MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS (Childhood Essentials Library)

This children's book classic tells the story of a poor but happy family of four children who, in spite of being fatherless, make the lives of others better. Newly widowed, Nancy Carey keeps her healthy spirit and folksy grit and takes her four children to live in the tiny Maine town of Beulah. There, they learn to love country life, country neighbors, country schools, and especially their new home, the Yellow House. They have little misadventures and learn to be better people. Their home life becomes complicated when Julia, a snobbish cousin, comes to live with them. The Carey children suffer many disappointments, but in the end, Julia is transformed when she realizes happiness has little to do with wealth. Kate Douglas Wiggin (1856 – 1923) was an American educator and author of children's stories, most notably the classic children's novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. She started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878 (the Silver Street Free Kindergarten). With her sister during the 1880s, she also established a training school for kindergarten teachers. Kate Wiggin devoted her adult life to the welfare of children in an era when children were commonly thought of as cheap labor.