Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Did you read Jean Webster’s Daddy-Long-Legs as a kid?  Because my mother did, and this is what baffles me.  I grew up reading all kinds of old classics from generations past–it was part of life at our house, I thought–and yet I didn’t realize that this existed until a few years ago.  It was published in 1912 (the year my father’s mother was born, I believe) and is still in print in more than one edition, which says a great deal about its lasting appeal.  Daddy-Long-Legs is a light, remarkably fast read, especially since the vast majority of it is made up of letters from the orphaned heroine to her mysterious benefactor, a unknown trustee at her orphanage who offered to pay her way through college.  The ending isn’t terribly difficult to see coming, but that didn’t lessen my enjoyment of it.  If you grew up loving books like An Old-Fashioned Girl, Freckles, and Anne of Green Gables, but somehow missed Webster’s book, this is a situation that should be rectified immediately.

I’m currently waiting for the sequel to come in at the library.