This trilogy (begun by the more famous What Katy Did) is generally thought of as a children's - specifically, girls' - book, and I would agree, but there's much more to it than that. Written in the 1870s, these books - much in the same way as the Laura Ingalls Wilder series - are worth looking at for the social history alone, and the What Katy Did trilogy in particular gives an interesting insight into American urban middle class life at that time.
In this one, we see the precursor of Enid Blyton's Malory Towers series, Brent-Dyer's Chalet School books and many others, written almost three-quarters of a century earlier - and in America. Amazingly, it sounds very similar and thus refreshingly "modern", especially when you consider what was being written in England at that time. If you liked Malory Towers, you'll love What Katy Did at School in spite of the 19th century language. The same characters are there: the sensible one, the madcap trickster, the spoilt brat, the inseparable sisters. Injustices are perpetrated and avenged. Teachers are feared, pranks are played, feasts are eaten, friends and enemies made. The only rather strange omission, which I noticed for the first time when reading as an adult, is the complete absence of any kind of lessons or teaching going on, despite this being a school story. Another difference between this and later school story types is the tendency for the author to intervene and address the reader directly, in order to make a point - a 19th century feature of style, maybe, as it also crops up in books such as Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.
I really enjoyed reading this again after so many years. I found it funny, cleverly written and full of convincing characters, though a much shorter read than I remembered.
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