THE PINK MAPLE HOUSE REVISITED

     I was able to request a copy of The Pink Maple House through interlibrary loan. It was the book both my mother and I had read during my childhood. I had hated it, she had liked it, and I wanted to see if I still felt the same way.

    The Pink Maple House was published in 1950. It is very dated. My guess is I read it in 1961. I think it was dated even then. It tells the story of Polly Trent, who moves to the "beautiful  beautiful"pink maple house with her family.

     Sadly, Polly moves away from her best friend, Jenny Spears. She starts a new school But not to worry, Jenny often comes to visit, and the two families spend both Thanksgiving and Christmas together.

     First of all, Polly and Jenny are terrible snobs. If I were Mrs. Trent, I would be concerned that Polly makes no new friends at the new school, and has to rely so heavily on Jenny coming over. The only girl she starts to know is Tilly Jenkins, but she and Jenny act very superior to Tilly. Tilly has a ramshackle house and her mother yells and hits. And of course, she is jealous of Polly's "perfect" life, so is portrayed as poor Tilly. She's described as fat, "the fat little girl", which really bothered me.

     I also couldn't stand the portrayal of the servants, the Trent's housekeeper, Delsey, and the Spears' man, Robert. Although they act like they have warm admiration for Delsey and her good cooking, she has to work on Christmas Day! They only had two guests for dinner, so why couldn't spoiled Mrs. Trent handle it? And whoop-de-doo, they give Delsey a whopping $5 and a new pocketbook for her Christmas gift. Come on! That was cheap even in 1950! She's treated as badly as Bob Crachit was by Scrooge, in my opinion.

    So verdict. I was a wise little girl. I didn't care for The Pink Maple House then and I still don't like it now. Reading it made me realize why a tumultuous decade like the sixties followed the 1950s. I can't help wondering - if there really was a Polly Trent, did she decide to "tune in, turn on and drop out" during the late 1960s? As for Tilly Jenkins, I hope she received a full scholarship to college, worked hard, and became the glamorous CEO of her own international firm!