The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf

As I'm coming to the end of this cycle of books, I'd like to leave with a (lengthy) selection of quotes I found interesting and entertaining. I present the following for your consideration and amusement, without commentary. I'm off to wash my brain out with something containing spaceships and explosions.  Enjoy! On Dress: Anne of Green Gables : "Pretty!" Marilla sniffed. "I didn't trouble my head about getting pretty dresses for you. I don't believe in pampering vanity, Anne, I'll tell you that right off. Those dresses are good, sensible, serviceable dresses, without any frills or furbelows about them, and they're all you'll get this summer. The brown gingham and the blue print will do you for school when you begin to go. The sateen is for church and Sunday school. I'll expect you to keep them neat and clean and not to tear them. I should think you'd be grateful to get most anything after those skimpy wincey things you...

On the Banks of Plum Creek Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1937 After talking about the style of the series as a whole, I don't have a ton to say about the third book about Laura in the Little House Series.  I did want to post about it because I had a strong memory from reading it as a child.  I remember the terrifying bugs.  I completely forgot that they lived in a dugout; read "hobbit-hole with less nice furniture".  Also, it's a departure from the first two as the Ingalls move closer to other settlers.  Ma is adamant that her daughters attend school, and so they settle on the outskirts of a town in Minnesota. There are dangerous moments in the previous Little House books, but it felt like Laura skirts death more often in this one.  I was somewhat surprised by the frequency of potential catastrophe. Near-drowning, almost trampled by cows, prairie fire, days-long blizzards, and an ox almost falling through the roof are among the dangers encountered by Lau...

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith, 1943 Note: Some spoiler-ish stuff follows.  Also, I'm not going to talk about the tree.  It's a great symbol, but I'd just be restating others' commentary. When I started reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn , I knew it was a coming of age story set in New York in the early 1900's. I didn't know that it is also a book about the American Dream, in the most classic sense. Francie is the grandchild of immigrants, and her parents are insistent that each generation will, must, have more than the last. Also, unlike the other girls books I've been reading and enjoying, this is modern literature, published in 1943. This gives it a separate tone, and it's probably the best written of the bunch by any literary standard. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn doesn't try to romanticize the poverty of living in the then-slum of Williamsburg in the early 1900's, but it rides that line well. By that I mean that it doesn'...

Island of the Blue Dolphins Scott O'Dell, 1960 Hardcore. That's what Scott O'Dell's classic book is. I remembered that it was about a girl living alone on an island, and a lot of the book is Robinson Crusoe stuff. I had forgotten that stuff included building walls to keep out vicious dogs, designing, building and testing weapons to hunt food and defend herself, and struggling alone with illness. The story is based loosely on a real woman who lived alone on the island of San Nicholas off the California coast for 18 years. Sadly, we know very little for sure about her, because by the time she was taken off the island, no one else remained who spoke her language, she died soon after arriving in California, (probably from diseases she had no immunity to,) and her artifacts were lost in the San Fransisco earthquake. So O'Dell is imagining what her life may have been like. It is perhaps not surprising that the lone male author in the group of girls books ...

Caddie Woodlawn Carol Ryrie Brink, 1935 Caddie Woodlawn is seen by some (according to the quote on the back) as a sort of antidote to Little House on the Prairie . And the contrasts are interesting. I enjoyed the book maybe a bit less than I remember enjoying it as a girl, but it's a sweet story about a pioneer girl, presented as a series of life events. (I was always a huge sucker for a good pioneer girl story.) Caddie, unlike any of the other girls I've looked at recently, is a confirmed tomboy. It's explained that her father encouraged her to be so to enhance her health. Okay theory to me. So the arc of the book of course includes Caddie deciding that maybe it's time to learn to be feminine. My initial reaction is: well, if you must. However, there is a memorable chapter in which Caddie begins to learn to quilt, and her brothers decide that if it's good enough for the sister they've played with all their lives, then they're going to learn too....

Little Women (Parts 1 and 2) Louisa May Alcott, 1868, 1869 While prettily written at times, I just could not get into Little Women . The style is so completely presentational, and so completely sugar-dipped in overtly Christian morality. Upon my describing what I disliked about it, Erin commented that it could have been written specifically NOT for me. (If references to teaching little girls to love God don't cause you to break out in hives, your mileage may vary.) The author is constantly reminding you of the main characteristic she has assigned to each girl, not necessarily by having them act in a particular way, but either having them talk about the fact that one is selfish, or vain, or tomboyish, etc. or by constantly describing them in that way. Re-skimming the beginning, I might have initially been too harsh on the writing. It sometimes has a lovely lilt to it, but there are still enough wince-worthy turns of phrase to put me off. Personally, I just couldn...

Anne of Green Gables 1908, Lucy Maud Montgomery I'm surprised how much I remember about a book, that to my recollection, I have never read before. I was quite young when the acclaimed 1985 TV movie came out, but I remember seeing bits of it over the years. My mom really liked the spin-off series, Avonlea (Road to Avonlea outside the US), and we watched it together when I was younger. A few weeks ago I might not have been able to rattle off character names, but could have given you the most iconic scenes off the top of my head (Lily Maid boat ride, and ridgepole walk). So reading through the actual text has been less like hearing a new story, and more like rediscovering a story I always knew. This sense is helped along by the feeling that I should have read, and loved, this book as a child. Overall I love the story, the style of writing, the sly understated humor. The writing occasionally lapses into omniscient narrator syndrome, which is striking only because most o...

Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie . 1933, 1935, Laura Ingalls Wilder   I remember loving Big Woods the most when I read these as a child, but all I could specifically remember about the book was that they made maple sugar candy. It turns out, most of the book is about food; making it, finding it, storing it. What fascinated me as a child about these books was the highly detailed description (the new editions even come with recipes in the back). In Big Woods , I felt like I could go maple sugaring, or smoke meat for the winter. In Prairie , the building of the house is so detailed that I felt like you could take this book with you after the collapse of civilization as a blueprint for a log cabin. The detailed descriptions of food preparation are a vivid reminder of how differently we live now from even just a few generations back. The depiction of Native Americans in Little House on the Prairie is troubling from a modern perspective. I...

I like to read. I like to talk about books. I read so much that if I don't write down what I think about a book, I'll probably forget. Hence, my presence on goodreads.com (see link to right.) One of the reasons I want to try talking about books in a blog setting, is that I like to talk about books in the context of other books. I like to read big chunks of related content, and then switch gears drastically. I usually read whatever's on the sci-fi shelf that catches my eye, but this month I'm playing in a different genre. So, look for posts over the next few weeks regarding my current literary cycle: Historical Girls. Planned subjects: Little Women Little House on the Prairie (and others in the series) Anne of Green Gables Caddie Woodlawn A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Island of the Blue Dolphins (As I am only human, I have taken breaks during the string of 'girls' books... with two military sci-fi novels, and one scholarly book about vampires.) ...