Reading "What Katy Did" by Susan Coolidge

 Hi there

When I was a child, my mother tried to get me to read the book "What Katy Did".  It was written in 1872 USA, and was considered a classic.  I wanted nothing to do with 'a classic'.  Yuck, if grown-ups thought something was good, it was bound to be awful.

But then, I was sick in bed, with nothing to read so I reached over to my bookcase and picked up "What Katy Did".  It was a story about a motherless well-to-do family, the eldest child being 12 year old Katy.

 I loved the book.  I cried through it, I laughed through it.  Okay, the fourth wall - eg, "and what do you think happened next, dear reader" - is broken hundreds of times in the book,  and it's full of the moral high ground, and a bit of religion thrown in, but, heck, that's how people rolled in those days.  And Katy is such a little imp... until she isn't. 

Katy decides to change her ways and to be good tomorrow ...

"Tomorrow I will begin," thought Katy, as she dropped asleep that night.  How often we all do so!  And what a pity it is that when morning comes and tomorrow is today, we so frequently wake up feeling quite differently, careless or impatient, and not a bit inclined to do the fine things we planned overnight."

And isn't this true?  I'm always going to diet tomorrow.  Or fix something tomorrow.  Or be nice to someone tomorrow.  Tomorrow I vow not to go to the Farmers sale.  Tomorrow, I will weed the garden, volunteer for a charity, visit a family member, change that lightbulb, vacuum my bedroom.. But how often do I complete  these intentions of mine?  When daylight comes, my mind has usually flitted on to something else.

Katy forgot her intention about being good.  She didn't listen to a warning from her Aunt Izzie not to go on the swing, and I was a heartbroken mess for Katy when she had a horrific fall.   Maybe through Katy, there is a lesson to be learned.  To have patience, definitely.  Not be so selfish ... well, I guess I can try. 

But, hey, what's that proverb about the road to hell being paved with good intentions?  My thousands of  good intentions (that are rarely acted upon) must make up half that darn road....

 

Those Classic Books

Hi there

If we attempted to read a Charles Dickens book nowadays, in the way that it was originally printed, we would surely have trouble wading through it. The pages would be full of stuff like, " ...and what do you think happened next, dear reader?"  There has since been a lot of selective editing.

Victorians may have liked to get into an author's thoughts but we, in our era, don't want to be dragged out of a storyline when in our minds we are intensely fighting with the baddie, or dangling by our fingernails from a cliff, or falling just a tad in love with Mr Grey (hehehe).

My fave book when I was about eleven was the classic "What Katy Did" by Susan Coolidge, and published in 1872.  How I laughed over the Carr family's adorable antics, and cried when Katy fell off the swing.  I loved the beautiful verses that she came up with for her siblings on Valentine's Day, and who wouldn't want to have the  lovely and selfless Cousin Helen as their very own relative? 

I read the book again a couple of weeks ago.  Boy-oh-boy, was the author hovering over my shoulder as I progressed through the story.  There were many sentences such as this one:  " ... and the Katy who laid in bed, was a very different-looking Katy from the forlorn girl of the last chapter."    No, it's got nothing to do with sex. Our Katy was an invalid, but - bang! - there I was, immediately thrown out of the book.  Sadly, I can't see modern children touching the book with a ten foot pole.

Still, my recent reading of "What Katy Did" was a great nostalgic outing for me.

***
PS:  The Hataitai Beach sea in June is starting to leave me with a bit of a shiver and shake after a swim.  Brrrr....