{"id":276758,"date":"2025-06-06T08:28:58","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T08:28:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/book-review-thimble-summer-by-elizabeth-enright-1938\/"},"modified":"2025-06-06T08:28:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T08:28:58","slug":"book-review-thimble-summer-by-elizabeth-enright-1938","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=276758","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: \u201cThimble Summer\u201d by Elizabeth Enright (1938)"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\u2b50<\/span>\u2b50<\/span>\u2b50<\/span>\u2b50<\/span>\u2b50<\/span><\/p>\n


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\n<\/span><\/span>Rating: 5 out of 5.<\/span><\/div>\n

Ever since our move overseas, I\u2019ve been a little bummed that my habit of reading aloud to the kids has sort of died away. My kids (12, 13) no longer share a room, and the configuration makes it no longer feasible to read to them both in bed at night\u2014or to wake them up in the morning with a chapter<\/a>, either! It\u2019s sad.<\/p>\n

Even transitioning to homeschool hasn\u2019t made it easier to read aloud to them, because it\u2019s just not the same\u2014daytime in the living room vs. nighttime in bed. They both love to read on their own now, so for that at least, I\u2019m happy.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve discovered a new approach, though, which has been working so far: I get the kids to choose one book each they\u2019d like to read on their own during the week. I then read both books as well\u2014each of us reading at our own pace\u2014and then we take opportunities to discuss it throughout.<\/p>\n

Choosing <\/strong>Thimble Summer<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

My daughter selected the 1939 Newberry winner<\/a>, Thimble Summer, <\/em>from our skimpy shelf of books here. She was drawn to it because of the \u201cmagical thimble\u201d described on the back cover. Alas, the story isn\u2019t a magical fantasy tale, so she was disappointed at first. She enjoyed in the end and had no complaints, other than \u201cthey shouldn\u2019t have said magic.\u201d<\/p>\n

I, on the other hand, enjoyed the book because it wasn\u2019t<\/em> magical. Instead, it\u2019s a down-home comfort story of life in the 1930s. In fact, the main character Garnet was born in Wisconsin in roughly 1929, which is roughly 5 years before my own Wisconsinite grandfather was born. The fact that he died the week I read the book, well\u2014it just made it all the more special for me to read and enjoy, as if Grandpa were Garnet\u2019s younger brother Jay in the story, watching his sister\u2019s events unfold from the sidelines.<\/p>\n

Storyline and Comparison<\/strong><\/p>\n

Garnet\u2019s an active nine-year-old girl trying to make the best of life during a drought. When she finds the silver thimble in a low-water streambed, things start to change for the better, as if the thing were magic (though honestly, we almost never see the thimble again). She gets into scrapes and adventures with her friend Citronella, meets new people like Eric, and experiences the joys of barn raising, harvesting, and the county fair.<\/p>\n

Through all of her little escapades, I couldn\u2019t help but compare Garnet to a real-life Pippi Longstocking<\/a>. Neither as crazy nor as magical as Pippi, Garnet has the same wit and humor and adventurous courage as nine-year-old Pippi. Clearly, these traits add to her appeal, and when mixed with the genuinely joyful look at post-Depression\/pre-War American Midwest, they make this an understandable Newberry win.<\/p>\n

Final Thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was a little surprised by the non-mention of church in the book. Normally books from this era include Sunday rests and church as a natural part of life, but here it\u2019s conspicuously absent. That may or may not be another reason it was considered for the Newberry Medal. The Bronze Bow<\/a><\/em> aside, those winners seem to gravitate toward witches and (more modernly) \u201cwokeism.\u201d Admittedly, that\u2019s a massive oversimplification, but it\u2019s one reason I haven\u2019t read too many Newberry winners<\/a>!<\/p>\n

I really enjoyed this book, and I\u2019m glad my daughter selected it. My son chose Sweet and Sour<\/em>, a collection of short stories from China, so now I\u2019m off to see how that one reads.<\/p>\n

\u00a92025 E.T.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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My kids (12, 13) no longer share a room, and the configuration makes it no longer feasible to read to them both in bed at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":276759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032,11788,101,102222,98101,97833,104445,104446,12542],"tags":[2268,5743,93546,3749,539,9963],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-276758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-history","category-book-review","category-books","category-children","category-fantasy","category-fiction","category-literature","category-travis-baldree","category-youth","tag-book","tag-elizabeth","tag-enright","tag-review","tag-summer","tag-thimble"],"yoast_head":"\nBook Review: \u201cThimble Summer\u201d by Elizabeth Enright (1938) - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=276758\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Book Review: \u201cThimble Summer\u201d by Elizabeth Enright (1938) - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50\u2b50 Rating: 5 out of 5. 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