Henner's Lydia

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Summary: A warm story of family love, traditions, and memory.
Review: Henner's Lydia by Marguerite de Angeli is a story which takes its readers (or its listeners, for it is a delightful book to read aloud to small children) to a traditional, rural Pennsylvania Dutch community of the 1930's in Lancaster County, PA. The story and drawings possess a wholeness, freshness, and integrity that have borne well the test of time, for this story first appeared about sixty years ago. Young Lydia and her family are Amish, and the characteristics and distinctives of the Amish community are described very well in this story, yet the characters are also people not too different from the kind of people we are. Few children's books manage to so illustrate the human condition with the warmth and wisdom of writer and illustrater de Angeli; this book, along with her book Bright April, is one of her best at doing so.

What happens in the story? Little enough, or so it seems at first: people sit on the porch, make cider in the backyard, walk to school, travel to market, eat food (smearcase, snitz and nep, apple butter, chowchow, fastnachts, half moon pies, and other foods appear on the table), talk, and plan the small events of daily living. Little happens, and everything: young Lydia discovers small but important things about life. Behind the characters and events of the story is a strength, a strength of love, family love, for which we at the end of the 20th century might feel a great longing. Because of this great love, the people in the story know who they are, and we, the readers, are implicitly, warmly encouraged to become the people we should be.

Marguerite de Angeli, born in 1889 in Lapeer, Michigan, wrote and illustrated twenty eight books for young readers during her life. The honors she received include the Newbery Medal, two Caldecott Honor Awards, the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, and the Regina Medal. She died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1987. Many of her books are out of print; it is good to see this story in print once more.