A note: I know it has been a long time since I've written here, and that quite a lot has happened in my law school/law career life in the past couple of months. I am trying to write about my articling search experience and about the last bit of law school, but both posts are ending up as quite emotional to write and are taking a while. I think a just-for-fun post is what everyone needs right now. Please enjoy!
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One of my summertime pleasures for the past few years has been to re-discover books I read and loved as a child. I’ve gone through the likes of Holes, Charlotte’s Web, and Anne of Green Gables in summers past, and to my delight, they have all held up beautifully. These children’s classics continue to pack the literary punches that garnered their well-earned reputations. Holes brought me back to reading it as a child, when I first got to discover the power of what a novel could be. Charlotte’s Web’s heart still pours out of every page. And Anne’s whirlwind of joy and growing up resonates with me even more than it once did. So, each summer, I eagerly seek out books of my youth to include on my reading list.
Really, it should not be a surprise that these books are still enchanting. After all, they have remained highly recommended and acclaimed, even decades after publication. Anne, Holes, and Charlotte’s Web all can just as easily be found on a “Classics” shelf in a bookstore as they can in the Children’s section. Readers of all ages continue to love these books. But that raises an interesting question: do childhood books hold up when they aren’t award-winning, time-honoured works of literature?
Despite being the child of an elementary school librarian, I was not some genius child who only ever read the classics. I was wooed by effective marketing, beautifully designed covers, and books about niche topics. I was taken in, as many young girls are, with the American Girl books. I was recently telling a friend about how much I enjoyed American Girl books as a kid, and was hit with an intense desire to read them again, thinking about how much I’d enjoyed my other forays into childhood books. While perhaps fun, would I really get the same experience reading a book series written ostensibly to sell dolls as I did reading genuine classics? It turns out that the answer was yes.
The American Girl brand was originally founded by a woman named Pleasant Rowland. Her intention was to create dolls that could foster young girls’ interest in history by creating dolls from different eras. Each doll was accompanied by a series of books, telling the story of a young girl growing up in the specific time. Rowland, being a savvy business woman, turned that idea into a veritable empire. Between the custom dolls, expensive furniture, and massive stores, the fun books teaching kids about what it was like to grow up throughout American history can get lost. But the books are key to the brand, and were my main relationship to it.
I read a few American Girl series as a kid, but fell in love with one in particular: Kit Kittredge. The five Kit books take place in Cincinnati Ohio, 1934-1935, and tell the story of how the nine-year-old titular character and her family fell into the deep cycle of the Great Depression. Kit has to use creativity, resilience, and hard work to get through the tough times.
Despite the intended audience being a good 15 years younger than me, from the beginning of my re-read, I was once again in love with the Kit series. I came away from it surprised with how well it encapsulated daily life during the Great Depression. Scenes of Kit’s mother and aunt cooking show how families stretched groceries to last longer. Scenes set in Kit’s school showed how the Depression affected children and their attitudes. And scenes of Kit and her friends attending a movie showed what entertainment was like. While some of the narratives were less exciting to me now as they were when I was a kid, these insights about an interesting period in history stood out even more.
A section at the end of each book recounts true events and stories that author Valerie Tripp discovered while researching for the book. And these sections don’t shy away from the harsh reality of the depression. In the second book, Kit Learns A Lesson, the end section discusses how children sometimes didn’t have a lunch at school because their families had to alternate which days they ate. It also tells the tragic story of a teacher who ended their own life after losing their job. As tough as these stories are to read, these sections show that Tripp respected her young audience enough to give them a complete picture of the period.
Similarly, the stories themselves do not sugar-coat the experiences of the Depression. The climax of the second book features a heart-wrenching scene where Kit realizes just how desperate her family has gotten. A few short pages later, her friend Stirling admits the extent of his family’s Depression losses. The prose is written so simply that these emotional moments are able to fully resonate. That said, these stories ae not bleak. The pockets of joy and hope are essential to the plots, and were what kept people going during that time.
Kit and her family have a lot of depth, because they respond so humanly to their losses. Sometimes they feel ready to tackle the latest challenge, and other times they feel so defeated. While a few characters feel one-note and boring, most notably Kit’s friend Ruthie, most have a level of nuance that feels very accurate to how people respond to hard times. No one is just strong or just defeated. Different members of Kit’s family step up and be the resilient one at different times, as everyone grapples with certain events differently. For example, in some stories, Kit’s mother is motivated to help her family, and comes up with creative ideas to earn money or stretch their budget. In others, she struggles with feeling ashamed of her family’s poverty, even if friends and neighbours can relate.
While these books are enjoyable because of their detailed look at life in the 1930s, emotionally poignant moments, and genuine characters, that doesn’t make them literary classics. And I doubt that most people would consider them as such. But I do. Reading the Kit books reminded me what it was like to look up to a character.
I was transported back to being a ten-year-old kid, laying on my bed reading about Kit rearranging the attic to become her bedroom when her parents need to rent out her former room. I remember being so delighted as my mind filled with visions of Kit creating her reading corner, writing office, and “treehouse” bed. And there I was, 15 years later, still just as full of delight. Each time Kit triumphed, I got transported back to what it felt like to be a little girl, reading these books and feeling like I too could triumph.
And therein lies the heart of my endorsement. I’ve grown up, as I’ve had to do. I am in a state of changes and unknowns. With so much happening around, it is easy to lose a sense of self. To not know who you are outside of other people’s perceptions. Before all of the noise of life took over, who did I want to be but Kit. Caring, determined, courageous, creative, resourceful, and truth-seeking. After all this time, inside of me, there is still that kid who dreams of looking out the window of a cozy attic, while sitting in front of a hefty typewriter and a blank page. And anything that brings that spirit back out is worthy of a place among the classics.
Thank you for reading!
Current Mood:
Current Soundtrack: The only appropriate song is something from 1934!
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