CHRISTMAS READING LIST | Dear America Series: Christmas After All: The Great Depression Diary of Minnie Swift by Kathryn Lasky

At the age of twelve, Minnie Swift is living through one of the toughest times in America's history, The Great Depression. She keeps a detailed diary over the span of one Christmas month. Reflecting the sadness but also the optimism that characterized the time, this is an intimate portrait of a Midwestern family's days and nights, ups and downs, triumphs and losses. It's the story of one family's persevering spirit: The Christmas Spirit.

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★★★★★

As a holiday edition to the Dear America epistolary series of books, Christmas After All tells the story of Minnie Swift, who shares her experiences of The Great Depression starting the day after Thanksgiving 1932. How does one still have a merry holiday season while the country at large shoulders unbelievable financial strain? It's not easy, but Minnie's family has their ways.

vintage style Christmas tree 

Within the Swift family, we (through these diary entries) get to know Minnie's siblings: Gwendolyn, 20; Clementine, 17; Adelaide aka "Lady", 16; and little brother Ozzie, 9. If you thought the house was already sounding crowded, Minnie's parents also take in orphaned female cousin Willie Faye, an undersized survivor of the Dust Bowl. Both Willie and Minnie are eleven years old, but there's one entry that describes how upset Minnie was to learn how her school placed Willie a couple grades lower with the 4th graders after poor testing results. 

The party was nice and they gave each of us a present. They gave Willie Faye a copy of Raggedy Ann. I think they thought she was a lot younger than she is. They gave me a book from the Childhood of Famous Americans series. George Washington. It's all right. It didn't thrill me. In a way I would rather read about the childhood of unfamous Americans --- just normal kids who lived through something like the Civil War or the Revolutionary War. 

* December 21, 1932

(that part in the book where things got a little meta for a minute LOL)

A neat bookish link written into the Swift family: they happen to live in the same neighborhood as novelist Booth Tarkington (the same street, even). Minnie writes of her mother's friendship with Booth's wife. 

When we came back from school today we smelled all sorts of good things. Mama and Jackie were baking cookies for Mama's literary club. Mama belongs to two ladies' clubs, the Indianapolis Woman's Club and the Fortnightly Club --- one eats and the other doesn't. As far as I can see that is the main difference. It's just about all the same ladies in both clubs, but in one they talk about books and in the other they write papers about boring things. In the Woman's Club all they serve is ice water! I would never belong to such a club. Ice water and high falutin intellectual ideas. Enough to make you throw up even without any food. 

            *December 1, 1932 

Minnie writes of how the family makes it a point to sleep on the covered porch to toughen themselves for each year's winter, when they know they will struggle to keep the house sufficiently heated. Minnie's diary entries document the lives and hardships of friends, neighbors and extended family, their heartbreaks, depression over the sense of being overwhelmed... Minnie even touches upon the darker moments of the era, such as people abandoning family or even deciding to commit suicide, all in a misguided attempt to alleviate some of the burden from the family finances. Not to worry though, these books are geared toward a middle grade audience, so the topic is only briefly and gently addressed via vague references. There is some serious sadness though when we learn Willie's history and she shares how she sat with her mother's body for two days before the coroner came around.... remember that Willie is only eleven! 

Lily Notebook 

Reading this story, you get the impression that the family was one that was formerly well-to-do. They live in a four bedroom house with a parlor, covered porch, there's mention of African American servants, the Swift's eldest daughter, Gwendolyn, attending Wellsley College prior to the start of The Depression.  Now, Minnie's father is employed as an accountant at an ironyard. The family is grateful to be one of the families that can still rely on a steady income, naturally, but even so, they're certainly not immune to at least some struggles. While the family still seems to be able to afford luxuries such as new shoes and birthday presents for friends, we also see Minnie's father either spending more and more hours away from the family or home, but holed up in his home office. 

Though the era can be a sad one to write a story around, Lasky gives readers the gift of comedic relief in the form of Minnie's wonderful sense of humor! Just when you think the atmosphere of the story is getting a little heavy, Minnie will write in one of her quips to give you a much needed giggle, such as her descriptions of her mother's attempts at making the pantry stretch through a long line of aspics and au gratin dishes, the "vomitous" textures and flavors of those experiments... but dishes they ate anyway because it kept food in the bellies.

I hated supper tonight. It was meatless meat loaf. I think we should just call it weird loaf. It has everything but meat in it -- peanuts, cottage cheese, rice. It's cheap. We hardly ever have meat anymore, except for chicken, because we raise them in the garage. But we only have chicken maybe once a month or so at the most. The other disgusting thing we always are having is O'Grotons. O'Grotons means you put cheese and flour in everything to thicken it up and then stretch it out. So we have something like hot dogs and potatoes O'Groton and Mama puts just about two hot dogs all cut up in the whole thing and a bunch of potatoes and then stretches it with the cheese. It's vile.

But we are not allowed to say anything bad about food. This riles Mama and Papa like nothing else. We can get a real punishment for it --- like being sent away from the table or not allowed to go out or something. They say there are too many starving families in these days of the Great Depression and we better darn well eat what is put in front of us or just shut up. Mama actually said the words "shut up" when I complained awhile back about the cabbage O'Groton. I had never heard her say that before in my life. She is very gentle-spoken except when it comes to food.

              *November 29, 1932 

an example of an aspic dish (savory ingredients sealed within a gelatin shell)

The Swift family is actually inspired by the story of author Kathryn Lasky's own maternal grandparents. She even gives the parents the same names as her grandparents -- Sam & Belle. Lasky shares the story in detail in the supplemental information section at the back of the book where you can also find some pretty cool photos of the family, as well as a recipe for the Molasses Crinkles Minnie mentions in her diary.


All in all a wonderfully heartwarming, highly readable and cozy holiday story that promotes the importance of valuing family and small blessings!