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BY GEORGE, BLOOMERS! by Judith St. George

BY GEORGE, BLOOMERS!

By

Pub Date: Feb. 20th, 1976
Publisher: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan

Coltish, tomboyish Hannah wins the right to wear bloomers after she rescues her brother Jamie from the roof while wearing a makeshift pair she fashions from her tom skirt. One may doubt that female derring-do was always so well rewarded, but it's possible to read another motive between the lines--perhaps Mama, who appears in pink flounces, simply got tired of mending all those torn dresses. Tomes' winning articulate illustrations demonstrate the difference between bloomers and Hannah's shorter skirts and pantaloons (not all that obvious to the blue jean generation) and the chant the local Seneca Falls boys aim at Mrs. Bloomer and her followers (""Twenty tailors to take the stitches/ Plenty of women to wear the britches"") ought to rouse the fighting spirit of readers who might otherwise find Hannah's problem as obsolete as whalebone hoops.