What do you think?
Rate this book
Lucy
Lucy's Summer
Lucy Wells's unusual summer of 1910 begins with her mother turning the front parlor into a hat-making emporium and includes unexpected, exciting visitors, a train trip to Boston, and a visit to Woolworth's wondrous toy counter. By the author of Ox-Cart Man.
40 pages, Library Binding
First published April 1, 1995
1 person is currently reading
73 people want to read
About the author
Donald Hall
180 books201 followersDonald Hall was considered one of the major American poets of his generation.
His poetry explores the longing for a more bucolic past and reflects the poet’s abiding reverence for nature. Although Hall gained early success with his first collection, Exiles and Marriages (1955), his later poetry is generally regarded as the best of his career. Often compared favorably with such writers as James Dickey, Robert Bly, and James Wright, Hall used simple, direct language to evoke surrealistic imagery. In addition to his poetry, Hall built a respected body of prose that includes essays, short fiction, plays, and children’s books. Hall, who lived on the New Hampshire farm he visited in summers as a boy, was also noted for the anthologies he has edited and is a popular teacher, speaker, and reader of his own poems.
Born in 1928, Hall grew up in Hamden, Connecticut. The Hall household was marked by a volatile father and a mother who was “steadier, maybe with more access to depths because there was less continual surface,” as Hall explained in an essay for Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series (CAAS). “To her I owe my fires, to my father my tears. I owe them both for their reading.” By age twelve, Hall had discovered the poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe: “I read Poe and my life changed,” he remarked in CAAS. Another strong influence in Hall’s early years was his maternal great-grandfather’s farm in New Hampshire, where he spent many summers. Decades later, he bought the same farm and settled there as a full-time writer and poet.
Hall attended Philips Exeter Academy and had his first poem published at age 16. He was a participant at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, where he met Robert Frost, that same year. From Exeter, Hall went to Harvard University, attending class alongside Adrienne Rich, Robert Bly, Frank O’Hara, and John Ashbery; he also studied for a year with Archibald MacLeish. Hall earned a BLitt from Oxford University and won the Newdigate contest for his poem “Exile,” one of the few Americans ever to win the prize. Returning to the United States, Hall spent a year at Stanford, studying under the poet-critic Yvor Winters, before returning to Harvard to join the prestigious Society of Fellows. It was there that Hall assembled Exiles and Marriages, a tightly-structured collection crafted in rigid rhyme and meter. In 1953, Hall also became the poetry editor of the Paris Review, a position he held until 1961. In 1957 he took a position as assistant professor of English at the University of Michigan, where he remained until 1975. While at Michigan, Hall met the young Jane Kenyon. They later married and, when Hall’s grandmother, who owned Eagle Pond Farm, passed away, bought the farm, left teaching, and moved there together. The collections Kicking the Leaves (1978) and The Happy Man (1986) reflect Hall’s happiness at his return to the family farm, a place rich with memories and links to his past. Many of the poems explore and celebrate the continuity between generations. The Happy Man won the Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize. Hall’s next book, The One Day (1988), won the National Book Critics Circle Award. A long poem that meditates on the on-set of old age, The One Day, like much of Hall’s early work, takes shape under formal pressure: composed of 110 stanzas, split over three sections, its final sections are written in blank verse. The critic Frederick Pollack praised the book as possibly “the last masterpiece of American Modernism. Any poet who seeks to surpass this genre should study it; any reader who has lost interest in contemporary poetry should read it.” Old and New Poems (1990) contains several traditional poems from earlier collections, as well as more innovative verses not previously published. “Baseball,” included in The Museum of Clear Ideas (1993), is the poet’s ode to the great American pastime and is structured around t
His poetry explores the longing for a more bucolic past and reflects the poet’s abiding reverence for nature. Although Hall gained early success with his first collection, Exiles and Marriages (1955), his later poetry is generally regarded as the best of his career. Often compared favorably with such writers as James Dickey, Robert Bly, and James Wright, Hall used simple, direct language to evoke surrealistic imagery. In addition to his poetry, Hall built a respected body of prose that includes essays, short fiction, plays, and children’s books. Hall, who lived on the New Hampshire farm he visited in summers as a boy, was also noted for the anthologies he has edited and is a popular teacher, speaker, and reader of his own poems.
Born in 1928, Hall grew up in Hamden, Connecticut. The Hall household was marked by a volatile father and a mother who was “steadier, maybe with more access to depths because there was less continual surface,” as Hall explained in an essay for Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series (CAAS). “To her I owe my fires, to my father my tears. I owe them both for their reading.” By age twelve, Hall had discovered the poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe: “I read Poe and my life changed,” he remarked in CAAS. Another strong influence in Hall’s early years was his maternal great-grandfather’s farm in New Hampshire, where he spent many summers. Decades later, he bought the same farm and settled there as a full-time writer and poet.
Hall attended Philips Exeter Academy and had his first poem published at age 16. He was a participant at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, where he met Robert Frost, that same year. From Exeter, Hall went to Harvard University, attending class alongside Adrienne Rich, Robert Bly, Frank O’Hara, and John Ashbery; he also studied for a year with Archibald MacLeish. Hall earned a BLitt from Oxford University and won the Newdigate contest for his poem “Exile,” one of the few Americans ever to win the prize. Returning to the United States, Hall spent a year at Stanford, studying under the poet-critic Yvor Winters, before returning to Harvard to join the prestigious Society of Fellows. It was there that Hall assembled Exiles and Marriages, a tightly-structured collection crafted in rigid rhyme and meter. In 1953, Hall also became the poetry editor of the Paris Review, a position he held until 1961. In 1957 he took a position as assistant professor of English at the University of Michigan, where he remained until 1975. While at Michigan, Hall met the young Jane Kenyon. They later married and, when Hall’s grandmother, who owned Eagle Pond Farm, passed away, bought the farm, left teaching, and moved there together. The collections Kicking the Leaves (1978) and The Happy Man (1986) reflect Hall’s happiness at his return to the family farm, a place rich with memories and links to his past. Many of the poems explore and celebrate the continuity between generations. The Happy Man won the Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize. Hall’s next book, The One Day (1988), won the National Book Critics Circle Award. A long poem that meditates on the on-set of old age, The One Day, like much of Hall’s early work, takes shape under formal pressure: composed of 110 stanzas, split over three sections, its final sections are written in blank verse. The critic Frederick Pollack praised the book as possibly “the last masterpiece of American Modernism. Any poet who seeks to surpass this genre should study it; any reader who has lost interest in contemporary poetry should read it.” Old and New Poems (1990) contains several traditional poems from earlier collections, as well as more innovative verses not previously published. “Baseball,” included in The Museum of Clear Ideas (1993), is the poet’s ode to the great American pastime and is structured around t
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 2, 2019
Based upon stories told to the author by his mother about her childhood growing up on a farm in New Hampshire, this lovely work of picture-book historical fiction follows the eponymous Lucy through one summer season, in the year 1910. Lucy's mother sets up a millinery shop in their front room, creating new hats for the local women, and refurbishing their old ones. Life on the farm goes on, in the meantime, and Lucy, her younger sister Caroline, and their mother work together to put away the canned food the family will need for the coming winter. Interspersed between the hard work is plenty of fun, whether that be the two sisters' games of make believe, or attending the local Fourth of July parade. There's even an exciting trip to Boston for Lucy, before the summer ends, and our young heroine escorts her younger sister to her first day at the local schoolhouse...
Gentle and non-sensational, and yet somehow completely engrossing at the same time, Lucy's Summer manages to capture the flavor and feeling of one girl's summer, more than one hundred years ago. The many details, captured both in author Donald Hall's narrative and in illustrator Michael McCurdy's artwork, make this tale feel authentic and true, almost like a snapshot of the past. The illustrations, created using a colored scratchboard technique, somewhat reminiscent of 19th-century engraving work I have seen, have an old-fashioned charm that is well-suited to the story. Highly recommended, both to those looking for children's stories set in historical New England/New Hampshire in particular, and to those interested in picture-book historical fiction in general. I myself finished the book wishing that there were more of it - perhaps Hall should write a more extensive, novel-length work about his mother's childhood? I would definitely read it!
Gentle and non-sensational, and yet somehow completely engrossing at the same time, Lucy's Summer manages to capture the flavor and feeling of one girl's summer, more than one hundred years ago. The many details, captured both in author Donald Hall's narrative and in illustrator Michael McCurdy's artwork, make this tale feel authentic and true, almost like a snapshot of the past. The illustrations, created using a colored scratchboard technique, somewhat reminiscent of 19th-century engraving work I have seen, have an old-fashioned charm that is well-suited to the story. Highly recommended, both to those looking for children's stories set in historical New England/New Hampshire in particular, and to those interested in picture-book historical fiction in general. I myself finished the book wishing that there were more of it - perhaps Hall should write a more extensive, novel-length work about his mother's childhood? I would definitely read it!
September 3, 2023
We’d read Lucy’s Christmas last year, so this one caught our eye as one to add in for our letter of the week (our curriculum goes out of alphabetical order in favor of easiest to write.) I enjoyed the woodcut-like illustrations and the simple tale of what a season would have been like for a child growing up in the early 20th century. My preschooler was surprisingly engrossed, though I probably shouldn’t be surprised since my kids have all loved Ox-Cart Man.
January 25, 2022
Wonderfully complex yet simply written story about a creative mother and her two daughters in turn of the century New Hampshire. Blending a hat making business with a farm wife’s responsibilities was a big accomplishment for the author’s grandmother. His mother remembers those adventures well. Just such great ACTION on every day! How books should be written - with real words and people doing things!! Great woodcut illustrations too.
November 19, 2023
I was reading Jane Kenyon's poems and realized I needed to read her equally famous husband's poems as well. And then I discovered this children's book he wrote about his mother's childhood. He and Jane lived until Jane's death in his family's New Hampshire home - where his mother lived as a child. He continued to live there after that as well. His rich history with this place makes the book a very special experience. The illustrations are lovely.
March 25, 2020
I understand this wasn't meant to be a cohesive story, but it did kinda make it hard to follow.
Reading the afterward did bring tears to my eyes, though. Being named after Hall's wife, Jane Kenyon, I feel a kinship with them that never really existed. So hearing anything about their life together makes me weepy. RIP.
Reading the afterward did bring tears to my eyes, though. Being named after Hall's wife, Jane Kenyon, I feel a kinship with them that never really existed. So hearing anything about their life together makes me weepy. RIP.
April 7, 2021
Donald Hall is the best
March 20, 2014
This is a wonderful story...brings the past to life and the joy and wonder of a young girl. Beautiful illustrations evoke gentle pastoral feelings of this family's life together in a rural community in the early 1900s.
June 21, 2010
glimpse into victorian life, written by one of my favorite poets. based on his mother's life in the farmhouse he now lives & works in.
August 10, 2016
Rural New Hampshire in 1910....from stories his mother told him....
May 1, 2012
Reading Rainbow: A Three Hat Day
I really like the quiet tone of his books (Ox Cart Man...) This was a simple story of the past.
I really like the quiet tone of his books (Ox Cart Man...) This was a simple story of the past.
February 23, 2014
Story is rich but lacks a robust plot. Illustrations make worth turning each page.
January 26, 2015
Rating definitely boosted by the illustrations. A satisfying peek into the past, simple but well done.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews