writing backward

Every morning after Mary and Laura had done the dishes, made their bed and swept the floor, they could go out to play. - On the Banks of Plum Creek, Chapter 3, "Rushes and Flags"

I've been doing more reading than writing (or blogging, sorry!) lately; sometimes that's just the way it goes.

A recent good read was Anne Scott MacLeod's American Childhood: Essays on Children's Literature of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. MacLeod locates and describes shifts in the American concept of childhood as those changes are suggested in children's stories. In part, focus is on the idea of work, and that the nineteenth century child knew work as well as play.

I was thrilled to hear about THIS ARTICLE by MacLeod online. Although her book doesn't include the "Little House" series, the article does mention Laura Ingalls Wilder's writing about work which was so central to Mary's and Laura's daily life.
- posted by pioneergirl at 8:00 AM