Roller Skates

A lovely story about a little girl growing up in a very new New York City. I am a fan of children's lit and this is a wonderful, wholesome story of a little girl whose parents have to leave for a year for her mother's health and she lives with two spinsters who give her more freedom than she has ever had before. It is a story that any child can read - think Anne of Green Gables sort of story. A wonderful addition to any young reader's library!

The main character in this book is so spunky and fun. It takes place in New York City during the 1890s. She has a very Anne of Green Gables nature. She loves to make friends with everyone she encounters around New York - police officers, carriage drivers, the boy selling produce on the corner. It does have some sad moments and a little bit of racist terms since it was written in the 1930s. Great book overall! Would recommend to 4th grade and up.

I was thinking about this book for months before I decided to find it again. I read and re-read this when I was growing up. I loved it then and I love it now. Lucinda Wyman is a tomboy who doesn't fit into the box that her time and place would like to put her in. Her parents' trip to Italy buys her a year of freedom in which to explore 1890's New York on roller skates. The story of Lucinda, the wonderful people she befriends in the amazing city she loves was mesmerizing to me as a kid. I loved Lucinda and could relate to her because I didn't quite fit in, either, and I loved to read and talk to all kinds of people, and I made puppets and put on plays with them and adored The Tempest. I still love just about all of those things (although I don't do puppet shows anymore) and I still love this book with its simple pleasures and enduring tragedies and joy of being alive and free out in the great big wonderful world.

I read this book as a child. It's a classic tale of one year in a young girl's life around the turn of the century. She is curious, creative, and she embodies all the truly sweet characteristics of young girlhood we long for = those good old days. It's a delightful story that children from 6-12 will love. If your children spend all their time entertained by TV and video games, they may not be able to appreciate the life this girl has which is full of relationships with all kinds of people in her neighborhood. it somewhat depends on the child reading it to have a life of relating to real people, not texts and Facebook.

This is a tricky one. There's no continuous "story" in the literature sense (exposition, rising action, climax, denouement), but the characters, writing, and events are satisfying and evoke a feeling of not-quite-nostalgic simplicity (it's set in 1890's New York). The puzzling part is why certain things are included in a children's book: the suicide (discovered by the 10-year-old protagonist) of one of the secondary characters and the death of a four-year-old. There's no particular story line to advance by including these events, and they might frighten the children who would otherwise be the perfect audience for the book.

I had read "The Year of Jubilo" by Ruth Sawyer and really enjoyed it. "Roller Skates" is set a few years before when Lucinda is 10 instead of 14. Both are very good books. By the way, I still love reading really good young girls' books.

A childhood favorite. Wonderful historical detail in a story about a free spirit whose faithful roller skates lead her to friendships all over New York City. Unlike the high status seeking aunts and cousins she visits once a week, Lucinda makes friends with ragpickers, violinists, exotic foreign ladies, fruit sellers, policemen and more. The story made me feel such joy, and sometimes sadness, as a child. I purchased this copy to replace the well-loved paperback that was falling apart. Well worth its literary awards!

Set in 189X New York City this (mostly) lighthearted novel relates a busy year of delicious “orphanage” as the title protagonist puts it. The parents of ten-year-old Lucinda are traveling to Europe to spend an entire year, there so they plan to place their difficult youngest, a daughter (“homely as two toads”) with her stiff, strict Aunt Emily. Contemplating outright mutiny rather than suffocate with her disapproving aunt and the four gazelles (her docile cousins) Lucinda receives a last minute reprieve by being sent by hansom cab to the relaxed home of the Misses Peters, who never had any children of their own. Suddenly she is the star and welcomed with gentle arms. With her prized possessions, her roller skates, slung over her shoulder, Lucinda plans to live it up during her year of Freedom. Her skates are a passport to adventure--an escape from the dreary prospect of behaving like a Lady. They offer a faster means of locomotion and the sense of being at one with the air and light. Her critical family has no idea how their daughter, whom they deem rebellious, stiff, and unaffectionate, will bloom during the period when she is freed from much Victorian restriction; that she will prove warm, compassionate and clever to the benefit of the many new friends (of various ethnicities) she easily makes. Both children and adults blossom under her outgoing charm—which no one had hitherto suspected. During that year of the most wonderful Christmas she grows in several ways. Of course she experiences all kinds of juvenile scrapes but fortunately she can rely on two steadfast adults for advice and emergency help: her beloved Uncle Earle and the kind family doctor. There are two very serious incidents which are unusual to find in a child’s book—events which launch her headlong into the realities of adult life. As her parents’ return looms large she wishes she could cling to being ten for ever; she foresees no joy in being restored to an unappreciative household. But Lucinda will always cherish the memory of little Trinket—especially when she observes a lone seagull, soaring skyward with joy. Childhood in a bygone era—quaintly charming. (February 21, 2014)

Bit old fashioned.

家族がイタリアで１年間療養する間、１０歳の女の子ルシンダは１人で学校の先生の家に寄宿することに。「女の子らしくふるまいなさい」という厳しいエミリーおばさんと従姉妹の手元をすりぬけ、ローラースケートを片手にＮＹの町を自分らしく闊歩します。まだ貧富の差が激しく、差別もあった時代に、公平に友だちを選び、困った人には心から手を差し出す明るいルシンダにきっと心を奪われることでしょう。１年間の間に両親のもとでは経験しえなかった愛、友情や夢を意識し、そしてひとりの友人の死からも学び成長していきます。1937年ニューベリー賞受賞作品。