Primrose Day

Thoughts before reading: One of my reading challenges for 2014 is to revisit some my favorite remembered books from childhood and young adulthood. My very first favorite book was a picture book about a baby bunny who decides he is tired of carrots and goes around asking the other animals about what they eat. I remember he is quite dismayed by the dog's bone. Eventually he decides it's okay to just be a bunny and goes back home to his very worried mama. I've always thought the title was something like The Naughty Bunny or The Runaway Bunny. But it is NOT The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown nor is it The Naughty Bunny by Richard Scarry. I have searched for this book for 40 years, with no luck. So if it rings a bell with someone, PLEASE let me know. The illustrations were realistic, but cute, kind of like Garth Williams. I used to think it was a Golden Book, but I have searched the entire Golden Book catalog without finding it. It had to have been published before 1960.

Anyway, back to Primrose Day. This was my favorite book in 1st or 2nd grade. I read it over and over. It must have made a big impression. All these years later I have to wonder did my interest in England start with this book or are we drawn to things because of past lives? Or did I identify with Merry because we had moved from New England to Minnesota when I was 5. I'm sure the language differences weren't as great, but there were some. I loved that the British word for truck was lorry, pronounced the same as my name - Laurie. I've always loved learning about other countries and cultures and am still enamored of the British Isles. I love gardening and I have planted primroses in my garden. I do not remember the book cover above - that is a much later edition. I remember it as being orange and probably had the heavy duty "library binding." I requested the original 1942 edition from Interlibrary Loan. It came from the Twin Cities Anderson Library Children's Literature Collection. It is a plain yellow cloth cover and still has the old pocket in the back with the date due card. I have to admit that just thumbing through it and reading a few words here and there brought tears to my eyes. I'll have to read it this weekend, when I can do so in the privacy of my own home!

Thoughts after reading: Still wonderful after all these years. Carolyn Haywood wrote stories about real children doing ordinary things. And even though it was first published in 1942, these are things that children still do today - playing with pets, dealing with homesickness, being teased at school, making presents, going on picnics, going fishing, making friends. I remember the chapter on going to an American school and being teased for using different words for things. And I remember the chapter about Merry's birthday, and learning that primroses don't grow wild in America. Merry would always go and pick primroses with her mother on her birthday and now she can't even pick primroses with her aunt. But never fear - her aunt has a wonderful surprise in store. I did not remember the Scottie dog, although I have always liked Scottie dogs. There were a couple of typos and things that I wouldn't have noticed as a child probably - the cook says she is "pealing" onions. And there is a reference to Mr. Ramsey being a "Scotchman" which made me cringe. I have been doing a bit of "Googling" and decided that Rose Valley must be Rose Valley, PA, which is near Philadelphia (where Carolyn Haywood lived). It is a very small town, but would be within a couple hours train ride of NYC. I'll be expanding this review with a few photos over on my blog, if you want to check it out, at welshbookworm.wordpress.com .

Book Description: Merry Primrose Ramsey lives in England with her parents and her imaginary friend, Molly. At the outbreak of World War II, she is sent to live with her relatives in America, in a small town called Rose Valley. On the way over she meets a real best friend named Molly, who eventually moves to Rose Valley, too. Merry and her American cousin Jerry take to each other immediately and find all kinds of adventures, including rescuing a carrier pigeon and going fishing alone. Merry's new life is not without trials. She misses her parents. She gets teased at school for the way she talks. Her puppy unravels the scarf she has spent weeks knitting for her daddy far away in England. And her birthday just won't be the same without primroses to pick and make into a primrose chain like she always did in England...

Upon re-reading this book as an adult, I found it absolutely sweet and charming. I remember checking this out from the special paperback section of my elementary school library. Every so often, at least a dozen times, I checked this book out, until it mysteriously disappeared from the library. I suppose it is possible that this is the book that launched my fascination with history and the World Wars despite it's light brushing of the facts and the emotions that went with parting from your family. I find it especially interesting, as an adult, that this book was written at the beginning of the British involvement in the war, a story based on a current event, if you will. I don't know whether to shelve this one with my children's book collection or WWII.

I remembered this very fondly from childhood, and just had the opportunity to read it again. It's not particularly funny or captivating. It is however, a chapter book that I'm pretty sure even young readers could handle. As a first grade teacher, it is often hard to find material for children that read above grade level. Often books that are the right level of difficulty are not about things that would interest the little ones, or are not necessarily appropriate for young readers. This book is entirely wholesome, and would make a nice bedtime read aloud for kindergartener or first graders with a good attention span and is completely family-friendly for parents looking for books for first graders who read beyond their years but are not mature beyond their years.

Any books by Haywood are really charming. I read them aloud to my girls.

Even as a small child, I enjoyed stories about evacuation. In this book, Merry comes to America and is teased in school for her strange vocabulary and English accent, although eventually makes friends and settles in.

Jacqueline Winspear is coming out with a new Maisie Dobbs book soon. An element of the plot will be the evacuation of London children to the countryside.

This made me remember a book I loved as a child about a little girl whose name I remembered as Primrose Patty. A bit of research and I found the book! The little girl was Merry Primrose Ramsey and she was sent to the United States to live with relatives.

I read it last night and loved it again. We have lived in St. Andrews, Scotland on two occasions and I remember walking into woods near our house and finding an undercover growth of primroses. So beautiful! It's just not the same when you buy a single primrose in a pot here in the States!

Delightful.

I'm not a big fan of Carolyn Haywood's books--too simplistic for the 8-9 year age group-- but Primrose Day had a little extra interest for me because Merry Primrose is an English girl, evacuated to America during World War II. Some American children tease her at first--especially Bobby--but the arrival of her shipboard friend Molly lends her some support and she is soon an accepted part of the class.