Customer Reviews

O the Red Rose Tree

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an excellent historical fiction story about four girls who help an elderly woman make a beautiful, unique quilt of roses. It is set in the late 1800s on the Long Beach Penninsua of Washington State on the Pacific coast. While the plot may sound boring, Patricia Beatty makes the act of quilt-making (not to mention the search for just the right fabric) come to life, much as Laura Ingalls Wilder tells of her childhood experiences.

This title was recommended by the Washington State Centennial Committee in 1989, and was quite popular with upper elementar students in this area at that time. For students who enjoy books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, but would like to explore a different part of the country, this title and the companion books, "Sarah and Me and the Lady from the Sea," and "The Nickel-Plated Beauty," are highly recommended.

From the flyleaf: "Here is the story of a warm and lively friendship that grows among four young teen-age girls and a life-battered old lady. When thirteen-year-old Amanda Barnett and her three cohorts meet Mrs. Hankinson, they discover that she is an accomplished quilt maker. Her dream is to make the beautiful quilt named O the Red Rose Tree, but to do so she needs seven shades of red in materials that will not bleed. The four resourceful girls resolve to find the scarce cloth, and their search leads them into one hilarious escapade after another. Whether they are scheming to get their hands on the local doctor's red flannel chest protector or a glamorous opera singer's red petticoat, their energy and determination never flag.

Once again Patricia Beatty has created a vivid picture of a small town in the mid-1890's on the west coast of Washington. The novel, rollicking and touching in turn, gains added depth from its underlying theme that frequently the young and the old have much in common."

I enjoyed this book, though not as much as its predecessor, The Nickel-Plated Beauty. It's set in the same geographic location as the earlier work, but as it takes place eight years later, the two books have only two characters in common, Dr. Alf Perkins and his horse, Rosinante.

Amanda Barnett is a well-drawn, believable character, but her grandmother is a mean-spirited, poisonous old coot who encourages the townspeople to shun Mrs. Hankinson. Amanda and her three friends visit the lonely widow on the sly, and decide to help her create a beautiful new quilt from an original design.

Though the book is good, the conclusion is unsatisfying. Amanda's horrid grandmother doesn't get a comeuppance worth mentioning, and the story eventually peters out.

There are also a few male Chinese characters, and the weird way they speak seems more like a parody of accented speech than any actual attempt at rendering it faithfully. For example, Amanda's aunt in Portland has a telephone with a party line. On page 169, Amanda is conversing with Ching, her aunt's houseboy.

"Then the telephone rang, and we stopped talking. I counted in English while Ching counted in Chinese. Over the seventh ring, he said, "Thing on wall yell at me! Must go!""

Ummmm..."thing on wall"? This is a man who can comfortably use multisyllabic words like "examination" and "highbinders" but can't say or remember the words "telephone ring"?

Oh, and the flyleaf description is wrong. Dr. Alf's red chest protector is NOT made of flannel---the text specifies that "Red flannel bleeds so much when it's wet that ladies use it to color up their lips and cheeks."

Still, it's a solid book, though not the first Beatty I'd recommend.

This is an excellent historical fiction story about four girls who help an elderly woman make a beautiful, unique quilt of roses. It is set in the late 1800s on the Long Beach Penninsua of Washington State on the Pacific coast. While the plot may sound boring, Patricia Beatty makes the act of quilt-making (not to mention the search for just the right fabric) come to life, much as Laura Ingalls Wilder tells of her childhood experiences.

This title was recommended by the Washington State Centennial Committee in 1989, and was quite popular with upper elementar students in this area at that time. For students who enjoy books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, but would like to explore a different part of the country, this title and the companion books, "Sarah and Me and the Lady from the Sea," and "The Nickel-Plated Beauty," are highly recommended.

This is an excellent historical fiction story about four girls who help an elderly woman make a beautiful, unique quilt of roses. It is set in the late 1800s on the Long Beach Penninsua of Washington State on the Pacific coast. While the plot may sound boring, Patricia Beatty makes the act of quilt-making (not to mention the search for just the right fabric) come to life, much as Laura Ingalls Wilder tells of her childhood experiences.

This title was recommended by the Washington State Centennial Committee in 1989, and was quite popular with upper elementar students in this area at that time. For students who enjoy books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, but would like to explore a different part of the country, this title and the companion books, "Sarah and Me and the Lady from the Sea," and "The Nickel-Plated Beauty," are highly recommended.