| + + | R. of Rs. 30: 760. D. ‘04. 190w. |
Kelly, Myra. [Little citizens.] [†]$1.50. McClure.
Miss Kelly’s narrative had to do with a “polyglot brood of future Americans,” children of the New York east side Jewish colony. She “shows us these little citizens at work and play in a New York school. Their parents are pedlars, seamstresses, and costermongers.... They are timid, ignorant, unwashed. But the children they send shrewdly and faithfully to school ... are enchanting. Of course they are naughty. Miss Kelly is at once too honest and too artistic to write stories about little saints.... But they are clever, affectionate, and teachable.... They speak an odd dialect that we take to be a graft of the Yiddish on American; and at school their ways are most humorous and entertaining.” (Acad.)
“Miss Myra Kelly’s ‘Little citizens’ are as strange to us as the countries of their birth, and their charm is partly the charm of novelty. She has presented them with originality and freshness and with a convincing sympathy.”
| + + | Acad. 68: 336. Mr. 25, ‘05. 480w. | |
| + + | Critic. 46: 189. F. ‘05. 90w. |
“For real insight into the child mind with its misconceptions and limitations, so hard for an adult to understand, these stories are only equalled by those of ‘Emmy Lou.’”
| + + + | Ind. 58: 502. Mr. 2, ‘05. 210w. |
“They pile up material for the future, and are in the present prodigiously amusing.”
| + + | Nation. 80: 378. My. 11, ‘05. 260w. |
“In the representation of their terrible manners, their extraordinary dialect and their oriental warmth of heart, the author shows keen observation, delightful humor, and no mean order of creative talent. Miss Kelly’s book is amusing, and it is unconsciously, unintentionally, and therefore delightfully, instructive. The dialect is picturesquely and easily handled.”