Book – Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

(Some Spoilers) Now this is about the fourth time I’ve read this first book in Montgomery’s series about a wonderful orphan named “Anne with an e, if you won’t call me Cordelia.” I remembered it was good, but I had forgotten just how good it was. The description, as with the Wilder books, takes you right to that place and time with real living people, a skill many others writers strive for without achieving. The only thing that marred it for me was that I remembered Matthew died, but I didn’t remember exactly how close to the end it was so the whole second half of the book I was expecting him to die any minute which was a horrible strain. To avoid that yourself, it’s two days after Anne comes home from Queens Normal School having graduated. That aside I would highly recommend this as the best of Montgomery’s writing. When I first heard of it, it was pitched as a cross between “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” and the “Little House” books. I was intrigued and it really is a fairly good description of this book and the entire series. Anyone who likes either of those will like Anne. Second best by Montgomery, I love “The Blue Castle” and except for the big coincidence at the end, it’s a great read. I’ve read it almost as many times as Anne. I should also mention that “Rilla of Ingleside” the last book in the Anne series is also the best depiction of the World War I homefront I’ve ever read and one of the best homefront books of any war. If you read and stopped with Anne, you owe it to yourself to at the very least jump to the end and read Rilla.

There’s a whole Montgomery World now with the original movie from the 1930s (filmed at a historic house, but not in Canada) out on DVD which starred Anne Shirley (the actress legally changed her name and kept it, see her also in the tear jerker “Stella Dallas”), the Sullivan productions (the first movie was near perfect, the second two weren’t, and the Avonlea series (one live action and one cartoon). On top of that there is a regular newsletter (“Kindred Spirits”), a yearly conference, and many publications both scholarly and not about Montgomery and her work. Come and take a look inside Montgomery’s world.

Sarah Uthoff

Get Fuzzy Comic

As Laura read one chapter of the serial at a time to make it last, I read all the comics on the page whether I like them or not. Usually Get Fuzzy is in the not column, but once in awhile there’s a good one.

 A recent strip explored the fact that rennet is in cheese. It came as quite a shock, so I guess he never read “Little House in the Big Woods.”

http://www.comics.com/comics/getfuzzy/archive/getfuzzy-20070814.html

My favorite all time strip from them was when Satchel, the dog, sets up an information center about his favorite author and Bucky, the cat, tells him that this is what it’s come down to he’s making shrines to people now. I have to remember that, its an information center.

Sarah Uthoff

Iowa State Fair

Yesterday my family hit the Iowa State Fair. It’s one of the best state fairs in the country with some of the best examples of Exposition style architecture. Normally I feel that it is too crowded and if attendance keeps increasing they will either have to length the days or the buy more ground because they are running out of room. This year was a little better than usual because we were able to go on a weekday and it rained. It was still pretty busy before we left.

We have some places we hit every year and then we try to do a few new things. We usually start out in Agriculture Building. Besides the display of crops and the Master Gardeners Display, they have lots of booths and interesting things to see. I really liked the weed identification display. I picked up some more Morgan horse information, almost bought an ostrich egg, and saw their new giant agriculture coloring board, an idea I hope some of the Laura sites copy. I also saw the butter cow. Usually the first few days of the fair they are still working on it, but it’s done now. Iowa was one of the first places to have a butter cow. It’s different every year and built  on a chicken wire frame. They reuse the butter several years. For at least the last 10 years they’ve done something else besides the cow. This year it was Harry Potter, Hedwig, the Fat Lady’s portrait, and a broom. It was a big display.

Next stop is Pioneer Hall to check out the antiques for sale and on display. Last year we got a great piece of red glass, but nothing this year. The old time music is very pleasant when you look around and I love to look at the lithograph machine. Next stop was our something new of the year, the fairly new State Fair Museum. I was rather disappointed it looked like a traveling exhibit, filled with things that I’m sure looked really good on paper and not so good in real life. The old museum where they left 99 percent of the objects in the collection is much better. I did enjoy the looping video that featured the car-airplane race, the airplane hits the house, and the two trains crashing in the 1930s (the 1920s one had been disappointing so this time they put gasoline and dynamite behind the engines). I admit it, I love it when the trains crash.

Then we stopped at the Buckskinners Rendevous. It has been shunted aside by a new stage and was partially closed up due to the rain, but I look to look in their sutler shops. I don’t know what happened to the model train exhibit, it was supposed to be getting a new building, but I couldn’t find it and bathrooms and the previously mentioned stage were in its old location.

Lunch was a REALLY big, Green River Phosphate in the Soda Fountain. No trip to the fair is complete without stopping at the Soda Fountain in Pioneer Village. Be sure to make a special trip, it’s worth it. Then we went to the Varied Industries Building. The booths from the Iowa Travel building have been squeezed in the former craft addition. I prefered it where it was, but the Travel was the only section we had a chance to get through. I stopped at several of the building places to get quotes for a building to hold my Laura collection and research equipment. Finally, I made a very quick run through the 4-H building and then it was time to go home. It was a great time as usual. My family has been going every year since they went in the Model T when my grandmother was just a little girl and it’s a different experience every year.

Sarah Uthoff

A Friend Has Passed Away

Bob Brimacomb, husband of Ferneva Brimacomb, the former director of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Burr Oak, Iowa, passed away very suddenly recently. He was often around the museum giving a hand, keeping the Laura Days running smoothly, and building several things for the museum. Bob was in short, a great guy and a fellow Laura person. He was supposed to come on the museum trip to Malone next month and he will surely be missed then and ever after. Leave your consoldences here:

www.fjelstul.com

Read his obituary here:

http://www.austindailyherald.com/articles/2007/08/10/obituaries/156obits.txt

The obituary doesn’t indicate where the memorial money should be sent, but I sent a donation to the Burr Oak Museum in memory of Bob, and I urge you do the same.

 Sarah Uthoff

Rose Wilder Lane Update

I just did a major update to my Rose Wilder Lane page. I’ve added links to more full text articles by Rose and added a section about her. Have you checked with your local library to get your ID and password to log in yet, and if not, why not???

Sarah

Laura Ingalls Wilder Article – “On the Way Home”

I just stumbled across a selection from a book put out by the National Archives. You can buy the book “Eyewitness” from their store. It’s unclear whether it’s an excerpt or the entire Laura section, but you can preview it online,
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/eyewitness/html.php?section=23

Especially note the two typewritten manuscript pages from “On the Way Home” and the old photo of Rocky Ridge Farm.

I got my copy of Prologue Winter 2003 today and it was worth every penny. There are MANY more images than the online version, full page and very clear. You may also buy a copy of this from store of the National Archives or preview it online (remembering not all the images appear)

http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2003/winter/little-town-in-nara-1.html?template=print

Also, make sure you click on the link for the second part at the bottom of part one.

Sarah Uthoff

Book – Freddy and the Dragon (Freddy the Pig Series) by Walter R. Brooks

Freddy the Pig takes part in an incredibly wide range of adventures based from the Bean farm where all the animals, birds, and even insects can talk. Freddy has been a cowboy and a detective among other things. The books in the series interconnect and refer back and forth, but you can pick up any single book in the series and soon catch up with what is going on. I have recommended other single books in this series to classes for read alouds and they have gone over well. This series had been out of print for years when the high prices people were paying for old books brought new editions for various books in the series.

In this book, Freddy, Jinx (the cat), Mrs. Wiggins (a cow who is Freddy’s partner in the detective business) are all back along with Uncle Ben the atomic inventor and taking a particularly prominent role is Samuel Jackson the mole. Someone is trying to frame Freddy for various crimes and so Freddy disguises himself as a little boy in a sailor suit and Uncle Ben invents a dragon. Come join in the fun of this or any other Freddy the Pig book.

 Sarah Uthoff

Happy Birthday Carrie!

Happy Birthday Carrie! Wishing all the best to you and those celebrating Carrie Ingalls Day at the Keystone Area Historical Society. One of these years I hope that I’ll be able to make it there for the celebration. For those of you who don’t know where Keystone is, it’s probably where you had lunch when you went to see Mt. Rushmore. There are only two towns anywhere near it and Keystone is a little closer.

 Sarah Uthoff