While high in entertainment value, few of Brink's early books have retained the original level of readership. Less unified, it has never achieved the popularity of Caddie Woodlawn.

Magical Melons (1944) offers 14 more stories about this family and their homesteading neighbors during 1863-66. The work has been translated into a dozen languages, and Caddie Woodlawn, A Play (1945) has been produced many times. Brink's own grandmother, Caroline Woodhouse, is the Caddie of the book most of the other characters also existed, and the events find their source in actual occurrences. Rich details fill out the episodic story to vividly depict life on the Wisconsin frontier during the Civil War. The characters are memorably drawn and their conversations are fresh and individualized. Based upon the reminiscences of Brink's grandmother, Caddie Woodlawn recreates Wisconsin pioneer life through the lively doings of spunky eleven-year-old Caddie and her brothers, Tom and Warren. Caddie Woodlawn (1935) received many awards, among them the Newbery Medal and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, and is now regarded as a modern classic of children's literature. from the University of Idaho, and in 1954 Hamline University named her one of Minnesota's most outstanding women.īrink's first book, Anything Can Happen on the River! (1934), a fictionalization of some actual family adventures along the Seine, won praise from reviewers, but its appeal has not endured.

Altogether Brink wrote about 30 books of fiction and nonfiction, mostly for children, and more than 150 short stories, articles, poems, and plays.

After their son and daughter were born, Brink began to compose stories for children. Paul, Minnesota, where the couple spent most of their lives. She attended the University of Idaho and the University of California at Berkeley, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1918.Īfter Brink's marriage she moved with her husband to St. While still in high school, she published poems in small magazines. A lonely child, Brink amused herself by reading, drawing, making up stories, and riding for hours about the countryside. Brink lost both parents before she was eight and went to live with her aunt and her maternal grandmother, who told her stories about her childhood in Wisconsin. Her mother's family were also pioneers, moving gradually westward from Boston to Missouri, to Wisconsin, and then to Idaho. Her father was a Scotsman who emigrated to Idaho, helped to plan and lay out the town of Moscow, and became its first mayor. Brink, 1918Ĭarol Ryrie Brink grew up in the West she later used for the settings of some of her works. Born 28 December 1865, Moscow, Idaho died 15 August 1981, La Jolla, Californiaĭaughter of Alexander and Henrietta Watkins Ryrie married Raymond W.

Winter Cottage by Carol Ryrie Brink