Title: Billy Had a System
Author: Marion Holland
Date: 1952
Publisher; Knopf
ISBN: none
Length: 184 pages
Illustrations: drawings by the author
Quote: "There was always a prize, but no matter how good you were, somebody else was likely to come along and be better. But then, there was always a booby prize, too, for the poor dope that was the very worst...Billy just specialized in being that poor dope."
That was Billy's system for winning prizes at those children's parties that were a fad in the early 1950s. In the other eleven of these twelve independently published short stories, Billy and his friend Fats circumvent grownups' attempt to put Fats ona diet, trade Billy's little-kid bicycle for a smaller boy's too-big bicycle, stay with Billy's nervous cousin, go to the county fair, baby-sit, play Santa Claus, find a bee tree, re-home an abandoned pet raccoon, and so on.
With a strong 1950s flavor, here are wholesome, mildly funny stories adults can share with children in grades between two and eight. Let's just say that, when I was a girl of the age for which these stories were written, I didn't like the way publishers pushed stories about boys on the assumption that girls would read stories about boys while boys wouldn't read stories about girls, and I didn't voluntarily read most stories about boys. I did reread Little Men, My Friend Flicka, Henry Huggins, the adventures of Rupert Piper, and Billy Had a System. It's not a book publishers chose to reprint, but it's well above average.
No comments:
Post a Comment