'He says I am for him and that he would marry me tomorrow, if he could.’.

“'He is going to marry me,’ said Rachel matter-of-factly, once she had caught her breath. To double-check this impression, I studied an excerpt from “The Red Tent”: A kind of opaque wholesomeness glazes the story and its elements hence its young adult quality. Its tone echoes that of beloved classics like “Caddie Woodlawn,” which recounts the growing up of a “brave, big-hearted” girl in the late 1800s. And the novel’s world is rendered in such plain, steady, smooth-surfaced language as to make it completely accessible (and assimilable) for any preteen reader. Addie is lucky enough (often trapeze-artist lucky, where a shiny bar swings into grasp just as another is ripped away) to meet key benefactors who recognize her “gumption” and help her find schooling and jobs.ĭarkness is plentiful - sometimes heart-stabbingly - but it does not win. Also golden friendship, lasting love and new life. In due course, Addie, friends or family encounter crushing loss, sexual bullying, illicit abortion, extramarital passion, rum-runners, child labor ordeals, the influenza epidemic and two world wars. When Addie’s older sister Betty “learns English fast” and moves out on her own, their mother curses her: “A real American.” Mameh is bitter about tragedies incurred in flight from “what must be Russia now.” Only Yiddish is spoken at home. o go to the bathroom, we had to walk down three flights from our apartment to the outhouses in back.” Addie’s younger sister is frail and ailing Papa is pious and gloomy. We had a stove, a table, a few chairs, and a saggy couch.

“In 1915, there were four of us living in one room. Dividing her life into emblematic chunks peppered with titles like “Three Cheers for Addie Baum,” “Maybe I Wouldn’t Be a Wallflower After All,” and “We Got a Suffragette in the Family,” Addie lets readers experience not only her own soulful growth but that of the nation and world, women’s rights, American journalism, Jewish culture and the city of Boston.

I’ve lived in Boston my whole life, which anyone can tell the minute I open my mouth.” That’s where I started to be my own person.” “How did I get to be the woman I am today? It started in library, in the reading club. Read on.įramed as a spunky monologue in response to a granddaughter’s interview question, “The Boston Girl” gives voice to one Addie Baum, age 85 in 1985, a colorful, mightily Jewish and utterly winning character:

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant