Kit Learns A Lesson (American Girl) [Paperback]

Valerie Tripp (Author), Walter Rane (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up | Series: American Girl

Kit hopes her dad will find a job soon so that everything can return to normal. But a trip to the soup kitchen shows Kit how much the Depression has changed everything.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-4-Set in Cincinnati, OH, during the Great Depression, these books introduce fourth-grade Kit. In Meet Kit, her father must close his car dealership and join the large number of unemployed. In an effort to make ends meet, her mother takes in boarders; Mrs. Howard and her son Stirling settle into Kit's newly redecorated bedroom, while the girl makes the best of her new space in the attic. In Kit Learns a Lesson, her older brother gets a job rather than attend college, and Kit helps her mother clean. Additional boarders have moved in and there is more work than ever. When a classmate's taunts lead to an altercation, Stirling, Kit, and her best friend are punished. They must deliver food collected by the students to the local soup kitchen, and Kit is shocked to see her father on line for lunch. Still, this is a somewhat idealized portrayal of the Depression. Full-page color illustrations and spot art appear throughout. Photos, reproductions, and explanations of the period follow in each of these transitional chapter books.
Debbie Feulner, Northwest Middle School, Greensboro, NC
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gr. 3-5. The year is 1934 and the name is Kit Kittredge, the newest character in the popular American Girls series. In Meet Kit , she's pounding out a newspaper on the typewriter in her room and longing for some news fit to print. As the Great Depression comes closer to home, news pours in: first, Mrs. Howard and her son come to stay with Kit's family when Mr. Howard leaves for Chicago to find work. Then Dad loses his job and Mother takes in boarders to make ends meet. Kit Learns a Lesson deals with the effects of the Depression on the household and on the community at large. The last section of each book fills in social history of the period, with clearly written texts and black-and-white photographs. Full-color paintings by Walter Rane illustrate the texts. Two short, fast-moving, and involving stories in the tradition of the series. Carolyn Phelan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Paperback: 67 pages
• Publisher: American Girl (September 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584850183
• ISBN-13: 978-1584850182
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #158,149 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book!, March 6, 2001

By 

Kathryn @ the Waukazoo Elementary Library (Holland, MI, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kit Learns a Lesson: A School Story, 1934 (American Girl) (Hardcover)

In 1932 Kit finds that she has hard lessons to learn about the Great Depression, both at home and at school. Like the first book they have to have boarders living in their house because of the money situations. Her father lost his job and Kit is praying that her father will get a job. Every day Kit's father pretends to go on job interviews so Kit thinks that it will turn out all right (even though he doesn't.) At school one day Kit was asked to take the Thanksgiving basket to the food pantry and there she finds out that her father is depending on the food pantry for food. She is ashamed that this is true. To find out if her father gets a job you have to read the book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another great Kit book, January 2, 2010

By 

Kurt A. Johnson (North-Central Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This is another in the American Girls Short Stories series about Kit Kittredge, a nine-year-old girl living in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is 1934, the Great Depression is deepening, and Kit begins to find out just how bad things are. Having spent her time waiting for her father to get a job, so that they can send away their intrusive boarders, she visits a soup kitchen and makes a disturbing discovery.

As with the other Kit books, this one gives a frank look into life during the Great Depression, while also teaching a lesson. In this book, Kit learns that a lesson in cooperation and thankfulness. Again, Walter Rane's illustrations are excellent, and add greatly to the story. Also, the final chapter is about school children during the Depression. As always, my daughter and I love this book, and recommend it to you.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice story, but fails as a history lesson, March 16, 2001

By 

Gerda Segger - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kit Learns A Lesson (American Girl) (Paperback)

I have enjoyed most of the "American Girls" books and can applaud the way they make American history come to life for girls, but I was upset by the classroom scene in "Kit Learns a Lesson" in which the teacher and children discuss Thanksgiving. It is not only sad that Kit explains Thanksgiving as the day when the Pilgrims thanked the Indians (instead of the day when the Pilgrims thanked God), it is inaccurate, and no 1930s teacher would have let it pass. It is too bad that the author felt the need to revise history to make her book P.C. Otherwise, Kit is a fine, lively heroine, the plot is exciting and the setting basically believable.