FRANK WALSH'S KITCHEN AND OTHER STORIES -- Bonnie Flaig Prinsen, editor

Nine Dragon Press -- tpb
Preston, MN -- ©2005 -- 174pp
ISBN: 0-9746633-1-X
subtitled: The Story Project of Fillmore County, Minnesota

A collection of essays and memories of, by, and/or about Fillmore County and its residents.

Introduction - Bonnie Flaig Prinsen
Choosing This Place
"The Big Woods" - Dana Gardner
"This Place" - Nancy Overcott
"A Sense of Place" - Becky Stocker
"In Less Than An Hour" - P.J. Thompson
"Here On The beach" - Wayne Pike
"A View of the Prairie" - JoAnne Agrimson
"Beautiful Mountain" - John Torgrimson
Small Towns
"Village Lottery" - Donovan Ruesink
"A Sign of the Times" - Steve Befort
"Happiness at Christmas from Coast to Coast" - Beverly Lewis Crowson
"Rollerskating" - Marcelle Vrieze Shipton
"Lost and Found" - Marjorie Taylor Smith
"The Tawney Store" - Gary Stennes
The Natural World
"Tornado Watch" - Trudy Schommer
"Tick Removal" - Jeff Kamm
"Fish Out Of Water" - Wayne Pike
"The Raccoon" - Tom Driscoll
"A Skunk's Legacy" - Wayne Pike
"Ginseng Hunting" - John Torgrimson
Close Calls
"Welcome Back" - Laverne C. Paulson
"The Day the Boys Took Flight" - Peter Snyder
"Christmas Eve 2003" - Herb highum
"Missing the Bus" - Tim Gossman
"Hello, Central?" - Cheryl Serfling
"Adventures in Driving" - Erik Paulson
"Pride Goeth Before the Fall" - Jeff Kamm
"The Day the Lights Went Out at Mystery Cave" - Carol Thouin
Reminiscence
"Memories of an Indentured Farm Kid" - Al Mathison
"Hot Hay!" - Marjorie Taylor Smith
"Garden Genes" - Ann Marie Lemke
"A Mother's Fear" - Herb highum
"A Railroader's Daughter" - Marjorie Evenson Spelhaug
"Spring Banquet" - Carol Hahn Schmidt
"Feathered Friends" - Bonnie Heusinkveld
"The Wheelchair Ride" - Carol Hahn Schmidt
"A Tractor Story" - Richard Prinsen
Food
"Buying and Selling with Susie" - Anna Rae Nelson
"Great-Uncle Richard and the Oatmeal Cookies" - Rose Breitsprecher
"Broken Eggs" - Peter Snyder
"A Disapponting Watermelon" - Ida Mae Bacon
"Do-It-Yourself Groceries" - Kathleen Mulhern
Characters
"Starter Fluid" - Wallace Osland
"Almost Mud Time" - Mary Lewis
"Uncle Ingvald" - Signe Housker
"There he Is" - John Brink
"Reuben's House" - Nancy Overcott
"Frank Walsh's Kitchen" - Charles Capek
"Only One Life" - Craig Ostrem
Life's Lessons
"Snoose" - Wayne Pike
"Summer School (Psychology 101) on the Farm" - Elisabeth Olness Emerson
"The Fort Snelling School Bus" - Curtis A. Fox
"The Music Prodigy" - Margaret Boehmke
"Sports Car Fever" - Jon Laging
"Guilty" - Richard Holle
"My First Cigarette" - Mary Jo Dathe
"Baseball and Red Horsin'" - Gary Feine
Biographies

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This is a delightful collection or remembrances of small town life. It's the real stories of a Mayberry R.F.D.-like community. Not all of the writing is easily readable, but one can tell that it comes from the heart.

I like a beginning, middle, and an end when I read something, and many of these short pieces do not have that. It's just the middle, or maybe only a beginning, and sometimes just an ending. For this, it can be hard to read, but the pieces are so short that one can do it easily enough.

THE THIRD WITCH -- Rebecca Reisert

Washington Square Press -- hc
New York -- 2001 -- 307pp
ISBN: 0-7434-1771-2

Madness and revenge highlight this story of the third witch from Shakespeare's story of Macbeth.

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I'm never quite sure how to feel about a story that picks up on a minor character from a more famous work. Sometimes it can be done quite well (see Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead) and other times be quite dull (see The Turquoise Ring).

This particular book does a great job of tying in many of the scenes from Shakespeare's Macbeth, and in that it is fun to watch the parallels ... to see what else might have been happening during some of the pivotal moments of the play, and then see how the two works come together in specific moments.

The "take" on this third witch is interesting, and there were times that I enjoyed the method in which she was portrayed. I did have some serious problems with the story, however. I felt it was just plain wrong to have this young woman be the daughter of Lady Macbeth (yes, I understand that this was the motivation for her revenge), long thought to have died.

Perhaps I could have accepted this convention if it weren't for the fact that this young woman, one of the three witches, was also instrumental in saving Prince Malcolm, Fleance, and causing Macbeth's delusions of seeing the dead Banquo (by placing Banquo's belongings on a chair where only Macbeth could see them). According to this book, it was also the third witch who warned the Macduff family of their impending doom, and she even tried to save the children but was trapped by the murderers and only by a bit of luck did she survive where all the others in the Macduff home were killed.

My main problem with this book, then, is that the author tried to weave just a few too many incidents into the work of one person. It might be fun for the reader familiar with the play to see these work together, but it does distract from the "reality" of the story.

And finally, I was frankly disappointed that the story had such an incredibly happy ending. it was contrary to everything else in the book, and contrary to the source for this story. It brought this story into the realm of fairy tale at the very last moment.

Not recommended except for those who might enjoy the Macbeth parallels.

TOM SWIFT AND HIS JETMARINE -- Victor Appleton II

The New Tom Swift Jr. Adventures #2
Grosset & Dunlap -- hc
New York -- ©1954 -- 208pp

illustrated by Graham Kaye

Boy genius, Tom Swift, invents an atomic-powered submarine and faces a new bunch of baddies.

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My sons sure have enjoyed my reading these 1950's books aloud to them at bed time. Not everything holds their interest (strangely, both The Hobbit and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland [two of my absolute favorites] have had them bored, but perhaps it's time for me to try those again), so I find it interesting that these books, which I find a tad dull, are still capturing young boys' imaginations.

What I find most interesting about the Tom Swift books is that the science seems a bit behind the times now, yet totally plausible, and yet was certainly ahead of the curve in the mid-1950's. Certainly all the ramifications of using atomic energy were not clear, as evidenced by Tom's lackidaisical use of uranium and atomic energy.

The chapters move along quickly, with great amounts of time passing in a single sentence. Nearly every chapter ends in a cliff-hanger, whish always had my kids asking for the next chapter, even though it was well past bedtime. I can't help but groan, though, when one a chapter ends and it looks like complete ruin, danger, or death for Tom and his buddy, Bud Barclay, and the next chapter starts with the "genius" slapping his forehead and saying something akin to: "Sheesh, Bud, I forgot to flip this switch!" In this book, both boys are about to be crushed to death by a giant squid, deep in the ocean. They try to shoot it with a special Tom Swift underwater ray gun, and nothing happens! The next chapter actually begins with Tom realizing that the ray gun's safety was still on.

And aside from his intellect, Tom relied quite a bit on circumstance to get him out of harms way.

A fun read, and judging by my sons' reactions, still a recommended read as well.