A comforting story frozen in time
3 stars
This was the third of the Melendy books, in the same country setting of the second one, during World War II. It is a period piece to us today, with the family doing their weekly chores by horse-drawn carriage and grocery purchases subject to rationing. The kids are 90% of the story with a new addition alluded to in the title. This wasn't a baby, which would have been difficult without a mother in the cast, but a local neighbor boy they take in when in one of the two episodes described he finds himself unhoused. The mood of gratitude the boy has for his new home reinforces the cozy, orderly feeling of the books. The rest of the world is far away, intruding only by radio broadcasts and rare long distance telephone calls to Father who spends most of the book away doing Pentagon work. For a week, the …
This was the third of the Melendy books, in the same country setting of the second one, during World War II. It is a period piece to us today, with the family doing their weekly chores by horse-drawn carriage and grocery purchases subject to rationing. The kids are 90% of the story with a new addition alluded to in the title. This wasn't a baby, which would have been difficult without a mother in the cast, but a local neighbor boy they take in when in one of the two episodes described he finds himself unhoused. The mood of gratitude the boy has for his new home reinforces the cozy, orderly feeling of the books. The rest of the world is far away, intruding only by radio broadcasts and rare long distance telephone calls to Father who spends most of the book away doing Pentagon work. For a week, the other adult supervisor, the housekeeper Cuffy, is away to tend to a family matter, so the children are able to live out fantasies of a summer on their own.
The edition I have has an introduction by the author written just after the war about how she came to write about the Melendys. She has a style that borders on sentimentality mixed with gentle humor. The characters spend a lot of time making cute conversation illustrating their various personalities. I wanted to read this book coming off of some harrowing adult fiction, as a light palate cleanser. It would have been easy to re-read it all in one sitting but I don't think it would be as pleasant, like taking too much wartime sugar ration all at once.
These fictional children would be the ones growing up to be the Silent Generation. Raised during trouble times and loyal to an ideal of ordered homogeneous society, accustomed to pinching pennies, I imagine them as being largely skeptical of the changes in the second half of the century. There are no Blacks or immigrants and while there are villains, these are easily identified by the children, and neutralized without much trouble.