Magic Elizabeth – Vintage Kidlit Summer Week #10
My friend Faith Elizabeth Hough (who blogs HERE) and I decided to create a fun reading challenge called Vintage Kidlit Summer. If you missed any of the details on how this challenge works, just go here and you can catch up! Basically, we’re doing 12 categories over 12 weeks, and each week has its own theme. All you have to do is choose a vintage/classic book that fits that week’s theme, read it, and share about it! You can write about it on your blog, or you can post your thoughts on Instagram (or Twitter) as well, by using the hashtag #vintagekidlitsummer. And if you’re in need of recommendations for each week’s theme, check out this blog post!
Our tenth week’s theme was Adventures of Longer Ago, and for this theme I got a little creative and chose to re-read Magic Elizabeth by Norma Kassirer. I hadn’t read it since the first time I discovered this story in 2018, and I was in the mood to read it this past week. It’s a bit of a time-travel story, where our heroine gets to experience the adventures lived by another little girl in 1899.
Magic Elizabeth opens with a great atmospheric scene where Sally is sent to stay with her great-aunt until her parents can return from a business trip. It’s pouring rain, and Sally isn’t at all sure about going to stay in the grand old house. But she is soon fascinated by a picture of a girl who used to live in the house back at the turn of the century, and most of all, she’s interested in the lovely doll that the girl used to have. She soon learns that the doll went missing back in 1899 and sets out to try to find her. But then the strangest things begin to happen …
It’s a wonderful, gentle story for those who like time travel stories but want something non-scary. The best part of all is how Sally overcomes her initial fears of the house and grows to care about her aunt, who seems gruff at first but soon grows interested in Sally’s adventure.
(P.S. The illustrations by Joe Krush are an added bonus!)
What did you read for the Vintage Kidlit Summer this week? Let me know in the comments!
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I chose “The Cabin Faces West” by Jean Fritz Ann Hamilton and her family move from Gettysburgh out west to Pennsylvania. Ann is unhappy. She misses her best friend and the old way of life.One day George Washington stops through and has dinner with the Hamiltons. Ann is also happy about Arthur Scott he is building a home on the other side of the mountain. Ann is now happier and looking forward to Margaret her best friend is coming for a visit in the Spring.
Marilyn
The “Cabin Faces West” is my pick for the week. It is about the Hamilton family with the daughter Ann the main character. Ann can not adjust to being in the wilderness of Pennsylvania. She misses her best friend Margaret her cousin. Things improve when Arthur Scott arrives in the territory and will put a claim in and make his life there. Eventually Ann weds Arthur Scott.
Marion
Magic Elizabeth is one of the books from my grade school library I checked out often. The librarian got exasperated if I kept books out for more than two weeks but I sometimes felt they were my books and I was lending them to her!