Plumfield and Paideia

A Tale of Two Cities

Reviewed by Sara Masarik
If David Copperfield is the story of how a man makes his life because of the choices he makes with regard to friends and marriage, and A Christmas Carol is the story of how a man makes heaven or hell of his life because of the choices he makes with regard to the guardedness of his heart, A Tale of Two Cities is a story of how a man (or in this one, several people) make their souls ripe for salvation through their submission to substantial sacrifice. It seems to me that most of Dickens’s writing is a morality tale of some kind or another, and that has a certain appeal to me. This one is among my favorites because it painfully and beautifully follows the journey of souls moving out of darkness and into light. Read the full review

That Book Woman

Reviewed by Diane Pendergraft
"Cal and his family “live way up as up can get” in the mountains of Kentucky, “the onliest school a jillion miles back down the creek.” There is plenty of work to do, and Cal has no use for reading, though his sister Lark would have her nose between the pages of a book all day if their mother would let her. One day, a woman wearing britches rides up to the house with a saddlebag full of books. Lark acts like it’s a bag full of treasure. Call refuses to be impressed. " Until the Book Woman comes during a snow storm. What makes her risk getting sick, or worse? Read the full review

That Hideous Strength

Reviewed by Sara Masarik
The third book, That Hideous Strength, is, just as the title implies, dark, strange, war-oriented and, frankly, hideous. It is a clear response to HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds. While very interesting, it is positively scary in places. The bad guys are genuinely bad. The good guys are stretched, tested and nearly defeated. While we see younger versions of this in a lot of other excellent books, this one is done very much from an adult perspective. Conversations about birth control, marital relations, cold-blooded murder, eugenics, and euthanasia are tossed around in significant ways. Also of note, the third book features a severed head which is animated in a way that is clearly Satanic. This is not a book for the ill-prepared. That said, these are tremendously good books for upper-level high school students or college students. When young people are leaving their parents’ protection and venturing out into the real world, these books can serve as a healthy preparation against the lies of modernity, moral relativism, spiritual apathy, and false teaching. Read the full review