The Little Colonel

Another novel that I had to read for my Children and Culture class, The Little Colonel was actually pretty fun to read. My mother is very interested in the Civil War so reading a book that is set in the South not too long after the war and dealing in part with its aftermath was more interesting to me sue to the fact that I had background knowledge. 

The plot revolves are The Old Colonel who lost his son Tom and his right arm in the war fighting for the South. In the first chapter a small child and dog sneak into the old Colonel's strawberry garden and starts eating his crop. He soon finds out that this child is his own granddaughter, named Lloyd after him, but called the Little Colonel do to her temperament. Lloyd is the child of his only other child, Elizabeth, who the Old Colonel disowned for marrying a man from the North. You soon find out that Mr. Sherman, the Little Colonel's father lost all of his fortune and went out West to make more money while Elizabeth fell back on her inheritance from her mother, a cottage not far from Locust, the Old Colonel's estate. Through her own stubbornness and child like faith the Little Colonel heals her Grandfather's bitter heart as well as the family as a whole.   

Now in class we talked about the racism issue that surrounds the book. The African Americans are referred to in derogatory terms and speak in a dialect that is very stereotypical. I hate to admit that I really wouldn't have thought about it that closely if I had read the book on its own. I mean I would have seen how racist it is, but thinking about how it would effect children reading it never crossed my mind. Sometimes reading books in class doesn't ruin them completely, but makes you think more closely about the messages they convey whether they are positive. negative, conscious, or unconsciously made. 

For a kids book it isn't so bad, but I don't think it is anything that I would read to my child out of choice. I think a 3.2 out of 5 is what I would rate it. I am always struck about how sophisticated children's books in history. I mean this book wasn't extremely dense, but I could see upper elementary school kids reading it, not the age that I believe it was printed for.