What Katy Did Revisited

 Here are a trio of books that I haven't read for a LONG time. Of course I was initially drawn to What Katy Did, What Katy Did at School and What Katy Did Next because the heroine shared my name! I knew they were 'old' books but I don't think I realised just how old they were when I first read them: What Katy Did was published in 1872, so they were over a hundred years when I first discovered them at the Mt Hagen library, and they are 150 years old now.

It was fun to revisit them, but they haven't aged particularly well, and they are of interest now mainly as historical documents. There's not a lot of plot in any of the books. In the first volume we meet Katy as a harum-scarum twelve year old, who is crippled when she falls off a swing (which she was warned not to swing on) and learns to be patient and motherly during the four long years when she's confined to her bed, inspired by her saintly Cousin Helen. It's not quite as saccharine as it sounds but it's also not massively action-packed. Miraculously, despite not getting any physio or treatment whatsoever, Katy regains her ability to walk -- not sure how plausible this is!

My favourite was always What Katy Did At School, because Katy and her sister Clover, sent away for a year at a distant boarding school, make friends with a lively, mischievous girl called Rose Red who gets into all kinds of scrapes. I was mystified but intrigued by the habits of the 'young ladies,' but couldn't understand why they were 'ladies' while the boys in the school next door were 'students.' Naturally goody two shoes Katy gets up a society against flirting, but otherwise it's mostly wholesome fun. I vividly remembered the sisters' Christmas box, packed with delicious things to eat and lots of lovely homemade presents.

Lastly came What Katy Did Next, in which Katy gets to travel to Europe as a companion to a young widow and her daughter. It's mostly a travelogue, which I actually quite enjoyed this time round, as I've now visited most of their destinations myself. It reads very much as if it's adapted from the author's own travel diary -- weird to read about the Colosseum being overgrown with ivy! The main event is the illness of the young daughter, which also stuck with me -- she had to have her hair cut off, and her doll's hair, too, while Katy scours Rome for a feather pillow and tries to vain to obtain satisfactory beef tea. Happily, the widow's hot brother does the right thing and falls in love with Katy's nursing skills, so we all know what Katy will do after that...

Given their extreme antiquity, the Katy books hold up fairly well. I wonder it they were inspired by the success of Little Women, which was published a few years before? They are actually less heavy-handed on the moral front, though the characters are less vividly drawn than Alcott's. But I'm not sure if I would have loved them so much if Katy wasn't called Katy.