I thought his story was the only one that fully lived up to the spirit of I.S.A.A.C. Oliver gets a chance to have his own Saturday, and being in his six-year-old mind is a definite treat. The tail-end of the book is really great, though. Figures of speech cropped up no matter whose point of view we were supposed to be in, and they all sounded like they came from the same voice. I also thought they reminded me of the author's presence too often. The only thing that bothered me was that Elizabeth Enright was very fond of similes and metaphors, and after a while, I felt like I was tripping over them. I wished so much that the kids had actually been more independent.įor the most part, I enjoyed the old-fashioned feeling of this book, and the writing style really appealed to me. But a good portion of it was spoiled for me because adults kept stealing the spotlight! At least two of the chapters digress into long-winded stories told by secondary characters the kids meet on their adventures, thus robbing me of the enjoyment of seeing kids on their own in the streets of New York City, something that would be just plain unsafe nowadays. The concept of this book is wonderful, and it's what grabbed my attention in the first place. Each chapter of the book covers a different Saturday, as the reader follows each child to his or her chosen activity.

They form a club dedicated to this purpose, and name it the Independent Saturday Afternoon Adventure Club, or I.S.A.A.C. In this book, the kids, led by Randy, decide to pool their allowances each week, to allow one member of the family to spend Saturday doing something he or she loves outside of the house, and without any supervision. The Melendy children - Mona, age 13, Rush, age 12, Miranda (Randy), age 10, and Oliver, age 6, live with their widower father, and a housekeeper named Cuffy, who serves as their surrogate mother. The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright was originally published in 1941, and is the first book in The Melendy Quartet.

The saturdays by elizabeth enright