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Customer Review
- Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2017Why you ought to buy this lovely book:
A very valuable book to read to your youngster....so you can explain a lot of things about how the times used to be:
It is really important for you, the reader, to be aware of how strong were moral values that used to be presented in children's books ------ in books for pre-adolescents - and older people, to read.
Perhaps this book is better read at leisure by an adult who does his/her own thinking and has lived long enough to understand what I will refer to as "cultural history of the times." This will enable the reader to cope with the typical snobbery of "owning" servants.....those of the very privileged Upper Class. Let's say it....thank goodness this is no longer typical.
At the turn of the 20th century, there were few magazines, and absolutely no radios, movie theatres, and very limited and few libraries......no TV of course, nor computers.
Mail Order Catalogues were just getting started.
Few people had medical care available. A doctor was respected, but only accessible to the privileged at that time.
This knowledge is needed if you are to enter into this story.
The lessons of life contained in this book - values of ethics, questioning whether to trust someone, taking risks, making decisions.
The reader will benefit by understanding that treatment by a doctor coming to your home did happen, but only as a friend, or to someone with ability to pay and "respectable."
To have a doctor even made aware of a boy in a "lesser station of life" who would never have had such an opportunity of having his life saved, was more than just uncommon. Only in these highly unusual circumstances of a social visit did it happen.
The reader will want to know that the writing was not emotion-fraught but that here was truth (the reader of today might interpret it as bluntness....) in the description of the tragedy of what happened to the boy's beloved companion dog who did not survive attack.
The bravery of that dog.........likewise - these things happened.
Today people might be jaded by the Lassie and Laddie movies and other rescue-type animals. In this story the animal does not survive but dies brutally and tragically. Reality is not minced in words.
Telling things truthfully - this was the only way to absorb values other than to know real people who lived pristine lives and could be used as sterling examples of rectitude and courage.
It shows thinking skills from, of all things, the "relater" of the story - a woman..
While I have bought many things from Amazon, this time I was seeking information on a book I own, that I had bought, used, - many, many years ago, before there was any Internet or any computer- anything at all. My copy came from an antique store for about $5.
I never read it till now at age 79. when I had the time.
Wonderful.
Back when this story was written, it is important to be aware of the established "Class Consciousness" - especially in England. How a person spoke was an instant clue to the "station in life..." and why "My Fair Lady" - ?Pygmallion"? was so gripping a tale as to be made in to a by-now very dated Classic Musical and movie.
If you as the reader, are aware of this, you will prefer to think like the little boy writer who was obviously depicted as self-taught.
The story takes place in what today would appear to be an unrealistic world of fantasy. However, I believe that privileged people did indeed live such lives of boredom, needing to be entertained by others who worked for them.
I wanted to find out about "J. Cole."
My copy was published by Thomas Y. Crowell & Company....86 pages, No copyright date; an illustrated hard cover in color...showing a young boy as a servant with a spray of flowers.
It is a most realistic and touching story. Written in a very compassionate way by the woman author.
Emma Gellibrand wrote this around the turn of the former century. I have been unable to learn anything about her.
I did not stop till I finished it about an hour later. Only 86 pages.....on stiff - almost like cardboard paper.
The only other book of this time period that I still own is called "Through the Little Green Door."
It, like this story, is made of strong philosophical values that used to be very formative to a youth to read.
Hope you will think about this. This book is only for the wonderful people of today who see the value in such writing.
If you loved reading Anne of Green Gables, Harry Potter. - and have enough "life mileage" on you, no matter what your age...you will not ever forget this story.
Nancy M.
