Sisters: A Tale of Sisterhood, Loyalty, and Forgiveness in Early 20th Century

The Adventure and Mystery Series for Girls

by Grace May North

A story about two sisters who don't realize they are.

232 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1928

About the author

Grace May North-Monfort was born in Utica, New York, and between 1919 and 1931 wrote a number of books under her own name as well as her personal pseudonym, "Carol Norton." In addition to writing three volumes in the X Bar X Boys series for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, she also wrote a short series of western stories for young children, called the "Southwest Stories for Children," unpublished at the time of her death in San Luis Obispo, California.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

As toddlers, Gwynette and Jeannette were orphaned and adopted separately - Gwynette by a wealthy family and Jeannette by an old farming couple. Mrs. Poindexter-Jones made the Warners promise never to tell Jeannette that she's blood sister to Gwynette, and fourteen years go by. Now spoiled Gwynette is a nightmare of a human being while Jenny is a dream, at which point Mrs. Poindexter-Jones begins to realize that maybe she did something wrong raising her daughter. Enter numerous plot contrivances common to melodramatic fiction, including but not limited to lost loves, surprise nobility, horrific Asian stereotypes, and the uncomfortable realization that Gwynette's adoptive brother is in love with her blood sister. It's an absolute romp, made even better at the very end by Jenny proving that, like everyone has always said, she is very, very smart. It's not Rilla of the Lighthouse (my favorite Grace May North book), but still awfully fun.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pair of orphaned sisters are separated at the ages of 1 and 3 respectively. The older sister Gwynette goes to a wealthy urban family who owns a farm outside Santa Barbara. The younger sister Jeanette goes to the care-takers of the farm, who raise her as their own grand-daughter. The sisters are never told about all of this. The older at age 17 or so ends up being sent to a boarding school near the farm, and of course she's terribly snooty and unpleasant, while the relatively poor younger sister Jenny is a paragon beloved by all, and so forth. Jenny gains a little friend, Lenora. The sisters eventually meet and so forth. All that plays out in a fairly interesting way. Later, there are some boys involved, too. The ending of the book is a trifle too rushed for my taste, but I suppose it's par for the late 1920s.

All through the first 2/3 of the book, I had this delicious feeling like the main protagonist (Jenny) could really be a closet lesbian falling in love with one of the orphan girls who works at the seminary... But I suppose that's my laughable modern prejudice. The Jenny-Lenora hand-holding and kisses are entirely innocent and sisterly even if they do love one another. (See end of Chapter 14. And if it had been my book, I would have sent the plot in an entirely different direction sans boys.)

This is the second book I've read by this author. It's kind of a mixed bag. On the one hand, the story is straight-forward and fairly predictable, or at least somewhat pedestrian in its eventual direction.

The writing is generally pretty good and clear. But the first half especially suffers from some conversational snippets that are almost laughably infodumpadelic, and the information should have been pushed into the narrative rather than being put into the mouths of the characters. In other places some of the dialogue is just a bit silly and dated. That's probably the weakest aspect of the book, aside from the overly compressed set-up at the end. There are also some rather lovely passages in the book and some parts actually felt excellent, which is why I liked it three stars worth rather than saying it was just OK.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit poorly written but a sweet story

[Elizabeth Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite books as a tween and young teen. My daughters have also loved this read.