13. Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World

  

13. Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and the Endurance. Jennifer Armstrong. 1998. Random House. 144 pages. [Source: Library] [5 stars, nonfiction, history, biography, adventure, South Pole, survival]

Just imagine yourself in the most hostile place on earth. It's not the Sahara or the Gobi Desert. It's not the Arctic. The most hostile place on earth is the Antarctic, the location of the South Pole--what's the difference? The Arctic is mostly water--with ice on top, of course--and that ice is never more than a few feet thick. But under the South Pole lies a continent that supports glaciers up to two miles in depth. Almost the entire southern continent is covered by ice. The mammoth icecap presses down so heavily that it actually distorts the shape of the earth. The ice never melts; it clings to the bottom of the world, spawning winds, storms, and weather that affect the whole planet.

I have read Jennifer Armstrong's Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World five or six times now. (Most recently in 2022). The narrative is so strong and compelling, and, yes, even inspiring. It is definitely one of my favorite nonfiction books. And nonfiction isn't something I usually take the time to reread. It is rare for me to keep coming back again and again to a nonfiction book.

Originally published in 1998, Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World won the Orbis Pictus Award in 1999. The book follows "the extraordinary true story of Shackleton and the Endurance." If you are unfamiliar with this story, then you really SHOULD read this one. It is a great introduction to the subject. Chapter by chapter, the book follows Shackleton and his men on their journey to Antarctica. Almost from the start, there are indicators that their goal, their quest, will not be an easy one to achieve. After a series of mishaps--thanks to nature--it becomes a long fight to survive. 

 The story is simple and yet dramatic. I think the story would be gripping no matter who told it. But I do think that Jennifer Armstrong did a wonderful job in painting a very human picture of Shackleton and his crew. I think the ending was beautiful--very moving! This one is a book I think everyone should read. 

 

© 2025 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Les Miserables

Les Miserables. Victor Hugo. Translated by Julie Rose. 1862/2008. Modern Library. 1330 pages. [Source: Bought]

First sentence: In 1815, Monsieur Charles-Francois-Bienvenu Myriel was bishop of Digne. He was an elderly man of about seventy-five and he had occupied the seat of Digne since 1806.

Note: This will be my fourth review of Les Miserables for the blog. (It was my fifth time to read the novel.) My 2013 review. My 2014 review. My 2017 review.


I will probably end up cutting and pasting summary bits from other reviews because the plot hasn't changed.

From my 2017 review,
Premise/plot: An ex-convict does his best to live life according to his conscience. Will it ever be enough?


From my 2013 review,

Premise/plot: Jean Valjean is an ex-convict who seeks shelter from Bishop Myriel one night. Though he's been treated only with kindness, Valjean in his bitterness (he was sent to prison for stealing a loaf of bread), he steals the bishop's silver. When the theft is discovered, the bishop is all compassion telling the officials that there has been a misunderstanding. Valjean did not steal the silver; it was given as a gift. In fact, he's happy to give Valjean his silver candlesticks as well. Valjean is shocked and overwhelmed. The meeting turns out to be quite life-changing.

When readers next meet Valjean, he has a new name and life. Monsieur Madeleine is a successful business man. He has a BIG heart. He's always giving. He's always thinking of others. He's always doing what he can, when he can to make a difference when and where it matters most. One woman he is determined to help is a young, single mother, Fantine. Circumstances have separated Fantine from her child, Cosette, but, Valjean is determined to correct as many wrongs as he can in this situation. He will see to it personally.

Unfortunately, his past catches up with him. He learns that a man has been arrested; "Jean Valjean" has been caught. Of course, Madeleine knows this is nonsense. Can he let another take his place in prison? If he tells the truth then he can no longer help the poor, but if he doesn't tell the truth, how could he live with himself? He does the honorable thing--though it is one of the greatest challenges he's faced so far.

But that means, for the moment, that Cosette is left in unpleasant circumstances...

There comes a time, an opportunity for Valjean to escape. What he does with his freedom--this time he's assumed drowned, I believe--is go and find Cosette. The two become everything to one another. Cosette is the family he's never had, never even knew he needed or wanted... the two end up in Paris.

Almost half of the novel follows the love story between Marius and Cosette. But it isn't only a love story. Marius is a poor man in conflict with his rich grandfather. The two disagree about many things. But their main source of disagreement is politics. At first, Marius is swept up in his father's politics, with a new awareness of who his father was as a soldier, as a man, as a possible hero. But later, Marius begins to think for himself, to contemplate political and philosophical things for himself. He becomes friendly with a political group at this time. But his love of politics dims when he falls in love with Cosette...and she becomes his whole reason for being. For the longest time these two don't even know each other's names! This romance isn't without challenges...

My thoughts: I love, love, love this novel. I do. I love to love it. I love to reread it every other year or so. I've come to know the characters well. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good in that these characters are memorable and worth knowing and mostly loving. Bad in that it's hard for me to watch film adaptations of Les Miserables without cringing. When writers rewrite Hugo's characters, I have little tolerance. I have some tolerance for condensing or leaving bits out altogether. After all, I don't expect a movie to go scene by scene through the novel. Much is introspective after all. One can film a man "thinking" perhaps but not capture on film his thoughts.

Quotes:

• True or false, what is said about people often has as much bearing on their lives and especially on their destinies as what they do. (3)
• Monsieur Myriel had to endure the fate of every newcomer in a small town, where there are always plenty of mouths blathering and not many brains working. He had to endure it even though he was the bishop, and because he was the bishop. (4)
• We are not saying that the portrait of the man we offer here is accurate, we will restrict ourselves to the claim that it is a passing likeness. (9)
• The guillotine is the ultimate embodiment of the Law; its name is Retribution. It is not neutral and doesn't allow you to remain neutral either. Whoever sees it quakes in their boots with the most mysterious of terrors. (15)
• "My dear mayor," said the bishop, "isn't that the point? I'm not in this world to take care of my life. I'm here to take care of souls." (24)
• Never be afraid of thieves and murderers. They represent the dangers without, which are not worth worrying about. Be afraid of ourselves. Prejudices are the real thieves, vices are the murderers. The greatest dangers are within us. Who cares who threatens our heads or our purses! Let's think only of what threatens our souls. (25)
• Should the sheep's mange cause the shepherd to recoil? No. (32)
• Giving up the ghost is a simple business. You don't need the morning for that. So be it. I'll die by starlight. (33)
• Human thought knows no bounds. At its own peril, it analyzes and explores its own dazzlement. (49)
• This humble soul was filled with love, that's all. More than likely he inflated his praying into a superhuman longing; but you can't pray too much any more than you can love too much. (49)
• He gravitated toward those in pain and those who wished for atonement. The world seemed to him like one massive disease; he could feel fever everywhere; everywhere he heard the rattle and wheeze of suffering in people's chests with his special stethoscope and, without seeking to solve the enigma, he tried to stanch the wound. (49)
• Pain everywhere was an occasion for goodness always. Love one another. He declared this to be complete, desired nothing more; it was the sum total of his doctrine. (49)
• "You knocked," she asked, "on every door?" "Yes." "Did you knock on that one?" "No." "Knock there." (60)
• "You didn't have to tell me who you were. This is not my house, it's the house of Jesus Christ. That door does not ask who enters whether he has a name, but whether he has any pain. You are suffering, you are hungry and thirsty; you are welcome. And don't thank me, don't tell me I'm taking you into my home. No one is at home here except the man who is in need of a refuge. I'm telling you, who are passing through, you are more at home here than I am myself. Everything here is at your disposal. What do I need to know your name for? Besides, before you told me your name, you had one I knew." The man opened his eyes in amazement. "True? You knew what I was called?" "Yes," replied the bishop. "You are called my brother." (66)
• "Yes," the bishop said, "you have come from a place of sadness. Listen. There will be more joy in heaven over the tearful face of a repentant sinner than over the white robes of a hundred righteous men. If you come out of such a painful place full of hate and rage against men, you are worthy of pity; if you come out full of goodwill, gentleness, and peace, you are worth more than any of us." (67)
• Isn't there, my good madame, something truly evangelical in the sort of delicacy that abstains from sermons, moral lessons, allusions, and isn't the highest form of pity, when a man has a sore spot, not to touch it at all? It seemed to me that this might well have been what my brother was thinking in his heart of hearts. In any case, what I can say is that, if he did have all these ideas, he didn't let on for a moment, not even to me. From start to finish, he was the same as he always is, every night, and he dined with this Jean Valjean the same way and acted just the same as if he were dining with Monsieur Gedeon Le Prevost or with the parish priest. (69)
• Can man, created good by God, be made wicked by man? Can the soul be entirely remade by destiny and become bad if that destiny is bad?... Isn't there in every human soul, wasn't there in the soul of Jean Valjean, in particular, an initial spark, a divine element, incorruptible in this world, immortal in the next, that good can bring out, prime, ignite, set on fire and cause to blaze splendidly, and that evil can never entirely extinguish? (77)
• Release is not the same as liberation. You get out of jail, all right, but you never stop being condemned. (83)
• No one could have said what was happening inside him, not even himself. To try to grasp it, we need to imagine the most violent of men in the presence of the most gentle. (87)
• "My dear friend," said the bishop, "before you go, here are your candlesticks. Take them." He went to the mantelpiece, swept up the two silver candlesticks, and handed them over to Jean Valjean. The two women watched the bishop without a word, without a movement, without a glance that might upset him. (90)
• "Don't forget, don't ever forget, that you promised me to use this silver to make an honest man of yourself...Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you; I am taking it away from black thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I am giving it to God." (90)
• He felt indistinctly that the old priest's forgiveness was the greatest assault and the most deadly attack he had ever been rocked by; that if he could resist such clemency his heart would be hardened once and for all; that if he gave in to it, he would have to give up the hate that the actions of other men had filled his heart with for so many years and which he relished; that this time, he had to conquer or be conquered and that the struggle, a colossal and decisive struggle, was now on between his own rottenness and the goodness of that man. (94-5)
• He looked at his life and it looked horrible to him; at his soul and it looked revolting. And yet, a new day was dawning and its soft light was settling over his life and over his soul. He felt like he was seeing Satan in the light of paradise. How many hours did he spend crying his heart out? What did he do when he stopped crying? Where did he go? (97)
• There are no little facts in the human realm, any more than there are little leaves in the realm of vegetation. The face of the century is made up of the lines of the years. (102)
• Poverty and coquetry are two deadly counselors; one upbraids, the other flatters, and the beautiful daughters of the working class have both of them whispering in their ears, each with its own agenda. (103)
• She worked in order to live, then, also in order to live, she loved, for the heart has its own hunger. She loved Tholomyes. (104)
• The two most important civil servants are the nurse and the schoolteacher. (136)
• He always ate alone, with a book open in front of him, reading. He had a small but well-stocked library. He loved books; books are remote but reliable friends. (138)
• "My friends remember this: There is no such thing as a weed and no such thing as a bad man. There are only bad cultivators." (139)
• The ultimate happiness in life is the conviction that one is loved; loved for oneself--better still, loved in spite of oneself. (141)
• Javert was like an eye forever fixed on Monsieur Madeleine. An eye full of suspicion and conjecture. (145)
• The following morning, the old man found a thousand franc note on the night table by his bed, with these words written in father Madeleine's hand: "I'm buying your horse and cart." The cart was smashed and the horse was dead. (148)
• What is this story of Fantine all about? It is about society buying itself a slave. Who from? From destitution. From hunger, from cold, from loneliness, from abandonment, from dire poverty. A painful bargain. A soul for a bit of bread. Destitution makes an offer society gives the nod. The sacred law of Jesus Christ governs our civilization, but it has not yet managed to permeate it. They say slavery has vanished from European civilization. That is wrong. It still exists, but it now preys only on women, and it goes by the name of prostitution. (158)
• It is a mistake to imagine that you can exhaust fate or that you ever hit rock bottom--in anything. (158)
• There is a spectacle greater than the sea, and that is the sky; there is a spectacle greater than the sky, and that is the human soul. (184)
• You can't stop your mind returning to an idea any more than you can stop the sea returning to shore. For the sailor, it is known as the tide; for the person with a guilty conscience, it is known as remorse. God lifts the soul as well as the ocean. (189)
• The realities of the soul are no less real for not being visible and tangible. (189)
• The first sacred duty is to think of one's neighbor. Let's see, let's have a closer look. Myself excepted, myself eliminated, myself left out of the picture...(193)
• Diamonds are found only in the bowels of the earth; truths are found only in the depths of reflection. it seemed to him that having descended into those depths, after groping in the blackness of the shadows for so long, he had finally found one of those diamonds, one of those truths, and that he held it in his hand; and it blinded him to look at it. (194)
• Javert was the genuine article. He never allowed a wrinkle to ruffle his duty or his uniform; methodical with crooks, rigid with the buttons of his coat. (242)
• Death is entry into the light everlasting. (246)
• Hope in a child who has never known anything but despair is a sweet and sublime thing. (345)
• Children accept joy and happiness instantly and intimately, being themselves, by nature, all happiness and joy. (362)
• When these two souls saw each other, they knew that each was what the other needed and they hugged each other tight. (364)
• She called him father, knew him by no other name. (365)
• To make atonement is a process in which the whole soul is absorbed. (402)
• This book is a tragedy in which infinity plays the lead. Man plays a supporting role. (422)
• The Unknown is an ocean. What is conscience? It is the compass of the Unknown. Thought, meditation, prayer. These are great radiant mysteries. Let's respect them. Where do these majestic rays of the soul go? Into the shadows; that is, into the light. (428)
• Man lives on affirmation even more than on bread. (429)
• We are living in times of terrible confusion. People don't know what they should know and know things they should not. People are crass and ungodly. (446)
• The strides of the lame are like the winks of the one-eyed; they don't go straight to the point. (449)
• Everyone knows how cats like to stop and dawdle wherever a door is half open. Who has not said to a cat: "Well, come in, then!" There are men who, when faced with an opportunity cracking open in front of them, also have a tendency to waver between two different solutions, at the risk of being crushed by fate's suddenly closing the door again. (453)
• Paris has a boy and the forest has a bird; the bird is called a sparrow and the boy is called a ragamuffin imp, a street urchin: le gamin. (477)
• He does sometimes have a place to stay, and he loves it, for that is where he finds his mother, but he prefers the street, for that is where he finds his freedom. (478)
• The peculiar thing about prudery is that, the less the fortress is under threat, the more it puts sentries around. (501)
• Peace is happiness digesting. (552)
• Silence always acts a bit like assent--or backing someone into a corner. (556)
• Life, adversity, loneliness, abandonment, poverty are battlefields that have their heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than the illustrious ones. (560)
• Misery is like anything else. It reaches the point where it is bearable. It ends up taking shape and assuming a form. (562)
• A clock doesn't suddenly stand still the exact moment you lose the key that winds it. (570)
• To read out loud is to assure yourself of what you are reading. There are those who read very loudly as though they are giving themselves their word of honor  about what they are reading. (570)
• All passions, other than those of the heart, are dissipated by daydreaming. (571)
• Our fantasies are what most closely resemble us. Each of us dreams of the unknown and the impossible according to his nature. (572)
• Humanity is identity. All men are made of the same clay...But when ignorance is mixed with human dough, it blackens it. (595)
• Anyone who has seen the misery of men only, has seen nothing, you have to see the misery of women; anyone who has seen the misery of women only, has seen nothing, you have to see the misery of a child. (611)
• Is there a straw we won't clutch at when we feel ourselves drowning? (627)
•  God delivers his will as visible in events, an obscure text written in a mysterious tongue. People toss off instant translations of it, hasty translations that are incorrect, full of faults, omissions, and misreadings. Very few minds understand the divine tongue. The wisest, the calmest, the deepest, set about slowly deciphering it, and when they finally turn up with their text, the job has been done; there are already twenty translations in the marketplace. From each translation a party is born, and from each misreading a faction; and each party believes it has the only true text, and each faction believes it holds the light. (688)
• The glance has been so abused in love stories that we have ended up discounting it. Hardly anyone ever dares now say that two beings fell in love because their eyes met. And yet that is the way you fall in love and it is the only way you fall in love. The rest is simply the rest and comes after. Nothing is more real than those great seismic shocks that two souls give each other in exchanging that spark. (736)
• Laziness, pleasure--what bottomless pits! To do nothing is a woeful choice to make, don't you know? (757)
• Loving is the only thing that can occupy and fill eternity. The infinite requires the inexhaustible. (767)
• Nothing is enough for love. We have happiness, we want paradise; we have paradise, we want heaven. (768)
• What a great thing to be loved! What an even greater thing, to love! (769)
• If there wasn't someone who loved, the sun would go out. (769)
• The true division of humanity is this: those filled with light and those filled with darkness. To reduce the number of those filled with darkness, to increase the number of those filled with light, that is the goal. That is why we cry: education! knowledge! science! To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable spelled out sparkles. (810)
• When you learn finally to know and when you learn finally to love, you will suffer still. The day begins in tears. Those filled with light weep, if only over those filled with darkness. (810)
• Ideas can't flow backward any more than rivers can. But let those who don't want anything to do with the future think carefully. By saying no to progress, it is not the future they condemn, it is themselves. They give themselves a fatal disease when they inoculate themselves with the past. There is only one way to reject Tomorrow and that is to die. (822)
• Love has no middle ground, either it destroys or it saves. (825)
• Of all the things that God has made, the human heart is the one that shines brightest--and blackest, alas! (826)
• They lived in that ravishing state that we might describe as the bedazzlement of one soul by another soul. (826)
• Loving almost takes the place of thinking. Love is an ardent forgetting of the rest. (830)
• What make a riot? Nothing and everything. (861)
• "What's wrong with your hand?" he said. "It's been ripped open." "Ripped open!" "Yes." "What by?" "A bullet." "How?" "Didn't you see a gun that was aimed at you?" "Yes, and a hand that blocked it." "That was my hand." (937)
• "And then you see, Monsieur Marius, I think I was a little bit in love with you." She tried to smile again and died. (939)
• "Who is that man?" asked Bossuet. "A man," replied Combeferre, "who saves others." Marius added in a grave voice: "I know him." (976)
• The right to the alphabet--that's where we have to start. Primary school imposed on everyone, secondary school offered to everyone--that's the rule. From the school that is identical springs the equal society. Yes, education! Light! Light! Everything comes from light and everything comes down to it. (978)
• It was in the Paris sewer that Jean Valjean found himself. (1045)
• To love or to have loved is enough. Don't ask for anything more. There is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life. To love is an achievement. (1129)
• "I told the truth," answered Jean Valjean. "No," Marius retorted, "the truth is the whole truth and that you did not tell. You were Monsieur Madeleine. Why didn't you say so? You saved Javert, why didn't you say so? I owe my life to you, why didn't you say so?" (1188)
• You are part of us. You are her father and mine. You're not spending another day in this hellhole of a place. Don't imagine that you'll still be here tomorrow." (1188)

© 2019 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

The Wolf Hour

The Wolf Hour. Sara Lewis Holmes. 2017. Scholastic. 320 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: Once upon a time there was a Wolf. When he wasn't anymore, there was another one. And another one. How could this be? A Wolf without end? Welcome, my little lambs, to the Puszcza, where even wolves must live and die by the rules. It's an ancient forest, a keeper of the deepest magic, and there, fairy tales of the darkest kind are real. Some even call them spells, for if you're unlucky enough to be caught in one of them, you must play your part, all the way to the bitter end.

Premise/plot: WOW what a book. Can I leave it at that? No?! Are you sure?! Okay, I'll do my best. Magia is the heroine of this one. She's a girl who wants to be a woodcutter just like her father. She wants a red cap of her own to protect her in the Puszcza. She longs to enter--safely--the wild woods that call to her. But her father and mother have different ideas of what she should do. Her mother wants her to SING. And Magia's voice is something beautiful, something brilliant. But that's her mother's dream, not her own. It is in obeying her mother that she goes to visit Miss Grand in town for a music lesson. And it is what happens at that music lesson that changes everything. For she sets Miss Grand's metronome--a pig--to doing a jig and it BREAKS. Soon after that, her mother gives birth and EVERYTHING seems broken in her family after the baby dies. Everyone wants to find a solution--but some solutions are COSTLY.

Magia is NOT the only hero of the book. There is also MARTIN, a book-loving wolf. His mother is unable to protect him, though his memories of being loved continue to give him strength and courage in his darkest hours. And dark hours there are plenty of in the Puszcza. Their stories are intertwined--for better or worse. Can a wolf get a happy ending?

My thoughts: I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this one. It was MAGIC, pure magic. I loved it cover to cover. The way it was written, the narrative style, the storytelling. It was a thing of beauty. It begs to be read again and again and again and again. It is one of those rare books where you could open it up to almost any page and be sucked into the story. Every page--nearly--has some sentence worth quoting.

This is how she introduces Martin to readers:

You see, my little lambs? As promised, a Wolf's tale and a Girl's. Both laid upon the table, juicy and fresh. Dinner is served! Alas. There is a troubling smell in the air. If you don't scent it, ask yourself this question: Is a Story truly like a meal? Can we eat it in any order we please? Of course not. A Story, no matter who makes it, isn't a series of events plopped hodgepodge on the dinner plate. No, those events must be arranged in the right order. Served in courses, if you will. (79)

This is how Martin's mother warns him of the dangers of the woods:

"A story is like a spider," his mother said. "it throws out one gauzy strand, and then another. You're intrigued. You watch as a pattern develops. Ooh! So pretty!" She nudged her son sharply. "Then you're stuck. You struggle, but you cannot get out. It's a trap!" (84) 

© 2017 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge

Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge. Mem Fox. Illustrated by Julie Vivas. 1984/1985. Kane/Miller. 32 pages. [Source: Library]

 First sentence: There was once a small boy called Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge and what's more he wasn't very old either. His house was next door to an old people's home and he knew all the people who lived there.

Premise/plot: Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge has many friends; but his most special friend has four names just like him: Miss Nancy Alison Delacourt Cooper. When he hears that she is losing her memory--or has "lost" her memory, Wilfrid sets out in search of it. But first, he has to know exactly what a memory is. So, being young and curious, he asks. Equipped with descriptions of exactly what memory is, he sets out on a quest. Will the items he collects be just what Miss Nancy needs?

My thoughts: I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this one. I loved the descriptions of memories:

• "Something warm, my child, something warm."
• "Something from long ago, me lad, something from long ago."
• "Something that makes you cry, my boy, something that makes you cry."
• "Something that makes you laugh, my darling, something that makes you laugh."
• "Something as precious as gold, young man, something as precious as gold."

I love the celebration of friendship as well. This picture book is just a gem.


© 2017 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Mandy

Mandy. Julie Andrews Edwards. 1971. 320 pages. [Source: Bought]

First sentence: On the outskirts of a pretty country village called St. Martin's Green, there stand a large, white house called St. Martin's orphanage.

Premise/plot: Mandy, the heroine, is a ten year old orphan. Soon after the novel opens, Mandy climbs over the wall near the orphanage and discovers a hidden-away-in-the-woods cottage. She decides the place is hers--and goes about creating a special place inside-and-out where she belongs. She cleans. She gardens. She collects. But most of all: she guards and protects her secret. Mostly.

My thoughts: I love, love, love Mandy. This book is one of my favorites from childhood. Years before I discovered The Secret Garden, I was best friends with Mandy. I think I loved Mandy because she may have been the first heroine who dealt with some of the darker (but natural) emotions like sadness, loneliness, and disappointment.

She was a dreamer. Most of the time she lived in a make-believe world of her own. She loved to read. She exchanged books at the local library at least once a week. The wonders of Robinson Crusoe and Alice in Wonderland and Gulliver's Travels were very real to her and offered far more excitement than the reality of her life could ever provide. (6)

She occasionally experienced sad, disturbing feelings. Sometimes she felt an ache inside that would not go away. It seemed then as though her life were very empty. She would cry for no reason at all, seemingly, and it frightened her when she did. She tried to be brave and put away her feelings.
"I'm having one of my attacks again," she would think, trying hard not to let people see her tears.
Her attempts to keep busy were mostly an effort to fill her life so that she had no time to feel disconsolate. But the nagging sadness was persistent, and it would envelop her when she least expected it.
As Mandy grew, her longings grew stronger and sometimes she felt as though she must surely break apart with so much going on inside her. It was as though she were searching for something though what or where it was she could not say. (7-8)

© 2017 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing. William Shakespeare. 1599/2004. SparkNotes. 256 pages. [Source: Bought]

Much Ado About Nothing is without a doubt my favorite, favorite, FAVORITE, FAVORITE William Shakespeare play. To put it into perspective, I enjoy a handful of his comedies, and, even now and then a tragedy--though not Romeo and Juliet.

So what do I love about Much Ado About Nothing?

I love the movie. Even if you have no intention of ever reading the play, you SHOULD see the movie adaptation starring Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson.

I love the soundtrack, the score, by Patrick Doyle. It is probably one of my favorite scores ever. (Perhaps I should do a top ten list sometime!)

I love the characters of Benedick and Beatrice. I do. I love, love, love them both as individuals and as a couple.

I love the humor and the romance.

I love how quotable it is. Down below, I'll be sharing my top ten quotes from the play!

Now, I don't necessarily, love, love, love the "romance" between Hero and Claudio. Hero is perfectly fine as a character--not fiery, not memorable, not delightful--but fine. Claudio, on the other hand, deserves to be yelled at more than a couple of times.

My top ten quotes from Much Ado About Nothing. The first three are my favorites. The rest are in the order of the play itself.

***

BENEDICK

[Coming forward] This can be no trick: the
conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of
this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it
seems her affections have their full bent. Love me!
why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured:
they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive
the love come from her; they say too that she will
rather die than give any sign of affection. I did
never think to marry: I must not seem proud: happy
are they that hear their detractions and can put
them to mending. They say the lady is fair; 'tis a
truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous; 'tis
so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving
me; by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor
no great argument of her folly, for I will be
horribly in love with her. I may chance have some
odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me,
because I have railed so long against marriage: but
doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat
in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.
Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of
the brain awe a man from the career of his humour?
No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would
die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I
were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day!
she's a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in
her.

***

BEATRICE

[Coming forward]
What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?
Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much?
Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu!
No glory lives behind the back of such.
And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,
Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand:
If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee
To bind our loves up in a holy band;
For others say thou dost deserve, and I
Believe it better than reportingly.

***

BALTHASAR (singing)

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never:
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.
Sing no more ditties, sing no moe,
Of dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leafy:
Then sigh not so, & c.

***

BENEDICK
That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she
brought me up, I likewise give her most humble
thanks: but that I will have a recheat winded in my
forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick,
all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do
them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the
right to trust none; and the fine is, for the which
I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor.

***

CLAUDIO
Thus answer I in the name of Benedick,
But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
'Tis certain so; the prince wooes for himself.
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
This is an accident of hourly proof,
Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!

***

DON PEDRO

Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of
Signior Benedick.

BEATRICE

Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave
him use for it, a double heart for his single one:
marry, once before he won it of me with false dice,
therefore your grace may well say I have lost it.

DON PEDRO

You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.

***

BEATRICE

Speak, count, 'tis your cue.

CLAUDIO

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were
but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as
you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for
you and dote upon the exchange.

BEATRICE

Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth
with a kiss, and let not him speak neither.

DON PEDRO

In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.

BEATRICE

Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on
the windy side of care. My cousin tells him in his
ear that he is in her heart.

CLAUDIO

And so she doth, cousin.

BEATRICE

Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the
world but I, and I am sunburnt; I may sit in a
corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband!

DON PEDRO

Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.

BEATRICE

I would rather have one of your father's getting.
Hath your grace ne'er a brother like you? Your
father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.

DON PEDRO

Will you have me, lady?

BEATRICE

No, my lord, unless I might have another for
working-days: your grace is too costly to wear
every day. But, I beseech your grace, pardon me: I
was born to speak all mirth and no matter.

DON PEDRO

Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best
becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in
a merry hour.

BEATRICE

No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there
was a star danced, and under that was I born.
Cousins, God give you joy!

***

DON PEDRO

By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.

LEONATO

There's little of the melancholy element in her, my
lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps, and
not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say,
she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked
herself with laughing.

DON PEDRO

She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.

LEONATO

O, by no means: she mocks all her wooers out of suit.

DON PEDRO

She were an excellent wife for Benedict.

LEONATO

O Lord, my lord, if they were but a week married,
they would talk themselves mad.

***

BENEDICK

Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?

BEATRICE

Yea, and I will weep a while longer.

BENEDICK

I will not desire that.

BEATRICE

You have no reason; I do it freely.

BENEDICK

Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.

BEATRICE

Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right her!

BENEDICK

Is there any way to show such friendship?

BEATRICE

A very even way, but no such friend.

BENEDICK

May a man do it?

BEATRICE

It is a man's office, but not yours.

BENEDICK

I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is
not that strange?

BEATRICE

As strange as the thing I know not. It were as
possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as
you: but believe me not; and yet I lie not; I
confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin.

BENEDICK

By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.

BEATRICE

Do not swear, and eat it.

BENEDICK

I will swear by it that you love me; and I will make
him eat it that says I love not you.

BEATRICE

Will you not eat your word?

BENEDICK

With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest
I love thee.

BEATRICE

Why, then, God forgive me!

BENEDICK

What offence, sweet Beatrice?

BEATRICE

You have stayed me in a happy hour: I was about to
protest I loved you.

BENEDICK

And do it with all thy heart.

BEATRICE

I love you with so much of my heart that none is
left to protest.

BENEDICK

Come, bid me do any thing for thee.

BEATRICE

Kill Claudio.

BENEDICK

Ha! not for the wide world.

BEATRICE

You kill me to deny it. Farewell.

BENEDICK

Tarry, sweet Beatrice.

BEATRICE

I am gone, though I am here: there is no love in
you: nay, I pray you, let me go.

BENEDICK

Beatrice,--

BEATRICE

In faith, I will go.

BENEDICK

We'll be friends first.

BEATRICE

You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy.

BENEDICK

Is Claudio thine enemy?

BEATRICE

Is he not approved in the height a villain, that
hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O
that I were a man! What, bear her in hand until they
come to take hands; and then, with public
accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour,
--O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart
in the market-place.

BENEDICK

Hear me, Beatrice,--

BEATRICE

Talk with a man out at a window! A proper saying!

BENEDICK

Nay, but, Beatrice,--

BEATRICE

Sweet Hero! She is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone.

BENEDICK

Beat--

BEATRICE

Princes and counties! Surely, a princely testimony,
a goodly count, Count Comfect; a sweet gallant,
surely! O that I were a man for his sake! or that I
had any friend would be a man for my sake! But
manhood is melted into courtesies, valour into
compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and
trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules
that only tells a lie and swears it. I cannot be a
man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.

BENEDICK

Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee.

BEATRICE

Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.

BENEDICK

Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?

BEATRICE

Yea, as sure as I have a thought or a soul.

BENEDICK

Enough, I am engaged; I will challenge him. I will
kiss your hand, and so I leave you. By this hand,
Claudio shall render me a dear account. As you
hear of me, so think of me. Go, comfort your
cousin: I must say she is dead: and so, farewell.

***

BENEDICK

Do not you love me?

BEATRICE

Why, no; no more than reason.

BENEDICK

Why, then your uncle and the prince and Claudio
Have been deceived; they swore you did.

BEATRICE

Do not you love me?

BENEDICK

Troth, no; no more than reason.

BEATRICE

Why, then my cousin Margaret and Ursula
Are much deceived; for they did swear you did.

BENEDICK

They swore that you were almost sick for me.

BEATRICE

They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me.

BENEDICK

'Tis no such matter. Then you do not love me?

BEATRICE

No, truly, but in friendly recompense.

LEONATO

Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman.

CLAUDIO

And I'll be sworn upon't that he loves her;
For here's a paper written in his hand,
A halting sonnet of his own pure brain,
Fashion'd to Beatrice.

HERO

And here's another
Writ in my cousin's hand, stolen from her pocket,
Containing her affection unto Benedick.

BENEDICK

A miracle! here's our own hands against our hearts.
Come, I will have thee; but, by this light, I take
thee for pity.

BEATRICE

I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield
upon great persuasion; and partly to save your life,
for I was told you were in a consumption.

BENEDICK

Peace! I will stop your mouth.

Kissing her

DON PEDRO

How dost thou, Benedick, the married man?

© 2016 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

McBroom's Wonderful One-Acre Farm

McBroom's Wonderful One-Acre Farm: Three Tall Tales. Sid Fleischman. Illustrated by Quentin Blake. 1985/1997. 64 pages. [Source: Bought]

This early chapter book features three "tall tales" by Sid Fleischman. The three tall tales are "McBroom Tells the Truth," "McBroom and the Big Wind," and "McBroom's Ear." Here's how the first story begins: "There has been so much tomfool nonsense told about McBroom's wonderful one-acre farm that I had better set matters straight. I'm McBroom. Josh McBroom. I'll explain about the watermelons in a minute." I don't know about you, but this one had me at hello. I got the impression that the book would be funny and charming and quirky and unique. I wasn't wrong either!

The first story explains how the McBroom family came to own a "one-acre farm." He bought, or thought he was buying EIGHTY acres. But he was tricked into buying an 80-acre deep bog. But the joke isn't on him, for as luck would have it, a "dry spell" reveals that the topsoil is so rich, it should be kept in a bank. All three stories focus on how wonderful-and-magical this farm is.

I really loved all three stories. This one is a great book to share with young readers.


© 2016 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Reread #5 A Woman's Place

A Woman's Place. Lynn Austin. 2006. Bethany House. 450 pages. [Source: Book I Bought]

I first read and reviewed A Woman's Place in August 2007. I absolutely loved, loved, loved this book. And why wouldn't I?! After all, it's a book set during one of my favorite historical periods: World War II. The focus is on women on the American homefront: how the war effected women's lives in and out of the home. This book seems to be a written-just-for-me book. So, of course, I adored it.

Four women. Four very different, unique women come together as a team at Stockton Shipyards. With proper training, these four women will be helping build ships, ships that will help the Allied Forces win the war. An end to war is all these women want. Well, they'd also like a little respect and some justice.

From the original review:

Ginny, or "Virginia" as her husband insists on calling her, is a housewife in her thirties who feels underappreciated and unloved.

Helen is a woman in her fifties who is wealthy and bitter and angry.

Rosa is a young newlywed from Brooklyn. She met a young man in the Navy and suddenly finds herself living with her inlaws while the war is on.

And Jean is fresh out of high school--fresh from the farm, one of eighteen children. She has six brothers enlisted in various branches of the service.

Each woman finds herself employed at Stockton Shipyards. Each has felt called to serve her nation. Each one is there for their own personal reasons as well. Ginny is lacking self confidence, but seems to bloom under the circumstances of hard work and friendship. Rosa is a bit unwieldy at times but in need of love and guidance and wisdom from older women. Helen is there trying to escape the bitter aloneness she feels in her large home--one she inherited from a father that she hated. And Jean, well, Jean is trying to figure out what she wants for herself. Her boyfriend back home doesn't see any reason for her to go to college, to get an education. He doesn't see much point in her working so far away from home either--all the way from Indiana to Michigan. But Jean, Jean is finding herself, finding her independence.

Each character was well-developed. Each character was complex. Each circumstance was complex. Very different women, very different backgrounds. But one common goal. I loved how this novel came together--pieced together. How four women's lives were able to touch and connect and encourage and build up one another. Each woman's life was changed because of the others. Each one learned how important, how significant, how loved they really and truly were.

© 2014 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews