Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

I read science fiction.

I read, you know, The, the little girl, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and all that kind of stuff.

I read every last Nancy Drew.

You know, I just loved all of it, and I would spend, for me, a walk to the library and come back with, you know, a stack of books was just a joy.

Okay, but if you think about it from like, I feel-- Okay, "Labyrinth" falls into the category of, what is that book that I read to my daughter recently? Like, we did a great illustrated classic.

Um, "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," right?

[chuckles]

"Labyrinth" has the same problem, which is you watched "Labyrinth," or like I even watched La- We all watched "Labyrinth" and we were like, "This is a fun fucking story." And then you watch it in like 2026 and you go, "Oh, this has some highly problematic themes that I'm just gonna continue to gloss over because I'm having too much fun." But you're like, "Ah, I did not really notice that, but now it's really hard not to notice that." Um, same thing, right? "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," reading this cute little classic to my daughter, and then at the end she fucking marries the guy she sold soap to when she was like 12, and she's only like 16 or some shit, and he's like 40.

Yeah.

And I'm reading this to my 5-year-old who's like, "Wait a minute." Even she's able to like start doing some rudimentary math.

But there came a time when Polly Oliver's problem brought me a girl public.

It was not an oppressively large one, that is, I never was mobbed in the streets by Polly's admirers, but they existed, and heavens, how many letters they wrote! I see now that Polly was a real Girl Scout, but faithful as she unconsciously was to the then unwritten laws of the Sisterhood, she faded into insignificance when my absolutely true-to-type Scout appeared in the guise of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

rebecca did not reform convert or uplift her seniors her parents grandparents neighbors and constituents but she could never keep her hands off things that needed to be done and whatever enterprise was on hand there was rebecca to be found sometimes on the outskirts frequently i fear in its storm center Do you remember that it was Rebecca and her twelve-year-old friends who sewed the white stars on the Riverboro homemade flag, just as the Roosevelt High School girls have been doing for their great leader these last weeks? My summer home lies between two Maine villages on opposite sides of the Saco River.

There are Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts in each of the villages, but off the Maine roads, almost on the fringe of the pine forests, are boys and girls too far away from one another to reach any group.