I usually don’t buy children’s books, even ones like these with the most wonderful covers. But these appeared in the bins at the Goodwill Clearance Center and I just had to give them a good home. And there was another one with girl tennis players, already resting comfortably in the cart of another shopper. Oh, well, I do realize that I can’t, and shouldn’t, buy it all.
As a former teacher of reading, I’ve read a lot of children’s books. Some are very, very good, but unfortunately, many are very, very bad. In the early days of the 20th century, book titles for kids were being churned out by the hundreds. Most were preachy with predictable characters and storylines. I have not read Girls of the True Blue, but it was written by Elizabeth Thomasina Meade Smith, or L.T. Meade, who published over 300 of this type book, and also was the editor of a magazine for girls.
I am in the process of reading The Motor Maids’ School Days, by Katherine Stokes, published in 1911. This book was one of a series of books about the Maids, who eventually go to Europe and Japan in search of adventure. In the first three chapters I’ve encountered several fatherless and penniless girls, the rich mean girl snobs who torment them, and two mysterious encounters with mysterious strangers. I’m guess the poor girls end up with the reward for the jewels, but perhaps I’ve revealed too much!
I’ll confess: I’m not reading these merely for literary pleasure, but for how the author described the clothes. Things like:
“I think she’s over-dressed,” put in Billie. “I should feel utterly foolish with all that finery and jewelry on me. When papa and I used to buy my clothes, he would say: ‘Suppose we stick to plain white, daughter, and skip the furbelows. We can’t go very far wrong if we do that, and if my little daughter begins to put on ruffles and puffles and falala without anybody’s advice but mine, I’m afraid she might be taken for a walking fashion plate and some one will try to stand her up in a shop window.”
Who could resist?
The Vintage Traveler 
Falala. I love that word!
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Furbelows, ruffles, puffles and falala – sounds like perfect kitty names!
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What great finds! I absolutely read old books for the descriptions of fashion. I’ve been watching old 1930s movies recently just to feast on the vintage clothes and jewelry. The story is just incidental!
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Love this! I read a lot of old fiction and always keep an eye out for descriptions of clothes, hair, make-up and style in general. It’s a lot of fun and says quite a bit about what was worn and the social norms around it, I find. The best thing is when authors describe not just the clothes themselves but also what conclusions they or the character speaking draw from them, like your example above, and practical details like the cost of things. There are fascinating details about the price of a Schiaparelli jacket contrasted with the price of low-quality, inexpensive silk stockings in one of Nancy Mitford’s novels, for instance, and I kind of love how judgy Agatha Christie was about bleached hair, visible make-up and a lot of other things.
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