Monthly Bookshelf Review - September 2019

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September's Books Completed and Reviewed

A Study In Scarlet Women (The Lady Sherlock Series) by Sherry Thomas - In this version of Sherlock Holmes, the detective is actually a young woman named Charlotte Holmes, who must find a murderer when her own family comes under suspicion. (Read my full review HERE)




Britfield & the Lost Crown by C.R. Stewart - Finished this YA novel, which I reviewed for the Homeschool Review Crew, in August, but didn't get the review posted here until early this month. It's about two orphans who escape the awful orphanage and race across England following a clue to the boy's parents and avoiding the many forces trying to catch them. (Read my full review HERE)




The Butterfly Recluse by Therese Heckencamp - Lila tells herself she doesn't need to interact with anyone as long as she has her butterflies, until a motorcycle-riding stranger charges into her garden. (Read my full review HERE.)




Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain - The classic novel of switched identities, and racial prejudice in the antebellum South, complete with a murder mystery and a tense courtroom scene. (Read my full review HERE)

During September I started reading:

Secrets in the Mist (A Gothic Myths Novel) by Anna Lee Huber - A Gothic mystery in which an impoverished young woman is drawn into a smuggling ring in order to protect her father.

  


Detective Trigger and the Ruby Collar by M.A. Owens - Started this clever mystery featuring a canine detective and it's really entertaining - even though intended for young readers!




Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton - I started to see a connection (for the Connect 5 challenge) of books with themes of prejudice and racism. In order to finish the set of five, I decided to read this classic from my TBR, set in South Africa during the years of apartheid.

Coming Up in October!

   

A Stranger at Fellsworth by Sarah E. Ladd
War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

   

This post will be linked at:

Feed Your Fiction Addiction - September 2019 Wrap-Up Round-Up & Giveaway

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Recent Reads - Pudd'nhead Wilson

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Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain - I just re-read this classic for the Literature class I teach at our homeschool co-op. Twain is a master of wit and irony, and infuses just enough humor in this story of deception and prejudice to keep the serious theme from becoming oppressive.

The opening introduces us to the setting and the main characters. The title character is a lawyer from the north who is trying to establish his practice in Dawson's Landing. Unfortunately, David Wilson makes a joke that falls flat and the townsfolk label him a "pudd'nhead", which prejudices everyone from taking him seriously as a lawyer. Wilson is well-liked and cheerfully continues on as an accountant and pursues scientific hobbies such as collecting fingerprints.

We also meet Roxy, a slave woman who is only one-sixteenth black, and her infant son Chambers, who is only one-thirty-second black. Roxy is nurse to Tom Driscoll, son of one of the town's leading citizens, and the two baby boys are being raised together, but with clear distinctions in how they are dressed and treated. When Roxy's master threatens to sell all his slaves down the river, Roxy makes a bold move. She realizes that the baby boys look very much alike, and that the disinterested father can't tell them apart except by their clothing, she switches the infants in an effort to prevent her son being sold into slavery. Tom's father dies and Tom (now an imposter!) is adopted by his uncle, Judge Driscoll, and the deception continues unnoticed and unknown for twenty or so years.

When Roxy is set free, she goes to work on the steamboats, still the only person that knows of the switched identities. Tom grows up into a cruel and spoiled young man with a gambling habit that gets him into trouble. He treats the slaves of his household, and all blacks, with utter contempt and disdain, and isn't particularly nice to whites either. He turns to petty theft to cover his gambling debts, and this is how Roxy discovers him when she comes back to Dawson's Landing after her money has run out. She appeals to Tom for help and tells him the truth - that he is her son, and therefore black - and threatens to expose him unless he helps her financially.

The town is all abuzz over Italian twins that have settled in Dawson's Landing, and who challenge Judge Driscoll in a bitterly contested local election. When the Judge is found murdered, the twins are accused, and finally Pudd'nhead Wilson has a case! The outcome seems bleak but Pudd'nhead is sure that he can clear his clients if only he can match the fingerprints on the murder weapon to someone in his carefully cataloged collection. And when he finally makes that match, it makes for a dramatic courtroom scene that reveals the murderer and exposes the truth about the boys switched in the cradle so long ago.

Twain's novel features characters in conflict with themselves and others (the theme of our Literature curriculum), and is an ironic but solid indictment of racial prejudice and injustice and the further injustice of slavery. Even the ending, in which justice is meted out to the imposter Tom, hints that the real heir continued to be subject to unfair prejudice because he had been brought up as a black slave.

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Scripture and a Snapshot - A Spring of Water

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

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Share Four Somethings - September 2019

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How is it nearly the end of September already? Crazy how quickly this month has gone by, but I think it seemed that way because it was so very busy. Before the month is completely over I'm going to look back and choose Something Loved, Something Said, Something Learned, and Something Read to share.

Something Loved

The first days. Last year was the last time we could have a First Day photo for our homeschool, but I got a couple of first day photos this year. My first day teaching at our high school co-op, and Kennady's first day at college. And a bonus - her first day driving herself to school!

I loved it and yet . . . it's also bittersweet because that is my baby girl. And she's basically grown up. So while I'm proud of her and excited for her new adventures, there's part of me that's secretly fighting back tears every now and again because my kids are grown-ups and it's only a matter of time until they move out or move away. I actually enjoy the quiet and having the house to myself a couple days a week while the guys are all at work and she's at school, but I suspect that will turn to loneliness sometimes. Until they do move out, I'm loving the time I do have with them and rejoicing that they enjoy being here and that their friends are like family here too.

And related to her starting college, something else we loved was finding out that she'd received a generous music scholarship from the college. So far, she loves college - or most of it! Not every class can be a favorite, obviously, but she doesn't have any this semester that she truly dislikes. 

Something Said

If you are living in a beautiful place where you can enjoy sunrise and sunset, then you are living like a lord.  ~Nathan Phillips

Something Learned

I'm teaching two classes at our homeschool co-op this year - High School Writing and High School Literature. For the Literature course I'm getting to read classic novels that I hadn't read, or that I've all but forgotten. We started the year with Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain. It's one that I read a long time ago and only vaguely remember, so it's a treat to read again. I've been learning more about Mark Twain, and about the setting and background, and enjoying the lively discussions with the young ladies taking the class. Our next novel is War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, which I last read when I was in high school. 

Kennady is also talking to me about her English and Music Theory classes, and occasionally even consulting me as she does her homework, so I get a chance to test my memory of all the music theory I studied so long ago and to relearn a few things. When she passes the point where I left off, I hope she'll teach me! 

Something Read

I completed only two books in September, and added the review of one finished in late August. You can see more about my reading in my Monthly Bookshelf Review for September 2019, which will be posted in a day or two.

The Butterfly Recluse by Therese Heckencamp
A Study In Scarlet Women (The Lady Sherlock Series) by Sherry Thomas
Britfield & the Lost Crown by C.R. Stewart (review hadn't been posted as of last month)

   

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Scripture and a Snapshot - Wonderful Light

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

~I Peter 2:9-10~

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Wordless Wednesday - Quiet Moment

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Recent Reads - A Study in Scarlet Women

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A Study In Scarlet Women (The Lady Sherlock Series) by Sherry Thomas - This novel takes a very different angle on the Sherlock Holmes series by proposing that Sherlock was an assumed identity for a very clever young woman named Charlotte Holmes. Charlotte has a very quick mind but is uncomfortable in Victorian upper class society where she is expected to be pliant and demure, and hope for nothing more than an advantageous marriage. She comes up with a reckless plan that would take her out of the marriage market and force her father to follow through on his promise to support her education. Things don't go as planned and instead she finds herself - and her younger sister - outcast from society and with even fewer options. Once again, Charlotte takes charge and basically runs away from home intending to find employment and make her own way in the world.

The scandal surrounding Charlotte escalates when the sudden death of a society matron stirs up suspicion of Charlotte and her family. With her sharp mind, Charlotte sees a connection between that death and two others, and writing letters as Sherlock Holmes, tries to urge the authorities to investigate further.

Charlotte's funds are running dangerously low when she strikes up a friendship with a wealthy widow, and soon the two of them think of a way to use the mysterious Sherlock Holmes identity to solve the case and to take clients in need of an investigator.

Overall I enjoyed this novel, although I found the beginning of it rather confusing. It took a couple of chapters for me to understand the relationships and that Charlotte was already using the name Sherlock in some of her correspondence. The murder mystery itself was clever and followed the Sherlock Holmes style, and the development of the private investigator business and disguise was entertaining. This is billed as first in a series, and I'm both skeptical and curious as to how Charlotte and Mrs Watson will be able to continue for very long in the charade of a Sherlock that clients cannot meet personally.

Clever and unique, but it's not a high priority to me to read the next in the series. It will depend on how readily available it is at my library! 

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