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Polly Pendleton #1
Polly's First Year at Boarding School
Polly Pendleton is a resourceful, wide-awake American girl who goes to boarding school on the Hudson River some miles from New York. By her pluck and resourcefulness, she soon makes a place for herself and this she holds right through the course. The account of boarding school life is faithful and pleasing and will attract every girl in her teens.
234 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1916
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 21, 2019
1 word, dull.
I was hoping for either daddy long legs or Anne of green gables. I was wrong. If dry and tedeus is your thing them here is the book for you.
I was hoping for either daddy long legs or Anne of green gables. I was wrong. If dry and tedeus is your thing them here is the book for you.
June 14, 2020
This book reads like the second novel in a series instead of the first, due to Whitehill's strange writing. She gives us Polly's backstory of "orphan, strict childhood, rescued by wealthy bachelor uncle" in about two paragraphs; it sounds like it would have been an interesting book if she (or someone else) had bothered to write it, but Whitehill continues killing her books by glossing over the interesting things in order to give page time to chatter, chatter, chatter about nothing. Someone evidently told her that dialogue was more interesting than narration, but she has the girls talk-talk-talk about very little of substance, while mentioning things like a mumps epidemic in one little throwaway phrase.
And about that dialogue: in the Christmas section, she consistently writes the word as "Xmas", even in conversation--an odd thing in 1916 when this book was printed. Did the characters actually pronounce it "Ecksmass?" I doubt that. In keeping with the feeling this book gave me of being second in a series, a certain "Mr Whittington, broker" is stuffed into the narrative at Christmas, as if the reader should already know who he is. We are told very little about him and nothing of where he sprang from. Oddly, in Whitehill's world Thanksgiving is apparently before Halloween, as the girls have a costume party of Women In History to celebrate Thanksgiving and one girl scolds another saying, "Hey I was going to use that costume for Halloween!" as if the Halloween party were still to come. Among the costumes of "Women" in history, we apparently have Agrippa--who by all historical accounts I can find online was a man, but if she thinks November comes before October, I guess anything can happen in her world.
All major page time and detail is given to the sport of girls' basketball; the girls in the freshman class (and yes, Ms Whitehill, it is the FreshmAn class, not the FreshmEn class as you seem to believe) eat, breathe and sleep sport to the exclusion of class work, and the owner and principal of the school looks on with a smile. Whitehill even puts in a character named Flora, whom she mean spiritedly describes as "just another girl at the school" even though she's on the team, and when she leaves due to a death in the family "is soon forgotten." Harsh--sounds like payback on the author's part. Bet's near-death encounter and rescue by the red-haired boy sounded like a promising thread, but it was cut before it had fairly got started.
If you love hearing about basketball games, even though the authoress speaks of baskets as "goals" half the time, you'll like this book. I couldn't in good conscience give it more than 2 stars.
And about that dialogue: in the Christmas section, she consistently writes the word as "Xmas", even in conversation--an odd thing in 1916 when this book was printed. Did the characters actually pronounce it "Ecksmass?" I doubt that. In keeping with the feeling this book gave me of being second in a series, a certain "Mr Whittington, broker" is stuffed into the narrative at Christmas, as if the reader should already know who he is. We are told very little about him and nothing of where he sprang from. Oddly, in Whitehill's world Thanksgiving is apparently before Halloween, as the girls have a costume party of Women In History to celebrate Thanksgiving and one girl scolds another saying, "Hey I was going to use that costume for Halloween!" as if the Halloween party were still to come. Among the costumes of "Women" in history, we apparently have Agrippa--who by all historical accounts I can find online was a man, but if she thinks November comes before October, I guess anything can happen in her world.
All major page time and detail is given to the sport of girls' basketball; the girls in the freshman class (and yes, Ms Whitehill, it is the FreshmAn class, not the FreshmEn class as you seem to believe) eat, breathe and sleep sport to the exclusion of class work, and the owner and principal of the school looks on with a smile. Whitehill even puts in a character named Flora, whom she mean spiritedly describes as "just another girl at the school" even though she's on the team, and when she leaves due to a death in the family "is soon forgotten." Harsh--sounds like payback on the author's part. Bet's near-death encounter and rescue by the red-haired boy sounded like a promising thread, but it was cut before it had fairly got started.
If you love hearing about basketball games, even though the authoress speaks of baskets as "goals" half the time, you'll like this book. I couldn't in good conscience give it more than 2 stars.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
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