Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer

I almost really liked this one. I feel like this had the feel of many children's books I loved back when I was a kid--kind of Betsy-Tacy ish, Five Little Peppers, etc. The book follows Lucinda, who has been left behind while her parents travel in Europe for a year for her mother's health, and who lives in New York City with her teacher for a year. She goes everywhere on her roller skates, which represent her freedom and her ability to go fast like she wants, and she has this year filled with great experiences getting to know people everywhere around the city, and doing things she was never allowed to do when she was stuck with her governess and her parents. The one part that was shocking and weird was this random murder scene that Lucinda stumbled across and which she was never allowed to talk about because it might be dangerous for her--definitely too dark and creepy and should have been cut from the book, haha. But the rest was perfectly sweet, and made New York City in the 1890s sound like a perfect playground filled with perfectly safe and kind people just waiting to adore this little girl. (Now that I think of it, it was basically like a rose-colored glasses version of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, where the little girl is rich and has whatever she wants.)