Jessie Graham Flower (–1931)

It took me a looong time to finish this one. I'm not sure the Overland Riders are going to do it for me like the previous series. In general, though, this is more of the same: Grace Harlowe saving the day in preposterous situations. Pretty marvelous, though, when you think about opportunities most women had when these were being published.

So now I've read all of the Overseas series...a neat little bit of WWI propaganda. Nothing PC about any of these, but quite the snapshot of post-war American sentiment. I wonder whether Americans will ever be that sincerely patriotic again. Hopefully not as racist!

Really interesting contemporary story of WWI, fictionalized and written for girls. Definitely not PC (it verges on American propaganda), but if you're wondering how American publishers felt about the Great War, look no farther. I've finally collected the full Overseas series, so I'm looking forward to more of the same.

I grew up in a house that had a lot of old fashioned "girls" books. Most of those series predated Nancy Drew and were kin to Grace Harlowe. Even though I grew up in the 80's I read and loved them all. Grace Harlowe was one of my favorites. I recently found that this series is available via project Gutenberg and it is so fun to revisit it. I do still have this book in hardcover but have never been tempted to reread it because I stronly favor reading on my e-reader these days and the pages and show more binding on my copy are so brittle it makes me nervous.

The adventures Grace and her gang have are very wholesome and silly by today's standards. There is definitely breath taking gender stereotyping throughout but if you can stand that - the generous descriptions of clothing, parties and school provide a glimpse into life during that time that are really alive. show less