Book Review: Aunt Minnie McGranahan
Posted at 10:55 AM, Tuesday, February 26, 2008 in Book and Movie Reviews
Book review today – Aunt Minnie McGranahan, by Mary Skillings Prigger.
We read this book a few weeks ago as a part of our orderliness lessons through Character First. It is a fantastic book; I highly recommend it – if you see it around, or any book in the Aunt Minnie McGranahan series (I’m sure they’re all good), take a peek at it and see for yourself what it’s like!
Aunt Minnie McGranahan is a little old lady who is very neat and tidy, and keeps a very strict system – on certain days she did only certain things, and she always was ready for company. Unfortunately, her nieces and nephews are suddenly left orphaned and she is their closest relative – it’s all on the mothers’ side, you see. Her neighbors think it’s impossible. Aunt Minnie pays them no mind and adopts them, and immediately adjusts her system so that they help her with the chores. Her system was simply this: – the oldest looks after the youngest, the middle ones look after each other, and Aunt Minnie looks after them all.
“Many hands make light work, and fun makes work lighter” is what she believed – and she put it into action. No idle hands were there on her farm, but lots of happy bodies – making the jobs into races, games, and competitions. It’s a great book, full of laughs for the whole family.
We discussed her actions quite a bit in line with our homes’ four character traits. Mum and Dad have chosen four character traits that, if anything, they want our home to show. Order, Peace, Wisdom and Creativity. It’s interesting, because those are the things that you can see aspects of in us kids as individuals. You can see those things in Aunt Minnie and her home as well. Obviously, her home – and attire – showed order, and was the foundation of peace in her home. What she spent her time doing on certain days was creative – baking and quilting, for example. She was wise with what she chose to do, and with her time management. When she adopted the children, she chose lots of creativity with how they completed their tasks, and was wise with what each child was given as a responsibility, when it came to maturity and age. She kept the peace and the order on her farm, which was important.
I hope you enjoyed hearing about Aunt Minnie McGranahan, and how she handled her situations. A questionnaire coming up soon about your life – with Aunt Minnie McGranahan in mind!
Jessica