10 h 38 minAudiobook16 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when a girl’s love of freedom meets a world that expects her to be gentle and quiet?
In A Modern Tomboy, L. T. Meade puts a spirited girl at the heart of a story about friendship and wildness. Outdoor games, bold talk and open air hold more appeal than quiet needlework. Her restless spirit brings the pull between freedom and good manners into view.
Friendship gives that tension a warmer, more personal meaning. Meade explores how girls grow through bonds with companions, sisters and schoolmates, and how quarrels and misunderstandings test loyalty. The question is not simply how a girl should behave, but how she can keep her spirit while learning to care for others.
What you’ll discover
- A girl drawn outdoors Meet a lively heroine whose taste for games and open air resists quiet expectations.
- Freedom against good manners Explore the tension between a bold girl's impulses and the gentle conduct expected of her.
- Friendship that shapes character Discover how loyalty and companionship help give a story of wildness its warm heart.
- Brisk, plain storytelling Short chapters and lively dialogue carry you from one episode to the next.
- A gentle moral thread Consider questions of growing up through a story that makes room for spirited resistance.
Who will love it
You will love this if you enjoy lively school stories, spirited heroines, and tales of friendship in which a wild child is won over by kindness, courage and a sense of fun.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A school opens at Sunnyside
- Rosamund takes the lead
- A Sunday rule broken
- Irene, the self-declared changeling
- Word of honor and a night outdoors
- Rosamund goes to The Follies
- Frosty's darlings and a storm on the lake
- Lucy's revenge begins to stir
- Taming, trust and how the tale is told
Who’s who
- Rosamund CunliffeA tall, dark, clever fifteen-year-old who loves power and breaks rules, yet is brave enough to befriend and reform the wildest girl in the county.
- Irene AshleighA beautiful, fearless, twelve-year-old girl who frightens everyone, believes she is a changeling, and longs for someone who is not afraid of her.
- Lucy MerrimanThe prim, proud daughter of the school's owners, who loves her father dearly and cannot bear sharing her home or her place with newcomers.
- Little Agnes FrostA gentle, timid eleven-year-old who wins every heart and who trusts Irene completely, calling her a sort of angel.
- Miss Emily FrostIrene's anxious governess, who stays at her post to support her little brother and sister and who struggles with jealousy.
- Lady Jane AshleighIrene's gentle, grieving mother, once a wild girl herself, who cannot manage her daughter and clings to hope that Rosamund can.
- Professor MerrimanA kind, ailing scholar who runs the school with his wife, holds to his rules, and wants to help every girl in his care.
- Aunt Susan BrettLucy's plain, warm-hearted aunt, a clergyman's wife in Dartford, who gives wise advice and comes to the rescue when trouble strikes.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet, computer or Kindle, with the type as large as you like.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 10 h 38 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 16 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear A Modern Tomboy in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
A Modern Tomboy
by L. T. Meade · 1904
Rosamund, fifteen and fearless, sets out to tame Irene, a wild girl who swears she is a changeling.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
A Modern Tomboy is a school story by L. T. Meade, a writer who died in 1914 and filled her shelves with books for girls. It is set in southwest England, in a country house called Sunnyside, where a kind and muddled mother and her scholar husband open a small school because his health can no longer carry the work he used to do.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A school opens at Sunnyside
The story begins at the white gates of Sunnyside, where Mrs. Merriman and her fifteen-year-old daughter Lucy wait for the first pupils. Mrs. Merriman is round, warm and cheerful, and she runs forward to greet everyone. Lucy is neat and formal, with two long fair braids, and she is horrified by her mother's lack of dignity. The school exists because Professor Ralph Merriman is ill and must give up the articles that are wearing him out, so he can go on with his great book on the Greek Anthology.
Six girls climb down from the wagonette. Laura Everett is merry and clever, and her friend Annie Millar follows where she leads. Jane Denton is tall, pale and gentle. Agnes Sparkes is lively, and Phyllis Flower is a thin, plain girl who jokes that she has nothing but her pretty name. Mrs. Merriman mistakes one girl for another in a comic scene, and the pupils laugh and fall in love with her at once.
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What is A Modern Tomboy about?
It tells of Rosamund Cunliffe, a strong-willed girl at a small English school, who befriends Irene Ashleigh, a wild child feared by the whole neighborhood. The book follows how love, firmness and a little girl's trust begin to change Irene.
Who is Irene Ashleigh in A Modern Tomboy?
Irene is a beautiful, clever, fearless girl who lives at The Follies with her widowed mother. She frightens servants and governesses with pranks, and she believes she is a changeling left by fairies.
What does changeling mean in the story?
In old folk tales, a changeling is a fairy child left in place of a human baby. Irene uses the word to explain why she is wild and cannot be taught, until Rosamund tells her she is just a girl.
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