Customer Reviews

Kit Learns A Lesson (American Girl)

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Kit is upset that the "bothersome boarders" who have moved in with her family will be celebrating Thanksgiving with her. But when she finds that her father may have to leave his family behind, in an attempt to find a job in Chicago, Kit's thoughts quickly change, and she begins trying to come up with a way for her father to earn money, without going away. With the help of her best friend Ruthie, and an unlikely ally, who goes by the name of Stirling, Kit realizes that there is plenty of money to be earned right here in Cincinnati, and that maybe, just maybe, having a house full of boarders isn't the worst thing in the world. After all, if there are boarders in the house, Kit's father doesn't have to move away.

The fact that Kit wants to be a newspaper reporter intrigued me from the first time I saw this series, and made me want to read them. I adored MEET KIT, and was excited to read her Thanksgiving story KIT LEARNS A LESSON, and I was not disappointed. As in the first installment of Kit's life, we are treated to her spunky ways, and share a journey with the spirited young girl as she makes new friends - unlikely ones, at that - and comes to terms with the fact that her family must take in boarders, or they will be separated. An enjoyable history story, to say the least, that will teach young readers the true meaning of Thanksgiving.

Erika Sorocco
Book Review Columnist for The Community Bugle Newspaper

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.

As with the other books in the series, this was a pleasant enough story for younger readers about a little girl growing up during America's past. But as with those other books, all of the conflicts are solved far too easily. The plot of this book is easily summed up. The setting is during the Great Depression. Kit and her two friends get into a fight at school with a mean classmate. Their punishment is delivering the class donations to the soup kitchen. There, Kit sees her father on the line for free food. She realizes how bad her family's situation is. Her father tells her he has to go away to find work. Kit finds a way to increase the income of the family's boardinghouse, and her father gets to stay. Lack of realism here, I'd say. If that was real life during the Depression, her dad probably would have had to leave. But I won't fault the publisher for toning down the harsher aspects of history - I read this series when I was as young as seven.