E-books: Katy Complete

Back in junior high I found a double set of Susan Coolidge's What Katy Did books in the library and was in heaven.

If you like Victoriana and Louisa May Alcott, Katy may be for you. Katy Carr (and her sisters and brothers Clover, Elsie, Dorry, Joanna--called Johnnie--and Phil) appear in five books all told.

Katy Carr makes Jo March look like a piker. She is always in trouble, whether tearing her clothes in rough plays, making friends with inappropriate people, or devising new games that get everyone in trouble. Her Aunt Izzie (Mamma Carr is dead; father is a doctor and often out) must handle this wild child as best she can--until Katy disobeys once too often. She takes a forbidden swing ride (the swing is unsafe), falls, and injures her back so badly that she is bedridden for two years. Aunt Izzie and saintly cousin Helen help Katy to conquer her wilfulness in fine Victorian style.

In What Katy Did at School, Katy and Clover go to boarding school in Connecticut at the prodding of their cousin Mrs. Page and her obnoxious daughter Lilly. The person who gets into scrapes in this offering is their schoolmate "Rose Red," who is now more interesting than a tame Katy and placid Clover with her antics. I found many the fun parts in this book to be some of the word/writing games the girls play at their club meetings; they are, like the poems written for Valentine's Day in What Katy Did, quite creative and enjoyable.

When I went out to buy Katy on my own, I also found What Katy Did Next, about Katy's adventures in Europe as a companion for their neighbor, Mrs. Ashe and her little girl, Amy. Katy has many adventures before Amy succumbs to typhoid fever; while nursing the child back to health, Katy is introduced to Mrs. Ashe's brother Ned Worthington, a Naval officer and...well, you can guess what Katy did next!

I knew nothing more about sequels until I found a 4-volume compilation which included a fourth book, Clover. Formerly staid Clover and the youngest Carr child, Phil, are sent out to Colorado for Phil's failing health. While Phil recovers, a lively and self-sufficient Clover attracts men like the real thing attracts bees: Geoff Templestowe, an Englishman who has taken up cattle ranching, and Clarence Page, once insufferable brother to the insufferable Lilly (Lilly hasn't died; Clarence just reformed).

A year or so ago I was surprised to find there was a fifth book in the series, In the High Valley. Alas, there was no magic compilation this time and all copies on Bookfinder.com were in the three figure range. Imagine my delight when I found In the High Valley on an e-book site just recently.

Nothing very exciting happens in Valley, but there are some very humorous sequences where a staid English girl finds out her misconceptions about America and Americans are wildly off-center and Coolidge wraps up all the threads of her story (except for marrying Phil off, but he intimates he is interested in Amy Ashe) with loving marriages for all (the entire family, in fact, except for Dorry and his new wife, end up living in Colorado).

Oh, after five books and several years, we finally also find out what Dorry's real name is: Theodore!

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 12:45:00 PM

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