Irene Elliott Benson (1849–1913)

This sequel takes up the morning after 16 year-old Ethel let her social-climbing mother know that she wasn't going to live a sham life any more -- after 17 pages of synopsis of book one. Ethel isn't going to let her mother slave away making her dresses or let her father continue to age early by paying those fees for her expensive school. No, Ethel intends to apply to Barnard College and get a teaching degree so she can support herself, and her mother and grandmother, if necessary.

It says something about the quality of education at Madame La Rue's that Ethel flunks the Barnard admission exam. She's accepted anyway, but has to catch up. Fortunately, Ethel is intelligent enough to manage that. She also volunteers at that day nursery for the children of poor working mothers that was just being planned in the first book. She's even beginning to like that young man her mother was always wanting her to encourage because he's finally decided to make something of himself. Not only does he intend to be a doctor, he becomes a Scout Master. His troop will be in Ohio when Ethel and the other ladies of her family go there to stay with Great-Aunt Susan.

Bella Hollister is improving as she spends time with the Ohio Camp Fire Girls, teaching them how to make dresses, hats, and her penny-pinching household tricks. One of the Camp Fire Girls has meanwhile lost her mother and takes to Bella. Ethel doesn't like the girl and has trouble not letting it show.

Will the girl win Ethel's liking and respect? Will Ethel escape from two unsavory would-be kidnappers? Will everyone trapped in a terrible fire make it to safety? Will the crippled child from the first book ever walk again? Does Ethel's older cousin, Kate, get a beau? What about Ethel herself?

Ethel's father has a chance to get another job with a much better salary. Will he accept it or stay with the company he has served so loyally for 30 years? I'm quite sorry that Ethel's section of this sequel is shorter than in the first book. Please don't ask me to review "Little Susy's Six Teachers". I read it back in 2005 and six years is too soon to subject myself to it again.… (more)

If you like old books or you're interested in any books involving the Campfire Girls, you should enjoy reading this. Ethel Hollister, daughter of a social-climbing mother, stops being a worldly twit by becoming a Campfire Girl.

I was a Girl Scout, so my old novels about the Campfire Girls -- and TV commercials I saw when I was young -- taught me pretty much what I know about that organization. Besides the description of Ethel's camping activities, there are social concerns that, sadly, exist today: a girl wanting to start a day nursery for working mothers, unwise investments and their effect when they go belly up, a crippled child whose working class poor family can't afford the care she needs to get better, domestic violence, and a parent who abuses morphine.

Have a rueful chuckle over the book trying to teach Ethel better values yet still having her Grandmama attributing a rich classmate's rudeness to the fact that her grandmother was a waitress way out West.

Unless you have a very high tolerance for overly sugary stories, you'll probably want to skip "Little Susie's Six Birthdays," which takes up 71 pages after Ethel's adventure.… (more)