The Enchanted Schoolhouse by Ruth Sawyer & Illus by Hugh Troy

Since it was just St. Patrick's Day and this book is all about a wee Irish fairy, it seemed appropriate. 

Mom bought this little red guy for my kids, but I love him! 

The pictures are similar to Garth Williams, so totally adorable.

Brian Boru is a young Irish lad who is told stories of the little people that populate Ireland from his grandfather. 

His uncle Seumas in America had recently written to say that Brian Boru could join him over there and had sent the fair. 

Brian felt a bit self conscious about going to America without being able to bring something to show American kids how terrific Ireland was. Since there wasn't a lot Brian could take with him, since life was pretty austere with his Da and Granda, Brian wondered if maybe he could catch a Irish fairy and bring it to America with him.  

Unfortunately, Brian Boru is told by Old Timothy, his grandfather, that there has not been any fairies seen for 50 years. 

Brian talks to his teacher about this and his teacher gives him some potential pointers for catching a wee man and keeping him.  

Brian Boru follows his advice and..... 

....through careful planning, catches a wee man. An angry wee man. Angry because Brian Boru had taken his little red cap. Without a red cap, he has to do everything Brian Boru tells him to do.

Brian keeps him in a teapot tied with string on his journey to America. Where Brian is introduced to ice cream and discovers that the wee man has a sweet tooth. 

Showing him America

Disaster almost struck when a custom's official spots the teapot and asks questions about it. Brian Boru narrowly avoids losing both the teapot and the fairy man.

The wonders of an American grocery store

And finally, they arrive in Lobster Cove, Maine, where Uncle Seumas and his new wife have a house.  

Brian Boru asks the wee man what he thinks of America--

'Tis not any of it I'm liking. You can have it all to yourself. My ears are exploding with noises, my shins are blue with dandering about--and were it not for the ice cream I would be afeard to live through another night, into another day. 

Meeting his new aunt. 

Geraniums on the windowsill! 

Exploring their new home. 

Fishing with Uncle Seumas

For all of America's finery, the school was in terrible disrepair. Which Brian doesn't understand. His school back in poverty stricken Ireland was a beautiful and gentle stone building. 

His new teacher finds some slides of Ireland and Brian Boru shares a little of his homeland with his class. 

But magical things are afoot with the wee man in attendance. One day, each time the student's turn their page, a little lamb's tail whisks all the words off the page. 

Finally the class sees the wee man.

Brian uses his big wish to try to get the people of Lobster Cove to improve their schoolhouse. The wee man organizes a flock of birds to fly the schoolhouse away to an abandoned island. 

Where the children are tucked in by the birds and spend the night. 

The animals all become bewitched, including the cows, who walk through town with flower collars and mooing softly about...

Moo! Moo! A poor lot of humans, you!

Not a quart of milk will we let down

Till there's a new schoolhouse in this town. 

Moo, moo, moo! 

And you will have to see how it all works out by reading it for yourself.

But suffice it to say, that no kids could ever make fun of Brian Boru or Ireland!

Twelve kinds of Ice by Ellen Bryan Obed and Barbara McClintock

This book.... it is like ice. As Laura Amy Schlitz says on the cover, "Obed's prose is crystalline: clear, pure, and entrancing." 

The words and the pictures start out delicate and get sturdier as they go along, until they are as everyday and strong as the earth beneath your feet. 

This is the story of a Maine family that looks forward to ice skating all year long. Hoping for skating ice, they pay close attention to ice formation and know every different variation.

There is a slight possibility I went a little overboard with pictures. But every time I thought I was done, I saw another picture that just had to have it's picture taken. 

The second ice--not as fragile as the skim of first ice.

Third Ice--frozen solid in the pail

Stream ice

There is something fairy like in this picture.

Black ice

And finally, what they all have been waiting for, Garden ice. Their own homemade rink in the backyard. 

Dreaming of the audiences they will have once upon a time. 

Thaw

Field ice--when a thaw quickly freezes, leaving a thick crust of ice on the snow. 

This book is charming and beautiful. 

The words are fabulous on their own, but the pictures make them entrancing. 

Bright Island by Mabel L Robinson illustrations by Lynd Ward

I forget how I found the description for this book, but I really wanted it. Private island off the coast of Maine, strong willed girl, and boarding school? Yes, please! Then one evening, looking through my parents book filled basement, I saw this old copy. I am not sure if there is any better feeling than suddenly finding that you already have something that you really wanted. Maybe normal people don't know this feeling, since normal people know what books they have. But it is a good feeling. 

(Note the posessive there, as though the book were mine. I pretty much consider my parents books to be my books, just in a different bookcase. In a different house.)

The basic storyline is the coming of age of Thankful Curtis; a girl who has grown up on her family's island off the coast of Maine, totally content in her marvelous world, never wanting to live anywhere else. However, her parents and siblings betray her completely by insisting she go to the mainland for her last year of schooling. She had been her grandfather's favorite, so she is certain they would never do this if Gramps were still alive. But he isn't and she has to go. She ends up at a private boarding school where she is forced into unfamiliar clothes and a shallower seeming world of society and kids her own age, most wealthier than she. She longs for her sailboat, her parents, her island, and even her lazy pet seagull.

It is a somewhat familiar story line, but it is deftly written in an understated tone that earned it the Newbery Medal in 1938.  Thankful is a girl you will admire. She has such absolute certainty about the things she does. She makes mistakes and has a lot of learning to do, but she doesn't sacrifice her self worth to fit in with those who looked down on her. She makes a firm friend, has a few tentative relationships, a marriage proposal, and is left a better person for her year off the island. 

Lynd Ward's woodcut illustrations are marvelous. They are striking and full of movement. 

Except for this becalmed one. 

There are a lot of nautical terms, which I adore. 

A snowstorm. I love this picture!

When I was a teenager, I always thought an island of the coast of Maine was the epitome of everything wonderful. This may have had something to do with having a crush on a Mainer. But I loved Maine books and the whole idea of living on the coast or an island seemed marvelous. The part of me that is still 15 was thrilled with this book. 

And it is a good enough book that the part of me that is grown up was thrilled with it too.

Names for Snow by Judi K Beach with pictures by Loretta Krupinkski

When I saw this book, it wasn't an immediate, must by. Something about the cover made me hesitate. I am still not sure what it is, but I am not crazy about the cover. I keep thinking it is ripped where the little mouse is skiing. But I am very glad I bought it. It is adorable. Might be one of coziest books I have ever seen about snow. 

This is written by an author and an illustrator from Maine, but it is partly based on the author's fascination with the fifty different words Inuits have for snow. It doesn't use the Inuit words, just considers all the different feelings we southerly northerners have about snow. 

If you are looking for a wintery book for younger kids, this one is perfect. It isn't too wordy, there is a lot of visual interest in the side panels of all the pictures, and it explains snow so well. 

And it is cozy! 

Have I mentioned how cozy this book is? 

A mousie asks his mother "What is snow?" The rest of the book is what we call snow when it comes at different times. 

Before we move on though, let's look at that sweet picture of a farm sunrise. I love, love all the landscape/house/barn pictures in here. And I like the little mice children doing snowy things too. (The book flap that says it is a rabbit family. I think the book flap might be wrong. They are such mousey looking rabbits.)

"We call it welcome in November."

The joy in seeing a brown and weary world revive in clean whiteness--the joy of that first snow...

"We call those soft, full flakes floating down Wings of White Butterflies."

The snow that floats on the wind going hither and thither before making up its mind to settle somewhere. 

"We call it kitten when it sleeps in the crook of a window."

The word imagery is poetical and exactly right. Snow is lacy on tiny branches. 

Do you see the sweet little mice/rabbits ice skating? 

"Call it magician when the landscape disappears."

This picture. Oh my word I love this picture. 

"In the evening, when snow delivers us to the comfort of the hearth fire,.."

"...we call it friend."

(I am really bad at not telling all there is to tell about a book, or leaving the ending so you can be surprised. I did leave a few pages out, though. So I show a little, teensy shred of restraint.)

Oh! I love this book. The sweet little mice and their hearth fire.

 Okay, okay, maybe they are rabbits. I see the carrot picture on their hearth. I would just like to say that they are more mice than rabbits in my humble, artistic opinion.