I thought at the beginning of the year that I’d bring back Travel Library and now the world is at it is, I’m actually posting this one that I wrote in January. And yes, obviously when bringing a series back in 2020, I’m going to start with a children’s book from 1886!
Susan Coolidge’s What Katy Did found itself back in the headlines a couple of years ago when renowned modern children’s author Jacqueline Wilson wrote her reimagined version of the classic tale, updating 19th century ideas on disability, suffering and recovery. Lesser known are the four sequels – I didn’t even discover the last two until very recently.
So Katy is a long-legged careless sister of five younger siblings who breaks her back and recovers completely thanks to patience and beauty. In What Katy Did At School, Katy and her sister Clover go off to a puritanical boarding school for a year, get into trouble and eventually convince their nemesis that they are truly ladylike.
And What Katy Did Next covers Katy’s grand tour of Europe, accompanying local wealthy widow Mrs Ashe who wants to take a long break in Europe with her young daughter but is afraid to go alone. Despite the fact that they end up chaperoned by her naval brother for a huge chunk of this trip, I think that’s actually quite an out-the-box idea for a couple of genteel Midwestern women in 1886. How staid was Katy’s previous life? Well, at boarding school in the previous book, it was the greatest disgrace to look in the direction of the boys at the college next door and Katy set up a Society for the Suppression of Unladylike Conduct so this independent travel is something of a gear change for her.
Only then they get to Europe and they spend the whole time miserable!
Oh yes, this is quite the fictional travelogue. The quaint English breakfast foods are tasteless, the weather is damp and grey, they spend all their time in London and cancel any excursions to the pleasanter countryside or to Scotland. They do make it to Winchester but no one knows who Jane Austen is and the tour guide is bewildered that Americans make so much fuss of this mysterious woman.
They make much the same of Paris as they did of London.
Then they spend a month or so in Nice with Ned, the aforementioned Naval brother, during which time Katy and the little girl go to the beach in November/December a lot and Mrs Ashe stays in the boarding house or with her brother. They don’t really enjoy Pisa, Rome or Sorrento either and when they reach Naples, the daughter spends weeks nearly-dying of Roman fever, which I gather means malaria – in this case cured by a soft feather pillow, real beef tea and a nurse who does nothing but sit silently beside the bed.
After that scare, Mrs Ashe decides to cut the Europe trip short and go hastily back to America, although not before Katy becomes engaged to her brother in a gondola in Venice.
It really doesn’t at all sell the joys of travel. Homesickness during such a huge upheaval is fair enough but eight-year-old Amy Ashe in particular comes across like one of those older-middle-aged Brits who goes to Benidorm and doesn’t like anything “foreign”. Mrs Ashe just doesn’t seem to have the force of personality to even think of going on a solo trip halfway across the world once they set off. To be fair, Katy mostly tries to be optimistic and to appreciate this unimaginable adventure and find the good but the whole tone of the book is so glum and so devoid of joy.
Surely this is exactly the era of the Grand Tour, of Thomas Cook starting his excursions, of the world opening up? Why write a children’s book about seeing the world that ultimately says “You’ll be happier not seeing the world, it’s rubbish out there”? We all love to see things go wrong but there’s no scope for humour at all in a whiny child and two perpetually disappointed adults. Katy’s Misadventures in Europe in 1886 could have been great. But then again, this is the Katy who attended the School of Pain and emerged saintly and cured from a severe spinal injury in the first book, not the over-lanky thoughtless girl who got into scrapes in the first few chapters. The original Katy would have had a ball in Europe. Wonderful Katy is too serious.
Yet I keep going back and re-reading it. I really like older children’s books. I spent the beginning of lockdown reading LM Montgomery and there’s nothing better for a bath than a Chalet School book. For Katy, stick with the first two books – they’re a bit saintly but at least they’re not “it was foreign and disappointing”. Or better still, grab a Chalet School book. I’ll do the first in that series next month – because that’s what you want from a travel blog, right? Reviews of oldey-timey girls’ own fiction?