Consequently, I don’t remember when I first read A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  I do know it was post-Little House and pre-Anne.  I remember really liking the Shirley Temple movie and then seeing a two-pack of books in the Scholastic catalog–Princess and Anne.  I didn’t know who that Anne person was, but I had to read Princess.

However, unlike a lot of the other books I loved as a kid, I haven’t picked this one up in a very, very long time.  At least 15 years, probably more.  But I remembered really liking it–enough to see the more recent movie version and pick up interesting older editions of the book.  It was past time for a reread.

Because it can be more fun to read beautiful old editions rather than 1980s paperbacks, I pulled this version off my shelf.  And then I was completely blown away.  I had forgotten how good it was–how much was packed into this book.  How dark and scary it was.  How Sara, while incredibly good, is still far from perfect.

For those not familiar with the book (and seriously if you’re not–get to the library immediately!), it’s the story of a motherless little girl sent to a boarding school.  It’s not a horrible school, just not perfect.  However, she’s protected because her father is rich.  But he dies penniless and she becomes an overworked servant.  Burnett’s writing frequently carried me away.  I stayed up far too late one night, because once the Magic happens, I just couldn’t put the book down. 

This is a book that I really need to see if my neices have a copy of it.  They are obsessed with all things Disney Princess, which annoys me to no end.  But Sara’s thoughts about being a princess are very different from the schlock Disney puts out.  Check this passage out:

Sometimes, when she was in the midst of some harsh, domineering speech, Miss Minchin would find the still, unchildish eyes fixed upon her with something like a proud smile in them.  At such times she did not know Sara was saying to herself:

“You don’t know that you are saying these things to a princess, and that if I chose I could wave my hand and order you to execution.  I only spare you because I am a princess, and you are a poor, stupid, unkind, vulgar old thing, and don’t know any better.”

This used to interest and amuse her more than anything else; and queer and fanciful as it was, she found comfort in it and it was a good thing for her.  While the thought held possession of her, she could not be made rude and malicious by the rudeness and malice of those about her.

“A princess must be polite,” she said to herself.

Now, isn’t that a much better way for a Princess to behave, rather than waiting around for a Prince to rescue you?

As I read, I also couldn’t help but think of Anne Shirley.  Can you imagine if Anne and Sara had gotten together, what stories they could create?  Both girls used their imaginations to escape a harsh, unloved life.  But Anne’s time of escape is just a memory in her book.  For the reader, they’re right in the midst of Sara’s need to escape.  Terrifying things happen to Sara–she had known love and safety and privilege, and it’s all yanked out from under her.  Not only is she left by her father at boarding school and apparently doesn’t seem him again (even though 4 years pass before his death), but then the money vanishes and her entire world goes topsy-turvy. 

One of my favorite passages is when she meets the beggar girl, a girl in much worse shape than she is because at least Sara has a bed and a roof over her head. 

It was a little figure more forlorn even than herself–a little figure which was not much more than a bundle of rags, from which small, bare, red, muddy feet peeped out, only because the rags with which their owner was trying to cover them were not long enough.  Above the rags appeared a shock head of tangled hair, and a dirty face with big, hollow, hungry, eyes.

As an adult, my heart breaks for these children, just as I’m impressed that Burnett doesn’t just talk about Sara’s plight, but other poor, abandoned children.  But what would I have thought as a child?  This is what I wish I remembered.  I think I would have been startled.  Kids aren’t supposed to be in situations like that.  I was safe and warm and well-fed in the Dallas suburbs.

And though I certainly adore the fact that Betsy and Joe are listed–after all, the last chapter of Betsy and the Great World is one of the greatest romantic cliffhangers of all time, I can’t help but think of some of the other great couples of kidlit history.  In no particular order:

Ma and Pa Ingalls.  She follows him across the midwest, each time hoping for a better life, making homes in places that must have been very, very lonely.  Until she puts her foot down.  He plays his fiddle, makes jokes, and fiercely loves his family.  As a kid, they never would have been on the list.  As an adult, I admire how they stuck together, never argued in front of the kids, and both made compromises for each other.

Anne and Gilbert.  Though they ultimately became a somewhat boring couple in the later books, the early stuff is fabulous.  From the teasing and the competition to pushing each other when both have college dreams deferred, it’s an incredibly satisfying friendship–at least for Anne.  Gilbert loves her from the beginning, and it is sometimes very frustrating how long it takes Anne to see what’s right in front of her nose.  But he’s always there–rescuing her and waiting patiently. 

Betsy and Joe.  Though mentioned above, they deserve their own paragraph.  Betsy, daughter of one of the world’s greatest families, falls in love with orphan Joe.  And there are lots of adjustments to be made, mis-understandings, the usual heartache in young love.  But the misunderstanding almost kill the reader as they wait and wait for what has to happen.  And when it does!  Again, one of the best romantic cliffhangers and resolutions Ever.

Miss Allen, the Library Lady and Charlie.  The sisters of All-of-a-Kind Family already love the Library Lady, as she is the one with the books.  And Charlie is the mysterious peddler that works with their father who brings them treats.  By accident, the girls bring them together again–discovering  a tragic love story that was rightunder their noses.  So satisfying–and a wonderful realization of childhood fantasies.  What kid wouldn’t want to help out some of their favorite adults in that way?

Mary, Dickon and Colin.  Sometimes, love triangles happen.  And though the kids in The Secret Garden don’t really get to that part of life where romance really takes off, there is definitely some jealousy going on for Colin and Dickon.  Both fall in love with Mary, for very different reasons.  But perhaps the true romance here is the garden itself and the story behind it.  Sigh.

So, what am I leaving out?  Any other fabulous romances?  And another question: how did these stories shape your own childish thoughts about romance?

When I was a kid, reading through Montgomery, I had this idea that true romance took years to develop.  Seriously, how long did it take Anne and Gilbert to finally get together?  And then there’s the story of Leslie Moore–talk about depressing.  And all the other minor characters throughout her novels and short stories–people that had to wait 10, 20 years to be with the one they loved.  Yikes! 

Or what about the unfortunate idea that the man you’re really meant for will marry your sister?  I am still not over the whole Jo/Laurie/Amy thing.  Luckily, I had no sisters.

So while there are some great models, there are some truly frightening romantic scenarios in kidlit.  Perhaps I should blame my childhood reading on my very practical attitude towards romance.  Even as I continue to believe that my Joe is out there somewhere. . .

When I was young, I first desperately wanted curly hair.  Little did I realize how fabulous my straight glossy hair was–and I was even less aware that once I hit puberty, that straight hair would vanish.  So, I got a very classic 1980s perm in 4th grade.  Pierced ears were next.  Mom thought this was crazy talk–she doesn’t like needles, so the idea of having one pierce your ear just for fun?  Yep, not on her list of things to do.  But she relented, with the caveat that I could not have any earrings that dangled.  One birthday, my friend Jennifer gave me dangly earrings.  I begged and begged for mom to let me wear them–because then I would be fashionable and stylish.  Eventually, she did.  I still have those earrings.  They really aren’t terribly dangly–maybe an inch long.

But what I seriously pined for was contacts.  I was one of those lucky kids who got glasses in 3rd grade.  And remember, this was in the mid-1908s–not exactly a decade known for good glasses.  Once I hit junior high, I would sometimes just take off my glasses and look in the mirror.  Without those silly glasses, I was almost pretty.  Maybe I would finally have a boyfriend.  And be pretty.  And be grown up.  My 8th grade graduation present was contacts, and I wore them for the first time on the last day of school.  Some people barely recognized me.  I felt vindicated in my longing for contacts.  And I knew high school would be better.  It was, but not because of the contacts.

Looking back, we refer to those years as my ugly duckling years.  Not sure that I’m all that swanlike now, but things are definitely better.  If I was truly a bare-your-soul blogger, I would post one of those truly bad pictures from those years.  But I’m not going to do that.  Because this is a blog that is about books and history.

So about those books and history–or at least history other than my own.  As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve recently fallen in love with the Melendy family.  In The Saturdays, set in the 1940s, one of my very favorite chapters was about Mona’s Saturday.  She does what I think every other awkward, teenage girl has longed to do–she went out on her own and did what she thought was necessary to be pretty.  And grown up.  She knows exactly what she’s doing:

“After all, nobody ever asked me not to,” she told herself.  “I never promised I wouldn’t.”  But all the time she knew that she was quibbling; the corner of her mind that never let itself be fooled was well aware that neither Father nor Cuffy would approve of what she was about to do.

So, she goes into the beauty shop and for $1.50, she takes an important step toward becoming grown up.  She has her hair cut and her nails manicured.  She loves the way she looks.  But she also knows that when she gets home, her family may not feel the same way.

Rush said, “Jeepers!  You look just like everybody.  Any of those dumb high school girls that walk along the street screaming and laughing and bumping into people.  Why couldn’t you have waited a while?”

“What in heaven’s name has got into you, Mona?” inquired Father, red faced from choking.  “I never thought you were silly or vain.  When you’re eighteen years old if you want to go in for that sort of thing it will be all right, I suppose.  But not now.  There’s no way we can bring your braids back, but at least we don’t have to put up with those talons.”

And so Mona eventually gets the red nailpolish off and is properly chastised for growing up too fast.  But though I had never done a similiar thing, I understood her motivations so well.  And I began to think about previous kidlit history heroines and their own steps towards trying to be pretty and grown up.

Anne Shirley, set in the late 1800s, longs for puffed sleeves.  But there are other mile-markers on the road to being grown up.  On Anne’s 13th birthday, she and Diana discuss how close they are to being grown up–Anne is convinced “that in two more years I’ll be really grown up.”  Diana declares:

“In four more years we’ll be able to put our hair up,” said Diana.  “Alice Bell is only sixteen and she is wearing her hair up, but I think that’s ridiculous.  I shall wait until I’m seventeen.”

Fast forward, twenty years or so, and you meet Betsy Ray.  When Betsy is 13, Anna comes to live with the family.  And Anna brings two very magical things into Betsy’s life: Magic Wavers and freckle cream.  Both quickly become an integral part of her new beauty routine. 

After supper, Betsy telephone Tacy and Winona for prolonged conversations, then went upstairs to wind her hair on Magic Waers, take a warm bath some of Julia’s bath salts in it, and rub the new freckle cream into her face.  Wrapped in a kimono she sat down to manicure her nails.

But Betsy still doesn’t feel like she’s pretty.

“Oh, Tacy!” she said in a lowered voice.  “I wish I was prettier.”

“Why, Betsy, you’re plenty pretty enough.  You’re better than pretty.”

“I don’t want to be better than pretty.  I’m tired of being better than pretty.  Sweet looking!  Interesting looking!  Pooh for that!  I want to be plain pretty like you are.”

These girls, generations apart, are all struggling to be 13–right on the edge of being grown up, but not there yet.  Feeling not yet comfortable in their own skin, and definitely not pretty.  And everyone wants to grow up faster–to get through those awkwards years and on to the glamorous future.  And I think these struggles are a very large part of why these books remain popular today.  Who hasn’t been snarky about another girl’s fashion choices?  Who hasn’t wished they weren’t just one step closer to being grown up?  And though the standards of beauty have changed–from rogue being unheard of in Anne’s time, to only on one woman in town (Miss Mix) in Betsy’s time, to being something expected when you’re grown up in Mona’s time, the emotions and the feelings are the same.   A 13 year old girl just wants to be pretty.  And grown up.

ETA: Last night, after posting this, I was lying in bed, trying to sleep and realized that I had forgotten one of the best, funniest incidents of a teen girl struggling to be pretty: Anne dying her hair green!  How could I forget this?  I blame the cold.  At any rate, one of the recurring themes in Anne is her hatred of her red hair.  But when the peddler’s potion turns it green, it is one of the funnier moments in the books. 

“Dyed it!  Dyed your hair!  Anne Shirley, didn’t you know it was a wicked thing to do?”

“Yes, I knew it was a lilttle wicked,” admitted Anne.  “But I thought it was worth while to be a little wicked to get rid of red hair.  I counted thecost, Marilla.  Besides, I meant to be extra good in other ways to make up for it.”

The things we’ll all do, in those desperate attempts to be beautiful.  And yet, one of the signs of Anne growing up, besides talking a bit less, is that she comes to accept her hair.  It deepens a bit as she enters adulthood and becomes a “lovely shade of auburn.” I suppose patience is a virtue (I certainly got my curly hair), but boy, it certainly is hard to wait.

“We must let the New Year in,” he said.

Outside was a fine blue night.  A sparkling ribbon of moonlight garlanded in the gulf.  Inside the bar the harbor shone like a pavement of pearl.  They stood before the door and waited–Captain Jim with his ripe, full experience, Marshall Elliott in his vigorous but empty middle life, Gilbert and Anne with their precious memories and exquisite hopes, Leslie with her record of starved years and her hopeless future.  The clock on the little shelf above the fireplace struck twelve.

“Welcome, New Year,” said Captain Jim, bowing low as the last stroke died away.  “I wish you all the best year of your lives.  I reckon that whatever the New Year brings us will be the best the Great Captain has for us–and somehow of other we’ll all make port in a good harbor.”  —”New Year’s Eve at the Light,” Anne’s House of Dreams, L. M. Montgomery

I have long loved this image of New Year’s Eve and have even been known to open the door at midnight.  It has all the qualities in a New Year’s Party that I look for–good friends, laughter and stories.  No fancy parties for me!

Here’s to a 2010 filled with lots of good books and good history.

I have finally starting digging out of my financial hole, so I’m thinking there might be mattress shopping this weekend.  As I was plotting out where to go, budget, and what to do about bedding (my comforter from college currently resides on the bed–and it’s not terrible, but it’s no longer me), I had a kidlit flash: Anne being told that she could sleep in a spare room. 

I’m sure you all remember the scene (and if you don’t, then you need to read Anne of Green Gables.  Go do it right now–I’ll still be here when you get back).  Anne is invited to attend a concert with Diana and spend the night.  As Anne is desperately trying to persuade Marilla she says: There’s just one more thing, Marilla. . . Mrs. Barry told Diana that we might sleep in the spare-room bed.  Think of the honour of your little Anne being put in the spare room bed.  This was a very big deal.

And then, a classic Anne scrape (where it’s not really her fault, but really, could it have happened to anyone else?):  The two white-clad figures flew down the long room, through the spare-room door, and bounded on the bed at the same moment.  And then–something–moved beneath them, there was a gasp and a cry–and somebody said in muffled accents:

‘Mericful goodness!’

Anne and Diana were never able to tell just how they got off that bed and out of the room.

It is Aunt Josephine, a rich aunt, who has quite a temper.  Later, Anne apologizes in a way only she can, concluding with: And then we couldn’t sleep in the spare room after being promised.  I suppose you are used to sleeping in spare rooms.  But just imagine what you would feel like if you were a little orphan girl who had never had such an honor.  Anne and Aunt Josephine discover they are kindred spirits, and Aunt Josephine promises Anne: when you come to town you’re to visit me and I’ll put you in my very sparest spare-room bed to sleep.

When I first read this as a kid, the magic of the spare room really made an impression on me.  I had grown up in a house with a spare room.  Usually, when we traveled somewhere as a family, my parents were in a spare room (as the kid, I rarely was!).  A spare room was not unusual at all in my life, but it certainly was to Anne–which I think is part of the reason the scene stuck in my mind (that and the image of them jumping into bed with Aunt Josephine!).

In thinking about the homes we have at the Village, we really only have one house that features a “spare room.”  In one of our log houses, I always talk to kids about the idea that everyone lived in one big room–there were no separate rooms for children.  But there weren’t any separate rooms for guests either!  Even when the family moved on up (we have both their first Texas home–a one room log house and their second–which is much, much larger!), there was no spare room for guests.  Oh, we have a trundle bed underneath one of the beds, but not a whole room. 

Though I am by no means an expert on houses in the 19th century, it seems that spare rooms developed after two things happened.  1.  The frontier was settled, so supplies were more plentiful.  And the cost of construction went down.  2.  People had to be rich enough to be able to afford to have a spare room.  For decades, it was something only the rich could afford–and then, eventually, even the middle class could aspire to a spare room.  I wish I knew, when people were making choices about their houses, what the trends were.  A formal parlor or a spare room?  A dining room?  Some other special room?  What were the priorities?  Thinking of the two houses at the Village that are from around the turn of the century, both have dining rooms, a formal parlor, and a family parlor.  But only one has a spare room–and it’s not even the “richer” family.  But based on one little museum, I hate to make dramatic assumptions.

Anne was an orphan–she was poor and had been working in poor, crowded houses.  At the orphanage, her bed was one of many in a giant room.  So her thrill at being allowed in a spare room makes a lot more sense.  When she first arrives at Green Gables, the spare room is deemed to be too good for her.  Sleeping in a spare room was a sign that she had arrived–she was no longer thought of as an orphan first, but as a friend and honored guest.

And soon, my honored guests will be a bit more comfortable in my spare room.  Now, if I could just figure out what kind of bedding I want. . .

What have been your experiences with spare rooms?  And were they colored at all by Anne’s thrill?