Customer Reviews

Lavender-green Magic

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Here's a fun game. Just off the top of your head, name me as many children's fantasy books starring African-Americans as you can come up with. "The Wizard of Earthsea" doesn't count. Go! How'd you do? Come up with many? My bet is that if you were able to think of anything it was either a book by Virginia Hamilton or one of the five million books out there in which a contemporary black character is taken back in time to the era of slaves/Jim Crow. Maybe you also came up with "The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm", but that's more sci-fi anyway. This is unacceptable. Fantasy is a huge genre of children's fiction. How hard could it be to write a couple good books with black characters? Whatever the case may be, thank God for Andre Norton. A fabulous fantasy/sci-fi author who flourished in the 1970s, Norton's legacy is all but lost in libraries today. Once in a while, however, a lucky child or adult stumbles on a Norton title, like "Lavender-Green Magic" and is rewarded with a richly textured tale of good vs. evil. Containing African-American child heroes, I am of the opinion that this author deserves a little re-publication immediately.

The year is 1970 and Holly Wade has never felt worse in her life. Her father's been reported MIA in Vietnam, she and her siblings are being shipped off to live with their grandparents in the country, and the bus she's riding right now is making her nauseous. With a bad mood hanging over her head already, Holly tries not to enjoy anything that occurs to her once the family arrives at Dimsdale where her grandparents live. Still, it's hard not to find the junkyard her family runs pretty cool. Everyone's nice to the Wades and there are even mysterious stories about a witch who cursed the Dimsdale property long ago. It isn't until Holly discovery a mysterious scented pillow, however, that she and her siblings get caught up in a time traveling mystery where magic and witchery play a very big part.

Norton plays hard and fast with more than one childhood love in this book. Hedge mazes are a big part of the plot and they are, first and foremost, very cool. But a book that has hedge mazes AND a junkyard? Double trouble. The book handles racism in an interesting manner, with Holly expecting it at every turn and never finding what she fears. Nothing in this book ever strikes the reader as dated either. Quite frankly, the only reason you might think that this book wasn't written today are the brief references to Vietnam and Korea. Otherwise it feels particularly savvy and up-to-date.

But what I particularly liked about the book were the characters. Holly makes for a very interesting heroine since you spend half the book wishing she'd stop being such a jerk. When she allies herself with a particularly nasty witch of the past, the reader has the painful task of watching as Holly makes a bad situation for herself even worse. Fortunately she has two smart siblings who never let their elder stray too far from reality. The grandparents are wonderful people to know and the book is filled with homey descriptions of their life and day-to-day jobs. In the back of the book are recipes cited in the book for such truly interesting scented delights as rose beads, tasties for tea, sugared mint leaves, and pomander balls. You'll find your kids rushing out to buy a mortar and pestle quicker than you can say "lavender blue".

The pen and ink illustrations included in the novel are all courtesy of artist Judith Gwyn Brown. She's probably best-known for illustrating that Christmas classic, "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever", more than anything else. Here her fine-lined drawings have a timeless feel to them. The book may be a 70s period piece, but these characters could've stepped out of any time. It's a great pity that "Lavender-Green Magic" isn't better known today. Still, if you find that you know people who'd like some black characters in their kids' fantasy tales, this is a necessary choice.

When their father is reported missing in action in Viet Nam, Holly, Judy and Crock find their entire world changed. Their mother is forced to take a job where she cannot keep them with her and they are sent off to stay with their grandparents in a small New England village.

Near their grandparent's home is an overgrown garden shaped into a maze. Compelled to explore, they discover that it is a door into a bubble in time.

While Norton's books for younger readers tend to be more didactic than her books for young (and old!) adults, she makes an effort to include touches that her older readers would appreciate and enjoy. In this book which deals with magic, mystery and time travel, she tucks in a message about tolerance and accepting responsibility for one's actions. She also does not provide a pat happy ending (which children often see through and reject in books meant for them) but she does offer hope to her young characters that their situation would improve.

FROM THE COVER: A World of witches, rare herbs, and a curse are quickly discovered by Holly and the twins, Judy and Crock, when they move away from their comfortable home in Boston to live with their grandparents at the rural, rundown "Dimsdale place".... Inspired by a dream - or was it some kind of supernatural command?-the three children set out to explore the neglected, overgrown garden at the edge of the property, where they find and enter a secret house - and another century!!!...

The characters and settings were a bit simplistic making the novel more suited to the junior reader. Ethnic characterizations however, are the weak point of the novel and some readers might find them politically incorrect.