Book Review: 51 Sycamore Lane

A Fair Trade Book (finally!)

Title: 51 Sycamore Lane

Author: Marjorie Weinman Sharmat

Date: 1971

Publisher: Macmillan

ISBN: none

Length: 122 pages

Illustrations: drawings by Lisl Weil

Quote: “The ladies in the club were like a mixture of pizza and whipped cream and French fries and taffy. Separately they were fine, but when they got together they were awful. Except for Stella Verndale who was awful all by herself.”

Paul, Quentin, and the anonymous narrator of this first-person story are middle school boys. The story is short and easy enough to challenge third grade students, funny and sassy enough to amuse adults.

When Mrs. Richardson moves in to 51 Sycamore Lane, the boys think they may have “A Spy in the Neighborhood.” Mrs. Richardson isn't like the ladies in the club. She gets mail from overseas, in a strange language, and she keeps a pet hen called Miss America. The boys are interested enough to try “investigating” or spying on this possible spy. Stella Verndale objects to the free-range hen living in their suburban neighborhood. Mutual distaste for Ms. Verndale (“Ms.” is not yet in general use; the woman signs herself “Stella Verndale,” and the boys privately call her “Stella” as a show of disrespect) motivates the boys to bond with Mrs. Richardson and her hen.

It's a delightful story for anyone who keeps pet chickens, or would like to, although as a child I remember feeling disappointed that the hen herself is only a minor character. The drawings aren't lifelike enough to specify a breed identity; Miss America appears to be mostly White Leghorn, a breed systematically bred for lack of survival intelligence and unlikely to contribute much to a story, although a single White Leghorn hen will normally contribute all the eggs that a single human needs to eat for two or three years. Brown Leghorns, and the other egg-producing breeds like Andalusians and Anconas, have more personality. As a middle school chicken fancier, I accepted Miss America as a typical White Leghorn and wished she'd been a more interesting type of bird. My hens answered to names and did stupid pet tricks.

Anyway, 51 Sycamore Lane affirms the value of respect for others, non-interference, and keeping a good healthy distance from others rather than trying to control their personal choices. It made Marjorie Weinman Sharmat's career and led to her Maggie Marmelstein, Nate the Great, and other comedies for young readers:

For me, and this may be because I discovered them at the right formative age, Sharmat's Maggie Marmelstein trilogy was her all-time best. Plenty of people feel differently...and you're free to order any and all of this writer's vintage books from this web site, $5 per book, $5 per package, $1 per online payment, a price at which (depending on your picks) you could probably order ten or twelve books for only the one $5 shipping charge. Then you'd know which of her books you think are the truest, funniest, or just all-round best. The fact that several of these books have been reprinted is a hint--an accurate one. Fair Trade Books include any book by a living writer that's been out long enough to be easy to find cheap on Amazon; when we mail out a Fair Trade Book we mail out a payment to the writer or a charity of his or her choice. If you ordered 51 Sycamore Lane, all three Maggie Marmelstein books, two Nate the Great books (out of a series of 26), and two of the Laurel-Leaf teen romances, just to determine which type of children's book this author did best, you'd send this web site $45 (U.S. postal money order) or $46 (Paypal), and we'd send $8 to Sharmat or her charity.

51 Sycamore Lane seems particularly timely-all-over-again with so many people rediscovering chickens as outdoor pets...or even in view of the way the HSUS #WarOnPets has affected some people's relationships with cats and dogs.