Katie Kittenheart – Summer of Vintage Kidlit Week #4

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 fourth week’s theme was Everyday Adventures, and for this theme I chose to read Katie Kittenheart by Miriam E. Mason. It’s from 1957, and my copy is a somewhat battered Scholastic paperback. (Really, is there anything much more fun than old Scholastic books? I have found so many wonderful stories in those editions.)

Katie Kittenheart is the story of 10-year-old Katie Kattenhart, who is often informed that her kindhearted nature ends up causing problems (such as when she wants to adopt a homeless kitten that the housekeeper most definitely does not want). But over the course of the book, Katie realizes that her tenderness is a blessing, and others in her life come to realize this too. I like the fact that Katie loves helping people, and that’s what she most wants to do when she grows up–she would like to be a teacher or a nurse. 

This book was contemporary to the 1950s and features a very endearing heroine, which was delightful. I hadn’t read this book since I was ten years old. It’s a very quiet and gentle story, which I appreciate—I just might have preferred (both then and now) a bit more happening in the plot. 🙂 

As far as “everyday adventures” go, this book fit the bill perfectly. Even when more unusual things happen to Katie (and they do!), they fit within the very ordinary framework of the setting.

I’d been hoping to re-read this for a while now, and I’m glad I did!

What did you read for the Vintage Kidlit Summer this week? Let me know in the comments!