Children's Literature @ NYPL
Booktalking "Finishing Becca" by Ann Rinaldi
The Declaration of Independence was penned in 1776. This is Philadelphia in 1778, in the midst of the Rebels and the Loyalists. 14-year-old Becca Syng is sent to work and live as a maid with the spoiled Peggy Shippen, future wife of Benedict Arnold.
The Shippen household is adorned with unadulterated luxury and bickering maids, so unlike the home in which Becca grew up. In it, the girl learns to speak French, play the harpsichord, paint with watercolors, and dance like the wind.
The atrocities of war rob people's souls and make money scarce. However, that does not curb Peggy and her sisters' taste for the finer things in life. Ballrooms and fancy ball gowns flit about in their dreams.
Becca loves her dog Merlin, her favorite cow Opal, and her mother. The Shippen household is meant to be a sort of "finishing school" for Becca, a place where she can find her "missing pieces."
Finishing Becca: a Story About Peggy Shippen and Benedict Arnold by Ann Rinaldi, 1994
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