#understood betsy

[e-louise-bates]

Books that take me back to childhood summers

[professorpski]

A dim notion was growing up in her mind that the fact that she had never done a thing was no proof that she couldn't.

Dorothy Canfield, Understood Betsy, 1917. A very important insight for makers and for all other kinds of people, one that has been on my mind as I take on new knitting techniques, and a good way to greet the New Year

This is a sweet and funny book about a little girl who has been made anxious under the fretful care of a nervous aunt and who blossoms into a hardy and confident child under the care of another line of the family. We would call it “grit” today and indeed her cousin pays her the highest compliment she knows when Betsy is resourceful in the face of disaster: “I never heard of a child’s doing a smarter or grittier thing...”  Betsy also learns to sew.

[e-louise-bates]

I never did,' said the little girl, but in a less doubtful tone than she had ever used with that phrase so familiar to her. A dim notion was growing in her mind that the fact that she had never done a thing was no proof that she couldn't.

Understood Betsy, Dorothy Canfield Fisher

[e-louise-bates]

It is possible that what stirred inside her head at that moment was her brain, waking up. She was nine years old, and she was in the third-A grade at school, but that was the first time she had ever had a whole thought of her very own. At home, Aunt Frances had always known exactly what she was doing, and had helped her over the hard places before she even knew they were there; and at school her teachers had been carefully trained to think faster than the scholars. Somebody had always been explaining things to Elizabeth Ann so carefully that she had never found out a single thing for herself before. This was a very small discovery, but it was her own.

Understood Betsy, Dorothy Canfield Fisher

[readingbooksinisrael]

#7coversin7days challenge-No reviews, no explanations, just seven covers of favorite books.

Day Two: Understood Betsy/Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Today I tag @cinnasbooks

[wuxi210361-blog]

best audiobooks for kids : Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher | Kids

Listen to Understood Betsy new releases best audiobooks for kids on your iPhone, iPad, or Android. Get any AUDIO BOOKS by Dorothy Canfield Fisher Kids FREE during your Free Trial

Written By: Dorothy Canfield Fisher Narrated By: Bobbie Frohman Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks Date: February 2014 Duration: 4 hours 51 minutes

[practicalkatie]

A little preachy, but for a book written in 1917, it holds up well. 

[bookbegins]

When this story begins, Elizabeth Ann, who is the heroine of it, was a little girl of nine, who lived with her Great-aunt Harriet in a medium-sized city in a medium-sized State in the middle of this country; and that's all you need to know about the place, for it's not the important thing in the story; and anyhow you know all about it because it was probably very much like the place you live in yourself.