Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster
Review by Natalie Smith, our new regular contributor
I found Daddy-Long-Legs in a paperback reprint on the shelf of the YA section of my library – and loved it so much that ten years later I special-ordered copy and ended up with a second edition, published in 1912! Daddy-Long-Legs begins on the first Wednesday of the month, the day on which The Trustees visit the John Grier Home. It’s an orphanage where Jerusha Abbot lives with ninety-six other children, but she’s seventeen and on the brink of being thrust out into the world, and doesn’t quite know what will become of her. One of The Trustees is a philanthropist, and after reading an essay she’d written about “Blue Wednesday”, decides to send her to college to become a great writer.
The first chapter of this story is told in third person, but the rest of it is a compilation of all the letters Judy, as she decides to call herself, sends to her benefactor, whom she decides to call “Daddy-Long-Legs”. The letters are rich and full of all the innocence and excitement that comes of being seventeen in this era, and from being free for the first time in her life from her usual duties to the John Grier Home. Taking care of one person is considerably easier than taking care of eleven small children – and Judy really enjoys almost every aspect of her independent college life.
Some of my favorite things about this sweet book are the way I learned so much about the historical time period through the things Judy writes, and the similarities between my own college experience and Judy’s. There are about ninety years between Judy’s college days and my own, and while there were definitely some things that haven’t endured the years, overall I found more similarities between fictional Judy and real-life me than I was expecting.
I recommend this book to ANYONE who enjoys Anne. It’s much faster-paced, but the tone is very similar to L.M. Montgomery. And if you don’t know who Anne is (heaven forbid!), you should read her, too!
I found Daddy-Long-Legs in a paperback reprint on the shelf of the YA section of my library – and loved it so much that ten years later I special-ordered copy and ended up with a second edition, published in 1912! Daddy-Long-Legs begins on the first Wednesday of the month, the day on which The Trustees visit the John Grier Home. It’s an orphanage where Jerusha Abbot lives with ninety-six other children, but she’s seventeen and on the brink of being thrust out into the world, and doesn’t quite know what will become of her. One of The Trustees is a philanthropist, and after reading an essay she’d written about “Blue Wednesday”, decides to send her to college to become a great writer.
The first chapter of this story is told in third person, but the rest of it is a compilation of all the letters Judy, as she decides to call herself, sends to her benefactor, whom she decides to call “Daddy-Long-Legs”. The letters are rich and full of all the innocence and excitement that comes of being seventeen in this era, and from being free for the first time in her life from her usual duties to the John Grier Home. Taking care of one person is considerably easier than taking care of eleven small children – and Judy really enjoys almost every aspect of her independent college life.
Some of my favorite things about this sweet book are the way I learned so much about the historical time period through the things Judy writes, and the similarities between my own college experience and Judy’s. There are about ninety years between Judy’s college days and my own, and while there were definitely some things that haven’t endured the years, overall I found more similarities between fictional Judy and real-life me than I was expecting.
I recommend this book to ANYONE who enjoys Anne. It’s much faster-paced, but the tone is very similar to L.M. Montgomery. And if you don’t know who Anne is (heaven forbid!), you should read her, too!
