I’m astonished, now, at how much of the book is focused on Laura being dissatisfied with her looks and struggling to be stylish. In many ways it’s straight-up YA, though it was published so long ago. I wish it wasn't like this: but the book was published in 1941 and is set in 1882, so we're stuck with it.Īnd for a long time, as a child, this book was my favorite of the series. I don’t think this excuses what’s going on here, but I do think it shows that A) what you read doesn’t necessarily damage you for life, and B) children are very good at blocking out the things they don’t get. They might as well have been Morris dancers or chimney sweeps. I neither knew nor would have understood what they were supposed to be. Clearly they were men making music and singing, their faces disguised with black polish. As a child, living in Jamaica, sharing homes with Jamaican families and running in a pack with Jamaican kids, I actually didn’t know what the “darkies” of this chapter were supposed to be.
The minstrel show in the chapter “The Madcap Days” appals me as an adult. I kind of don’t know how to deal with the casual racism in these books.
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