2/24/14 ** I'm afraid I'm not "feeling" this book.  I know that Kirkus gave it a star and it won the Newbery Honor, but I just didn't see the point.

 

The book tells the story of Billy's second grade year - making a diorama, writing and reciting poetry, the bratty girl at his table, his life with his sister and parents.  I didn't feel any conflict or sense of problem.  The only reason I finished the book is I kept expecting some pay-off, some reason that it won the award.  Seems like a kids book for adults, rather than a kids book for kids.

BEST BOOK OF MY CHILDHOOD!!!!! Seriously, I wouldn't be the reader I am today, had I not read this book. I almost didn't and that's a alternate reality I'm glad I didn't end up in. Read this book if you're ten or twenty or 99. Learn how to accept change and yourself and roadtrips with your grandparents. 

I really enjoyed reading this old Newbery winner, I enjoyed it quite a bit. A ten year old girl gets a year in Manhattan in the 1890s, a year to do pretty much whatever she likes and nothing she doesn't. So, what she does is, she makes all kinds of interesting friends at all levels, and she is adored by everyone, and she gets to meddle in everyone's life to good effect. It's pretty much what I imagine Pollyanna to be about, since I've never read or seen it. Lucinda isn't too good to be believed, but her's is such a charmed life that there isn't much to kick about, either.

But. I have reservations. The big one is that through an improbable sequence, Lucinda finds and adult friend who's just be murdered. And after having a great big old cry, that's over. And it is. We're never told anything about it ever again. There's no funeral, no murder investigation, no trauma for the child, nothing is mentioned again. Now I like a book where things pretty much work out in the end, but seriously? If you think that introducing a murder is too much of a downer or a distraction for your cute kids story, then don't introduce one. In the same vein, the death of a child really bugged me. Not because it was unlikely, but because it seemed to exist as just another opportunity for Lucinda to use her meddling powers for good.

So, I enjoyed it, but I'm weird with it. Maybe I assume too much, but I'd expect a ten-year-old, who is temporarily orphaned by her mother's illness, to be a little more overwhelmed by those too deaths. The way they are glossed over with a little happy theorizing about an afterlife, while consistent with mainstream Christian doctrine, is just way too shallow for my tastes.

But boy, do I want a new pair of roller skates now.

A comfort read. There’s something so magical about Lucinda Wyman and her year of New York life. [Oct. 2008]

Gorgeously told fable about a proper, gentlemanly mouse named Abel who becomes stranded alone on an island. His love for his wife sustains him while he learns to fend for himself. Great fun.