Whether little Eddie's finding homes for a crowd of stray cats, or picketing the baseball team that says he's too little to play, his happy adventures are sure to win lots of friends
Carolyn Haywood was an American writer and illustrator from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She wrote 47 children's books, most notably the series under the "Eddie" and "Betsy" titles.
My six-year-old and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting Eddie and chumming along on his everyday adventures. Published in the late 1940s, this is vintage and "old fashioned" for better and for worse (I was thinking Beaver Cleaver and Opie Taylor as I read) but mostly for better. My son is so like Little Eddie in many ways, especially in his love of cats and in making things out of "junk" -- yet Eddie's is a world where he could be off on his own all afternoon, run to town on an errand for his mom (taking two buses to get there, so grown-up!) and workmen are so charmed that they not only let him keep the old telegraph pole they took down, they haul it to his house for him. I like that Eddie is friends with a girl, and that the girl is pretty darn cool (she even plays good baseball!) so that is a little more "progressive" than some books of this time. (I'm wondering if she is the same Betsey that is in the Betsey series by the same author? I'm guessing so.) We will look for more in this series.
Eddie has all the problems of a 7-year old boy. He spends his time collecting old junk - and collecting cats. He wants to play with the big kids. And always has an angle so that he comes out ahead.
I would classify this as one of those books that's kind of soft and gentle - the adventures are sweet and funny, and while the book is definitely a bit dated, there's a soothing feel when you read them. I like Eddie, maybe in part because I used to read Eddie books back when I was a child. I think, though, they can still have a certain relevance to today. I think I'm going to enjoy my walk down memory lane with Eddie. I can't wait to read the next one!
We devoured this one. Finished it in 24 hours. Even the hubby got caught up in the stories. We carried the book everywhere and read it every free moment. 💕
I read every Carolyn Haywood book that I could get my hands on when I was a child. These were the first books I read after Dick and Jane. Eddie was much more adventurous.