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Review on the book Hope Leslie:
From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister
During the 1800s, Catharine Sedgwick was considered one of the founding authors of American literature; unfortunately she was relegated to obscurity in our century and only recently rediscovered. But there's more to Catharine Sedgwick than historical interest - she was a writer who considered political and ethical questions through marketable, often fast-paced literature, in the process producing some of the most spirited women in fiction. Hope Leslie whirls off the pages like a combination of Pippi Longstocking, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Gloria Steinem. A free-thinker in the midst of a repressive eighteenth-century Puritan tradition, Hope is determined to follow her own conscience, and she repeatedly rebels in ingenious, dangerous, and often humorous ways. She frees imprisoned Indians, challenges the restrictions placed upon women by Puritan leaders, refuses a suitor she does not want - and that is just the beginning. Surrounding Hope are three very different women: articulate, angry Magawisca, one of the few Pequod survivors of a massacre by white men; Esther, Hope's close friend, a meek and subservient Puritan woman; and Rosa, who dresses as a boy to follow her lover to America and then exacts a powerful revenge when rejected. Through them all comes a story packed with romantic misunderstandings, politics, and philosophy, presenting a potentially dark world whose hope is the democracy symbolized in its adventurous, quick-thinking heroine. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. --This text refers to the paperback edition of this title ----
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