Johanna Says:

“…while she’s adjusting to living with her free-spirited aunt (like Mame) in 1942 New York. Evelyn’s dad has sent her to spend the summer with Aunt Lia while he gets married again…”

That’s actually a surprise. I mean, absent dads are no rarity in stories set in 1940s America, but a dad being absent to get married again is a new one. Did he get a 4-F?

Johanna Says:

“…Update: I found myself thinking further about the difference between Evelyn and old-fashioned kid heroes, her lack of stable family life. The older kids, those contemporaneous to the period, had less reason to question the presence of their family structure. (Think of Nancy Drew, for example, whose father’s support and love for her is never in doubt.) Those secure underpinnings gave them more freedom to roam…”

At the same time, that cuts the realism a bit (a la “if he supports and loves her so much, then why isn’t he protecting her more from all those problems?”).

No wonder so many stories written today with kid characters and heavy conflicts have either (a) kids with absent parents being the main characters and facing the plot conflicts or (b) kids with present parents being the supporting characters because their parents go face the main plot conflicts for them and therefore be the main characters instead of the kids.

Johanna Says:

“…Evelyn reflects the greater uncertainty of today’s world, where divorce is common and there’s less community support for families…”

I got the impression from your review that Evelyn’s situation also reflects the greater uncertainty of 1942′s world, where drafting was more common (even though Evelyn’s dad himself was absent for another reason) and there was less in-person paternal support for families what with so many young men getting sent away from their wives and/or children (men old enough to have adult daughters and sons were above draft age and probably only in the military if they’d chosen the officer career track no later than the 1930s, right?) to fight and possibly never come home again.