Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

1903, 1931 Houghton Mifflin edition
Kate Douglas Wiggin
Illustrated by Helen Mason Grose
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
Original and purchase price unknown
Hardcover with broken spine and stains
C+


I think I read this only once before and couldn't remember anything about it.  In fact, for the first few chapters I kept mixing it up with Pollyanna.  Rebecca is cheerful, but mostly she's hard-working and talkative.  She's like a proto-Anne-of-Green-Gables, but the Anne books are much more memorable and moving.  I encountered both heroines as an adult reader, so it's not a matter of nostalgia for my early reading days.


Oddly enough, there's a similarity to Claudine in that a man in his 30s falls for Rebecca, although "Mr. Aladdin" doesn't court her.  They meet when she's 12, and the book ends five years later, with Rebecca still naive and innocent, so he never tells her his feelings.  It's vaguely creepy, although handled as tastefully as possible.  The difference between Paris and Maine?


The illustrations are generally good, although there's one of Rebecca holding a neighbor's baby as her aunt cries on her shoulder, and it seems both physically awkward and emotionally flat.  It's a nice edition, but it's over 80 years old and in too poor condition for me to keep.  I doubt I'll be replacing it, since the content isn't remarkable.