Solomon Grundy

Hoguet (I Unpacked My Grandmother's Trunk has taken the familiar nursery rhyme about Solomon Grundy and turned it into an American saga of one family's beginnings in the new world. Solomon Grundy, ""born on Sunday'' in 1836 to British immigrants, grows up in a Connecticut farmhouse, where his parents have planted apple saplings they brought from England. He grows up, marries and has six children; then he starts baking and selling pies made from the apples in the orchard. The bakery business expands, and over the years he prospers, then dies, leaving the shops in his children's hands. Headlines and dates on newspapers give Solomon's life a historical time and place, yet Hoguet hasn't added one word to the original rhyme. Instead, her rich, bustling scenes in watercolor show us Solomon's family, as its members gather apples at harvest time, open yet another bakery, and mourn his passing. The book is a spirited chronicle of the milestones in a person's life, and in a young country's growth. (48)