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bickie 's review for:
The Windeby Puzzle
by Lois Lowry
This could be an interesting book to study in a class as a tie-in to studying about Iron Age humans.
The structure of the book, with 2 historical fiction short stories layered with 3 essays about the writing process, lends itself to discussing the author's choices. Why did she choose to use a disabled character as a plot device instead of a full-fledged character in the first story? Why did she choose to explain the Suebi people's polytheistic/Druidic belief system in the context of Christianity's not arriving there yet? Why does she use BC/AD instead of BCE/CE? Given the extensive research that she says she did, why does it appear that she is relying on stereotypes about this community's gender beliefs, such as that women did domestic tasks and men did the hunting, and about their attitudes toward disabled people? Did she actually research gender and disability in the Iron Age Germanic tribes? If that information is not known, why did she make the choices she did in imagining the society? Why did she think that "today's society would find a place for a boy like him [Varick], would see beyond his limitations to his warm heart and keen mind. But not back then"? Why does she think that Varick lived during a time "before science really existed"? Why did she make an assumption that "many of us" did jigsaw puzzles on our "dining room tables" during the pandemic? Or that "many of us" even have a dining room or a dining room table? Why did she seemingly randomly choose to compare Estrild to Sojourner Truth and the suffragettes?
Another major question is who was the Roman historian Tacitus, upon whom Lowry seems to rely a great deal for information about Germanic Iron Age people? What were the sources he used? How reliable is his account? What biases might he have used in interpreting various practices? At least he was writing fairly contemporaneously to the time in which the story is set.
Lowry is clearly writing with a perspective, as all authors are. This could be a great way to explore the choices and unconscious biases.
Backmatter includes Bibliography, four pages each containing a black-and-white photo and paragraph about the following: The Wandsworth Shield Boss, The Windeby Child, The Osterby Man, the European Eagle-Owl. Also includes five discussion questions and five quotes taken from the book "selected as they capture, in Lowry's potent, direct language, meaningful themes from the book," along with a few discussion questions to apply to each.
Overall, I think this is a fascinating book; however, I also think it would not have been published had anyone but Lowry written it. It feels a little like a half-baked money grab.
I read most of the book and listened to part of it. Lowry narrates the essays; Lauren Ezzo narrates Estrild's story, and Andrew Gibson narrates Varick's. It's all well done.
The structure of the book, with 2 historical fiction short stories layered with 3 essays about the writing process, lends itself to discussing the author's choices. Why did she choose to use a disabled character as a plot device instead of a full-fledged character in the first story? Why did she choose to explain the Suebi people's polytheistic/Druidic belief system in the context of Christianity's not arriving there yet? Why does she use BC/AD instead of BCE/CE? Given the extensive research that she says she did, why does it appear that she is relying on stereotypes about this community's gender beliefs, such as that women did domestic tasks and men did the hunting, and about their attitudes toward disabled people? Did she actually research gender and disability in the Iron Age Germanic tribes? If that information is not known, why did she make the choices she did in imagining the society? Why did she think that "today's society would find a place for a boy like him [Varick], would see beyond his limitations to his warm heart and keen mind. But not back then"? Why does she think that Varick lived during a time "before science really existed"? Why did she make an assumption that "many of us" did jigsaw puzzles on our "dining room tables" during the pandemic? Or that "many of us" even have a dining room or a dining room table? Why did she seemingly randomly choose to compare Estrild to Sojourner Truth and the suffragettes?
Another major question is who was the Roman historian Tacitus, upon whom Lowry seems to rely a great deal for information about Germanic Iron Age people? What were the sources he used? How reliable is his account? What biases might he have used in interpreting various practices? At least he was writing fairly contemporaneously to the time in which the story is set.
Lowry is clearly writing with a perspective, as all authors are. This could be a great way to explore the choices and unconscious biases.
Backmatter includes Bibliography, four pages each containing a black-and-white photo and paragraph about the following: The Wandsworth Shield Boss, The Windeby Child, The Osterby Man, the European Eagle-Owl. Also includes five discussion questions and five quotes taken from the book "selected as they capture, in Lowry's potent, direct language, meaningful themes from the book," along with a few discussion questions to apply to each.
Overall, I think this is a fascinating book; however, I also think it would not have been published had anyone but Lowry written it. It feels a little like a half-baked money grab.
I read most of the book and listened to part of it. Lowry narrates the essays; Lauren Ezzo narrates Estrild's story, and Andrew Gibson narrates Varick's. It's all well done.