Miss Plum and Miss Penny (1959) by Dorothy Evelyn Smith #SpinsterSeptember

 

🟣 This would be my second and last book for the 2026 edition of #SpinsterSeptember. I have wanted to read one more, but just couldn't manage to, due to many things happening concerning my mother's health lately. Anyway, I enjoyed very much the two I have finished (the previous one is Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day). Now, the heroine of this one is the titular Miss Penny, a middle-aged spinster who lives quietly and contentedly in an English village with her also-contentedly-living housekeeper: Ada. Miss Alison Penny's life, which is filled with charity works, Women's Institute meetings, or annual bazaars - the usual activities in any English villages at that time - was disrupted when she rescued a young woman from attempting suicide by "drowning" herself in a duck pond. A very hilarious idea, indeed, drowning one self in a duck pond! But Miss Penny didn't see it that way; it was her conscientious duty to save another human being.

🟣 But that was not the only disruption in Miss Penny's life. The annual birthday card she receives from her old flame George, did not arrive for the first time in twenty years. It has been Miss Penny's only romantic touch to her otherwise loveless (yet cheerful) existence. George had been her first (and only) love twenty years ago, but her parents forbid her to marry him. Anyway, receiving Miss Victoria Plum (that was the young woman who's committed suicide) into Miss Penny's hitherto orderly and quite home, soon proved to be a havoc, not only for Miss Penny and Ada, but also for the other villagers too. Miss Plum's weepy and forlorn disposition soon steals everyone's heart, including the vicar and another outstanding middle-aged man called Stanley - both had hitherto been considering marrying Miss Penny for comfort. However, Miss Plum's welcome in Miss Penny's home soon wears thin, although Miss Penny is still in dilemma between getting rid of her soon, and not wanting to ruin her Christmas. Things weren't improved either when out of nowhere, George - the old Miss Penny's flame - arrived at the village, proposing to marry her!

🟣 On the whole, Miss Plum and Miss Penny is a perfect story about spinsters of that era - the 1950-1960s. And Dorothy Evelyn Smith gave the novel a rather dark comedic aspect, although not the crude one like Nancy Mitford's, no... hers is more subtle. It's interesting to watch how the villagers; especially the three main characters: Miss Penny, Hubert the vicar, and Stanley, were all trying to be generous and affectionate towards the needy (Miss Plum - who has neither money, home, nor relatives), although at some point they were also aware of Miss Plum's tendency of manipulating people using her weaknesses. We can see that from the start ("suicide" attempt at a duck pond; staying in bed in appearances, while in fact has been snooping around Miss Penny's house). Only Ada, Miss Penny's housekeeper, who wasn't deceived from the start. While this novel seems to be a light reading, there are many things that left you pondering about human kind. A certainly interesting read!
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

Cider with Rosie (1959) by Laurie Lee

 

💛 Published in 1959, Cider with Rosie is Laurie Lee's childhood memoir in the remote Costwold village called Slad, Gloucestershire, in England. In this first book of a trilogy, Laurie told us memories of his childhood to adolescence right after First World War. The memoir opens with Laurie, his mother and the rest of the family (of nine) at a cottage in Slad. Laurie is the penultimate child, ranked from age, of seven. He and three others are the biological children of his mother. The other four are children of his father and his first wife. Laurie's father was a soldier who had lost his first wife, and then married his housekeeper (Laurie's mother, Annie Emily Light). However after the war, during which Mrs. Lee had been taking care of the family for him, he abandoned the family and never came back. 💛 The memoir is divided into several thematic chapters, rather than following chronological order. For example, the chapter titled The Kitchen told us about their domestic life, which Laurie felt centered in the kitchen. He brought us to their day-to-day life; the bigger sisters to their works; Laurie and the younger boys plays around the village after school; and how in the evening the family always gathered around the big kitchen table - the latter is, indeed, a heartwarming glimpse of the bygone era. We also came to know about Laurie's mother's personalities - bright spirit who had never been crushed by hardship, and who has a Bohemian touch. She had had worked at manors, serving the gentry, and adopted some of their views and tastes along the way, which she always carried in her wretched life. She's a gentlewoman who was forced, by poverty and by her selfish husband, to hardship. I loved her instantly, I admired her great courage and resilience. Mrs. Lee was the core of the family, and the only reason why the children lived such a happy life. 💛 Laurie Lee doesn't always talk about the family, there's a chapter, Grannies in the Wainscot, dedicated to their neighbors - the two eccentric elderly women who perpetually despised each other. It's rather a hilarious one, and becomes one of my favorite chapters, together with Mother, which Laurie dedicated to his amazing mother; and Outings and Festivals, which told us the fun of living in the village (at that time) with all the outings and events, usually sponsored by their squire. I can imagine how gloriously fun and memorable those are, which had been imprinted in Laurie Lee's memory ever since. 💛 On the whole, it's a memoir of a bygone era worth reading. It emphasizes on the charming lives the family had had during the era when industrialism's hand hadn't yet touched them. But, without realizing it at that moment, Laurie Lee grew up on the brink of the massive change that was about to come. I am lucky to have read this glorious memoir about that era, and am always grateful of Laurie's eloquent and incisive way of describing the tiny little details that marked his life! Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

My Side of the Mountain (1959) by Jean Craighead George

🌳 Sam Gribley, a boy of about thirteen or fifteen, ran away from home, and determined to live on Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, the land of Gribley's ancestors. Every boy must have thought of running away and living in the wild; few perhaps made it true, but mostly for one or two days only before they went home. Sam Gribley, though, made it for months! And this book is telling you of his adventures, complete with detailed account of Sam's day to day activities; his way of securing shelter, water, and food, and how his wit guides him to survive even the snowiest days in winter.

🌳 Sam made his house by hollowing-up a huge and sturdy tree. How'd he done it? By learning a lot about living in the wild from books in the library. How to fish, how to burn the inside of a tree to hollow it, and how to make fire (he failed on his first night, but eventually became a pro after learning from a farmer he encountered). He eats fish he caught by his self-made rod, and learns to season it from plants or roots he forages from the forest. Sam also knows how to set traps for small animals like rabbits. But his ingenious idea came to him after watching a falcon flew on the sky. He stole a young Falcon from the nest (the mother certainly couldn't count!), and trained it to hunt food - very clever!

🌳 One of the setbacks of living alone in the wild is loneliness. Well, Sam is never very lonely. He has Frightful's - the falcon - company, but he also befriends a weasel he nicknamed the Baron. Well, it's not really Sam's pet like Frightful, but the three creatures live side by side in harmony. Sam's 'biggest' threat is rather from human being, than the animals or the weather. From campers (during summer) and hunters, to old ladies picking wild strawberries, who told reporters about the wild boy living in the forest. But the one he did make friend with is a man whom he nicknamed Bando, as he first thought him a bandit, but actually a schoolteacher who'd been lost. Funnily enough, this man - Bando - nicknamed Sam as Thoreau; what an appropriate name! I loved their friendship and everything they are doing together.

🌳 On the whole, it is delightful adventure story; informative, funny, refreshing, and insightful. The most hilarious part for me is perhaps when Sam decided to throw a Halloween party for the forest's inhabitants. He collects foods and placed them neatly around the tree. It was thrilled to see the animals' joyful gathering that night. However, at sunrise the morning after, Sam found that the party isn't over! The animals, no doubt ran out of food, ransacked Sam's inventory for the upcoming winter. And they made a whole mess in his tree house. It seems that all party is always the same, whether with human or animal guests - you inevitably found such mess the morning after. Human guests are slightly better because they know when the party is over, but the animals just didn't know when to stop!!

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2