What if a children’s game became reality?

The Bronte siblings have vivid imaginations.

Jennifer Minicus | Dec 8 2017 | comment

The Glass Town Gameby Catherynne M. Valente
written for ages 11-14 | highly recommended
published in 2017 | Margaret K. McElderry Books | 544 pages

Charlotte and Emily Bronte dread returning to boarding school after Christmas. When they last left school, their older sisters had fallen ill and died soon thereafter. If only they could convince their father to keep them home with Branwell and Anne, their younger brother and sister.

The four children escape their fears during the holidays by playing their invented game: The Glass Town Game. Wooden soldiers comprise the armies of the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon Bonaparte, fighting deadly battles and then coming back to life the next day for a new round.

The “Beastliest Day” arrives when Charlotte and Emily must walk to town to catch the carriage to school. Branwell and Anne accompany them to see them off. To their great astonishment, their own wooden soldiers are alive at the train station and allow them to board a strange train made of gorse branches, heather and other moor plants. They ride through patchwork fields, which look just like their quilts at home, to Glass Town – a place nearly like their fantasy land, but with unexpected dangers.

Every character from their stories has come alive, though not totally in the form they imagined. When an evil spy working for Napoleon kidnaps Branwell and Anne, Charlotte and Emily realize that they no longer have control of their toys and must play by new rules to save their siblings.

Catherynne Valente’s monstrously clever story is one of the best published this year. Her intelligent use of language compels the reader to consider nuances and double meanings. The Bronte children meet historical figures whose personalities come to life in humorous manners that will thoroughly engage middle school students who have a strong knowledge of literature. For those with less reading experience, Valente’s book is highly entertaining and may inspire them to explore more advanced novels.

Jennifer Minicus is a teacher living in Ridgewood, NJ.

December 11, 2017

Today’s lead article, the first of two about Mexico’s most iconic works of art, provides an interesting angle on the Russian Revolution centenary marked this year. Mexico had its own Marxist inspired revolution in the early twentieth century and the murals described by James Bradshaw were commissioned by the government to legitimise their revolution.

Ironically the artist, Diego Rivera, was working on “The History of Mexico”, illustrating how history was moving inexorably towards a Marxist heaven, at the very time (from 1929) that Stalin began his systematic murder of millions of landowning peasants in Russia.

Mr Bradshaw’s second article, about the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, will appear tomorrow, which happens to be her feast day in the Catholic liturgical calendar.