American folkore | Musings of the Monster Librarian

Book Review: Evangeline of the Bayou by Jan Eldredge, illustrated by Joseph Kuefler

Evangeline of the Bayou

Balzer + Bray, 2018

ISBN-13: 978-0062680341

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition, audiobook

While the supernatural Southern Gothic tradition and Louisiana setting are well-known in adult and YA fiction, I have never come across a supernatural Southern Gothic middle-grade novel like Evangeline of the Bayou, that so beautifully evokes the wilderness of bayou country, so that it is almost a character itself ( I was reminded of Carl Hiaasen’s descriptions of the Everglades in Scat and the descriptions of the swamps of Texas in Kathi Appelt’s Keeper and The Underneath, also middle-grade novels, but otherwise these are very different kinds of books).

Eleven-year-old Evangeline Clement lives in the bayou with her grandmother. Evangeline is the last in a long line of “haunt huntresses”, women with the power and skill to defeat the supernatural creatures of the bayou, and is anxiously waiting to come into her powers and meet her familiar, which must happen by the time she turns 12. Her disastrous attempts to overcome supernatural creatures on her own suggest that she’s not quite ready to operate independently, though. When her grandmother volunteers to help with a supernatural problem in New Orleans, Evangeline, as her apprentice and assistant, accompanies her to the Midsomer family’s luxurious mansion to try to discover what might be ailing the beautiful Mrs. Midsomer. At the Midsomers’, Evangeline encounters Camille, the solicitous housekeeper; Julian Midsomer, the maddening, bluntly honest, routine-bound son of her hosts; the skeptical Mr. Midsomer; the distressed Mrs. Midsomer, who is running out of time; and Laurent Andreas, leader of the exclusive krewe to which Mr. Midsomer belongs. She is not impressed with the trappings of wealth, and her inner commentary on it is great, but she has a good heart and genuinely wants to help.

When Evangeline’s grandmother breaks her leg just before things are about to go out of control, it is up to Evangeline, unwillingly accompanied by an unbelieving Julian, to stop things before it’s too late. The tension builds slowly in the Midsomers’ mansion at first, but once we’ve met all the characters, the story moves at a breakneck pace, and exposition is tied in so skillfully that you almost don’t notice. As dark as the story gets (and it gets pretty dark) it still has moments of humor, and strongly demonstrates the power of love and self-sacrifice. There are certainly some outrageously unbelievable moments; for instance, Evangeline’s grandmother is far more resilient than anyone could possibly expect from an ordinary human being. In a story populated with banshees and revenants, though, I’m willing to cut Eldredge a little slack.

Author Jan Eldredge avoids writing in dialect, which I think works fine for this book, but the names of the creatures Evangeline encounters are so unusual that I didn’t realize that the supernatural creatures in the book are all grounded in Cajun folklore until I reached the glossary at the end (searching the Internet for more information on these creatures was a challenge, and there were many I couldn’t find). As a native of Louisiana, perhaps it didn’t occur to Eldredge that children interested in monsters and cryptids who are not from the area would have trouble tracking additional information down.

While Evangeline, the bayou, and the supernatural creatures of Louisiana are the most convincing characters in this book, as far as I can tell, it is unique in its combination of genres in middle-grade fiction. Try it with kids who are interested in ghost stories, cryptids, supernatural creatures, monsters and monster hunters, books set in the American South, and American folklore. This book has an audience out there, just waiting to find it. Recommended.

Contains: Violence, murder, death in childbirth, blood

Monster Kid Request: The Hunt for “Fearsome Critters”

Well, his birthday is not until September but the Monster Kid came to me last night and told me what he wanted for his birthday.

Specifically, he requested a book called Fearsome Critters.

“You remember, Mom, Dad had a copy for Monster Librarian. It had the Hodag in it.” (The Hodag?)

We looked it up on Amazon. There are some interesting books that come up on Amazon when you search the term “fearsome critters” but the only book of that name appeared to have been written many, many years ago. So, not one that we would have had sent to us for review. I knew the book he was talking about, so I could identify the front cover. It is not a book that appears on Amazon, or comes up at usedbooksearch.net, although the first book we found, Fearsome Critters by Henry H. Tryon, kept popping up, as well as one by Alvin Schwartz that looked pretty neat, called Kickle Snifters and Other Fearsome Critters. This, I am sure, is a children’s book, based in folklore, because that’s what Alvin Schwartz wrote (he was also the compiler for the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark books). A book that did pop up during our Amazon search, and a much more recent choice, would be Monica Farrier’s Mysterious Beasties of the Northwoods: Creatures from North American Folklore. It’s described as an illustrated field guide, but I can’t tell whether it would be a good choice for children (illustrated=interesting to look at, as far as the Monster Kid is concerned, but I have no idea if it’s age appropriate in content) I’m not sure why she substituted “mysterious beasties” for “fearsome critters”, since “fearsome critters” is clearly the term that is most widely used.

“I need the second book, Mom, The Return of The Fearsome Critters.” Okay, more information is always good. Still nothing on Amazon, although it does look like I could get my very own baby doll “fearsome critters” T-shirt if I want to. So back to usedbooksearch.net I go. And yes! There is a book with that title by an author named Warren S. James, at both AbeBooks.com and Biblio.com, for sale from a tiny independent bookseller in Canada, Laird Books. There’s a picture of the cover, and the cover is the one I remember. This is the book! Laird Books identifies it as a children’s book, so now I just have to figure out where in the house it has wandered off to, or snag a copy from this bookstore in Canada. Problem solved.

But what is more interesting to me than the book the Monster Kid was really asking about is that there is actually an original book titled Fearsome Critters, and it was written in 1939 by a man named Henry H. Tryon, to document the tales told by lumberjacks about the creatures that inhabited the northwoods. So “fearsome critters” aren’t just the fictional invention of one man, they’re part of an entire tradition of scary stories about creatures that might have been lurking just outside the reach of the light of the campfires. Creatures that, yes, even scared burly lumberjacks. And I discovered that you can read an illustrated copy online, at lumberwoods.com, which has all kinds of interesting information about fearsome critters, including online copies of two additional books written on the same subject: Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods by William T. Cox, (published in 1910), and The Hodag, And Other Tales Of The Logging Camps by Luke Kearny (published in 1928) written on the same subject. Not only that, but a composer named Laurence Bitensky has actually written a musical score for wind ensemble, with a narrator, based partially on the descriptions found in Tryon’s book! You can listen to it here.

So there. Campfire stories to give you the creeps don’t have to come from urban legend. There is a tradition of frightening American folklore built right in to not just the present, but the past. Then, as now, there was plenty to be afraid of in the dark. Remember that the next time you pitch a tent in the woods as the sun is going down.

Or, instead, you could turn the pages of one of these guides in the comfort of your home, with your monster-loving kid sitting, mesmerized by the habits of the Hodag, right beside you.