A Book You Can Buy From Me
Book Title: The Rocky Summer
Author: Lee Kingman
Date: 1948
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: none
Length: 211 pages
Illustrations: woodcut-style black and white pictures by Barbara Cooney
Quote: "This morning we need a water boy at the quarry where your father works. The boy who usually does that isn't coming. Want to try it?"
In 1905 there weren't many restrictions on child labor. While this allowed some appalling abuses of child laborers in factories, it also made it that easy for a twelve-year-old to get an exciting summer job.
However, it takes more than a summer job to make a novel...and The Rocky Summer sounds like a condensed version of the highlights of several summers. Mikko and Helmi (children of Finnish immigrants) catch a thief, persuade their parents to keep the horse they love, and help their father talk himself into a better job.
Beyond its entertainment value, the purpose of this novel is to interest readers anywhere past grade four in an obscure bit of history: the granite quarries on Cape Ann, Massachusetts. You might wonder what a book about the granite quarries in Cape Ann was doing in the children's library in Virginia where I found this old treasure. So far as I can tell, it mostly gathered dust for sixty years. Although the library is about a mile from an old limestone quarry, readers don't seem to think there was much of an historical link.
However, the author and illustrator succeed in bringing the antique clothes, furniture, tools, and methods of work to life.
Recommended to anyone looking for a lively, wholesome adventure story. If it piques some middle school reader's interest in finding out more about where Finland is, why people who lived there came to the United States about a hundred years ago, how to pronounce the characters' names, and so on, all to the good.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment