Talkative, ten-year-old Rebecca goes to live with her spinster aunts, one harsh and demanding, the other soft and sentimental, with whom she spends seven difficult but rewarding years growing up.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm Complete Text (Charming Classics)
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Browse our Bookshelf Favorites store for big savings on popular fiction, nonfiction, children's books, and more. |
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Author Jack London wrote Kate Douglas Wiggin a letter about her classic Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm from the headquarters of the First Japanese Army in Manchuria in 1904: "May I thank you for Rebecca?... I would have quested the wide world over to make her mine, only I was born too long ago and she was born but yesterday.... Why could she not have been my daughter? Why couldn't it have been I who bought the three hundred cakes of soap? Why, O, why?" Mark Twain called Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm "beautiful and warm and satisfying."
Who is this beguiling creature? The irrepressible 10-year-old Rebecca Rowena Randall burst into the world of children's book characters (and her new life in Maine) in 1903 when storybook girls were gentle and proper. A "bird of a very different feather," she had "a small, plain face illuminated by a pair of eyes carrying such messages, such suggestions, such hints of sleeping power and insight, that one never tired of looking into their shining depths.... " Soon enough, she wins over her prim Aunt Miranda, the whole town, and thousands of readers everywhere with her energetic, indomitable spirit. This beautiful trade edition features the artwork of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm's original illustrator Helen Mason Grose, with 6 full- color plates and 32 pen-and-ink drawings. (Ages 9 and older) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"The illustrations impart a cozy, familiar feel to a long-ago world, and reveal a lively, generous spirit in the heroine who leaves her home to live with her two elderly aunts." (Publishers Weekly )
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Mass Market Paperback
No review could do this marvelous book justice, but I will attempt it. My mother bought the book for me some years ago because she thought it would be good for me to read classics. Thinking that it would be boring, I didn't read it for a long time. But a couple of days ago I was bored and picked it up. Soon, I fell under the same spell Rebecca cast over nearly every person she met. Around the age of 10 or 11, she was forced to leave her home, Sunnybrook Farm, to live in a brick house with her spinster aunts in Riverboro. Her aunts Jane and Miranda weren't used to young people, but they let Rebecca stay with them in order to help out her poor widowed mother who had 6 other children to care for. Rebecca charmed nearly all the citizens of Riverboro, Aunt Jane, and, in time, her strict, austere Aunt Miranda.
There were many things to love about the story. In fact, it has become one of my favorite books of all time. (and I am a voracious reader) The characters were all realistically and richly delineated. Rebecca especially came alive for me. She was such a talented, imaginative, caring girl. She was the kind of person that anyone would love to have as a friend. Actually, I would want to be her. I didn't want to stop reading about her adventures. The events played before my mind's eye like a movie. I traveled back in time, to 100 years ago. This is considered a children's book, but it has truths and insights that people of all ages can learn from. Several of the passages, the literary allusions, and Rebecca's poems were so beautiful that I had to reread them. The language was eloquent. As another reviewer said, the vocabulary wasn't "dumbed down" like the vocabularies of modern children's books, and there was a protagonist one could love.
The only part about the novel that I didn't like was that there isn't a sequel. I would love to find out what Rebecca's career turns out to be. I believe that she marries Mr. Ladd (a.k.a. "Mr. Aladdin"), but I wish we could know for sure.
Overall, I highly reccomend this book to readers of all ages. If you like books with wonderful supporting characters and an unusual, loveable heroine, treat yourself to "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm".
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
By David Bond
Format:Hardcover
I tried to read this book to my 5 year old daughters, (they loved Anne of Green Gables), but the language was too advanced for them. However I couldn't put it down. Ms. Wiggin's use of turn of phrase and metaphor remind me so much of Mark Twain. I'm in awe of their common talent for making it possible to see a concept in a new light by merely a precise juxtaposition of words. Much of this might be lost on younger readers, but my daughters were nevertheless facinated by Rebecca's spirit; so much so, that they asked me to tell them the whole story when I had finished.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Rebecca has been my friend since I read her story in a cheap Whitman hardback when I was a little girl. A lively and creative 10-year-old girl is sent to her maiden aunts to receive a good education, but chafes under the restrictive yoke of her elder aunt. As Rebecca learns to channel her energies into positive action, she remains unquenched by her dour aunt and lends joy to both the younger aunt, but also the elderly Cobbs and her best friend, Emma Jane Perkins. The vocabulary in the story may be a bit high for younger readers as REBECCA was not actually written as a children's story; it was the best seller of the year 1904. There is a sequel, NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA, that is worth finding, with more adventures of Rebecca, the Simpson children, and even Emma Jane.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderfull.
I just adore this book. It's just so sweet. It's well worth you time and money. My fave part is where she tares up her parasol. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Sweet Kawaii
5.0 out of 5 stars
Scissors, Lizard, Spock
Here's what you do - read Anne of Green Gables, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and Pollyanna. Then you can join the ranking conversation. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Pop Bop
4.0 out of 5 stars
A book About a child - not necessarily For a child
Before I review this early-1900's book about an imaginative young girl from a poor farm family who is sent to live with, and be educated by, her unimaginative, uberpractical New... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Privacy, Please
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stick with the ORIGINAL text
This evening I finished reading a children's classic that had somehow escaped my attention these many years: "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" by Kate Douglas Wiggin, first published in... Read more
Published on November 29, 2010 by octobercountry
4.0 out of 5 stars
Written BEFORE Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Green Gables is what introduced me into the world of pleasure reading almost 20 years ago. Not very many days have gone by since then that I haven't had a book in my... Read more
Published on November 25, 2010 by regency reader
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bring back the Spunky Victorian RiotGrrlz!
I loved Rebecca for the same reason I loved Jo March in _Little Women_ and _Anne of Green Gables_: she was bright, she was independent, and she was constantly in trouble! Read more
Published on January 13, 2010 by Violetta1485
5.0 out of 5 stars
Building a classic library for a granddaughter
They don't seem to require reading classic literature in the schools any more, so I decided to build a classics library for my 12-year old granddaughter. Read more
Published on October 30, 2008 by Alexander Kogan
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perfect book for little girls
One of my three favorite books from my childhood. I have read reviews of how difficult this book is to understand or read by small children. Nonsense! Read more
Published on November 10, 2007 by Carmen Iris
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful classic.
I bought this book to give to my granddaughter. I have the original copy that was her greatgrandmother's. It is a classic story of positive living.
Published on October 20, 2007 by A. P. Getts
3.0 out of 5 stars
Okay Book
This book is okay. I wouldn't read it more than twice. It was really boring till the end. Then it got good. I would recomend this book to kids from ages 9 - teens. Read more
Published on October 21, 2006
