Author: Kate Douglas Wiggin

Publisher:

Published: 2022-01-10

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13:

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm is a children's novel written by Kate Douglas Wiggin, published in 1903. A perpetual favorite and considered a classic of American children's literature, the book also captures a period in American history that is long past, making it a charming bit of time travel for modern readers. The story opens with Rebecca Randall bouncing along in a stagecoach as she travels to live with her Aunt Miranda and Aunt Jane in Riverboro, wearing a starched dress and a straw hat. As the stagecoach bounces, Rebecca finds it difficult to keep her seat and her balance. She has been sent to live with her aunts in the wake of her father's death a few years before, as her mother struggles to take care of her and her six siblings and pay the mortgage on her farm. Rebecca joins the driver, Mr. Cobb, at the front of the coach and strikes up a conversation, revealing that the goal is for her two aunts to educate her so she can assist her mother with supporting the rest of the family. She also knows that her aunts had preferred her older sister Hannah, because of her household skills, but Rebecca's mother kept Hannah for the same reason. Rebecca likes to make up songs and poems and stories; in fact, she made up the name Sunnybrook for her family's farm despite it being a very inaccurate name. When she arrives at her aunts' home, Aunt Miranda is immediately unimpressed with her. Miranda finds her imaginative and dreamy nature to be too much like her father, who struggled to hold employment and who Miranda thinks wasn't good enough for her sister, Rebecca's mother. She announces that she will train Rebecca to be a proper lady and a credit to the Sawyer side of the family. Aunt Jane is much softer and nicer, and is an ally for Rebecca...