Before my students set out across the campus with camera in hand today, they reflected, among other things, on these words from Beryl Markham, quoted in Vivian Gornick's
The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative.I know that I have a good class when the students are willing to disagree, are eager to look at shades and nuances, work their own experience into the equation. I have a very good class.
But what do you think? Does Beryl Markham, in this passage from
West with the Night, speak for you? Or is loneliness not quite as abhorrent as she makes it out to be?
You can live a lifetime and, at the end of it, know more about other people than you know about yourself. You learn to watch other people, but you never watch yourself because you strive against loneliness. If you read a book, or shuffle a deck of cards, or care for a dog, you are avoiding yourself. The abhorrence of loneliness is as natural as wanting to live at all. If it were otherwise, men would never have bothered to make an alphabet, nor to have fashioned words out of what were only animal sounds, nor to have crossed continents—each man to see what the other looked like.
By Nicki Richesin, The Children’s Book Review
Published: March 23, 2012
Women’s History Month is a time to honor women who have helped shape the world and inspire us with their leadership and heroism. In this eclectic list of new titles, these remarkable women (Sylvia Earle, Georgia O’Keeffe, Daisy Gordon Low, Zitkala-Sa, Lily Renee Wilhelm, Beryl Markham, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony) all have one thing in common: adventurous spirits and the willingness to take great risks to make bold discoveries.
By Amy Novesky; illustrated by Yuyi Morales
Georgia O’Keeffe led life on her own terms, but when we usually think of her it’s likely sketching on her Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, not in tropical Hawaii. Amy Novesky depicts O’Keeffe on her tour of Hawaii where she painted gorgeous exotic flowers, exquisitely rendered by Yuyi Morales. Together they have created a unique tribute to this innovative artist and also to the beauty and splendor of the islands of Hawaii. For more information on Amy Novesky and her work, please read our interview. (Ages 6-9. Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Every-Day Dress-Up
By Selina Alko
Inspired to give her daughter an alternative to the panoply of princess dress-up books, Selina Alko created Every-Day-Dress-Up for her. On Monday, she can become the First Lady of Flight Amelia Earhart and on Tuesday, Ella Fitzgerald the Queen of Jazz. The back of the book includes “biographies of a few great women” for further reading about our sheroes. There’s no need to purchase another pretty princess book, when you have this one full of modern day heroines for our daughters. (Ages 5-8. Publisher: Random House Children’s Books.)
By Claire A. Nivola
The beauty of Nivola’s book is the expansive sense, she creates with her story and breathtaking illustrations, for the immensity and wonder in our oceans. Once Sylvia Earle moved from her childhood farm in rural New Jersey to Florida, she begins her lifelong love affair with oceanography.
Promise the Night is a fictionalized account of Beryl Markham's life growing up in British East Africa. She's incredibly headstrong, determined to do whatever the boys in the Nandi tribe are doing (including hunting lions), and has a tendency to disregard any sort of authority. Sounds like a typical tomboy, right? Markham definitely fits the role.
What begins as the story of a mischievous little girl blossoms into an inspirational adventure. At first, Beryl wishes to work with horses and ends up becoming one of the best horse breakers in all of Africa. Eventually, she's introduced to the airplane and falls instantly in love with the idea of flying, again, becoming extremely successful and what she puts her mind to, especially for a female during this particular time period.
Told in both story format and in various interviews, newspaper articles, letters, and journal entries, the intriguing life of Beryl Markham and her feisty attitude come to life. A great read for girls looking for an inspirational role model!
Promise the NightMichaela MacColl264 pagesMiddle GradeChronicle9780811876254January 2012Review copy
I had no idea who Beryl Markham was, though she was quite famous in her day. In 1936, she was the first woman to fly the difficult East to West Atlantic crossing. In
Promise the Night, author Michaela Maccoll, tells the story of that crossing in telegrams and letters in the grown-up Markham's voice, interspersed with the story of Markham's early adolescence.
Beryl pretty much raised herself until she was 11. Put into the care of her father's head man, a Nandi tribesman, Beryl learned what Nandi boys learn. She was never one to respect limits placed on her just because she was a girl. Maccoll shows Beryl to be manipulative and stubborn, and at times incredibly brave. At one point, I tossed the book away in disgust at Beryl's trickery. I'm glad I picked the book back up. Beryl's deceit is explained in a rare display of her own understanding of what life had in store for her.
There are some very exciting events in here; an attack on her bulldog by a leopard, horse races, a lion hunt, an attack on Beryl by a neighbor's "pet" lion, beatings from a governess, a stint in an unbearably stuffy boarding school. And the author assures us that "most of the good parts" are based on fact.
This is the way I prefer to get my history, wrapped up in a very readable fictional account. The book is due out in December, just in time for holiday gift-giving. Hand this to a girl with stars in her eyes!
She nails what arises in the human tension between freedom/exile and security/slavery.