Over at Geek Buffet, I'm comparing two different editions of
The Secret in the Old Attic Carolyn Keene
The original was written in 1944, the current edition first came out in 1970. Excitingly, there are big differences between the two! Many differences occur because of the passage in time. In 1970, it’s a bit of stretch for an elderly, but still active, gentleman to be so old that he fought in WWI. Not so in 1944. Also, a soldier who recently died in 1944 probably died in WWII. You also see things like rayon getting switched to poly and more phones in the 1970 edition.
Another thing that changed is race. In 1944, the house with the old attic has “old slave quarters” and Bess utters a horrible line idealizing happy slaves. All this is cut in the new edition. Additionally, the maid, Effie, speaks in a poor, lower class dialect in 1944. In 1970, she speaks “normally.” Effie’s race is never mentioned though.
Overall, 1970 is just much tighter. 1944 tends to have a lot of cliff-hanger scary chapter endings that are explained away as really being nothing in the first few sentences of the next chapter. The 1970 version cuts most of this out. Thankfully.
The biggest change is that 1944 contains a mini-mystery of a romantic subplot with Nancy and Ned. (Ned didn’t ask her to the dance! And some icky guy is really putting the pressure on Nancy to go to the dance with him instead.) This entire subplot is cut from the current edition, which is sad. It was my favorite part of the story and it was rather refreshing to see Nancy have some doubts, even though you knew it would all work out in the end. For a deeper comparison, check out the chapter-by-chapter play-by-play over at
Geek Buffet!
I'm spending my weekend over at Geek Buffet, detailing the differences between the 1930 and 1960 editions of Nancy Drew and the Bungalow Mystery by Carolyn Keene. I'm doing a complete chapter-by-chapter comparison, so head on over and check it out!
At this moment, I've done the first 4 chapters, but I'll be updating throughout the weekend!
So, after I posted yesterday, I saw that I had missed 2 very important updates!
1. The new issue of The Edge of the Forest is up! Check it out! Lots of awesome articles, plus 2 reviews by yours truly (My Last Best Friend by Julie Bowe and Reality Leak by Jodi Sensel-- both are great reads!)
2. The new Carnival of Children's Lit is up over at Wizard's Wireless. My contribution is actually my Geek Buffet post about the Xela Awards... check it out!
And now, a review of 2 books off the big scary list! (And a break because they're both Adult Nonfiction)
First up is
Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud Sun Shuyun
This book isn't available in the US, so I had to order it from England after reading her
The Long March: The True History of Communist China's Founding Myth.
In
Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud, Sun sets out to retrace the journey of Xuanzang, a Buddhist monk who traveled to India at the start of the Tang Dynasty to learn Sanskrit and bring back new sutras to Chinese Buddhists. (His travels being the basis of Chinese classic,
Journey to the West.)
Not a Buddhist herself, Sun is searching for her grandmother's faith, and Xuanzang's. What was his driving force as he faced many perils along his way?
Sun has a magical way of trying history and legend together with her current narrative. It all blends seamlessly and also paints an amazing portrait of the changing face of Modern China.
I highly recommend it, even if you do have to get it from England. Well worth it.
ALSO! How much do I love the fact that she has an Orphan Works notice on her list of illustrations! WONDERFUL!!!!! (sorry, that's the geek in me)
A Needle in the Right Hand of God: The Norman Conquest of 1066 and the Making and Meaning of the Bayeux Tapestry R. Howard Bloch
While this was interesting, as pop history it was ultimately unsatisfying. Bloch spends a lot of time proving minor points (did I really need half a chapter on the longship find of Sutton Hoo?) and leaves some other points hanging.
His premise is that the Bayeux Tapestry was stitched as a way to bring about a new multi-cultural peace and ultimately... I didn't buy it. There are many obvious other explanations to his supporting points that he doesn't address.
For instance, the fact that the tapestry is vague about some of the stickier points of the story (what the contents of the oath Harold swore, who Edward appointed as successor) isn't necessarily "sufficiently undefined as to permis all to identify with their particular point of view" ON PURPOSE. Maybe (a) it was common knowledge-- it's not like there are paragraphs of text here, most of the narration is based on common knowledge (b) Maybe they didn't know. This information doesn't appear in any other source, either. Maybe it was a secret.
But Bloch doesn't address these possible explanations for any of his evidence.
I do like his in-depth art-analysis of the symbolism and origins of various aspects of the tapestry, especially as he does refer to specific panels that are illustrated in the full color insert pages, as well as several other full-color and black-and-white illustrations throughout the text.
And as a minor note, I really didn't like the font. The lower case p has this little bit that extends out and is just visually very distracting.
Before the festivities begin, I'm over at Geek Buffet, following up on how YA is an age-range, not a genre. The comments on my original post sparked a conversation about how to get non-teens to read teen lit. Inspired by this year's Caldecott winner also being named a Best Book for Teens, I'm proposing a whole new award for teen lit. Check it out here. I'd love your comments.
And, now, a poem, because it's Friday. Yesterday it snowed. It's warm today, but is supposed to snow again tomorrow. So, here's a snow poem!
Snow flakes.
I counted till they danced so
Their slippers leaped the town,
And then I took a pencil
To note the rebels down.
And then they grew so jolly
I did resign the prig,
And ten of my once stately toes
Are marshalled for a jig!
--Emily Dickinson
I love the imagine of austere, often depressing, recluse Dickinson dancing in joy of snow.
Farm School has this week's roundup!
And here's a lovely picture of what happens when it snows in DC (photo from Roxandabear):
For the last three years, our six-year-old has regaled us with stories about his Dragon House, a mythical universe where anything and everything does happen. The only consistent factor has been that it is only inhabited by dragons and him. 
Therefore, as you can imagine, dragons figure large in our reading and it is a great theme for discovering stories from far away. This week we’ve pulled out Monkey and the Water Dragon, as Son Number One’s school topic at the moment is water… This retelling of an excerpt from the epic journey of Monkey, Pigsy and Tripitaka is written and illustrated by Joanna Troughton, and is one of Puffin’s “Folk Tales of the World” series (I think it’s time these were all pulled together and reprinted as an anthology - hint, hint!). The dragon is actually a baddy who turns out to be a “golden fish” with delusions of grandeur - but that doesn’t seem to bother my two. The dragon roars and the pictures leap from the page. That’s what matters!
Then there are stories like The Day the Dragon Danced, which make my children long to join in a Chinese New Year procession; but we still haven’t read Mei Ming and the Dragon’s Daughter or The Dragon’s Pearl, which are both recommended by Andrea Ross in her Personal View for PaperTigers… (more…)
Thanks for the detective work---er, analysis---very entertaining. I just pulled my Secret of the Old Clock off my mantle and looked at the pub date. 1959. Wonder what I would find in there? It says "this new story for today's readers is based on the original of the same title."
I think the 1959 edition is the same version currently being published. The original is from 1930. I've read both (but didn't do the play-by-play) and recall the stories are pretty different.