Free, Joyous Roller Skates

What a relief to read Ruth Sawyer's Roller Skates (the 1937 winner), especially after the sour taste left in my mouth by the last Newbery book I read (Daniel Boone, the 1940 winner). Roller Skates was a gentle book, an unpretentious and interesting look at "the old days" - the 1890's - in New York City. It couldn't be more different from Daniel Boone in almost every way.

Were any of the same people on the Newbery Committee three years later, when Boone won? Did they think that Daniel Boone was a good "boy story" and that Roller Skates was a good story for girls? It's really hard for me to imagine any of the same people selecting these two books for an award.

Anyway, about Roller Skates. Like many of the other historical fiction winners (especially the older ones, like Adam of the Road and The Dark Frigate), I don't think that a lot of kids today would really enjoy this book. I suspect that they would be bored, and the story isn't really exciting enough to keep them going through the descriptions of pongee pinafores, hansom cabs, penwipers, and puppet theatre - though I really enjoyed it a great deal (despite having to Google pongee, which turns out to be a kind of unbleached cloth, and guimp, which is a type of ribbon decoration).*

It's a shame that more kids won't read it, though, because Roller Skates really has a lot to recommend it. The main character, Lucinda, is a strong-willed, energetic, free-thinking girl, who takes to her year of "orphanage" (her parents are in Italy for her mother's health) with more liberal caretakers as a time of "free, joyous vagabondage" (p. 59). She gleefully takes this opportunity to explore outside traditional constraints of gender and social class:

For ten years life for Lucinda had been systematic. At almost any waking hour of it she could have pointed finger at the clock and said: It is time for this or that. Aunt Emily had brought Lucinda's mother up on System, Duty, and Discipline; these were for Aunt Emily the three Rs of living.

...Life beyond the brownstone front, two flights up and beyond, was delightfully higgledy-piggledy as to System; and Duty and Discipline had become pale, thin creatures that no longer cast shadows except on Saturdays - from four o'clock on. Saturday was dedicated to Aunt Emily and sewing. Lucinda buttoned up her fortitude and her best manners, when she buttoned her best pinafore, made of white French lawn, Hamburg edging, and sleeveless. It was a step up in the world above the pongee (p. 47-48).

See what I mean about the possibility of grabbing the interest of your average 5th grade boy? Slim at best. However, if you've got a kid (or an adult) who likes Little Women, you might have better luck getting them engrossed in Lucinda's adventures with an Italian grocer's son, an Irish cab driver, a poor violinist and his family, and her puppet production of The Tempest.

The only part that struck me as a little "off" in Roller Skates was Lucinda's relationship with the "heathen Chinee" wife of a wealthy (and somewhat scary) businessman. Spoilers below the picture (one of the modern reprint covers of Roller Skates - and isn't the original cover above much classier? Does anyone know if these later reprints include Valenti Angelo's lovely line drawings?).


"Princess Zayda", as Lucinda calls her, ends up unexpectedly murdered - Lucinda actually discovers her body. We never find out who killed her (although it was implied that her husband was jealous and possibly abusive), and we never find out if anyone was arrested for her murder. The whole chapter didn't really fit in with the rest of the story, and this loose end (and Lucinda's rather stoic acceptance of it all) bothered me. Plus, the slightly condescending view of other ethnic groups and social classes (not too surprising, given that Roller Skates was written in 1936) is most pronounced in the chapters that mention Mrs. Isaac Grose. Well, and when Lucinda goes on about those cute bambinos that just keep being born. Still, this is a pretty minor part of the book, and something that can be discussed with young readers (just like the same kind of sections in Caddie Woodlawn).

Otherwise, Roller Skates was an enjoyable if rather old-fashioned read, and one I'm glad to have done.

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*I never did figure out what kind of food pettyjohn is - there are too many people with Pettyjohn as a surname to Google it, and I couldn't find it listed in any historic food glossaries or discussions. Whatever it is, Lucinda ate it with toast and cocoa. Please leave a comment if you know what it is!

Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer

“Who wanted to walk through lonely years, right foot, left foot, and never change step---never skip, run or skate?”

That’s Lucinda, an Anne-of-Green-Gables girl, filled with energy and enthusiasm, unexpectedly set loose in the city of New York. Lucinda’s parents head off to Europe for their health and Lucinda is left in the care of two very relaxed school teachers. She travels around New York City, befriending the poor and the lonely, on roller skates.

What a surprise to see a girl of the 1890’s, a society girl raised with all the Victorian rules and regulations stamped upon her, free to make friends with homeless men and battered wives of new immigrants and fruit sellers! I liked this book a lot. I wonder if Lucinda is able to keep her friends and her freedom once her parents have returned and regained control.

1937 Roller Skates Ruth Sawyer

In 1937 this delightful book won the Newbery Medal. When the author Ruth Sawyer received the medal she let her audience into the secret that she herself had known the ten year old Lucinda intimately – ‘Lucinda and I had the same mother’. The acceptance speech is printed at the start of my copy and was a joy to read. Ruth spoke about the ‘urge of freedom for a child’. In this simple story we see Lucinda roller skating around the city learning what it means to ‘belong’, learning about ‘everyday people’ and within the same year learning through experience of the big questions of life and death. Behind the apparent simplicity I could not help but reflect upon the generation of young Lucindas and their experiences as they yearn for such freedom.

Full of imagination Lucinda exclaims ‘I have joined a lucky orphanage’ and is excited at the thought of sleeping in a folding bed. We hear later of how books filled a large portion of her inner world – many then listed will be familiar to us as we see them in the lists of today, like Peter Boxall’s 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. I loved the her joy and love of playing with words!

Ruth Sawyer tells us ‘Nature had succeeded in pumping her full of ideas and energy which ran amuck when not worked off’. Needless to say books inspired her and she, rather like us wanted to share that love. We hear how Lucinda while reading Shakespeare to Tony ‘She noticed with a quickening eye how the imagery caught at Tony’s spirit. He sucked in his breath at this new discovery of beauty in words’. How wonderful is that !

Despite being of a different era I loved the language used and the way in which that love of language is so much to the fore throughout this book! Highly recommended.

Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer

Here is a paragraph about this book that I wrote two years ago as a part of a longer post about children's books.

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I am currently on a tear to finish all the Newbery Award winners. I’m into the older ones now. I just finished a wonderful old one: Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer. Even 70 years ago kids’ authors were tackling some big issues - an unhappy marriage, a murder, bullying, the death of a child, a child’s profane outburst, poverty - all handled with grace and style.

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That tear slowed a bit, but the goal is still there. I've read 50 so far. I highly recommend Roller Skates. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Challenge response: Roller Skates

In response to the July challenge, I'll tell you about Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer. First, I have to say that I have an older copy of the book--a hardback edition from 1949 with incredible illustrations by Valenti Angelo. Second, I've read this book twice now and loved it both times, but especially this time around because of these amazing line drawings.

Roller Skates is the story of Lucinda, a little girl who gets to be an "orphan" in New York City while her family travels to Europe. She barely escapes living with her horrible Aunt Emily who has very definite ideas about how girls should behave and lives instead with Miss Peters and Miss Nettie, two single women who treat Lucinda as very much older than her ten years. Lucinda comes and goes as she pleases--mostly on her roller skates.

The book tells of Lucinda's adventures of meeting wonderful people outside of her normal life--people like Patrolman M'Gonegal, Mr. Gilligan the hansom cab driver and his wife, Trinket the little girl Lucinda "borrows" from upstairs, the Princess Zayda to whom Lucinda teaches English, Tony the boy who manages the fruit stand and his Italian family who lives in a basement--people Lucinda would not normally come into contact with were her family home. Roller Skates is a story of freedom and escaping the rules and regulations of growing up--a story of belonging entirely to yourself and skating where you will.

I do love books that tell of a different time--a time when children were safe to run and roam and explore their worlds. The idea of a girl exploring New York City on skates seems unreal in some ways to me--and, in a way, it was unreal in the time it was written too. And that's the timeless appeal of the story--the freedom of this season in Lucinda's life to be just herself. She realizes its uniqueness too, for at the end of the story she realizes "she'd never belong to herself again," never have another summer of being free and being ten years old.

I loved roller skating as a kid--and think I may need to get out my skates!