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Book Review: The Golden Name Day
Feb. 20th, 2023 06:20 pmI just read the most enchanting book! It's Jennie Lindquist's The Golden Name Day, a Newbery Honor book from 1956, which is what I think of as a picnic book: the characters don't always have literal picnics (although in this book there are at least three), but the book is made up of a series of good times like beads on a string, picnics and parties and reading a beloved book below a stained glass window so the rich colored light falls on the book just right.
In this book, young Nancy has been sent to spend the year with her Swedish grandmother, who still keeps many of the Swedish customs of her youth before she immigrated to America. One of these customs is the Name Day, which gives the book its title and also provides the string on which to thread those good time beads: Nancy yearns for a Name Day, but as Nancy is not in the Swedish almanac, she and her companions all spend the book contemplating how to get her one.
The good times take place with her grandmother and grandfather, her three cousins, her Aunt Martha, her new friend Alex who lives down the street (he uses a wheelchair, with the book deals with in a breezily matter-of-fact way), and many delightful animals, not least a kitten who is discovered at one of those aforementioned picnics and acquires the name Cuckoo Clock.
It's simply a lovely warm bath of a book. I've never read it before, but nonetheless the experience felt nostalgic. And it has perfectly enchanting illustrations by Garth Williams, who illustrated the Little House books as well as E. B. White's children's books. There are two sequels and of course I'm looking forward to reading them.
In this book, young Nancy has been sent to spend the year with her Swedish grandmother, who still keeps many of the Swedish customs of her youth before she immigrated to America. One of these customs is the Name Day, which gives the book its title and also provides the string on which to thread those good time beads: Nancy yearns for a Name Day, but as Nancy is not in the Swedish almanac, she and her companions all spend the book contemplating how to get her one.
The good times take place with her grandmother and grandfather, her three cousins, her Aunt Martha, her new friend Alex who lives down the street (he uses a wheelchair, with the book deals with in a breezily matter-of-fact way), and many delightful animals, not least a kitten who is discovered at one of those aforementioned picnics and acquires the name Cuckoo Clock.
It's simply a lovely warm bath of a book. I've never read it before, but nonetheless the experience felt nostalgic. And it has perfectly enchanting illustrations by Garth Williams, who illustrated the Little House books as well as E. B. White's children's books. There are two sequels and of course I'm looking forward to reading them.
