More Gene Stratton-Porter

I read At the Foot of the Rainbow. This has been my least favorite book by Stratton-Porter. What bothered me the most was the breaking of the 6th commandment and then everything turned out well at the end of the book for the main characters. Thoughts are as bad as acts as far as the 6th commandment goes. I did finish the book. I also had a difficult time reading the dialect in the book. Perhaps it would have been better to listen to this book instead of read it for that reason. I grew up in Southern Indiana so I had (and still have some parts) of that Southern twang, but this book had an uneducated country boy talk. There were a few words that I never did figure out what word they really meant (if it would have been spelled like the English word instead of the dialect in the book). Reading a book for enjoyment should not make me have to go back and reread a sentence several times to figure out what is meant there! I have come to love Stratton-Porter books, but I would not recommend this one. This surprised me because At the Foot of the Rainbow is said to be one of her strongest pieces of fiction.

Ram recently purchased an MP3 player for me (that's a whole different post) and the first thing he downloaded for me was A Daughter of the Land by Gene Stratton-Porter. I only began reading her books a few months ago and I really like her stories so it is difficult to pick a favorite, but A Daughter of the Land is probably my favorite that I read so far. I liked that the entire book was unpredictable. Unfortunately for the main character it seemed like every time she turned around something bad happened to her. As the book went on I kept thinking that nothing else bad could possibly happen. This was not the typical fairy tale where girl has difficult life and then the prince comes to rescue her. Even though it was fiction, it was more of a real life story where the main character's entire life was difficult. The ending was unpredictable but a good ending. A Daughter of the Land was one of the books that I did not purchase at Hyde Brothers last fall. It was a whole different experience to listen to the book on the MP3 player-I couldn't peek ahead in the book!
It is interesting to me what I pay attention to as I read these "children's books" today as a mother. I was very interested in what the book said about the main character having twins and how she nursed them. She worked very hard doing housewife all of her life. I found what her housework was and also when it described meals, I found what they served for meals interesting. Someone commented on my blog once that they find reading Laura Ingalls Wilder very different as an adult-they feel sorry for Ma and all her work as a mother now. I didn't read A Daughter of the Land before, but if I would have it would have been like that blog comment, I would have picked very different details out to pay attention to as a mother. I would highly recommend A Daughter of the Land.