An oldie but a very goodie. The author of the beloved Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle children’s books (amazingly still in print, hallelujah) marries and follows her husband to a chicken ranch on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state in the 1930s.

She is not a happy farmer, and she writes of everything and everyone from Stove (number one on her enemies list if she had one) to goeducks to the indigenous population both white and Indian with fearless sensibility and a hilarious eye for detail. This was a book written before the invention of political correctness and it’s worth reading alone for her ruthless depiction of her neighbors, Ma and Pa Kettle.*

Mrs. Kettle had pretty light brown hair, only faintly streaked with gray and skinned back into a tight knot, clear blue eyes, a creamy skin which flushed exquisitely with the heat, a straight delicate nose, fine even white teeth, and a small rounded chin. From this dainty pretty head cascaded a series of busts and stomachs wich made her look like a cooky jar shaped like a woman. Her whole front was dirty and spotted and she wiped her hands continually on one or the other of her stomachs. She had also a disconcerting habit of reaching up under her dress and adjusting something in the vicinity of her navel and of reaching down the front of her dress and adjusting her large breasts. These adjustments were not, I learned later, confined to either the privacy of the house or a female gathering–they were made anywhere–any time. “I itch–so I scratch–so what?!” was Mrs. Kettle’s motto.

She wrote three other memoirs, including The Plague and I, an account of her time in a sanitorium recovering from tuberculosis which is funny as hell and will resonate with anyone who has ever spent any time in any hospital. Her third, Anybody Can Do Anything, is about life in Seattle during the Depression, and the fourth, Onions in the Stew, is about her life on Vashon Island. They are all hilarious, I reread them often, and I’m happy to report that they’re now finally available in e.

MacDonald also wrote one of my favorite childrens novels, Nancy and Plum, a story about two orphan sisters that began as a serial bedtime tale MacDonald told her two daughters over time. They, wisely, insisted she put it into book form, and it, too, is now available in e, illustrated by Mary Grand Pré, who you will remember illustrated the Scholastic editions of the Harry Potter novels. Grande Pré is a genius and I loved those illustrations almost as much as I did the novels.

However, I remain loyal to my own first edition copy of Nancy and Plum, with illustrations by the beloved Hildegarde Hopkins.

Neener neener.

*Yes, the Ma and Pa Kettle movies starring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray were inspired by this book. The neighbors who served as her models for the Kettles recognized themselves, sued Macdonald, and lost.

This review and 1100 others included in No Stars, a collection of the book reviews I’ve written over the year on Book Review Monday.
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Book Review Monday Chatter Betty Macdonald Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Nancy and Plum No Stars The Egg and I