Lately I've found myself revisiting many books that I'd loved as a child, most of which I still love. Little Women... the Anne of Green Gables series... the Little House books... Charlotte Sometimes, A Girl of the Limberlost, An Old-Fashioned Girl, The Lamplighter, Summer of My German Soldier, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Jacob Have I Loved, Bridge to Terebithia, Harriet the Spy. I could go on and on, as I suspect that you could, too... Reading them now, I appreciate anew their charm and warmth and wit; and I imagine the day that my little daughters will encounter them for the first time. How wonderful, to discover these stories-- to read them without prior knowledge of how they develop and end! Will my girls be enthralled? I hope so. (If not, they're sure to laugh at how excited I'll be!)
Over the weekend I was lucky enough to pick up a number of classic YA novels from the local thrift shop, among them a newer one I'd never read: Lyddie, by Katherine Paterson (one of my favorite authors in this genre). And so of course, I couldn't rest until I'd finished it, right? ...Well worth the late hours! Set in the 1840s, Lyddie is the story of a farm girl, her family broken by poverty and mental illness, who labors in the textile factories of Lowell, MA in hope of earning enough to reunite her brothers and sisters. I think that Patterson does an excellent job of conveying a central tension of that time and place: While arduous working conditions provoke Lowell women to organize against company management, at the same time the factory offered girls like Lyddie economic and cultural advantages that they could never have experienced at home on the farm. From one perspective, it was "wage slavery"; but from another, it was unprecedented independence and (yes, yes) empowerment. As the story progresses, Lyddie must negotiate these tensions to decide what she really wants to do with her life-- and claiming that ability to choose is, for her (as it would be for most women of her day), an astonishing step. I couldn't put it down!
One caveat: I wouldn't give this novel to my daughters until they were at least 12, and even then I would plan to discuss with them some of the situations encountered therein. I think particularly of a manager's attempts to take sexual advantage of his female employees (two instances, both assertively thwarted by the women, no indelicate or gratuitous detail); and the extramarital pregnancy of one of Lyddie's co-workers, which the book seems to interpret as a matter of personal freedom v. stifling paternalistic morality. ... Moms, definitely vet this one beforehand!
...If you have a moment, please suggest to me your favorites! What books did you love as a young girl?
Ooh! I love this! Some of my favorites were the Orphan Train series by Joan Lowery Nixon--I think they were by her, anyway. Oh, and _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ by C.S. Lewis. It was the only one in the whole series I liked. And _Shiloh_ by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Loved some of the books you listed above!
ReplyDeleteDelena~ Thanks! I've read neither Shiloh nor the Orphan Train series-- and now I look forward to checking them out from the library! It will be fun to read something new.
DeleteBridge to Terabithia had me bawling at a young age. Old Yeller was even worse when our teacher read it to us. Charlotte's Web (another tear-jerker! Geez--what was it with the public school system making kids cry?!) was another favorite. Harriet the Spy had me grabbing a notebook and pencil to write down the world around me!
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