Publisher and Publication Date: Image Cascade Publishing. 2000. First published in 1964.
Genre: Young adult fiction. Girl’s fiction.
Pages: 302.
Format: Kindle e-book.
Source: Self-purchase.
Audience: Readers with an interest in a simple story about a teenage girl and her family in the mid 1960s in Denver, Colorado.
Rating: Very good.

This is the third book I’ve read by Lenora Mattingly Weber.
Don’t Call Me Katie Rose is the first book in the Katie Rose and Stacy Belford series.

Link for the book @ Amazon.

Lenora Mattingly Weber‘s Goodreads author page.

Summary:

Katie Rose Belford decides early in the story to go by her full name, Kathleen. She is in her first year of high school.

Katie and her family live in a small farm town near Denver, Colorado.

Katie’s dad died a year ago.

There are six kids who live with their mother. The oldest is Ben followed by Katie. The younger siblings are Stacy, Matthew, Angela, and Brian.

Katie’s mother has a brother named Brian. He is a combat Veteran. During the Korean war he was a POW. Brian struggles with alcohol.

The story centers on Katie and the things going on at school, a potential boyfriend, a new friend, family ups and downs, and other growing up angst.

My Thoughts:

I’ve grown to love the stories written by Weber about a generation of girls before my time. In the other series, Beany Malone, they start during World War II. The Katie Rose and Stacy Belford series start in the mid 1960s.

Some of their woes are different than the current generations. However, there are some things that are familiar to most teenagers. These themes are romances, the feeling of not being heard or taken seriously, family problems including addictions, one parent household, grades, a parent who has a job that causes embarrassment, and reliable transportation.

I love how the family tries to work together as a team.

I love how they do what they can to provide and help pay the bills.

I feel empathy for the mother who tries to hold it all together on her own as the adult and parent.

I love how the story ends with book one. There is closure and communication between two friends about what they learn. So, this story provides moral lessons and not just entertainment.

Often, I read serious books where the ending is not necessarily tidy or summed up with a solid ending. It feels comforting to know that in the Weber books there is an uplifting feeling by the last page. However, I’ve only read three of her books. I don’t know how the other books in the two series transpire.