Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by metaphorosis
Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation by Edith Van Dyne
3.0
3.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews
Summary
Aunt Jane's nieces go back to Millville on vacation and decide to start a local newspaper.
Review
The title here is a bit unhelpful, since the nieces don’t work and they seem to almost always be on vacation. I supposed Baum felt that Aunt Jane’s Nieces Start a Newspaper would have given the game away, though we learn this quite early in any case. Or, because it’s again about Millville, he didn’t want to offer Go Back to Millville, which would also have been uninformative.
In any case, the story here follows a familiar formula – wish fulfillment for young women backed by an unending well of money. However, one of the things that I like about these books is their sense of realism. Not in the details – everything works out too easily, and there’s always a lucky coincidence – but because Baum recognizes explicitly just why the women can do as they choose: because Uncle John is a multi-millionaire. Without getting into whether the specifics are correct, the book is quite clear that the newspaper the girls start runs at a tremendous loss and has no chance as a commercial enterprise. Baum is also quite clear that, initially, at least, the paper is just not very good – even the women recognize that. So, it’s clear to everyone that they can all do this fun thing because of John’s money, not because the nieces are geniuses – though they are all charming; pretty much every young woman in the series is.
This was a much more successful book than its travelogue predecessor, and I think it draws on what the series is good at – a moderate level of realism as well as some fun, interesting activities for the nieces, and a happy ending.
One down side - there are some ructions among mill workers, and Baum here seems to use 'foreign' as a shorthand for uncultured and violent. He includes some Americans in this group as well, so it's not pure xenophobia, but it's a little offputting. More a sign of the times is that the nieces all agree that a man needs to be nominally in charge of the press, so Arthur Weldon is called in to be the figurehead, though the press is run mostly by women.
Summary
Aunt Jane's nieces go back to Millville on vacation and decide to start a local newspaper.
Review
The title here is a bit unhelpful, since the nieces don’t work and they seem to almost always be on vacation. I supposed Baum felt that Aunt Jane’s Nieces Start a Newspaper would have given the game away, though we learn this quite early in any case. Or, because it’s again about Millville, he didn’t want to offer Go Back to Millville, which would also have been uninformative.
In any case, the story here follows a familiar formula – wish fulfillment for young women backed by an unending well of money. However, one of the things that I like about these books is their sense of realism. Not in the details – everything works out too easily, and there’s always a lucky coincidence – but because Baum recognizes explicitly just why the women can do as they choose: because Uncle John is a multi-millionaire. Without getting into whether the specifics are correct, the book is quite clear that the newspaper the girls start runs at a tremendous loss and has no chance as a commercial enterprise. Baum is also quite clear that, initially, at least, the paper is just not very good – even the women recognize that. So, it’s clear to everyone that they can all do this fun thing because of John’s money, not because the nieces are geniuses – though they are all charming; pretty much every young woman in the series is.
This was a much more successful book than its travelogue predecessor, and I think it draws on what the series is good at – a moderate level of realism as well as some fun, interesting activities for the nieces, and a happy ending.
One down side - there are some ructions among mill workers, and Baum here seems to use 'foreign' as a shorthand for uncultured and violent. He includes some Americans in this group as well, so it's not pure xenophobia, but it's a little offputting. More a sign of the times is that the nieces all agree that a man needs to be nominally in charge of the press, so Arthur Weldon is called in to be the figurehead, though the press is run mostly by women.