Caddie Woodlawn Social Sensitivity

Caddie Woodlawn Social Sensitivity

Caddie Woodlawn deals with issues of race, class, and appropriate sex role behavior in a surprisingly straightforward manner. The author is careful not to Illustration by Kate Seredy for Caddie Wood/own by Carol Ryrie Brink. The Macmillan Company: New York (1973).

lecture about the injustices committed against Native Americans by the white settlers, but the racism of the pioneer community becomes evident through Caddie's observations and her parents' responses to her questions. Even the Woodlawn family tends to refer to the Native Americans as "savages," but here it should be obvious that the author simply uses the term as the pioneers did. Brink's treatment of class issues provides a useful basis for discussion.

Her contrasting depictions of nineteenth-century American democracy and the rigid social hierarchy of nineteenth-century Britain also raises questions about equality, opportunity, and political participation.

The book's treatment of female role expectations is...
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