I loved every book about poor children ever. The All of a Kind Family, The Five Little Peppers (And How They Grew), The Boxcar Children, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. I think I need to read these Betsy-Tacy and Understood Betsy books!
I thought LHOP was pretty clear that Ma was wrong in saying "The only good indian is a dead indian", but I haven't read it in a long time, and probably now one would also need to talk about why they were homesteading in the first place and why they had to leave, and Manifest Destiny and everything else.
Also, did you read this blog about hating Ma yesterday, which was suggesting reading the Betsy-Tacy books instead? [link]
Yeah, that was what got me started.
I was wondering- it seemed like too big of a coincidence!
The Five Little Peppers (And How They Grew)
The Five Little Peppers! Oh yes. I read a LOT of my mom's childhood books, including her Cherry Ames and Nancy Drew books, although I think I discovered Beany Malone at the library.
I adored The Dana Girls series of mysteris. I think they came out of the same book factory as Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys. I really liked Hardy Boys, too. Nancy always annoyed me for some reason.
Was it
Castle
that had someone sarcastically call the amateur detective a Nancy Drew and said amateur said, "Wow, a detective who solved every case? Thanks!"
Yes, the Dana Girls also came out of the Stratemeyer Syndicate [link] I've been fascinated by Edward Stratemeyer, the Henry Ford of children's books, for years. The syndicate's books had many ghostwriters, but Stratemeyer wrote more than 1,300 of them, enough to make him one of the more prolific writers ever. I read once that his habit was to start a book on Monday and finish it on Friday.
I need to find copies of the ones that were current when I was a kid. They kept updating them for the current generation of kids.
