{"id":74949,"date":"2014-08-05T16:12:10","date_gmt":"2014-08-05T20:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=74949"},"modified":"2014-08-05T16:51:55","modified_gmt":"2014-08-05T20:51:55","slug":"stories-we-tell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/05\/stories-we-tell\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories We Tell"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"il_fullxfull.257888685\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strange coincidence that I should think to look up Ruth Sawyer today. Last night, I mentioned her book Roller Skates<\/em> to a friend\u2014I thought her nine-year-old daughter might enjoy it\u2014but I had no idea that August 5 was her birthday.<\/p>\n

Sawyer died in 1970, at the age of ninety. As a young woman, she traveled to Cuba, where she worked in kindergartens established for orphans of the Spanish American War, training their teachers in how to tell stories. Upon returning to New York, Sawyer obtained a scholarship to study storytelling and folklore. She went to work telling stories in the city\u2019s school system, working primarily with immigrant children, and later founded the NYPL\u2019s first storytelling program. Throughout her career, she would travel around the world collecting folktales, and for many years she volunteered as a storyteller at a women\u2019s prison. Her Way of the Storyteller<\/em>, from 1942, is still regarded as a landmark text\u2014one full of charm and interest for the layman, too.<\/p>\n

The stories she learned and the people she met inspired several of her many children\u2019s books. But the most famous, Roller Skates, <\/em>which won the Newbery in 1937, was, frankly, autobiographical: The story of one year in the life of a well-to-do New York ten-year-old. Like her heroine, Lucinda Wyman, Ruth Sawyer also spent 1890 away from her parents, who were traveling. Far from resenting their absence, she found the time living in a boarding house to be one of adventure and discovery. <\/p>\n

Like many of the best children\u2019s protagonists, Lucinda is a bit of a black sheep: an independent-minded tomboy who would much rather roller-skate around Manhattan, get to know new people, and read Shakespeare than spend time with her ladylike cousins or French governess. Considered difficult and temperamental, she is in fact bursting with unexpressed affection. Indeed, given free reign for the first time, Lucinda\u2019s openhearted curiosity allows her to make friends wherever she goes; in the course of the novel, she meets the poor family upstairs, the beat cop Mr. Gilligan, and the Italian boy, Tony, who runs the fruit stand. She has plenty of inspiring adventures\u2014her puppet production of The Tempest <\/em>stands out particularly\u2014but the book is not without real sadness, even tragedy. Certain descriptions and stereotypes date it, but Sawyer\u2019s compassion and broad-mindedness shine through, and it has aged well.<\/p>\n

As in the cases of Harriet the Spy<\/em> or From<\/em> the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler<\/em>, the character\u2019s independence comes as the direct result of a sort of benign parental neglect, and the freedom that seems so magical to a young reader is not untouched by loneliness. Lucinda is ever aware that her idyll will end, that she will be expected to resume normal life, and, ultimately, to assume the responsibilities of adulthood. (In real life: shortly after this period, Sawyer\u2019s father would die, leaving the family penniless; this latter period is chronicled in the more melancholy The Year of Jubilo<\/em>.) Even knowing that the author\u2014the character, in a way\u2014would go on to a life of independence and adventure, it\u2019s hard not to feel a pang at the passing of her childhood. To feel desperate, even. Here is how the book ends:<\/p>\n

\n

Today the skates sang a sorry rhythm. She\u2019d never belong to herself again\u2014not until she married and got herself a husband, and then she\u2019d belong to him. Suppose she kept on skating in the Park for ever and ever! Never went back to the Misses Peters\u2019 parlor, two flights up; never went to meet mama and papa with Aunt Emily tomorrow; never had another mam\u2019selle. She could do it; she could do it, live like the lambs in the Park, be as free as air, never have tantrums, and she could cuddle all the babies in their prams. Her next birthday wasn\u2019t far off. Somebody else could have it\u2014could be eleven who wanted to. She didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

She reached the reservoir and stopped, climbed the steps to the railing and looked into the still, placid water. Leaning over she could see her face reflected in it. She addressed herself solemnly: \u201cLucinda, how would you like to stay in the Park? How would you like to stay always ten? You could tell Tony and Uncle Earle, perhaps; and Mr. Gilligan. They\u2019d keep the secret for you. Winter you would sleep with the bears in the caves and come out in the spring. Come out every single spring always ten years old, never any older. That\u2019s what I\u2019d call a perfectly elegant idea!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a strange coincidence that I should think to look up Ruth Sawyer today. Last night, I mentioned her book Roller Skates to a friend\u2014I thought her nine-year-old daughter might enjoy it\u2014but I had no idea that August 5 was her birthday. Sawyer died in 1970, at the age of ninety. As a young woman, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[12555,124,14864,11579,14550],"class_list":["post-74949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-childrens-literature","tag-new-york","tag-roller-skates","tag-ruth-sawyer","tag-twentieth-century"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStories We Tell<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on Ruth Sawyer, born on this day in 1880.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/05\/stories-we-tell\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stories We Tell by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"August 5, 2014 \u2013 It\u2019s a strange coincidence that I should think to look up Ruth Sawyer today. 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