Patty At Home

Patty Fairfield #2

by Carolyn Wells

Patty and her father settle down in Vernondale and Patty learns about housekeeping.

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1902

About the author

Carolyn Wells was a prolific writer for over 40 years and was especially noted for her humor, and she was a frequent contributor of nonsense verse and whimsical pieces to such little magazines as Gelett Burgess' The Lark, the Chap Book, the Yellow Book, and the Philistine.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Revisiting these stories is such a joy. They are sweet simple books. Are they perfect? No, however, they are a nice change of pace. I want to read the whole series this year.

2013 review
Another lovely Patty book! I just loved Patty learning to run a home, making friends, and attending her first ball. All of this is done in the lovely style of the late 1800's - early 1900's when authors didn't feel the need to rush through a story, of have major plot twists. This was just a sweet story of a girl learning to make a home and growing up.

[J. Boo · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this sequel to "Patty Fairfield", she sets up housekeeping for her father and sometimes succeeds, sometimes makes a mess of things. A small amount of "household management by example (good and bad)" didacticism goes down smoothly. I enjoyed a couple clever, funny scenes involving the servants, but this is otherwise significantly weaker than the first. At least weaker to this adult reader - were I a pre-teen girl, the wish fulfillment aspects would surely have sucked me right in.

[C Krengel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had this whole series as a girl and read them over and over. Would still have them plus all my FE Stratton Porter's if my in-laws hasn't sold them all at a garage sale....

Very old fashioned stories of turn-of-the-century life of a wealthy young fatherless girl.

[Alisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute, no big surprises, still reminding me a lot of a couple of Louisa May Alcott's books. Very pleasant, old-fashioned, light reading.

[Mikayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cute second book, I'm loving the characters more all the time!

[Erika Mathews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent second book. Instructive as well as entertaining and well written.

[Miranda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a setting, a beautiful three-story house in Vernondale called Boxley Hall. It has characters--two quirky servants, an eccentric neighbor, and a talented artist, as well as reappearances of some of Patty's cousins from the previous book. Patty's waitress Pansy, not much older than her, has an amusing penchant for decorating her room with rocks and branches that belong outside. Then there's Patty's cook, Emancipation Proclamation "Mancy" Jackson, who hangs up a dozen identical soap advertisements in her room because the woman in them looks like her. Carolyn Wells' humor is peppered throughout, such as Patty's tea club having no rules and calling themselves "unruly" as a result.

But for all of its strengths, this book doesn't have much of a plot. Most of it details Patty setting up her new home and failing at her attempts to prepare food for guests. Most scenes weren't super interesting. There's even a whole chapter about her paying bills. What little girl wants to read about that? 😂

Toward the end, it picks up a bit, with a mix-up of suitcases at the train station as her Barlow cousins and Nan arrive. In a couple of later scenes, Patty and some of the other characters share their aspirations. It's interesting to learn more about them in this way. The ending seemed to come out of nowhere with Patty's father hiring Nan as their housekeeper, freeing up Patty to do what she wants with her life. It appears she'll be enrolling in a school in New York in the next book. Though this wasn't my favorite, I'll be interested to see where life takes Patty next.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second in the Patty Fairfield series, that was one of my mother's books growing up, and I am now reading on Kindle, as they are out of print. This one has the 15 year old young woman managing her father's home, and how she entertains, and sometimes makes "mistakes". It's from a by-gone era, and fun to hear the language and styles and customs of 1910's America.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imagine a box of chocolates. you eat one, and of course you want another. But the second isn't as good, somehow. Just so with the Patty stories - one is enough. Your teeth start to hurt after yet another tea party or picnic or amusing little domestic mistake. To borrow from Dorothy Parker, the Patty series runs the range of human emotions from A to B.

[Rozita Berry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pure fluff but wholesome and entertaining. I guess adolescence wasn't invented until the 1920s. Didn't nice girls ever have ANY interest in the opposite sex until age 20 or so? Even so, a pleasant glimpse into turn of the century youth literature.

[Reading with Cats · Rating 3 out of 5]

NOBODY is *that* cheerful all the time.