Little Prudy

A cute little story for children. I can imagine it being a bedtime story in some Victorian home. It is full of the misunderstandings, bits of mischief and complicated imaginings of a little girl with older sister and cousins. I came from a large family able to freely roam growing up in Maine as these children do. I am sure our adventures would also make for interesting reading! I expect there are a very many bits of adventures and events recorded here that happened to children closely known by the author. But also like little morality tales...”when you get up to this mischief, this might happen or might be how it affects those around you.” And even lessons for the teenage Auntie (reading the story to children?) who doesn’t give allowances for little ones. But it is real, too, children who become very poorly ill, and threat of death that always hung over illnesses in those days. We might avoid such topics in a children’s story, but then we have much more of a certainty that our medical people can make someone well. So, the book opens a way for parents, grandparents, aunties to help children process death. I liked the readers for this. Though they didn’t have Maine accents, it made you realise it could have been about any little ones living in a country environment.