Ending thoughts on The Motor Maids' School Days: This book sucks!
Just when I thought it couldn't suck any worse: - another picnic on another island and smugglers' cave full of stolen auto parts - lashings of ginger beer - references to the Injun Wars - Mrs. Ruggles the innkeeper who dresses like a man and cooks tamales for all - colored butler who doesn't understand honor - a jolly fat girl makes a cameo appearance - Villains are all evil South Americans including Ruiz, the famous desperado and filibuster who smuggles rifles to Venezuela - a mortgage hangs like a black cloud over poor Mary Price's mother - kidnapping again, and a hurricane - Billie gets a *fifty dollar* monthly allowance. In 1911! - Belle the snob confesses everything, prays, is forgiven
"Really, Fannie," spoke Elinor, "you are not in the lawless South American country you came from, whatever it is. You are among decent people, not thieves, and perhaps you had better remember that hereafter."
Worst of all, the girls don't even solve the mystery - An outside detective swoops in.
The beautiful auto wreck lady is a good, non revolutionary South American and Mrs. Ruggles' daughter in law. The entire book ends up being a sort of lesson that the U.S. is the center of honor and law, in opposition to Injuns and South Americans. Thanks, 1911. I've read The Motor Maids in Fair Japan a few years ago, which was a lesson in every stereotype you can think of and some you can't.
There is a companion series to the Motor Maids, The Motor Cycle Chums (Around the World, of the Northwest Patrol, in the Gold Fields, etc)
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Date: 2009-05-31 04:07 pm (UTC)Just when I thought it couldn't suck any worse:
- another picnic on another island and smugglers' cave full of stolen auto parts
- lashings of ginger beer
- references to the Injun Wars
- Mrs. Ruggles the innkeeper who dresses like a man and cooks tamales for all
- colored butler who doesn't understand honor
- a jolly fat girl makes a cameo appearance
- Villains are all evil South Americans including Ruiz, the famous desperado and filibuster who smuggles rifles to Venezuela
- a mortgage hangs like a black cloud over poor Mary Price's mother
- kidnapping again, and a hurricane
- Billie gets a *fifty dollar* monthly allowance. In 1911!
- Belle the snob confesses everything, prays, is forgiven
"Really, Fannie," spoke Elinor, "you are not in the lawless South American country you came from, whatever it is. You are among decent people, not thieves, and perhaps you had better remember that hereafter."
Worst of all, the girls don't even solve the mystery - An outside detective swoops in.
The beautiful auto wreck lady is a good, non revolutionary South American and Mrs. Ruggles' daughter in law. The entire book ends up being a sort of lesson that the U.S. is the center of honor and law, in opposition to Injuns and South Americans. Thanks, 1911. I've read The Motor Maids in Fair Japan a few years ago, which was a lesson in every stereotype you can think of and some you can't.
There is a companion series to the Motor Maids, The Motor Cycle Chums (Around the World, of the Northwest Patrol, in the Gold Fields, etc)