What Katy Did. I expect it has its fans and I daresay I'd have loved it if I'd first read it as a child but....

[nkf]

...isn't it mawkish and depressing and horrible? In particular, I hated the way that Katy has to be tamed by invalidism into proper femininity

I loved this book, read it about ten times in childhood. have no memory of it though

tortoiseshell you are right, Clover does meet and marry a rancher in Colorado... but still seems to spend a significant amount of time 'making the house nice' and wearing ruffled ginghams, even in the very last book (In the High Valley).

and Rose In Bloom is the sequel to Eight Cousins, and quite as bad.

Aha. I remember Rose in Bloom. A lot of stuff about a rich girl whose father loses his fortune and the joy to be found in turned dresses.

Oh nkf how very dare you! What Katy did was excellent, blooming excellent I tell you and no-one, absolutely no-one can convince me otherwise. I spend a lot of happy hours engrossed in the Katy books as a child, in fact it was them that made me love books so much.

I also loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books too so don't start on them, OK!

off to make a nice wholesome meal and sweep the porch!

Before settling for MrsW I had a what katy name

Okay. Hands up. Don't shoot. This dimity frock will look horrible with bloodstains on.

rests gun down on newly swept porch,

oh About the same time I read these was a programme called Lizzy Dripping, I loved that so much I imagined I could see a witch too!

also loved Kizzy (I recently saw the name Prue on something and instantly hate her! )

I vaguely remember being bored by it as a child.

I hated WKD...just did not like her but LOVED Little Women and and Good Wives, Little Men etc, as there was lots of different characters you could recognise from real life.
Pollyanna used to make me throw but loved Heidi, the Secret Garden and Anne of Green Gables (DH likes the bit where she dyes her hair!).
DD is currently engrossed in "The Naughtiest Girl" stuff. Enid Blyton is still good value and so much better than this early reader rubbish which is banal to the point of coma. DD even criticises the artwork as "babyish" on ORT! Give me Amelia Jane any day!

dd2 has just discovered Naughtiest Girl

Oh Anne of Green Gables

Loved all of those listed by Miggsie except Pollyanna - incredibly sickly sweet and I thought so even as a child.

Anne of GG I really enjoyed and still remember how happy I was when I realised that author had written what seemed like hundreds of books similar-ish books.

I remember crying my eyes out after I finished Anne of Green Gables. I was heartbroken that I had finished reading it. So re-read all my Laura Ingalls Wilder books to feel better

Did you know? Anne of Green Gables is celebrating its centenary this year. So prepare for lots of Anne related stuff.

WKD was my favourite book at one point. I read it again and again. Can't remember anything about it now, other than the picture of a girl on a swing on the front. And I desparately wished my parents had called me Clover, and vowed to name any daughter of mine Clover.

And have you? Or do you not have a dd?

I really wanted to be sent away to school!

Who was sent away to school MrsW

Regarding Anne, I've read them all and still re-read them. Even now when she loses her baby in (I think) Anne's House of Dreams, I've been known to snivel a bit.

sorry I'm back to Katy now!

Well, leave her be. She doesn't like women who carry weapons.

I did!

(that was in response to Tortoise but boy, this thread moves fast ...)

No, dd isn't called Clover.
She is named after another plant in the legume family though, so I wasn't far off!

It took me a fair while to twig that Katy lived in rural America ditto Little Women/Wives. For some reason I assumed all my childhood books were set in England . I was very young when I read it though.

Obviously I never read Uncle Tom's cabin either.