Holding Wonder

by Zenna Henderson

In this many-dimensioned new collection of speculative fiction, Zena Henderson introduces us to a boy who "calls" his mother, despite the fact that the nearest phone is miles away.--and reads the distress call from an orbiting astronaut's mind; to the amazing cures of Aunt Sophronia--pills for the living dead; and to Loo Ree, the imaginary friend of a first grader -- who tuns out to be all too real...

Contents:
The Indelible Kind (1968)
J-Line to Nowhere (1969)
You Know What, Teacher? (1954)
The Effectives (1965)
Loo Ree (1953)
The Closest School (1960)
Three-Cornered and Secure (1971)
The Taste of Aunt Sophronia (1971)
The Believing Child (1970)
Through a Glass - Darkly (1970)
As Simple as That (1971)
Swept and Garnished (1971)
One of Them (1971)
Sharing Time (1971)
Ad Astra (1971)
Incident After (1971)
The Walls (1971)
Crowning Glory (1971)
Boona on Scancia (1971)
Love Every Third Stir (1971)

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Horror

304 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Zenna Chlarson Henderson was born on November 1, 1917 in the Tucson, Arizona area. She graduated from Arizona State in 1940 with a Bachelors degree in education and worked as a teacher in Arizona throughout her life. She died on May 11, 1983, at the age of 65, in Tucson.

Henderson is known almost entirely for short stories about "The People." The People are a race of sensitive, human-looking aliens with psychic abilities who are separated after crash-landing on Earth but come to find each other over a period of many years.

Publishing her "People" stories in the leading science fiction magazines of the 50's, 60's and 70's, Henderson became a pioneer in many areas of science fiction literature. She was one of the first female science fiction writers, and was one of an even smaller number who wrote openly as a woman, without using male-sounding pseudonyms or initials (James Tiptree, Jr.; C.L. Moore; etc.).

Henderson was one of the first in science fiction to truly take young people seriously and write expressive, mature stories from their point of view. She drew on her experience as a teacher of young people, and was able to bring a rare level of insight to her use of young characters. Henderson's youthful protagonists are neither adults forced into young bodies, nor are they frivolous caricatures. They are very human, complete souls, yet marked by authentic signs of youth and innocence. Interestingly enough, Lois McMaster Bujold and Orson Scott Card, both of whom mention Henderson as an important early influence, have also been among the most successful chroniclers of young people, with such Hugo- and Nebula-award winning novels as Falling Free and Ender's Game.

Her books and stories about The People were the basis for the movie
The People, 1972, starring William Shatner and Kim Darby. Despite similarities, both Escape to Witch Mountain, 1975, and Return to Witch Mountain, 1978, were a result of books by Alexander Key.

Reviews

[Chrystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite stories here were:
J-line to Nowhere, The Believing Child, Through a Glass--Darkly, As Simple as That, and Sharing Time.

Not sure why it is called Holding Wonder, or why the cover shows a boy holding a white rat. Did I miss a story somewhere?

I've read one other collection of her stories. A unique writer.

[Teri-K · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read these stories in 1979, but I've never forgotten them. They were my new husband's attempt to entice me into reading sci-fi, and they were a good choice, as I was an elementary school teacher, and many of these stories feature teachers and young children. Thankfully, the children are often clever, powerful entities, not simply victims.

Anyway, after all these decades I tracked this book down again and enjoyed almost every story in here. I love the gentle way Henderson looks at life from unusual perspectives. She explores issues sci-fi often takes on but in a unique, and to me very appealing, way. I'm looking forward to finding her other books about "The People" and rereading them, as well.

NB - These books are hard to find, but when I checked Internet Archive still had them available. I don't know how long that will last, so maybe check them out soon if you're interested.

[Valerie]

Contents:

(1) The Indelible Kind (Vince Kroginold, son of the Cougar Canyon Group, whose immediate family is detached for research purposes).

(2)J-Line to Nowhere (In which the city is compared to a coral reef: Everybody is impressed by the massive skeletons, but what about the tiny organic beings who created it?)

(3) You Know What, Teacher? (Teachers become repositories of family secrets)

(4) The Effectives (So IS prayer subject to analysis?)

(5) Loo Ree (cf Wyndham's Chocky)

(6) The Closest School (Vannie may not be old enough for school--after all, she's not yet 600)

(7) Three-Cornered And Secure (Angels' work is never done. Who suspected that cloverleafs would be disruptive of space-time?)

(8) The Taste of Aunt Sophronia (Sophronium can never be made good tasting. How could you know it was medicine, if it doesn't taste bad?)

(9) The Believing Child (Dismey doesn't necessarily have greater powers than other children. It's just that it never occurs to her to doubt that she HAS such powers)

(10) Through A Glass--Darkly (What if you could see into the past with your peripheral vision?)

(11) As Simple as That (After all, who CARES what caused the holocaust? We live in the world we live in, moldy bread, roofless classrooms, and all)

(12) Swept And Garnished (So which is worse: a multitude of phobias (with rituals to deal with them), or sheer meaninglessness?)

(13) One of Them (But WHICH one? One of 'them' is a murderer, and one the victim. But which is the narrator? It may be a matter of life and death that she find out which she is.

(14) Sharing Time (Not exactly the Midwich Cuckoos. The spheres that are sent for the human children break down their barriers to telepathy. The teachers have to ensure that the children can rebuild some of the barriers, so that the children can go on learning independently, even if they share the knowledge later)

(15) Ad Astra (Ok, it would be a very useful thing to have people who breathe CO2 and exhale O2. But how to replicate the accident that created the first one?)

(16) Incident After (Adaptation after a holocaust is not always in big things)

(17) The Walls (Time travel is not always under the control of the traveler)

(18) Crowning Glory (Fashion becomes the enemy of progress. If nobody grows their hair long, how can the aliens get the hair they need for technical purposes?)

(19) Boona on Scancia (I'll buy flying dogs, though it's a bit of a stretch. But is it plausible that they could interbreed with Earth dogs?)

(20) Love Every Third Stir: (Aunt Comfort is not a witch. Of COURSE she isn't. But her potions are remarkably efficacious, even so).

[Mai · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite of her short story collections, but still really darn good. She always makes you think of such interesting things. I do love her.

[N. M. D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zenna Henderson is one of my very few writing idols. With this book completed, I've now read just about all of her devastatingly short catalog that I've spread out over several years.

Henderson has two types of stories: standalones, and ones that take pace in her People universe. The People stories are harrowing stories of wonder, hope, and beauty. The standalones tend to be darker and sadder, or more comical. It's almost as though the People stories MUST end well because there's so much struggle and sorrow in them. But the others don't need to, and many of these are dark or bittersweet all the way through, which makes for a nice tonal change.

Though her take on race can be a little dated, her casual hatred of bigotry is refreshing for its time. Most of her stories are about acceptance and understanding between different types of beings. A couple stories are told from the first-person perspectives of people with mental illness. At least half the stories have teachers as protagonists and children as secondarys. One is a non-SF originally published in Ellery Queen.

There isn't much I can say about Henderson I haven't already said. Expertly crafted and moving, her collections are the only books that consistently receive four and five star ratings from me, a perpetual three-star-giver.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite as good as the Anything Box, but many delightfully strange stories as teachers (mostly) try to cope with weirdness among their students, whether it's admitting an ET to class ("The Closest School,"), a not-so-imaginary playmate ("Loo Ree"), a girl getting a scary revenge on bullies ("The Believing Kind," which may be my favorite in this set) or coping with the aftermath of the apocalypse ("Three-Cornered and Secure."). There's some really good writing in here (the future slang and fashions in "Crowning Glory," for instance) and several funny ones. "You Know What Teacher?" is, unusually, a straight mystery story.
Curiously most of the stories seem to have been published for the first time in this volume (only about half have a "first published in" credit). Did she write a bunch of extra stories so the collection would be big enough, or what? In any case, well worth reading.

[Bobby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rated 3½ stars. Gentle stories of science fiction or of the strange, many with the interesting twist of a narrator being a schoolteacher observing her students which turn out to be special in some way (in some cases alien). Henderson was an elementary school teacher herself, and has a good eye for the various personalities presented in children at their stage of development.

[Drew · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried. I really tried. I enjoyed her collection “The Anything Box” much more than this. Some of these stories started out good but just never worked for me. However, not a total loss: “You Know What, Teacher” and “Loo Ree” were good.

[Joseph Carrabis · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I wrote in my review of Henderson's Pilgrimage, a wonderful retelling of the changeling myths. Must reads for lost children everywhere.

[Jessica Zoop · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ms Henderson's books about The People are long time favorites of mine. But, I found this book to drag.... even though it is a series of short stories.

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Zenna Henderson's storytelling voice, and her abiding hope. Adonday veeah.

[Mellanie C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the stories in this book.

[Sara Cuthill · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read in childhood. One of my all time favorites.

[behsforensics]

Cutting is for You Know What, Teacher?
By Zenna Henderson

[Pat Cummings · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many of Zenna Henderson's stories of the People have a teacher's voice somewhere. This is not surprising; Henderson taught elementary school in Arizona. She brought that desert schoolroom esthetic into almost every story she wrote.

Holding Wonder is one of two collections of her tales not specifically about the People (although The Indelible Kind crosses over.) Many of the stories, including You Know What, Teacher? share the child's or teacher's point of view of the schoolroom or playground. So surprisingly, the two stories from this collection that have resided in my heart for over fifty years involve neither school nor student.

Crowning Glory presents a North America in which the almost-universal fashion is for females and males alike to wear their hair cropped close and shaven into patterns. The protagonist is an odd girl in this culture, clinging to her undyed waist-length hair despite the teasing of her friends and the inconvenience of caring for it. How she becomes the invited guest of the alien visitors—and why—is a prime example of writing power.

Love Every Third Stir has a classic feel to it. For a long time, I was convinced this had been made into a Twilight Zone episode, but it had not. It's just a very visual presentation. The twist at the end is a real zinger!

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was just amazing. I'm so glad that I read it and I'm definitely getting her other works. Henderson had a very astute understanding of humanity, including children, and it shows in her writing. Her stories, while many of them are sad, have hope. I read her bio on Wiki, and while it didn't say she was overly religious, I feel that she had to have been. She wrote positively of faith when she wrote of it and when she didn't write about faith particularly, she still wrote of hope. She's a talented writer. I loved this book.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an eclectic mix of stories that each have its own taste of the bizarre or peculiar. I was first introduced to Zenna Henderson as a child, with "The Believing Child." I enjoyed most of the stories and have another book of hers that I have not read yet. Probably not good bedtime reading if you are the sort whose books end up in your dreams, but the stories are intriguing.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

The last of the books of 'The People'.
Again the children of the alien people stranded on earth are faced with the differences betwene them and their 'hosts' on this planet.
I was not as impressed wth this story as with the previous ones.
But it is still a tremendous read.

[Leah Coffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even better than I remembered. Some of the stories bear the markings of the era in which they were written, but otherwise it's as if Shirley Jackson took some sci-fi pills, and I mean that in a good way.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the stories are very good - and can be thought provoking. A couple stories I've marked with an X and don't read if I'm down at the time. Doesn't mean they aren't good - but a couple of her stories are not for me.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good old-fashioned science fiction. Nothing as touching as "The Anything Box" (probably her best short story), but an enjoyable collection of stories.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really engaging, and right up my alley!

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved it again. but did notice how dated it was. women are stay at home people or teachers, long distance rates are cheaper in the evening. it makes me smile at the quaintness

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was on the third or fourth chapter before I realized this was a book of short stories, not a novel. I was interested to learn how the very different segments would fit together before I figured out that they wouldn't and didn't. I promise that I'm normally much smarter than this.