What did Katy do at school?
Be a total drip.
There is little that I hate more in a story is a falsely accused story line, and the fact that young Katy — newly arrived at a far away boarding school, in company with her sister Clover, the both of them as prissy as all hell — should have been severely punished for writing a note to a boy (which she emphatically did not), and, moreover, that she did not allow herself to be vindicated when the true culprit was at last revealed, just made me furious.
I know it was supposed to be a lesson about being understanding of others’ foibles, of general forgiveness of those that trespass against us, and that even schoolmistresses are human too. Katy’s determination (after her first, satisfying fury; if only she had maintained it) to “live it down,” to prove to all and sundry that she was such a paragon of all the virtues that she could never have done such a brazen thing (and she really couldn’t), is no doubt supposed to be all noble and inspiring.
Maybe, had a read this book s a youngster, it would have been. Reading, especially early reading, can do much to shape our characters, and maybe had I read this then, I would be an entirely different person than I am now.
This being the case, I’m very glad I didn’t read it then.
Because the person I am now would, like Katy, be a total drip.
SCORECARD
TBR DAY 273: What Katy Did at School (Carr Family #2) by Susan Coolidge
GENRE: Children’s Fiction
PUBLISHED: 1873
TIME ON THE TBR: ~10 years.
PURCHASED FROM: Op shop.
KEEP: Yes.