Laddie

This is a coming of age story about a girl, Litter Sister, and her older brother, Laddie. One of Stratton-Porter's best stories telling about integrity and love of the land.

I have read this twice and draw such pleasure from it, I cannot explain. One of my favorites!

Interesting variation on Stratton-Porter's usual romances. Instead of one romance belonging to the viewpoint character, the viewpoint character is a child (maybe 9 at the end of the story?), and romances abound. The family is nice but rather idealized - all the terrible troubles they have evaporate

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very quickly. The religious angle is pushed a bit too hard, but it's not as preachy as some of her books. The wildlife descriptions follow her usual pattern, though she goes to some effort _not_ to describe some of them accurately - again, the viewpoint character is a child, who's familiar with the creatures and plants around her but doesn't necessarily know their proper names. The girl is never named - she's called Little Sister through most of the book, and though she thinks a couple times about her "proper name", it's never actually mentioned. I hadn't realized the story was semi-autobiographical; I did think that Little Sister might grow up to be the Bird Woman of Freckles and the rest of the Limberlost books. She has that kind of focus. The happy ending(s) here is as contrived as the one in Freckles, and somewhat similar - titles and lords and redemption. Enjoyable, but not particularly memorable I think. I'll probably reread, in a few years.

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