Ronia, the Robber's Daughter

Ronia, the Robber's Daughter, by Astrid Lindgren

Swedish author Astrid Lindgren is the fourth most translated children's author, primarily for her popular Pippy Longstocking books, published in the 1940s. I was intrigued when I found Ronia, the Robber's Daughter, which was written over thirty years later when Lindgren was in her seventies. The English translation by Patricia Crampton won the 1984 Mildred L. Batchelder Award for Children's Literature in Translation and is an ALA Notable Book.

This is a wonderful story of a young headstrong girl named Ronia raised by the robber chief Matt and his understanding wife Lovis, who live with the twelve robbers of his band of thieves in an abandoned castle on top of a mountain deep in a Swedish forest populated by wild animals, harpies, gray dwarfs, and rumphogs. Being the only child in the robber castle, she is everyone's darling and loved most dearly by her father Matt. She is left to find her own adventures in the vast forest that surrounds them as the men are busy robbing and Lovia has a castle's full of work to handle.

All goes well until the day she meets and becomes friends with Birk the son of Matt's rival robber chief Borka. Then their inseparable friendship cause great disruption between the hostile robber camps. The book is the story of this disruption and how it is settled. The magical Swedish forest and the strong Swedish robbers provide a wonderful setting for this story of two children developing their relationship and its effect on the lives of those around them.

Outrageous

Outrageous: The Victoria Woodhull Saga, Volume One: Rise to Riches by Neal Katz

Neal Katz has written and published a partial biographic novel covering the early years of the life of Victoria Woodhull, a 19th century American woman of great notoriety in her time, who was a pioneering voice in Women's Rights and Sexual Freedom. He promises to complete the story in a second novel due out later this year called Scandalous, the Victoria Woodhull Saga, Volume Two: Fame, Infamy, and Paradise Lost. Winning several awards, including the Independent Book Publishers Association Benjamin Franklin, the Independent Publisher Book Awards IPPY, the Next Generation Indie, and the IndieReader Discovery Award.

Starting in 1847 when Victoria was eight years old, Katz tells her story from the poverty and abuse of her childhood up to 1870 when she, with sister Tennessee Claflin, opened a brokerage firm and became the first female stockbrokers on Wall Street. He portrays a rags to riches rise that is an amazing story of women successfully living outside the defined social limits of the time.

Woodhull, long overlooked by history, has become recognized in recent years for her major role in American thought. In 2001, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. A 1980 Broadway musical entitled Onward Victoria and a 2012 opera "Mrs. President" have been written. Scholarly biographies include:

2014 - The Scarlet Sisters: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in the Gilded Age, by Myra MacPherson
2004 - Victoria Woodhull's Sexual Revolution: Political Theater and the Popular Press in Nineteenth-Century America, by Amanda Frisken
1998 - Notorious Victoria: The Life of Victoria Woodhull, Uncensored, by Mary Gabriel
1998 - Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull, by Barbara Goldsmith
1995 - The Woman Who Ran for President: The Many Lives of Victoria Woodhull, by Lois Beachy Underhill
1980 - The Vixens: A Biography of Victoria and Tennessee Claflin, by James Brough
1976 - Free woman: The life and times of Victoria Woodhull, by Marion Meade
1967 - Vicky: A biography of Victoria C. Woodhull, by M. Marion Marberry
1928 - The Terrible Siren Victoria Woodull 1838-1927, by Emanie Sachs