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two hundred public words 20/30
Aug. 1st, 2010 07:35 pmLord, this is exhausting, mentally, writing a post a day. I won't be surprised if my posts approach nearer and nearer to exactly two hundred words.
So. I haven't come up with any other awesome historical YAF writers, though I also haven't really tried to do that... let me think a minute... Hm. Berlie Doherty and Jill Paton Walsh and Harriette Gillem Robinet are all authors I don't know AS MUCH about, though they definitely have written in this realm. Katherine Paterson... I think I mentioned Katherine Paterson before for one of her books? Did I? Well, I'll do her twice then, even though her Xtianity makes me nervous. At least it's extremely progressive Xtianity: she's written at least twice on labor history. Oh, and James Lincoln Collier. And his brother. And Christopher Paul Curtis. Did I already write about HIM? There, that's nine more, so four posts.
So, first:
Kathryn Lasky
Mildred D. Taylor
Karen Cushman
Hm. That's three VERY heavy-hitters for one entry. To be fair, I should spread those three out, to balance my lesser interest in the others. Agh, this is getting confusing. Maybe I'll just do them one at a time if they need longer treatment.
I don't remember which the first Kathryn Lasky novel was that I read. She's written plenty. She is incredibly prolific, in fact, as I imagine one needs to be if one wants to earn a living writing. She's written series literature, too, which I am usually not at all into. But I am curious, now about this Guardians of Ga'Hoole thing... oh, not that curious actually. I prefer her standalone books, because they mostly deal with American history. She's written one of the better treatments of Escape from Slavery fiction -- this is a fairly big subgenre, and some entries in it are pretty bad. Ann Rinaldi's for example. Anyway, Lasky's True North is excellent. The protagonist is the daughter of realistic Massachusetts abolitionists. And all of Lasky's characters are quite nuanced and realistically rendered.
My favorite of her historical novels is undoubtedly Beyond the Divide, which is the best Oregon trail novel I've read. The heroine is Meribah, oh, I forget her last name, but she is Amish, and her father ends up getting shunned because he cannot suppress his curiosity about the outer world... he decides to leave and emigrate West, and Meribah goes with him. The book has a depth of detail about the trail, but it also tackles very serious issues involving gender and race -- it is strongly implied that there is a rape on the trail, and after a fair amount of tragedy, there is a very unexpected denouement with Indians. Honestly, it's a fantastic book, from all kinds of points of view.
Other favorites include her story of her own family's immigration from Poland, The Night Journey, her depiction of Salem during the witchcraft trials, which is almost as good as Speare's, Beyond the Burning Time, her treatment of later 19th c. Western life, about paleontology, The Bone Wars, and her quite excellent novel of silver mining and mining towns -- and newspapers -- one of the main characters is a realistic, and truly present, Mark Twain -- this one I have just reread, in fact: Alice Rose and Sam.
So. I haven't come up with any other awesome historical YAF writers, though I also haven't really tried to do that... let me think a minute... Hm. Berlie Doherty and Jill Paton Walsh and Harriette Gillem Robinet are all authors I don't know AS MUCH about, though they definitely have written in this realm. Katherine Paterson... I think I mentioned Katherine Paterson before for one of her books? Did I? Well, I'll do her twice then, even though her Xtianity makes me nervous. At least it's extremely progressive Xtianity: she's written at least twice on labor history. Oh, and James Lincoln Collier. And his brother. And Christopher Paul Curtis. Did I already write about HIM? There, that's nine more, so four posts.
So, first:
Kathryn Lasky
Mildred D. Taylor
Karen Cushman
Hm. That's three VERY heavy-hitters for one entry. To be fair, I should spread those three out, to balance my lesser interest in the others. Agh, this is getting confusing. Maybe I'll just do them one at a time if they need longer treatment.
I don't remember which the first Kathryn Lasky novel was that I read. She's written plenty. She is incredibly prolific, in fact, as I imagine one needs to be if one wants to earn a living writing. She's written series literature, too, which I am usually not at all into. But I am curious, now about this Guardians of Ga'Hoole thing... oh, not that curious actually. I prefer her standalone books, because they mostly deal with American history. She's written one of the better treatments of Escape from Slavery fiction -- this is a fairly big subgenre, and some entries in it are pretty bad. Ann Rinaldi's for example. Anyway, Lasky's True North is excellent. The protagonist is the daughter of realistic Massachusetts abolitionists. And all of Lasky's characters are quite nuanced and realistically rendered.
My favorite of her historical novels is undoubtedly Beyond the Divide, which is the best Oregon trail novel I've read. The heroine is Meribah, oh, I forget her last name, but she is Amish, and her father ends up getting shunned because he cannot suppress his curiosity about the outer world... he decides to leave and emigrate West, and Meribah goes with him. The book has a depth of detail about the trail, but it also tackles very serious issues involving gender and race -- it is strongly implied that there is a rape on the trail, and after a fair amount of tragedy, there is a very unexpected denouement with Indians. Honestly, it's a fantastic book, from all kinds of points of view.
Other favorites include her story of her own family's immigration from Poland, The Night Journey, her depiction of Salem during the witchcraft trials, which is almost as good as Speare's, Beyond the Burning Time, her treatment of later 19th c. Western life, about paleontology, The Bone Wars, and her quite excellent novel of silver mining and mining towns -- and newspapers -- one of the main characters is a realistic, and truly present, Mark Twain -- this one I have just reread, in fact: Alice Rose and Sam.