Dotty's Suitcase

by Constance C. Greene

Book Overview

During the Depression 12-year-old Dotty's dream of traveling seems remote until she finds money from a bank robbery and sets off with a companion in a snowstorm to visit her best friend in a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067028050X
• ISBN13: 9780670280506
• Release Date: September 1980
• Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
• Length: 147 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 1.0" x 1.0"
• Age Range: 9 to 11 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 6

Customer Reviews

Book number two keeps readers reading on!

My favorite part of Kelly's writing style is her ability to talk 'through' the child's thought process- it's as if she were interviewing the sweet and eccentric Lucy Rose and documenting the conversations word for word. The book is in diary format which is great for younger readers- it adds a sense of accomplishment to each chapter finished. The kids my friends and I have babysat LOVE Lucy Rose. They think she is a laugh riot, which is saying a lot for kids who are growing up in Manhattan. This book is my favorite of the series. It takes me back to the anxious feeling I used to get around multiplication tables and the extra anxious feelings of the school play. Well done, Lucy Rose and Katy Kelly!

Dotty's Suitcase

ISBN 044042108x (ISBN now assigned to a different title) - Dotty's Suitcase by Constance C. Greene - This book left me very pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be insightful and entertaining - I didn't expect it at all, considering the setting of the Depression. All Dotty wants is a suitcase, as if all that stands between her and her hopes of travelling the world is that she doesn't have a suitcase. Unfortunately for her, she's living through the Depression and everybody wants something. In fact, a lot of people need more than they want, including her own father, whose shoes have holes. Raising three daughters alone, he puts off replacing them and tells Dotty he just hasn't had the time. When she realizes that he lied is the first moment that Dotty begins to understand, but not the last. Dotty's best friend, Olive, has moved away because her father heard there was work in another town. With no other close girl friends her own age, Dotty spends most of her time playing with Jud, an eight year old boy. They're together when they see a suitcase flung from a vehicle and when they open it to discover that it's full of money, they're both sure that the men in the car are the bank robbers who've been on the news. This discovery is the beginning of an adventure that takes them all the way to Olive's house and teaches Dotty a lot about want and need. She ends up with a suitcase, but the rest, you'll have to read the book. There are some references that might go over the heads of kids - the Dionne Quintuplets, Katherine Hepburn, Garbo.... but, at the worst, they'll just figure these people are fictitious; not the worst thing that could ever happen. Worth a read, for adult or kid.