Hunter also describes driving (the horse and cart) to Shelburne, a barn-raising, a one-room schoolhouse, how to feed an apple to a horse, and how chewing tobacco works (yep, that last one is going to be handy one day). This is the book that introduced me to the words Clydesdale, sarsaparilla, “corker” and tuberculosis. Through Maggy’s observations, readers are able to get a flavour for what life must have been like. Also, I was drawn in by Hunter’s descriptions of rural life in the 1920s. At least, that’s how I felt for the first few chapters – by chapter 4 or 5, I was more used to the pace (fast) and reminded myself that when I was 8, I was very likely more slow at reading than I am now and that it very likely took more than five minutes for me to zip through a chapter. This time around, I found the chapters too short, the character development too thin, the “exciting moments” not exciting enough, and the story was unfolding too quickly. I had such fond memories of A Place for Margaret and I remember reading it over and over again. Initially, I was disappointed by my re-read. At the end of the book, Margaret is faced with a difficult choice: will she return to the farm to be raised by her Aunt and Uncle, or will she stay in the city with her parents and siblings? After spending the better part of the year on the farm, she returns to her family in Toronto and has to readjust to city life. Maggy quickly adjusts – there are very few “town mouse” moments – grows close to her Aunt and Uncle, makes new friends, and falls in love with Starr, the farm work-horse. From a the middle child in a family of nine children, she becomes an only child.
Margaret Emerson has been diagnosed with TB and is banished from her family’s busy house in Toronto to her Aunt and Uncle’s farm, near Shelburne, Ontario. I reread A Place for Margaret recently, after finding my worn out copy while visiting my dad (I found the cover for Margaret in the Middle, but not the content), specifically so that I could write a “fresh” book review on this blog.Ī Place for Margaret is nominally about Toronto, but mostly about rural Ontario in the 1920s.
My mom bought the first two books as a set – I think the third book hadn’t come out yet in paperback. Although the Margaret books were a trilogy, I only ever owned the first two books, A Place for Margaret and Margaret in the Middle ( Margaret on Her Way is the third book).
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