(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of Eldon Harms.
I am not sure how the contents of the book came to be written — that is, were they a retelling of her lessons? copied from dictation? original, maybe? — some read as if they could be. There is a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson ("The Wind"); another about birds whose author I can't find, but it seems beyond what an eight-year-old could compose.
Here Minnie retells a fable of Aesop:
I believe she cut the silhouettes out of colored paper and pasted them in the book.
Here she pretends to write a letter to a friend (I don't know if she really had a friend named Paula).
In the letter she mentions playing Fox and Geese at the noon recess; elsewhere she explains the rules of that game:
This is a version of an old fable … but can you image a third-grader today hearing such a story in school?
Minnie shared a birthday with George Washington. Now, we've all heard the cherry-tree story, but have you ever heard the colt-bursting-a-blood-vessel story?
… Those are just some of my favorite pages. Here is a PDF of the whole composition book:
Third Grade Composition Book 1905-6
3 comments:
Little Minnie never imagined her precious childhood book would survive, find a new life, and reside forever on the internet.
But she loved to write. She is probably smiling up in Heaven!
I'm glad she wrote as much as she did, throughout her life, and I only wish she'd written more. She had a real talent for storytelling.
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