What other great works of literature served as inspiration for "Brandy You're A Fine Girl"? Well, in this excerpt, we seem to channel "Little House On The Prairie":
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Brandy’s formal education was typical for a girl of that day.
The schoolhouse itself was a simple affair. One room; all the children of all ages together. It was simple, but brand new. A few years ago, the original school house had burned to the ground in a fire of mysterious origin. The community tried to rally to raise funds to replace the structure, but the resources weren’t available. Only when the mayor—who happened to be the town’s wealthiest citizen—contributed the bulk of the necessary funds was the project completed.
Writing and arithmetic were done with chalk on bare slates that were passed from one student to the next. The older students checked the progress of the younger students. The teacher pretty much kept order all around.
There were no grades, no tests, no homework; each student learned at whatever pace was most comfortable to him or her.
There was no baccalaureate, no graduation. Whenever one thought that enough had been learned, one simply stopped attending. It was a mutual decision between the student and the parents.
In Brandy’s case, she was older than thirteen—not yet sixteen—when she and her mother agreed that she’d had enough of reading and writing to suffice the rest of her life. So Brandy helped even more with the laundry and the ironing and the mending and the gardening. She had resigned to a life filled with other people’s clothes. And she knew she would never earn enough coins to buy those fine clothes for herself.
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"Brandy You're A Fine Girl", a novel written by Joe DeShon and inspired by the 1972 hit song by Looking Glass, will be published in April.
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