Girls, How I Needed This One After Reading About The Holocaust!!!!

                 
                                     Like I said, darlings, after I had finished with "The Kindly Ones," I knew I had to find lighthearted fare, where everything is pretty and comes out right in the end, or I would be going insane!!!!!!!!  Then I remembered that, a good while back, I had found a used, but readable, paperback copy of a book that had been one of my childhood faves--"Under The Lilacs" by Louisa May Alcott.  Would it hold up, I wonder????  Well, now was the perfect time to find out!!!!

                                     Sweeties, I am telling you, it did!!!!!!!!!  Now, I do not own the edition, pictured above, but wish I did, and will search for it, because it is in keeping with the era in which the story takes place.  Amidst a bucolic New England landscape, where it is always Spring or Summer, and lilacs always bloom, wanders Ben Brown, circus runaway, into the lives of Mrs. Moss, her daughters Bab and Betty, and their neighbors, Miss  Celia, and her brother, Thornton!!!!!!!!   There is a hint of darkness--Ben having been abused by the circus after his father abandoned him, having said father turn out dead, and losing his beloved dog, Sancho!!!!  But, not to worry, dolls; this is, after all, Louisa May Alcott, and while you may weep over the sad parts, by the time you reach the last page, you will be weeping with happiness!!!!  You better believe I was, darlings!!!!

                                     I was so captivated by my adult reading of "Under The Lilacs," I have got to find an edition of it, comparable to the one above, for my book collection.  Then, when I need comfort, or after a heavy set book like "The Kindly Ones," I can read it once more for reassurance.

                                      Girls, if you have never read it, I urge you to. And I cannot believe during the Golden Age of Hollywood--especially the Thirties--when child actors were plentiful, this was not filmed!!!  I mean, "Mrs. Wiggs Of The Cabbage Patch" was!!!!!!!!!   As a Thirties film, "Under The Lilacs" would have soared.  Not so, today!!!!!!!!!!

                                       Everyone, even those who never read it, knows "Little Women."  It is high time "Under The Lilacs" was rediscovered.  It is a forgotten, but unforgettable, classic, loves!!!!!!!!!!!!!