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This book starts with a nauseatingly racist exchange that serves no purpose but to demonstrate a little white girl's supposedly Christlike--or maybe more precisely, Fauntleroy-esque*--qualities while simultaneously demeaning people of African descent. So far this sequel also lacks the little charming foibles of the first and fourth books. (Though the fourth also had a brief but alarming racist incident; Margaret Sidney can't seem to incorporate black people into her books in a non-racist manner. Prejudice and paternalism, Ms. Sidney, are neither wholesome nor child-friendly.)

It is evidence, though, that we have made a little progress in the world, since publishers/writers for children generally wouldn't put that gunk in their books today. Further evidence is that we have The Bluest Eye to break our hearts.

*Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy came out in serialization in 1885, then as a book the next year. Five Little Peppers Midway was first published 1890. Just saying.