Tabitha's Vacation

Ruth Brown MacArthurProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.8

Word count: 265K words
Chapters: 27

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Tabitha's Vacation by Ruth Brown MacArthurAuthor: MacArthur, Ruth Brown, 1881-,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Jan 11, 2007

Editor's review

Ruth Brown MacArthur's *Tabitha's Vacation* is a public-domain children's story for young readers, classified as juvenile literature. The title points to a vacation experience, and the narrative focuses on a child's everyday observations and feelings; the tone is light, and both length and language difficulty are friendly. Its value lies in presenting the plain domestic scenes of early children's literature: a vacation is not only an adventure but also a series of small observations, encounters, and self-adjustments. For today's readers, such a text is both easy English reading material and a small window onto children's books of a century ago. There is no complicated setup; it suits short daily shared or independent reading sessions. Parents or teachers can use the everyday situations in the story to encourage children to talk about their own vacation experiences and feelings. Readers need not seek strong plot momentum; instead, they can attend to dialogue and domestic detail and appreciate the rhythm and charm of an old-fashioned children's story.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Primary and middle school students looking for English children's reading of moderate length
Families who want to read together daily and discuss everyday experiences with their children
Teachers of English to young learners who need public-domain short texts
Light readers interested in the character of early children's literature

Not a good fit for

Young readers seeking strong plot and fast-paced adventure
Readers who need contemporary children's-literature themes and expression
Beginners with weak English who cannot yet read a short story independently

Reading tips

Divide the book by chapters into fixed daily sessions, and after each chapter retell the content in one or two sentences.
When reading together, ask questions about vacation experiences and let the child compare them with their own life.
When encountering old-fashioned expressions, first guess the meaning from context and look up words afterward in a batch, avoiding frequent interruptions.
After reading, draw a vacation scene or write a few lines of comment to turn reading into expression practice.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What age of child is this book suitable for?

It is juvenile literature with friendly language and length, suitable for primary school students who already have basic English reading ability. The exact age varies with each child's reading level; try one chapter first before deciding whether to read together or independently.

Is the vacation in the story an adventure?

Judging by the title and classification, it is closer to a narrative of children's everyday life than to high-intensity adventure. While reading, pay attention to the characters' observations, dialogue, and feelings, and read it as a light short story.

Is the public-domain electronic edition suitable for classroom use?

As a public-domain text, it is easy for teachers to print or excerpt. In class, passages with more dialogue can be selected for reading aloud and discussion, but note that the original wording bears the marks of its time and should be briefly explained when necessary.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Ruth Brown MacArthur Author · American · 1881

Ruth Brown MacArthur (1881– ) was an American writer of children's literature, born in Searsmont, Maine. Public information about her life and education is limited. She is known for her girls' novels, including Tabitha at Ivy Hall, Tabitha's Vacation, At the Little Brown House, The Lilac Lady, and Heart of Gold; five of her works are held in this collection, most of them published by the Saalfield Publishing Company. Her books continue the tradition of early twentieth-century American girls' coming-of-age fiction, telling of young girls' everyday experiences and growth in a warm tone, with emphasis on such qualities as honesty, kindness, and a sense of responsibility. Plain and approachable in style, these works remain a useful sample for observing the reading tastes and moral education of young American readers of that period.