Rereading: TO THE GREEN MOUNTAINS by Eleanor Cameron

Cover illustration by James Barkley

Published in 1975, this is one of Cameron’s best and most thoughtful books in my opinion.

Kath Rule and her mother Elizabeth live in one room in a hotel in a small Ohio town, Elizabeth is the hotel manager. The time period is World War One, but that doesn’t enter the story much. What does is small town attitudes of racism and malicious gossip. Many of the hotel workers are black, and both Kath and her mother are friends with them, to the dismay of other white townsfolk. They also have family in town and nearby who are more understanding. Kath’s father is alive, and living by himself in a small farm outside of town, where he struggles to make a go of it, and can never seem to get anywhere. He makes periodic visits to the hotel to see Elizabeth and get money, but seems uninterested in his daughter, and the feeling is mutual. Kath can’t understand their relationship.

Kath has friends her age in town, including Chattie, a rich girl who loves to gossip, and Herb, an albino boy who everyone but her shuns. Kath and Elizabeth are both friends with the black couple Tiss and Grant. He works at the hotel, but longs to become a lawyer, and some law books that Elizabeth gets for him drive a wedge between the two families, as Tiss feels Grant is neglecting her for studying. Events both small and life-changing happen to Kath and the others in the story, as she keeps hoping they can get away to live with her grandmother in the Green Mountains of Vermont.

Highly recommended.

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