skygiants | (no subject)

Anne Lindbergh is one of those children's authors that nobody but me seems to remember, but her Three Lives to Live was wildly formative on me and seems to be quite rare these days, so I've picked up the habit of looking for her books any time I go into a used bookstore to see if I can build up a collection.

So far this has yielded me: one! The Worry Week, which I did not in fact read as a child but was quite pleased to experience for the first time last month -- it's a low-stakes survival story about a kid who convinces her siblings to go in on an elaborate plan to stay on at their summer cabin in Maine when their parents are called home for an emergency instead of getting sent to stay with their mean aunt.

It's quite a reasonable plan until the kids get back to the cabin and discover that their parents already told their neighbors to take all the perishable food out of the house, so instead of spending the week relaxing they instead spend it foraging, bickering, and hiding from the neighbors. There is also a little bit of a buried-treasure hunt, but the treasure is really not a driver and the main action is still mostly around the kids making sure that they actually have something to eat every day. It's not nearly as weird as most of the Lindberghs that imprinted themselves on my brain when I was small, but it's a very pleasant little read for people who enjoy Kids Living Off the Land and/or Atmospheric Maine Cottages.

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From:

conuly

From:

skygiants

I will definitely keep an eye out for it! That's not one of the ones my library had when I was a kid, either.

From:

snickfic

I loved that exact genre of book as a kid, but never encountered Lindbergh. This one sounds delightful.

(I did wonder if I'd read a book of Lindbergh's letters, but no, it turns out she and her mother were both named Anne.)

From:

jazzfish

(I did wonder if I'd read a book of Lindbergh's letters, but no, it turns out she and her mother were both named Anne.)

... which neatly answers my question, "the author of Gift From The Sea wrote childrens' books?!?"

From:

skygiants

It was a great shock to me to realize that Anne Lindbergh who wrote the weird children's books was in fact the daughter of THE Lindberghs, sister of Famous Missing Baby, etc. ... the kids in Three Lives to Live had laptops! History is so short!

From:

ethelmay

And four other full siblings, plus seven half-sibs from her father's three other families. Edited to add that my library has The Worry Week (no other AL juniors, alas), so I shall check it out!

Edited Date: 2023-07-18 01:15 am (UTC)

From:

landofnowhere

The Shadow on the Dial made a big impression on me when I was a kid! But I don't think I've read any of her other stuff. (Though I have a vague memory of having seen Travel Far, Pay No Fare somewhere, maybe my sister had it?)

From:

skygiants

Travel Far, Pay No Fare is another all-timer for me, "we're using our portal fantasy powers to rescue Famously Dead Children's Book Animals" is just such a perfect transmigration meta narrative!

From:

landofnowhere

It looks like a lot of Anne Lindbergh is on OpenLibrary, I used it to checkout and reread The Shadow on the Dial, which is still (mostly) charming, but not as cracktastic as some of these others sound!

From:

osprey_archer

That sounds delightful! I do love books about Kids Living Off the Land, as well as Atmospheric Cottages. Not sure I've ever read about a Maine Cottage specifically, but it sounds like a worthy subgenre!

From:

skygiants

I did think you'd find it charming, if Beth's finished it by the time you're here I would gladly pass it along!

From:

osprey_archer

Yesss, I will trade you Anne McAffrey's Dinosaur Planet for it! And almost certainly get the better end of the bargain.

From:

rachelmanija

it's a very pleasant little read for people who enjoy Kids Living Off the Land and/or Atmospheric Maine Cottages.

Me! Me!

From:

skygiants

You were ABSOLUTELY one of the people I thought of first when I was reading it!

From:

antisoppist

If people are looking for more self-sufficient children stories, The Children Who Lived in a Barn by Eleanor Graham is an English version where parents have to suddenly go away and don't come back and the children end up living in a barn and fending off local do-gooders. I love it for the chapter in which oldest girl Sue goes on strike over having all the domestic responsibility and the bizarre explanation for the parents vanishing.

From:

skygiants

Oh, fascinating, I will keep this in mind! 'I suddenly have all the domestic responsibility and it sucks' is definitely a major theme in this one as well, although here it's the middle child who's the Responsible One (the oldest is busy dreamily reciting Shakespeare)

From:

chestnut_pod

I used to love absolutely nothing better than Kids Living Off the Land books.

From:

skygiants

I never particularly liked a Solo Kid Living Off the Land -- not particularly a Hatchet or a My Side of the Mountain person -- but as soon as there were two or more youths collaborating and bickering about it I was instantly on board.

From:

nnozomi

Slightly off topic sorry: another "kids make do on their own in a cabin" is Jean Little's Stand in the Wind, which I haven't thought of in years. I think it would stand up to rereading, though.

From:

skygiants

I'm not familiar with that one, either -- I'll keep an eye out for it! (Not at all off topic, I love that this post is incidentally becoming a Kids In Cabins rec board.)

From:

ethelmay

All I remember about that book is the bit that explains the title.

From:

jothra

How the hell have I never heard of this

From:

skygiants

GREAT QUESTION! it a.) does seem like something you should read and b.) did make me even more excited about going back up to yours ....

From:

vcmw

I have a feeling that Travel Far, Pay No Fare was used as the theme book for a summer reading program one year in Vermont and that is why I read it, but I cannot verify this searching now.

From:

skygiants

It's a great choice tbh! Travel Far, Pay No Fare is one of my favorites (and a great tongue-in-cheek take on some of the other Classics that they do in summer reading ...)