Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
I reread teenage comfort novels over the Christmas season: Lenora Mattingly Weber’s Beany Malone series of some dozen books.
Originally published in the 1950s, Weber’s books told the story of a middle-class high school girl dealing with dates, money issues, and moral questions. Beany constantly got ahead of herself and had to struggle out of complications–usually caused by choices she made. She was a completely believable girl to me.
I purchased all the books in paperback when my own daughter hit thirteen, hoping to connect with her. She preferred Robin Jones Gunn’s Christy Miller Series, so I kept the books for my own nostalgia.
What surprised me in rereading these books after 35 years, was to recognize choices I unconsciously have made in my life based on what happened to Beany Malone. Writing to girls in the 1950s, Weber talked about sewing projects, cooking tips, how to manage money, and getting along with others. I cook with basic food because Beany demonstrated it was cheaper. I invite people to dinner all the time because the Malones took in strays. Beany’s wedding story didn’t resemble mine, but I recognized the attitude. Why have an elaborate wedding when the point was the marriage itself?
Long ago, an English teacher told us, “The reason we study literature is because we can’t experience everything in our lives. We read so we can know how to react when we hit these experiences in our own lives.”
Beany Malone isn’t great literature, but she did, under the guise of a story, teach me about life.
How about you? What novels have influenced your life–even in small ways?
The first Christian fiction I read was Robin Jones Gunn’s Christy Miller series, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to part with those books. Once every few years, I pull them out, re-read them, and remember thinking through decisions as a teenager based on what Christy did.
Definitely Mildred D. Taylor in Roll of
Thunder Hear My Cry.
There is no greater lesson on love, friendship and racism than in these pages. It taught me that relationships are transcendent. Especially when growing up as one of three white kids in my entire grade.
Prejudice is a dirty word in my house.
Quite a few Dickens books! I am always drawn to the characters who help the marginalized and disenfranchised, with their only possible reward being the joy at seeing someone else succeed. It was decades before I realized it was so much the heart of me!
I want to THANK YOU for the reminder about the importance of capturing our own stories, too. The words of your wise teacher answer the question that comes around to dog every writer at some point: “Why bother writing about this?” and helped catapult me back into my own neglected work.
I agree with Marilyn. If amoral behavior depicted on TV and in film can convince viewers that “it’s okay because everyone’s doing it,” then perhaps Christian fiction is a way to fight back the tide a bit.
Some of the first books that impacted my life were Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series. I so admired the family’s uncomplaining self-reliance and the way they worked together. I’m a “back to basics” kinda girl at heart. I also loved C.S. Lewis’ Narnia chronicles. They depict so beautifully a powerful savior who is at the same time approachable, and I love the exhortation of “Further up! Further in!”
Narnia taught me that Jesus is not “tame” and that heaven will be much more exciting than lying around on clouds, playing harps.
Wow! Powerful post. This is why it’s so important for publishers to publish good books for children.
OK I’m not going to rant and rave again. 🙂
But, very quickly (I promise): In the old days you could get away with Elsie Dinsmore-type books. Now you have to have rounded characters and the story can’t be all moralistic. Still, books do transform us. I think we could go a long way toward taking back the world in a generation if we could control the stories kids read and watch on TV.
Oh, Michelle, I *loved* the Beany Malone books. I recently looked them up on Amazon just to spend some time with the Malones. I know what you mean about the values and situations speaking to you. I still remember the aunt who tried to take over the wedding plans – I don’t remember though if it was Beany’s wedding or her sister’s… Anyway, Beany Malone is definitely one of my comfort memories.
Also, Maud Hart Lovelace and the Betsy, Tacy and Tib books. I identified strongly with Betsy and read them all over and over again.
Apples Every Day is another one I reread annually for years. It’s set in a Canadian boarding school.
The Donna Parker and Trixie Belden series were dog-eared by the time I hit my teens. As a young adult, Agatha Christie and Dick Francis were the ones I reread.
Thanks for this little trip down memory lane!
Okay, don’t laugh. Do you remember, “Dear God, it’s Me Margaret”? I have NO idea when it came out or why I read that as a kid, but I remember it–bigtime! LOL.
But really, I can’t pin point one single book that has helped shape me. It’s been a bunch. But I’ve enjoyed reading these comments.
Breathe by Lisa Tawn Bergren. It was a very timely theme for me.
And I must add, Harold and the Purple Crayon!
It was Beany’s aunt who tried to take over the wedding, Carrie. 🙂
Laura Ingalls Wilder was a big author in my life–my whole life, Lynn. I’ve read the entire series out loud to my four children FIVE times! They’re always grateful for whatever they get in their Christmas stockings . . . 🙂
The other influencing writer, at least in the raising-a-family-theme, was Madeleine L’Engle’s Meet the Austins series. I’ve played classical music while cleaning the house for thirty years, just like Mrs. Austin!
And I tried to convince my boys to dust more carefully by hiding pennies like the Mom did in the All of a Kind Family. She was better than I was.
Funny, how those memories are only a scratched surface away.
She tried to take over BEANY’s wedding.
Oh such delight! Marjorie Reynolds, ‘The Cabin On Ghostly Pond’ was read and re-read throughout my entire career as a grade schooler! Marjorie had to compete with all of the ‘Billy and Blaze’ books written and illustrated by C.W. Anderson. And then of course there were all those wonderful adventures of ‘The Box Car Children’, oh my, do I seek lonely cabins on small lakes, own horses and love small spaces and adventure because I gobbled up those lovely books or did those books just validate desires I already had and still do to this day? And of course, because of those delightfully stolen afternoons of reading in the hay of our barn, all four of my children, now grown, have read every single one of my favorite books as they discovered their own. I still want to read them!
Oh, Michelle, you opened the gate to a flood of memories for me. I read every one of the Beany Malone books when I was 12. To this day, I still occasionally refer to the telephone as “Johnny’s Great Interrupter”!
My “to read” list is lengthening…
Ahh! Thank you, Michelle.
I also loved All Of A Kind Family.
You’ve got me thinking about all my old favorites. Carolyn Haywood’s series about Betsy starting with “B is for Betsy.” Beverly Cleary’s Ramona and Beezus and Henry and Ribsy. I already mentioned Maud Hart Lovelace, my very favorite. Also E.L. Konigsberg and “From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwiler.” Oh, and Edward Eager’s magic series, “Magic by the Lake,” “Half Magic,” and others.
What fun to think about these…