"NOBODY'S BUSINESS IS SAFE FROM THAT CHILD!"

Small town romance is an uphill battle (not to mention source of public amusement) for easily-smitten seventeens in the 19 teens, when everyone knew everyone else's business--especially the protagonist's bratty little sister. It isn't enough that a fellow

I am a fan of two-time Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and author Booth Tarkington. The sequence beginning with The Magnificent Andersons is a brilliant view of a transition period in America. A much younger me enjoyed his Penrod stories, preferring them to Tom Sawyer, even if I was too young to r

I know that everything is life or death to a teenager. I know sometimes they are self-absorbed and quite convinced they are right and no one else could possibly know anything. What I didn't care for in this particular teenager, William Sylvanus Baxter, was his overwhelming conviction that he was bet

In which a self-important, lovestruck teenager is soundly (though rarely undeservedly, or cruelly for that matter) humiliated at every turn.

I've never had the patience for most things written before, say, 1972, and over the past few years I've begun to hate that about myself. I happened to read "Se

3.5 stars. This is another one of Tarkington's fluffy humorous confections—very much like Gentle Julia, with its themes of infatuated young suitor and mischievous young relative, except that the primary characters are even sillier, if such a thing is possible. Light on plot, but with plenty of irres

DNF at 100 pages.

Mini-review:
I don't really know enough about what the literary world was like in 1916 to say whether or not it's surprising that this was the bestselling book of the year. However, it's not at all surprising to me that this book has been forgotten relatively quickly. The book is goi