Marjorie's Busy Days

Marjorie Maynard #2

by Carolyn Wells

At the close of that wonderful summer on her Grandmother’s farm, 12-year-old Marjorie came home to Rockwell and the happy quartette of the Maynard family, reunited once more, had many a new game together. And then came school days. Before we know it along comes Halloween with a beautiful party, and then we learn of the strange activities of the Village Imp. Society with its anonymous messages to the village property owners. Thanksgiving Time brings with it the Charity Bazaar with a host of new excitements and adventures.

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

164 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1908

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

[QNPoohBear · Rating 5 out of 5]

This children's book first published in 1908 is about a mischievous 12-year-old girl Majorie (also called "Midget" or "Mops") and her daily escapades with her friends and siblings. Marjorie can't help but get up to hi-jinks but she always listens to her parents' scoldings and promises not to do it again. Then she goes and does something else... To tell you what she gets up to would spoil the plot but it's very charming and funny. I really liked Marjorie. She's a real little girl who isn't perfect by any means and doesn't really want to try. She means well but ... she just can't help herself. Her whole family is loving and close-knit. Her parents may despair at some of her antics but they always have a hug and a kind word for their children when needed. I don't know why this series hasn't become a classic the way Anne of Green Gables did. It's a lot of fun and good slice of life for a wealthy girl living in the New York area in 1908.

Read this if you love Anne of Green Gables, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and the American Girl Samantha books.

I found my copy at a used/rare bookstore.

[Rae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grabbed it at an antique store for 5 bucks. Cute story with really enjoyable little characters. Not as plastic and annoying as, say, the Bobbsey Twins. I'd actually like to find some more of the Marjorie series!

[Miranda · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's good to have Marjorie back for another set of (mis)adventures. This is such a wholesome, adorable, and terribly underrated series.

While the first book took place on her grandmother's farm, this one finds Marjorie back home with her parents, brother, and sisters. It's nice getting to know her siblings better after only a brief introduction to them in book one before she was whisked away to Grandma's.

As always, Marjorie's playful quirks and impetuous spirit shine as she gets carried away imagining she's a mouse and nibbles her friend's pen holder, smears herself with ink while trying to create a witch hat, nearly gets herself locked in the school building at night, and much more. She's always eager to learn something new but hates to be cooped up in the school room on a nice day. (As an ADHD girl myself, I honestly think Marjorie is some of the best female neurodivergent representation out there--perhaps Wells was a bit ahead of her time.)

Marjorie's dad is a great character too, quite imaginative himself. He's always ready to teach his children new games or offer them some fatherly advice. He even takes time off work to help Marjorie with her spelling lesson, and does his best to rectify the damage done when his children form an "improvement society" and send out letters criticizing their neighbors' houses and lawns.

Through scenes of an indoor picnic, a Halloween party, and Thanksgiving, this book describes in detail several party games, which I'm sure some first generation readers happily copied for their own get-togethers. Nearly 120 years have passed, but most of these games hold up and could be just as entertaining to today's children.

Characters from the first book are not forgotten. It's sweet that Marjorie's friend Molly makes the trip to visit for Thanksgiving. And while Grandma and Uncle Steve do not appear, they donate some items for the alphabet-themed charity bazaar in the last chapter. Uncle Steve, clever as he is, probably enjoyed this challenge and was the perfect person to help.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, even more than the first one. I hope that Grandma and Uncle Steve appear again in a later book, as they were some of my favorite characters. Whether or not they do, I'm excited to find out what the rest of the series holds.