Kate Wiggin

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm Kate Wiggin

Kate Douglas Wiggin's beloved classic of children's literature was an immediate bestseller when it was first published in 1903. The author spent part of her childhood in rural Maine, where she sets the book. The optimistic and spirited main character, Rebecca Rowena Randall is sent to live with her two strict and dour aunts in the fictional town of Riverboro, Maine. Though she is, according to her aunts, more like her shiftless father than her accomplished mother, Rebecca's joy of life, in the end, inspires them. The enormously popular story was adapted for a Broadway play in 1907, and was made into several films, including a 1938 version starring Shirley Temple.