Nana's Book Library

• Age: 7-10
• Particulars (Out of 5):  
  • Historical value:  *****  
  • Positive role models *****   
  • Inappropriate language:  None.
  • Sexual references:  None.  
  • Alcohol:  None. 
• Reminder:  Nana’s Books are rated G.  Anyone could read them, or listen to them being read aloud. 

Hannah is a young Quaker girl who lives with her large family in Philadelphia just before the Civil War.  The Quakers, or Friends, wear plain clothes, but Hannah yearns for fancier ones like her friend Cecily wears – hoop skirts and pretty colors, flowers and ribbons.

Poor Hannah!  She messes up a lot.  She has ideas that seem good at the time but turn out not to be, like wearing Cecily’s delicate and lovely bonnet (compared to her heavy scoop bonnet) out in public or borrowing her colorful sash (which really stands out against her plain grey dress).  Even though she hears a little voice in her head saying “stop,” she plows on ahead – like when she’s skating on the frozen river and wants to show off, then nearly falls in — and because she gets wet in the bitter cold, her companions have to cut their outing short to get her home.  Her loving parents want her to understand what it means to be Quaker, but all Hannah can see is what she can’t have.  Her glass is definitely half empty!  “Old Spotty,” her family’s nickname for the devil, keeps getting her into trouble. 

            The Friends are hospitable and kind, opening their home and dinner table to friends and travelers in need.  In secret, they even risk their safety to help slaves who have escaped from the South get to freedom.  When one desperate woman and her sick little boy appeal to Hannah for help – because her distinctive Quaker attire signals to them that she is their Friend – she does not hesitate, and she does not fail them.  At last, Hannah’s heavy Quaker bonnet feels light and beautiful, and at last, she learns to be proud of who she is.

            Note:  this book, inspired by the author’s Aunt Hannah, was written in 1940, one year after Gone with the Wind, and features a few sentences of some of the same slave dialect.  It is a product of its time, and this does not at all negate the bravery and goodness of Hannah’s family.  If I were reading this aloud, I would just read that dialect in regular English.  Another note: these Friends say “thee” instead of you, which takes some getting used to.  

            This wonderful story paints a vivid picture of what life was like in 1850s Philadelphia.  It is available on Amazon in hardcover and paperback, and was in stock at my local library.  There are numerous, inexpensive vintage copies available on eBay and abebooks, as well.  

©Janet Farrar Worthington

Note:  I am an Amazon affiliate, so if you do click a link and buy a book, I will theoretically make a small amount of money, but I’m just starting this thing, so I don’t even know how that works.   Still, full disclosure, etc.