Audiobook · read by volunteers
What Katy Did
Susan Coolidge (1835–1905)
Read by Laura M.D., Lucy Burgoyne (1950-2014), Daniel Cranston, Hattie, Barbara Bulkeley, Isosceles, Marc Tanti, Kira Belkin · 13 chapters · 5 h 02
About the book
Katy Carr is twelve, tall, untidy and full of ideas. Her hair is always coming down, her dresses are always torn, and she is usually in the middle of some plan that will end in trouble. She lives in a small American town with her father, her brothers and sisters, and a strict aunt who thinks girls should sit still.
Katy dreams of the day she will do something great. In the meantime she invents games, leads her siblings in adventures, and makes plenty of mistakes. Then something happens that changes her days, and she has to discover a different kind of courage. This is a story with warmth and humour, but also with a clear sense that growing up asks something of us.
Susan Coolidge published it for young readers in 1872, and its good-natured, lively heroine has delighted children ever since. In thirteen chapters and five hours, this recording is a lovely choice for families, for bedtime listening, or for anyone who remembers being a child with too many ideas.
Introduction
Susan Coolidge was the pen name of Sarah Chauncey Woolsey (1835-1905), an American author who grew up in Connecticut and wrote many books for young readers. What Katy Did, published in 1872, was her best-known work, and she followed it with several sequels, including What Katy Did at School and What Katy Did Next.
The novel is set in the American 1860s and depicts a family of six motherless children. It has been compared with Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, published a few years earlier, and like that book it won its readers by taking children’s feelings seriously. Katy herself is memorable because she is far from a model child: impulsive, careless and prone to disaster. The book is often credited with showing that a lively girl could be a heroine without needing to be perfect.
The moral element is real, and some modern listeners may find it explicit, but the story is told with so much humour and affection that it never turns into a lecture. Its descriptions of games, schoolroom mischief and family life are vivid, and the book has remained in print for well over a century.
This recording runs for about five hours in thirteen chapters and is read by LibriVox volunteers. It makes a fine read-aloud style listen for children from about eight, and adults who missed it in childhood may enjoy discovering it now. It also offers a window onto how girls’ lives and expectations were pictured in nineteenth-century America.
Public domain
Susan Coolidge died in 1905: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text