Today I finished reading Connie Brummel Crook's latest book No Small Victory. The story follows the adventures and mishaps of Beatrice (aka Bonnie) when she and her family relocate to Lang, Ontario, in the height of the depression.
While it wasn't a bad book, there is really nothing stand-out about it either. 9-year-old Bonnie is far from thrilled about moving to a new town far away from her friends, family and her school. The family is poor, but living on a rural farm helps ensure that they don't go hungry.
There are many things to like about Bonnie. She's smart, loves to read and write stories, and would prefer to become a teacher than a housewife when she grows up. She tries her best to please her parents, and makes mistakes along the way. Unfortunately, the rest of the characters are not well-flushed out, and seem two-dimensional. The epidemic of choice is Scarlet Fever, (which is a switch from TB or Polio) but it's really only lightly touched on before the author moves on.
The trouble with most of these small-town books is that while the details of small-town-life are well-described, they lack the depth and charm that classics like Anne of Green Gables still have today.
