Happy Little Family (Fairchild Family Story) [Paperback]

Rebecca Caudill (Author), Decie Merwin (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 4 and up | Grade Level: P and up | Series: Fairchild Family Story

It is a good thing that mothers understand what no one else seems to when you are the youngest child in the family, and are finally four years old. Bonnie is more than ready to join her older sisters and brother in the many adventures she sees come their way, whether it be sliding along the ice, searching for arrowheads, or going on that journey of all journeys-across the swinging bridge to SCHOOL. Winter or summer, something is always happening in the Fairchild house, tucked amidst the pine trees of the Kentucky hills one hundred years ago or more. And, four years old or not, Bonnie usually manages to be in the middle of the action!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Rebecca Caudill is the pen name of Mrs. James S. Ayers. Born in 1899, she writes about herself: One of eleven children, I was born on a rocky farm squeezed between the Black Mountains and the Poor Fork River in Harlan County, Kentucky (More About Junior Authors). A few years later the family moved to Tennessee. While she attended highschool, young Miss Caudill heard of college and decided to go to one. Having nary a penny to go on didn t strike me as an obstacle at all. She learned stenography, aided by an older sister, and with this skill, Miss Caudill was able to work her way through Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, the first Wesleyan student ever to work for her education. After receiving a master s degree from Vanderbilt University, she proceeded to see the world, doing teaching, office work and editing in such varied places as Rio de Janeiro, Toronto, and Nashville, Tennessee; and traveling throughout Europe. In Turkey, on the verge of signing a magazine-editing contract, she met another editor, James S. Ayers. They married and were to have two children. They lived in Urbana, Illinois, for many years.
Her books for younger children enlarge upon every-day pleasures and difficulties with a sense of wonder and freshness. Happy Little Family and the three further novels that trace the same family s life in succeeding years are fine representatives of the author s appeal to young readers. She has also written with charm for the youngest children in books like A Pocket Full of Cricket and A Certain Small Shepherd this last being a Christmas story, illustrated by William Pene du Bois. Mrs. Ayers died in 1985.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• Paperback: 107 pages
• Publisher: Bethlehem Books (June 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883937728
• ISBN-13: 978-1883937720
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #259,321 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Happy Reading for the Younger Set, July 12, 2004

By 

A. VanHecke "Love2learn Mom" (Milwaukee, WI) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Happy Little Family (Fairchild Family Story) (Paperback)

This is a charming tale of a family with five children living in Kentucky in the early 1900s. The story is told through the eyes of four-year-old Bonnie. Her understanding father helps her through frustrations in trying to keep up with her older siblings. The simple stories contain truths that will be appreciated by very young children. In one example, the father announces that the child who shows wisdom and bravery will be awarded a special arrowhead that he found. Each child shares stories of acts of courage until one really stands out. My four and six year old girls really enjoyed this as a read-aloud and my eight devoured it eagerly on his own (and he can be hard to find books for at this stage).

We're looking forward to reading the other three titles in the series - Schoolhouse in the Woods, Up and Down the River and Schoolhouse in the Parlor - due to be republished soon.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good family story, December 13, 2005

By 

Angelina Leigh "bookwriter,bookreader" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Happy Little Family (Fairchild Family Story) (Paperback)

This was a good book, and it is easy enough for younger children to understand when you read it to them. For on-their-own-reading, it would be in my opinion, for ages 8-9. Personally, my favorite story was the family contest, in which each child had to perform an act of bravery, I think bravery, anyway, it showed the readers, or listeners, good acts to do, and it showed with a good act, comes a wonderful reward.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Happy Little Family, May 12, 2007

By 

Anna M. Ligtenberg "AnnaLovesBooks" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Happy Little Family (A Dell Yearling Book) (Paperback)

ISBN 044040164X - This book seems to me to suffer from a split personality. Outside, it's a mid-sized paperback like all others for the pre-teen set. On the back, it says ages 8-12 and it's 116 pages long. Open it up and you'll find that the font is a little larger than the average book for this age set. The language is somewhat simpler and the chapters are more a series of individual stories, rather than a flowing chapter book.

Bonnie is little. Not just little, but the littlest, and in a family with five children being little is sometimes hard. Everyone else gets to skate, but Bonnie is left behind because it's so cold. Debbie and Emmy get real hats, but Bonnie gets a sunbonnet. All the children have arrowhead collections, but Bonnie hasn't ever found even one. And when Bonnie asserts her independence, demanding to take a different route to a friend's house than everyone else, things don't go as smoothly as she hoped.

A very cute series of stories with nice illustrations by Decie Merwin, Happy Little Family would impress me more if each story had been a separate book and had been marketed as read-aloud books to the 4-8 age group that it's more appropriate to. Still, nicely done stories worth picking up even 60 years later.

- AnnaLovesBooks