Thimble Summer

Thimble Summer, by Elizabeth Enright, is a quiet and very old-fashioned children's story. It was a pleasant read, full of the sensory pleasures of summer on a farm in southern Wisconsin - but the characters never seemed real nor particularly interesting to me. Even the main character, nine year old Garnet, remained distant right up to the end of the book.

There were hundreds of odors in the night air; Garnet raised her nose like a puppy to smell them all. Cabbages decaying richly in gardens made her hold her breath in passing; but the cornfields were wonderful, they had a special smell after dark that you never noticed in the daytime. It didn't smell like corn at all, but strange and spicy like incense in a church (p 33).

I can attest to the fact that corn has a distinctive smell on a hot summer night (though it never reminded me of incense), but I couldn't help but remember that Garnet's family raises pigs in Thimble Summer. You can smell a pig farm from close to a mile away - or more, if it's windy. Forget cabbages. Anyway, that's what I remember when I think about the smell of cornfields in the summer. That and speeding down gravel roads with the wind blowing through the windows and the 8-track player blasting Pink Floyd, but that really dates me.

I know that there's no need to dwell on all of the not-so-wonderful parts of farm life, like pig manure, but despite the fact that Thimble Summer is set (and was written) during the Great Depression, there's not much in the book that isn't overwhelmingly nice.

There are lots of other Newbery winners that celebrate rural life (and A Year Down Yonder and Out of the Dust, which I both loved, are also set in the 1930's), but the other winners - even the mainly upbeat books, like Miracles on Maple Hill and Caddie Woodlawn - have drama and emotion and memorable characters along with their portrayals of farm life. I kept expecting to get more of this in Thimble Summer, but before I knew it, the summer was over and nothing more had materialized.

I did have a good time talking about Depression-era food with my mom, who grew up on a farm then:

The two girls went into the kitchen for something to eat. They found a chocolate cake in the cakebox and some hermits in a crockery jar. That was the wonderful thing about Citronella's house; there was always a cake in the kitchen at the right time. Often there was a dish of vinegar candy, too; and the cooky jar was never quite empty. Probably that was why most of the Hausers were so fat (p. 28).

Cakeboxes! A few people probably still have breadboxes, but I'll bet only antique dealers and people with family heirlooms have still cakeboxes (or pie safes, come to think of it).

If you want a pleasant interlude in a time and a place that is far away from most of our lives, you might enjoy Thimble Summer. Just don't expect much action, depth, or development with your nostalgia.

Thimble Summer

Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright was a delighful book. This is a story about 9 1/2 year old Garnet and her life in a small town in Wisconsin. This book won in 1939 and while I grew up in the 1960s, I felt that the topics were timeless. Garnet, her family, and her friends work hard to keep the farm and enjoy life. I loved that the author provided short chapters which could easily be read aloud. We have assigned the grade level 4-6 to this book although the stories might be a little too "old-fashioned" for today's sixth grader. Unless of course one is raising a prize hog or chasing after hens! There is conflict and redemption for Garnet and her family. But mostly it is just fun!

The best thing about this book is the writing which is very beautiful. The book opens with Garnet thinking how very hot it is. Here is the passage:

It was like being inside of a drum. The sky like a bright skin was stretched tight above the vallet, and the earth too, was tight and hard with heat. Later, when it was dark, there would be a noise of thunder, as though a great hand beat upon the drum; there would be heavy clouds above the hills, and flashes of heat lightening, but no rain. It had been like that for a long time. p. 3-4

Another thing I really liked about this book was the presentation of family values. Citronella, friend to Garnet, has her great grandmother tell stories about the old days. Again we see reference to the Native Americans in Wisconsin...but it is a brief description of sharing between the settlers and the Indians. Garnet's family welcomes a stranger to their home - again sharing what was available. As this book was published right after the Depression, I think the author included these types of stories to point out that suffering might be lessened when shared.

The author, like her mother, was an illustrator before she began writing. The illustrations she created for this book are very nice - some are in color and some are ink drawings. The stories were based on her summer visits to the Wisconsin farm of Frank Lloyd Wright.

One final story - the two girls go to the public library in town and in fact get so absorbed in their books that they get locked in! Here is the description of the library (and unfortunately the librarian):

Finally on the outskirts of town they came to the library, an old-fashioned frame building set back from the road among thick-foliaged maple trees.
Garnet loved the library; it smelled deliciously of old books and was full of stories that she had never read. Miss Pentland, the librarian, was a nice little fat lady who sat behind an enormous desk facing the door. p. 56

I think I have been to that library in a small town in Tennessee! And although I did not find this book when I was 10, I am glad that I found it now. Delightful!