‘Oh, Cousin Helen, don’t!’ said Katy, her eyes filling with sudden tears. ‘I haven’t been brave. You can’t think how badly I sometimes have behaved – how cross and ungrateful I am, how stupid, and slow. Every day I see things which ought to be done, and I don’t do them. It’s too delightful to have you praise me – but you mustn’t. I don’t deserve it.’
But although she said she didn’t deserve it, I think that Katy did.
THE END
What Katy Did
With Puffin Classics, the adventure isn’t over when you reach the final page. Want to discover more about your favourite characters, their creators and their worlds?
Read on…
CONTENTS
AUTHOR FILE
DID YOU KNOW…?
WHO’S WHO IN WHAT KATY DID
SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT…
SOME THINGS TO DO…
GLOSSARY
AUTHOR FILE
NAME: Sarah Chauncey Woolsey (Susan Coolidge was her pen name)
BORN: 29 January 1835
DIED: 9 April 1905
NATIONALITY: American
LIVED: in Ohio, Connecticut and Rhode Island, in the USA
MARRIED: she never married
CHILDREN: none
What was she like?
Sarah Chauncey Woolsey was very like Katy Carr. She was tall, quick-witted, impatient and had an incredibly vivid imagination. As a child, Sarah loved to write stories and poems for her brothers and sisters. She remained very close to her family for the whole of her life. Sarah was also well educated. She went to a private school and later a boarding school that gave her all the inspiration she needed to write What Katy Did at School.
Where did she grow up?
Sarah had an idyllic childhood. She grew up in the family home in Cleveland, Ohio, which was the inspiration for the Carr home in What Katy Did. Both houses had their own meadowland, a stream, butternut trees and even four cows!
What did she do apart from writing books?
During the American Civil War (1861–5), Sarah worked as a nurse in a hospital. After her father’s death in 1870 she decided to see the world and spent two years travelling around Europe with her family. They visited Italy, just as Katy Carr does in What Katy Did Next.
Where did Sarah get the idea for What Katy Did?
Sarah got the idea for What Katy Did from her own family. Katy was based on Sarah herself, while the younger Carrs were based on her brothers and sisters.
What did people think of What Katy Did when it was first published in 1872?
Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women – another popular title from the Puffin Classics series – was published in 1868 to huge critical acclaim. The novel features Jo March, a feisty yet flawed heroine, and was based on the author’s childhood. The public wanted to read more, so Alcott obliged with a further three novels about the March family. As Sarah Chauncey Woolsey shared a publisher with Louisa May Alcott, it may be that she too was encouraged to write her own tales to satisfy public demand for this type of book. There is little doubt that What Katy Did was an immediate success, because What Katy Did at School was published the very next year.
What other books did she write?
Sarah wrote and contributed to more than thirty other books. These were novels, short stories and verses. But her most successful titles were those she wrote about the madcap, irrepressible Katy Carr and her entertaining family: What Katy Did, What Katy Did at School, What Katy Did Next, Clover and In the High Valley.
DID YOU KNOW…?
Ten facts about katydids:
It might be called a katydid in the USA, but this insect is known as a bush cricket or a long-horned grasshopper in the UK (although neither would have been such a catchy titles for a novel).
Its antennae are sometimes longer than its body.
Many species of katydid are green and leafy-looking. They avoid predators by hiding among plants or even by pretending to be leaves.
There are over a hundred species of katydid in the USA, but thousands more species in the tropics.
Most katydids prefer a vegetarian diet, but some eat other insects.
In the tropics, katydids are a favourite snack for monkeys, bats, birds and lizards.
Katydids are liveliest at night.
Katydids hear through special organs on their front legs.
Some katydids have very long wings, others very small ones. But none of them are particularly good at flying.
Male katydids rub their front wings together to make the distinctive sounds that the author hears at the beginning of What Katy Did.
The rhyme Dr Carr tells Katy which begins, ‘For the want of a nail a shoe was lost…’ dates back to the fourteenth century and is often used to show how small events can have enormous consequences. Its use is less common today, although many people now talk about the ‘butterfly effect’ instead. This is the idea that the tiny movement of a butterfly’s wings can kick-start a series of events that may cause something as huge as a tornado.
In the nineteenth century the only way of chilling food was by using ice. But where were the Victorians to find ice during a long, hot summer? The answer was an ice-house – a building with a cold, underground chamber. During the winter blocks of ice were cut from a frozen freshwater lake and taken to the ice-house, where straw or sawdust would be packed around it (this insulated the ice blocks and helped to stop them melting). In the summer, the ice was delivered to kitchens, where it was used to chill food and keep it fresh. The Carrs are lucky enough to have their very own ice-house.
WHO’S WHO IN WHAT KATY DID
Katy Carr – having reached the grand age of twelve, Katy is the eldest of the six Carr children. She is tall for her age, bursting with brilliant schemes and ideas, impulsive and excitable. She is usually wildly happy or completely glum. For Katy, there is not much in between.
Dr Carr – Katy’s papa is a dear, kind, busy man who spends much of his time away from home taking care of sick people. His wife, the children’s mother, died four years before the story begins.
Aunt Izzie – Papa’s sister, Katy’s aunt, has cared for the Carr children since their mamma died. She tries to be kind to them, but they puzzle her with their odd ways.
Clover Carr – a fair, sweet dumpling of a girl, Clover is next in age to Katy. She is clever, good-tempered and lovable. Clover considers her elder sister to be one of the wisest people in the world.
Elsie Carr – a thin child with short curls and beautiful dark eyes, at eight years old Elsie is the odd one out among the Carr children. She is too young to join in with the older children and too grown up to play with the younger ones.
Dorry Carr – a pale boy with a solemn face, he loves to eat. Dorry is six years old.
John Carr – rarely called by her real name, Joanna is five years old and a complete tomboy.
Phil Carr – Katy’s pretty little four-year-old brother is the youngest of the Carr children.
Cecy Hall – a well-dressed, modest, prim girl who spends two thirds of her time with the Carr children, Cecy is Katy’s best friend and her next-door neighbour.
Mary – the nursery nurse.
Alexander – the odd-job man.
Miss Pentigill – a dear, funny old woman who comes round to the Carr house to mend their clothes.
Imogen Clark – one of Katy’s many friends, Imogen loves to tell stories, as long as they are about herself.
Cousin Helen – Katy’s sweet, patient cousin who has been an invalid for many years.
Mrs Worrett – an old friend of Aunt Izzie’s, and the most enormous person any of the Carr children have ever seen.
SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT…
When Katy grows up, she is determined to do ‘something grand’. It might be rowing out in boats and saving people’s lives, nursing, heading a crusade, painting, singing or sculpting. But by the time this book finishes, she is yet to do any of these things. In What Katy Did, what do you think she actually di
d?
Aunt Izzie says that Miss Pentigill’s tongue is ‘hung in the middle’. What do you think this means?
Do you think the author was religious or not? And why?
Since What Katy Did was published in 1872, healthcare has improved dramatically. If Katy’s spinal injury had happened today, how do you think her treatment would have differed?
In What Katy Did the author often speaks directly to the reader. For example: ‘There is a saving grace in truth which helps truth-tellers through the worst of their troubles, and Katy found this out now.’ As a reader, do you think it’s acceptable for the author to express her own opinions like this? Is her tone helpful or patronizing?
Why do you think it takes a serious accident for Katy to discover the softer side of Aunt Izzie’s personality?
SOME THINGS TO DO…
The author describes Katy and her brothers and sisters in Chapter 1, while all the children are sitting on the ice-house roof. Use these descriptions to draw your own portrait of the Carr family.
Why not keep a diary like Dorry? Imagine you are one of the Carr children and write it from their point of view.
What Katy Did is packed with references to old-fashioned objects. For example, instead of using computers or even paper and pens at school, the children write on slates. How many other differences can you spot between life in the nineteenth and twenty-first century? Are there similarities too?
Miss Pentigill’s face is described as being like a ‘very nice baked apple, it was so crisscrossed, and lined by a thousand good-natured puckers’. Can you think of imaginative ways to describe people you know?
There are lots of references throughout the book to famous people and characters, such as Florence Nightingale, Queen Victoria, Robinson Crusoe and Dr Livingstone. Which celebrities or characters would you put into a novel to show that it was written now?
GLOSSARY
alpaca – fabric made from the wool of a long-haired animal such as the llama
barège – a silky, floaty fabric that is made from wool
bilious – feeling or being sick
bower – a leafy, shaded place
bushel – a measure of capacity used for dried goods, which in the US is equal to 30.3 litres, and in the UK is equal to 36.4 litres
butternut tree – a North American walnut tree
camphor – a substance with a strong smell and bitter taste used for medicinal purposes
carry-all – a type of carriage, usually drawn by a single horse and with enough seats for four or more passengers
chromo – short for chromolithograph, which was a printed, coloured picture
confabulation – conversation
daguerrotype – an early type of photograph
foolscap – a size of paper (419mm x 336mm). Foolscap folio is a size of paper that is half as big (210mm x 336mm)
frowsy – scruffy
gaol – another spelling of ‘jail’
ginger-balsam – a type of herbal medicine
india-rubber – natural rubber, made from the sap of trees and used to make many things, including erasers
mignonette – a plant with long stems and tiny flowers that give off a beautiful, sweet smell. It was very popular in Victorian times
muffatees – fingerless mittens
parlour – a living room that was kept very neat and tidy and only used on special occasions
pennyroyal – a type of mint used in herbal medicine
portemonnaie – a small purse or wallet, used for carrying money
sagaciously – showing good judgement
soliloquize – when someone speaks their thoughts aloud
sweet-meats – a sweet or other type of sweet treat
typhoid – a highly infectious fever that causes spots and terrible stomach ache
What Katy Did (Puffin Classics Relaunch) Page 16
