NCW Libraries

"Betty Bard MacDonald (1907-1958), the best-selling author of The Egg and I and the classic Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle children's books, burst onto the literary scene shortly after the end of World War II. Readers embraced her memoir of her years as a young bride operating a chicken ranch on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, and The Egg and I sold its first million copies in less than a year. The public was drawn to MacDonald's vivacity, her offbeat humor,...

"After surviving the failed chicken farm-and marriage-immortalized in The Egg and I, Betty MacDonald returns to live with her mother and desperately searches to find a job to support her two young daughters. Anybody Can Do Anything recounts Betty's hilarious attempts to find work during the Great Depression, all with the help of her older sister Mary"--Cover, page 4. ,

Getting tuberculosis in the middle of your life is like starting downtown to do a lot of urgent errands and being hit by a bus. When you regain consciousness you remember nothing about the urgent errands. You cant even remember where you were going. Thus begins Betty MacDonalds memoir of her year in a sanatorium just outside Seattle battling the White Plague. MacDonald uses her offbeat humor to make the most of her time in the TB sanatorium making...

"In Onions in the Stew, MacDonald is in unbuttonedly frolicsome form as she describes how, with husband and daughters, she set to work making a life on a rough-and-tumble island in Puget Sound, a ferry-ride from Seattle. "Onions in the Stew" describes Betty MacDonald's years on beautiful Vashon Island in Puget Sound in happy times with her second husband and two daughters. During this time, fame as a writer finally knocked on her door.The book covers...