Brink, Carol Ryrie. Caddie Woodlawn. New York: Scholastic, Inc. 1973.
Thanks to Phish and a midnight show I was able to read this in one night (my other November books hadn’t arrived yet). While Kisa listened to a live show from California I was nose-in-book for a few hours. This was cute and completely reminded me of the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Caddie Woodlawn is the quasi-true story about Caroline “Caddie” Woodlawn. I say quasi because Brink got her stories from her grandmother and she changed some of the details for the sake of the plot. Caddie is Brink’s grandmother (with a slight name change). As an impetuous, spunky tomboy, Caddie would rather run wild with her two oldest brothers rather than stay home and cook and sew with her more demure sisters. The whole book is about Caddie’s struggle to balance wanting to be a good girl while being a natural wild child.
The year is 1864 and the Civil War is raging to an end in the East while a different prejudice is infiltrating the midwest. The conflict between Native American Indians and the white man who invaded their territory is being fueled by ignorance, rumors and fear. Caddie is eleven years old and coming of age at a time when the country is doing the same thing.
Favorite line, “She whipped out her ruler, and laid it sharply across that section of Obediah’s person on which he was accustomed to sit” (p 68).
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the introduction (p x).
~*LunaSea*~ 