Liz Murphy, owner of The Learnéd Owl Book Shop in Hudson, Ohio, chats about Hilary McKay’s sequel to Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1905 classic, A Little Princess.
Finishing a quick re-read of A Little Princess, I wiped away tears as Sara and Becky and the Indian Gentleman drove off. I was satisfied, happy that all had turned out well. But picking up Wishing for Tomorrow (McElderry, Jan.), I was delighted to read McKay’s note that explained her feeling that the rest of the girls left behind at Miss Minchin’s school needed to have their voices heard.
One of my favorite threads in this story is the development of the relationship between Miss Minchin and her sister Amelia. When Miss Minchin leaves for Paris, and later as she starts losing control, Amelia comes out of her shell (until, of course, “Miss Minchin came home to squash her back to normal again”). And whereas in A Little Princess Lavinia and Jessica are rather consistently nasty, in this sequel each is found to have some goodness in her inner core.
McKay includes enough detail from the original novel that a reader would not have to read or re-read A Little Princess first, but I predict a surge in sales of that book. McKay deserves tremendous credit for continuing the story as simply as it was first written, without letting any 21st-century feelings creep in (such as why Becky was not allowed to share equally in Sara’s good fortune, which of course would not have been considered proper by Sara or Becky in the early 1900s). McKay has created a charming continuation of a cherished classic, and I predict that it will become a classic in its own right. Frances Burnett would be pleased, I think.
Wishing for Tomorrow by Hilary McKay. McElderry, $16.99 Jan. 2010 ISBN 978-1-442-40169-3
