Strawberry Girl (1946)-- Lois Lenski

Strawberry Girl was still pretty popular when I was a kid, but I never read it, as I detested anything involving farms (no high-rise apartments with doormen? Not interested!). Reading the first few sentences, I regarded the southern dialect with great fear and loathing and wondered how I'd ever get through this book. Well, surprise! I actually enjoyed it quite a bit.

Unlike some authors (ahem, Monica Shannon), Lenski is able to present a vivid picture of life on a Florida farm--and work it into an actual plot! There are actually quite a few rather scandalous plot points: a teacher is severely beaten, the neighbor gets drunk and shoots the heads off all his chickens, a donkey is poisoned... of course, religious conversion solves everything in the end. Sigh.

Birdie, the story's heroine, is quite charming, though I think I would have found her really annoying when I was a kid--she's a little too good. I always preferred those flawed protagonists I could relate to (Ramona! Again! I will be bringing her up constantly, as I think she's pretty much the pinnacle of children's literature).