'Pollyanna's Protege' by Margaret Piper Chalmers

MY THOUGHTS: 

This novel was published in 1944 and it shows. My old edition has a double e at the end of protĕgĕ. We are in the thick of WW2 and the story includes spies, espionage and worlds being upturned everywhere. 

Jimmy now uses his engineering expertise in the Middle East. He's donned his soldier's uniform again after 25 years. Jim Junior is utilizing his photography skills by flying over the South Pacific and taking sneaky aerial snaps of enemy bases. Judy employs her dancing talent not on swanky stages but by rallying troops as part of a mobile entertainment unit. Junior and Judy both come strongly into the latter part this story, although their dad doesn't appear within these pages at all. 

At the start, Pollyanna and 16-year-old Ruth are holding the home front together. Pollyanna has picked up the busy hospital and Red Cross work she was doing at the end of Pollyanna of the Orange Blossoms. When this mother and daughter duo visit a local estate sale together, they purchase a compelling watercolour painting by an artist whose calling apparently destroyed him. That same afternoon, they rescue Rosemary Lane, a destitute and homeless girl who'd been wronged by her most recent employer. Although taking a total stranger home on a whim to live with them sounds very reckless, it works in this instance because it's a weird era, and heck, because it's Pollyanna. 

Under their roof, Rosemary deals with her past, becomes embroiled in some espionage, and falls in love. (I won't give outright spoilers, but no prizes for guessing the identity of the young man who finally steals her heart. Wink wink.)

Okay, this is not quality literature. In fact I facepalmed several times. 

1) The narrator, along with Pollyanna's inner voice, instructs us on how to feel about various characters rather than letting us make up our own minds. We're too often told upfront that this guy is sadly bitter or this woman is shamefully selfish. 

2) Chalmers draws from sad old tropes. For example, Rosemary's guardian, Cousin Sophia, was urgently trying to communicate something vital on her deathbed. That scenario should be limited to once per series if at all, and it's already happened early on with young Jimmy's father. Come on Chalmers, let Eleanor H Porter have the monopoly on that one.

3) There are far too many information dumps by characters who get carried away, then suddenly say, 'Oops, maybe I shouldn't have said all that.' 

4) Rosemary is a faultless heroine who needs no character development. Even when she learns how certain people ruined her life, her default reaction is immediate forgiveness and compassion. She's just like the too-good-to-be-true heroines of the animated Barbie movies my daughter was enamoured with when she was small. Sure, Rosemary is Pollyanna's protĕgĕ, but even Pollyanna herself isn't quite so pure and angelic as that. And we keep having dudes falling in love with Rosemary about five minutes after they meet her. My eyes were worn out from rolling. 

5) I found myself quite confused at times, wondering if I'd missed something. Chalmers introduces an entire community, the village of Brixton. She seemed to assume our familiarity with two particular families; the Greens and the Graves, yet when I consulted my list of Glad Books, I hadn't missed a single one.   

6) Holey Moley, there are enough back story subplots here to fill several extra novels all by themselves! Margaret Piper Chalmers has crammed this novel to bursting point.

Okay, other than all that, there are also a few inevitable instances where our 21st century sensibilities might get chafed by sentiments expressed in this mid-20th century novel. I'm never surprised or upset by heated racism expressed by characters who were written during war times, because what else can we expect from authors who were actually living through the conflict? We need to cut them some slack. However, having read The Grapes of Wrath I did feel my hackles rise when certain main characters casually refer to transient workers as 'lazy Okies.' 

Then there's the matter of Rosemary's best friend, Sally, who is louder than life, both in her personality and the bright and garish way she dresses. Her friends and fiance all claim to adore Sally for who she is, yet everyone still wants to change her and make her tone herself down. Go figure! I feel that at least in our era, Sally would have more freedom to dress as flamboyantly as she likes.  

On the whole, the heart of this story, and its snapshot of the time it presents, covers over all the gripes I've just aired. We get to rub shoulders with young men who have no idea whether or not they'll even be alive in another month, and young women who are prepared to roll up their sleeves and perform work they've never done before. In many ways, this book deserves to be up there with the likes of Rilla of Ingleside as an engaging artefact from a specific era. Chalmers evokes the time when Winston Churchill's encouragement to 'Keep Calm and Carry On' was surely a catch cry everywhere. Yet sadly, this one has fallen out of print. 

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Next up will be Pollyanna of Magic Valley by yet another author, Virginia May Moffitt. It's become a real baton handing enterprise now, but we're not far from the finish.