INNOCENCE UNDER THE ELMS

by Louise Dickinson Rich ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

Take a real lazy dazey approach to this, the closest to a McKenney My Sister Eileen low-down on a sisters' childhood. Let the atmosphere of restriction -- with its compensations and Bridgewater, Mass., move in. For the author of We Took To The Woods (and other adult and juvenile books) surveys her geographically narrow but small and friendly world and shows how it enlarges in the paralysis of joy and anguish and in the deviltry of youthfulness as she investigates the days ""when I was a child"" with her sister, Alice Poor and withdrawn and shy in their economic and social privacy; the physical and spiritual transplantings as their editor father moved them from house to house; the stores where credit was good; a bringing up as ""little ladies"" and the averted eyes and heads when knowledge, against which they had been warned, confronted them -- this is only part of the story. For now the dust has settled, and the wounds are healed, there is no rot of self pity here, as the little girls help with getting out the paper, attend school and church, revel in short holidays, and explore their town to the fullest. Here is a recall that will please and delight not only the audience to whom she is familiar but also that which collects period biographies. Should make for sturdy sales.

Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955

Categories: NONFICTION