The Happy Hollisters at Snowflake Camp

The Happy Hollisters at Snowflake Camp by Jerry West (1954) I previously hadn’t read a Happy Hollisters—found this nice copy, and it’s a winter and snow themed one—my favorite. It’s a little too young for me, generally, and the Hollisters are too sickly-sweet, five kids and perfect parents—but it’s a good book for dogs (HH’s have a great dog, and then there are Huskies in Canada) and snow (their hometown cancels school ahead of Thanksgiving, and they travel by train to Canada to visit their Grandparents). They even have a cat, named White Nose, with kittens. That made me think, if I ever have a white cat, I’m going to name it “White Noise!” If I ever have kids, I’d try to take the Hollister approach—but maybe with a little more compassion. There is a bully, back at school, a kid with some obvious problems that the Hollisters so thoroughly dispatch, you feel bad for him. He needs more than a beating! There was one episode that struck me as particularly odd: at school, recess, a baseball game—they procure equipment, go through a complex system picking captains, then choosing teams, then that thing with a bat to see who bats first, finally the game, and eventually one team is ahead seven to six, then a kid hits a home run, ties it, and the bully is up to bat and… the bell rings, game over. And then it’s mentioned that—so concludes the FIFTEEN MINUTE RECESS! Is the writer insane? I know these were ghost writers—having a little fun with absurdity, maybe? Or just sloppy narrative? It occurs to me that the writer might be making an observation about how time is perceived so differently for children than adults—and for real understanding and good relationships with children, you have to try to relate to their perception of time. Maybe I’m just overthinking things here.

2.15.25