The Little Colonel's Holidays

Lloyd Sherman, the Little Colonel, is back for another summer of adventure in the genteel world of Victorian Louisville. When a young girl disappears, taken by her drunken father, Lloyd and her friends launch a desperate search that tests their courage and loyalty. Around this mystery unfolds the richer story of summer holidays: the warmth of friendships forged across social boundaries, the bittersweet awareness that childhood summers cannot last forever, and the shadows of the adult world that children glimpse but do not fully understand. Johnston excels at capturing the sensory richness of the season, the lazy pleasures of house parties, the thrill of planning an elaborate Halloween celebration at the haunted Hartwell Hollow. Part of what makes this volume endure is its dual nature: a charming children's adventure on the surface, yet threaded with genuine social concern and a melancholy awareness of time's passage. For readers who grew up with the series, it offers a poignant farewell to characters they have loved. For new readers, it provides an evocative window into early 20th-century Southern childhood.