Moloka'i!"

If 13-year-old Pia is angry, he has good reason. The year is 1869, and the fatherless young Hawaiian has been diagnosed with leprosy, the dreaded disfiguring disease with (then) no cure, and sent to the new leper colony on Molokai'i. On a barren, lawless penninsula cut off from the rest of the island by massive sea cliffs too formidable for an ailing population to scale, Pia and his fellow sufferers are abandoned, save for a token police force and shipments of supplies which never come close to providing for all the unwilling inhabitants.

Pia, mourning the separation from his mother, sisters and 'ohana (extended family), is also embittered by a more personal betrayal. Kamaka, the young man who has been Pia's best friend, surrogate older brother and father, the person he looked up to and emulated all his life, fled from him even before the government shipped Pia away to Molokai'i. Haunted by memories of a childhood encounter with a leper, Kamaka ran rather than visit Pia in the hospital, or join the rest of the family to bid him aloha at the dock when he's forced to leave Honolulu for the last time.

Kamaka was like the steamer that dumped me here and then brought supplies to me. He was like Boki, who rescued me and then made me his slave. I hated all of them. But I kept wondering - how could I survive without them?


Angry and fighting to survive his first weeks in the colony, Pia becomes involved with the criminal Boki, a relationship which brands him a thief and an outcast even among this community of outcasts. Pia's only affection is for the little girl Maka Nui, who reminds him of his sister, and the elderly woman Keona. A few years later, a pair of new arrivals change Pia's world - Kamaka, who's unafflicted but accompanying his afflicted wife, and a 33-year-old Catholic priest named Damien. Kamaka, sincerely grieving his actions, patiently tries to persuade his old friend to give him another chance, while the assertive new priest sets to work rehabilitating the colony.

The book is haunting. On his first day on Molokai, Pia stumbles across a wild pig rooting in a shallow grave, and realizes with horror that the animal is consuming the remains of a leper. The reality of their shortened lives and the general lack of community in the colony means that Pia is revisited often by the question of his own death, and what will happen to his body in a place where there is no proper system to bury the dead. On Damien's first day on Molokai, he bullies Pia into helping him bury a dead man; seeing the man's disfigured, decayed form, he breaks down, leaving Pia with the impression that for the first time, someone cares about the hapless inhabitants of this de facto prison. And Damien proves this on a more personal level, caring for Pia's neglected feet. Leprosy causes nerve damage, and throughout the book Pia increasingly loses sensation in his feet. This loss of the ability to feel pain is a practical issue - infection sets in when patients fail to notice or care for small injuries, resulting in the disfigurement popularly associated with the disease - but Hostetter uses it to echo Pia's desire to stop feeling anything emotionally as well.

The questions of anger, forgiveness and their role in a good v. a bad life are handled well. Kamaka earns his forgiveness, and Pia witnesses, without neccessarily participating in, the unearned forgiveness dispensed by Damien. Pia is a strong character with a distinctive, believable voice, and there is great consistency to his actions. The plot is neat and collected, showing good control over the ending. One point that seemed to get away is the young girl Piolani, who seems for a time to be a romantic interest but who fades out of the picture.

About the Author
Author website
Author blog

Other Books
Blue
Comfort

Molokai
Visit Molokai website
National Park Service - Kalauppa
Photos of Molokai

Father Damien links
Catholic News story
Statue in the Capitol, Washington, D.C.

Movies
Molokai: The Story of Father Damien (1999)
Damien (1978)
Damiaan (1986) (TV) (Belgian)
Father Damien: The Leper Priest (1980) (TV)
An Uncommon Kindness

News
St. Augustine Catholic Church in Waikiki plans to build Damien museum
Belgian and Canadian film crews work on documentaries on Damien

Leprosy/Hansen's Disease
1-2 million people are still affected by Hansen's today, though it is treatable.

Links
The World Health Organization - Leprosy Today
Wiki
Centers For Disease Control - Leprosy
Evidence that leprosy existed 4,000 years ago

Center Line (1984)

Joyce Sweeney, il. (cover)
1984, Laurel-Leaf Books, Delacorte, Dell Publishing

"I've seen all of you changing because of what he's been doing to us. Rick's getting sullen, Steven's a coward, Mark laughs at things that aren't funny, like he's losing touch with reality. You were getting to the point where you blamed yourself for everything that happened. And me..." Shawn hesitated, took a drink of coffee. "I think I was starting to be like him."

The five Cunningan boys lost their mother to a car accident when they were small; their dad is a drunken jerk who beats them when he can get off the couch. Now it's the final days of the summer before Shawn, the eldest at 18, goes off to college. But seeing one of his brothers get beaten up yet again drives Shawn to a decision; instead of him escaping legitimately to college and leaving the others behind, he'll skip college and take his brothers on the road. They steal their dad's car and run, four minor runaways and one technical adult in a stolen car.

A prolonged character study of five very different brothers, and their relationships as they try to make their way in the world together while avoiding the notice of the authorities. The stress of their situation brings out the best and worst of all their personalities - Shawn's leadership and bullying, Steven's warmth and fearfulness, Chris's morality and blind loyalty, Rick's cleverness and amorality, and Mark's courage and immaturity.

Shawn was the leader and had all the ideas, and Chris's job was to back him up, to second the motion, to quell doubts in the ranks. Shawn depended on him for that.

Shawn and Chris have always had a particular friendship; the tall, confident eldest looks out for his somehow vulnerable younger brother, whose religious leanings are a family joke but whose loyalty is a balm to Shawn compared with the cynical testing of the other siblings.

Steven is a loner by nature, but he considers his brothers his anchors. The true loner of the family is Rick, who only came along on this little venture because the alternative was being alone with their dad. He's just biding his time until he gets the chance to run off from the rest, go to a big city and take care of himself. Mark is the blindly faithful youngest, doglike in his devotion to Shawn. But as their journey to Florida develops complications, even Chris and Mark question their leader. And Mark, who questioned him all along, ignites a battle that draws police attention.

A classic problem novel set-up, complete with abusive parent, but it manages to be more interesting than most.

About the Author
Author website
Interesting bio info here

According to this website, Center Line was inspired by something Sweeney read about the Beatles as young men in Germany, alone and forced to look out for each other. Her first novel, it was published after winning Delacorte's first competition for first YA novels.

Other Editions

Also by Author
The Guardian
Headlock
Takedown
Waiting For June
Players
The Spirit Window
Free Fall
Shadow
The Tiger Orchard
Piano Man
Face The Dragon
The Dream Collector
Right Behind The Rain

Follow Your Dreams (1961)

Follow Your Dreams
Marjorie Holmes, il. James Talone (cover)
1961, The Westminster Press

"But I say again and I can't say it too often - veterinary medicine is no place for a girl!" He had said it once too often.

17-year-old Tracey Temple is determined to be a veterinarian, like her idol Dr. Jane Baldwin, despite the hostile reactions of male vets, including the one who's been asked to address her junior class for Career Day. Tracey objects passionately to his sweeping dismissal of women, sadly aware her classmates think the whole argument a huge joke and herself a funny thing.

Tracey's thrilled when she lands a summer job with Dr. Baldwin, but quickly succumbs to first love when she meets the cranky vet school dropout Whitney, whose aloofness and misanthrophy perversely attract her just as loyal neighbor Dudley's quiet devotion goes completely unnoticed. The situation becomes even more interesting when Whitney's gorgeous, charismatic former girlfriend Diane comes to work at the hospital, and Tracey's childhood buddy Jeff arrives in town. Both men fall wildly for the alluring Diane, whose description is a triumph of a certain sort of horribly perfect female:

For one thing, she was so petite... Her hair was a soft, silver-gold puff. Her skin was honey-colored. And her face, in all its distinctive, perfectly arranged proportions, was the kind of face people turn to gaze at just an instant longer on the street.... As if this wasn't enough, she emanated a kind of golden radiance. Plainer people lighted up in her presence, as if basking in a glow. She wasn't particularly witty, but whatever she said, in a soft little voice of surprised amusement, made you want to smile... Then, when you were rearing back in sheer self-defense, when you realized you'd have to hate her a little bit too, if only to survive, you noticed something else; when she turned, with a swish of her embroidered peasant skirt, and started across the office, you noticed the slight but definite limp.

Tracey manages to learn how to handle the various situations, including jealousy of her own prematurely widowed mother, who is as feminine and dainty (though sensible and a good mother), and who depressingly reminds Tracey of everything she is not. It's mentioned a few times that she's really dealing with people a few years older than herself; Whitney, Diane and Jeff are all in their early 20s, and Tracey's somewhat stuck when it comes to experience or ease. And unlike many heroines, she's too genuinely innocent to utilize that asset with the boys.

Although Whitney does his time as the overbearing male know-it-all, he's also tormented by Tracey and Diane, and suffers great moroseness over his on-again-off-again engagement to the fickle beauty. There is one gruesome scene where he watches Tracey revel in helping a dog deliver a large litter of puppies, then informs her of a very nasty fact that may have just about passed muster in 1961 but is unrelentingly awful in 2009. And something about the setup of that scene makes it impossible to like him, though Tracey seems to get over it quickly.

About the author
1910-2002
Born in Storm Lake, Iowa, she graduated from Cornell College in 1933. Married twice, she had four children and taught writing at colleges. She was most famous for her religious-themed books, particularly three novels following the lives of Mary, Joseph and Jesus - Two From Galilee, Three From Galilee, and The Messiah. She wrote an autobiographical book, a nostalgic look at her childhood in Iowa, You And I And Yesterday.

Links
Obituary in the Des Moines Register
University of Iowa collection of papers

Books
young adult
Saturday Night
Cherry Blossom Princess
Love Is A Hopscotch Thing
Saturday Night
Senior Trip
Sunday Morning
Ten O'Clock Scholar
World By The Tail

A Second Look For Avis (1961)

A Second Look For Avis

Lee Priestley, il. Don Lambo (cover)

1961, Julian Messner, Inc.

Every year her own position worsened, Avis thought. Her mother and sister took her more and more for granted as the provider, resented more and more her dictates as to spending. The problems of plugging holes in the family financial dike got little help from Lucie and Stella. Their feeling about making ends meet was that if one ignored the annoying gap some miracle might bridge it.

The sleepy Louisiana town of Valcourville is beautiful to outsiders, an old place lost in time. But to several members of the Barton family, ownership of one of the town's gracious homes has been nothing but a trap. 22-year-old Avis Barton is the latest victim.

When her father (a frustrated poet who planned for her to live the dream he never achieved) died, she put her own dreams on hold to keep her family together. Her mother Lucie is an impractical southern belle who resents any responsibility, and her younger sister Stella has been raised in her likeness. Avis has managed to continue her college studies nearby, but the implication is that she's only doing so to earn more money as a teacher in the local school system. But after a few years of sacrifice, Avis is fed up. She is starting to see only too clearly how her mother sees the future; Stella married off, and Lucie merrily continuing her spendthrift ways supported by her dutiful eldest daughter who, she'll confide to friends, was never very interested in marriage.

The return of a childhood admirer, Paul Guidry, and a newcomer, Tracy Warren, set up an interesting situation with Avis and her flirtatious little sister. But the real problem Avis faces is how to deal with the financial and power situation in her family. Her sister and mother are being selfish, she realizes, but her own 'noble sacrifice' is rooted partly in disdain for them. Avis, her daddy's girl, places tremendous value in brains and social class, which she can't quite overcome even when she desperately wants to, as when she visits Paul's Cajun family, and she tends to undervalue other people's strengths.

An interesting book where the romance is nearly incidental to the heroine's resolution of her own personal problems. The atmosphere is nice, with details that convey a sense of living in an old southern town in a house that's crumbling genteely around your ears, but doesn't become a cartoon.

Bending over the marble hollow of the basin in the bathroom, Avis squeezed lather through her hair. Winding the wet brown length at the back of her head, she straightened with a care for the graceful swan faucets. They could deal a numbing blow. She asked herself how the Valcour sisters had managed their famous tresses in this antique skull-cracker; but then, it would be easy with body servants to soap and lave with pitchers of rain water.

Interesting touches include the presence of a Syrian family in town.

Other books

Teen

The Sound Of Always

Rocket To The Stars

Now For Nola

Believe In Spring (1964)

Children's

Rocket Mouse

Because Of Rainbows

A Teacher For Tibby

About the Author

Born in Kansas, she was a teacher.