The Maida series of books were my spouse's favorites when she was growing up. This is the first of the series and was published in 1909 (well, my book says 1909, the wikipedia says 1910). Maida is a sick, little rich girl and her father, doctor and friend decide that she might be made well if only she could engage in something that truly interested her. She gets all excited by an old shop and they buy it and let her set it up (in Charlestown, MA). She makes her first real friends whilst the proprietress of the shop and over time regains her health.

I suppose that Maida painted a more-or-less rosy, but at least partially realistic picture of society some hundred years ago. Much seemed familiar to the things I read as a child. Some of the game were unfamiliar. Overall, it's a nice enough book with a basically cheerful, uplifting message. Good reading for kids and ok for us old folks who want to indulge into a bit of nostalgia.

I was interested to find out that the Maida series was written over a considerable period of time, four or five decades, and that the author, Inez Haynes Irwin was an ardent feminist. The feminism isn't overt in this book, but my spouse, who has read all the books in the series many times, tells me that it comes through in that boys and girls are treated more-or-less as equals in the series.
( )

Aww... Ok, the attitude that children can be angelic if offered friendship and a good example, and kept busy, is a little dated. And the HEA for Granny is a bit implausible. But I loved that the girls could be boisterous, and the boys could take care of babies and even cook.

I had a bit of trouble with the end, in that Papa, though he has been mostly absent these several months, is now going to take Maida away from her new friends - but I suppose he was absent against his preference, choosing to let Maida develop her self-reliance, and now he's going to make up for missing her so.

Mostly, though, I want a little shop of my own! ( )

Read this in 1956 ,when I was in South Lodge Hospital having my tonsils removed . I found it hard going at the time,but have enjoyed it consequently, also Maidas Little House. Confused her father with General Bullmoose from Lil Abner,but I guess Bull was a good name for millionaires in those days. We all wanted to ride on running boards ever after...didnt we Susan? ( )

Young Maida Westabrook had almost everything that a little girl could desire, from a doting father and kind care-givers, to every luxury - toys, books, exotic pets, her very own automobile - that money could buy. A chronic invalid who had only recently learned to walk, what she lacked was good health, a sense of purpose and/or enthusiasm, and companions of her own age. Hoping to address this, her father, millionaire Jerome "Buffalo" Westabrook, bought her the tiny candy and toy shop that she had admired in passing, and set her up as its proprietress. Now the wealthy Beacon Hill girl found herself living - under the careful supervision of Granny Flynn, her Irish nurse, and of newspaperman Billy Potter, a close confidante of her father - in the working-class area of Boston known as Charlestown. Here she made her first real friends, from lame Dicky Dore, who needed help with his reading, to wild Rosie Brine, who loved animals and hated bullies. Even those for whom she initially had little friendly feeling - snobby Laura Lathrop, sullen Arthur Duncan - eventually come into her circle of influence...

Originally published in 1910, Maida's Little Shop is the first entry in Inez Haynes Irwin's fifteen-volume series chronicling the adventures of the eponymous Maida Westabrook and her friends. With a charming heroine, an engaging cast of secondary figures - I particularly loved Rosie, as well as naughty toddler Betsy Hale - and an unusual and entertaining premise that allows for a mix of characters that might not otherwise have been possible, it was a pleasant story to read. I will definitely be searching out subsequent installments in the series! As a friend noted in her own online review this is the common childhood fantasy of "playing shop" writ large. It is also a fascinating social document, offering a snapshot of both progressive and paternalistic notions about socio-economic class abroad in the culture at the time of its publication. I found myself thinking, as I read along, that those readers who objected to the "poverty tourism" in Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America would undoubtedly have a field day here, in the unlikely event that they were ever to pick this book up. For my part, I thought Irwin's depiction of cross-cultural and cross-class friendships was unusually sensitive, especially when compared to some of the other children's literature available at the time, and in earlier years. One of the few sour notes for me, in Louisa May Alcott's classic Little Women (a personal favorite), was the brief reference to the March girls being "enemies" with all the local Irish children, who are clearly seen as interlopers. There is no sense of that here, as Maida becomes intimate friends with the children of Primrose Court, many of whom are of Irish extraction. I was also impressed by the fact that Maida's relationship with her new friends is reciprocal - that Maida gets as much out of the bargain as she puts in. There is no "rich-girl getting to be the good-fairy" here, as Maida herself discovers when she offers her shop to the members of the WMNT club for their fair, only to realize that they will not accept because they don't wish to be beholden to her. Although poor, these children have their pride, and Maida's realization that this is something to be respected, is an important step toward equality, rather than kindly meant but paternalistic (maternalistic?) benevolence.

I'm curious to see what happens next with these characters, and whether Irwin continues to offer such an unusually nuanced depiction of her working class (and upper class) characters! On to Maida's Little House! ( )

This is the first book in a 15 book series written by Inez Haynes Irwin. Irwin was a turn of the century Feminist and a writer of fiction for adults as well as children. This series which began in 1909, eventually stretched to 15 volumes the final 12 being published by Grosset and Dunlap in a uniform edition that eventually had 3 formats.

Maida Westabrook is the daughter of Jerome "a great Millionaire." Her mother is dead, as was typical of children's book heroines at the turn of the century. We meet her recovering from surgery, but her recovery is impaired and even endangered by a deep depression and lethargy. In desperation her father begs for help in finding something to interest her so that she will get well.

Maida herself shows him the way. On a trip through Boston her physician shows her the neighborhood in which he grew up. Maida stops in a little Shop and falls in love with it, dark, dingy and untidy though it was. Her father decides to buy the Shop for her, has it updated and redecorated and installs Maida in the Shop with her nursemaid, Granny Flynn who is trying to solve a mystery of her own. Maida keeps shop and gets to know the children of the neighborhood. She plays with them and has adventures with them and gradually grows strong and happy.

Her 3 best friends are Dicky Dore, a poor Irish boy whose mother works and who is lame and ill like Maida, Rosy Brine, who is the naughtiest girl in the world and the most beautiful, Arthur Duncan, a big, tough boy who plays hooky from school most of the time. Laura and Harold Lathrop, who are more affluent than the rest of the children, are snobbish and nasty to the others and Maida is cautious about them at first.

By the end of the book, all 6 of the children are best friends and respectful of each other. Rosie is no longer the naughtiest girl in the world, Mr. Westabrook arranges to have Dicky operated on so that he can walk and play with other children, Laura and Harold become good friends to the others and Arthur learns the value of staying in school and learning. And Maida goes off to Europe with her father, healthy, well and happy and promising to return to be with her friends. And Granny's mystery is solved to everyone's happiness.

This book is very typical of its time frame, but it is important because it sets the stage for the rest of the series.

Grosset and Dunlap published this book in three formats, the Yellow cover with polka -dot endpapers beginning in 1939 with matching dust jackets, the smooth blue covers with map endpapers and newly designed and updated jackets in the 1940s and the blue tweed covers with silver gilt lettering with the same jackets as the 1940s editions, but these were issued in the 1950s. The series ended in 1955 at 15 titles. A 16th title has become a phantom. It appears on some dust jackets, but was never published. It is not clear whether it was ever written.