charming insight into the way of life from a previous age
Rebecca, like Eleanor Porter's Pollyanna, suffers from the misconception that she promotes a "happy go lucky, whistling in the dark, rosy tinted glasses" view of life. Nothing could be further from the truth. Set in the state of Maine, probably around the turn of the twentieth century or just before, the book chronicles a young woman's coming of age and ultimate triumph in spite of many trials and tribulations. Rebecca's mother Aurelia had married what most people in Riverboro considered the town ne'er-do-well. The disdain that the couple felt finally forced him to move away to Temperance where he bought a farm and finally died, but not until he had left his wife with seven children.
As the book opens, ten-year-old Rebecca Randall is traveling from Temperance through Maplewood back to Riverboro to stay with her mother's two maiden sisters, Aunt Miranda and Aunt Jane. They had originally asked for her older sister Hannah to help them, but Aurelia needed Hannah's help with the younger children, so she sent Rebecca instead. Miranda is somewhat harsh while Jane is more understanding. Rebecca gets into her share of trouble, usually not intentional and often as a result of her "different" way of looking at things, but she also tries hard to do her best. The sisters scrimp to send her to school and she makes a lot of friends along the way. However, the news from back home is not good as one brother dies, the crops fail, the family cannot come up with money to pay the mortgage, and finally her mother falls while putting up hay in the barn and is seriously injured. So, Rebecca is torn about making plans for her own future, taking care of her failing Aunt Miranda, and now worrying about her mother and siblings. She has to make some hard choices. How can everything turn out all right?
Yes, there is some sadness, especially at the end, but there is also hope because Rebecca always seeks to do what is right. The quaint writing style and vocabulary of a former time may make the reading a little difficult for some children today, and Mrs. Wiggin's sense of humor may be lost on a lot of people, but there is nothing objectionable in the book, and it is a charming insight into the way of life from a previous age. It would probably best be appreciated by girls, but I read it aloud to our son Jeremy (then age 11) and he thought that it was great. As the back cover of my edition notes, "This charming story of the good-natured, but never goody-goody Rebecca has delighted generations of children on both sides of the Atlantic." Mrs. Wiggin did write a sequel, The New Chronicles of Rebecca, in 1907. A distant cousin of Mrs. Wiggin's husband, Eric Wiggin, is a name that is known to some in the homeschool community. A minister, public and private school teacher, and college English professor, he edited the Harvey's Grammars and provided the answer keys for these books republished by Mott Media for their Classic Curriculum that is used by many homeschoolers, and he also wrote a series of six books "Hannah's Island" about a homeschool family who lives in Maine (and uses the McGuffey Readers also republished by Mott Media and used by many homeschoolers today, including us), as well as The Gift of Grandparenting for Focus on the Family, another series of three books "Maggie's World," and a book about Rebecca's further life, Rebecca Returns to Sunnybrook.
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