Hollyhock: A Spirit of Mischief
1916
Hollyhock is the girl who names herself after a flower and refuses to be tamed. Set in the sun-drenched Upper Glen, L.T. Meade's 1916 novel introduces us to Jacqueline and her five sisters, daughters of the Lennox family, whose lives are as carefree as the blossoms named after them. But when the formidable Aunt Agnes Delacour arrives with plans to reshape the children's education and quite possibly their entire lives, it is Hollyhock who mounts the first resistance. Her mischief is not cruel or calculating; it bubbles from an irrepressible joy, a desire to keep her world intact and her friends laughing. The novel captures that tender, fierce loyalty of childhood, when a parent's decision can feel like the end of everything, and a secret society of siblings can feel like the only army worth joining. Meade writes with knowing tenderness about the collision between adult logic and children's hearts.
