You, too, may be amazed at the way this book brings to life that fascinating era. Carol Brink’s grandma lived to read it, and she expressed amazement at how it caught the flavor of life and the colors of the characters so truly. It all adds up to a charming, beautifully written book full of endearing characters and memorable incidents. Caddie ultimately faces not one crisis but two: the first, for herself, as her parents’ disagreement about her upbringing comes to a head the other, for the whole family, when a letter comes that could change their lives. She bears witness to first love, the story of her father’s strange childhood, and the uppity airs of a Boston debutante cousin. She survives a terrifying lightning storm and a plunge through the ice on a frozen millpond. Her schoolroom accomplishments include spelling bees, recitation, and saving everybody from a grass fire. She gives solace to a sickly girl, friendship to a lonely little sister, and comeuppance to a practical-joking uncle.Ĭaddie learns to plow, to quilt, and to repair clocks. She serves as the first audience of a wonderful, made-on-the-spot folk tale. She helps three halfbreed children get over the heartbreak of being abandoned by their Indian mother. She single-handedly defuses a potential Indian massacre. This delights her father, who likes to see her in robust health, but worries her mother, who wishes she were more like a lady.Īs the final year of the Civil War goes round (1864-65), Caddie gets up to a lot of mischief – but she also shows wisdom, courage, and compassion. Slap in the middle of a big pioneer family, she spends much of her time having adventures with her brothers Tom and Warren. The title character is a redheaded, tomboyish girl, based on Grandma Caddie herself.

This Newbery-Medal-winning, beloved-by-generations children’s classic. So deeply did these stories enter the child’s imagination that, in 1935, when she was grown up and married, she based her second novel on them. The younger Caroline grew up listening to the older Caroline’s stories about her frontier childhood in Wisconsin, around the time of the U.S.

In the wee years of the twentieth century, an eight-year-old orphan girl named Caroline Ryrie went to live with her grandmother, whose name was also Caroline.

Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink