This book was very touching. It was also funny and made me laugh out loud at the things that two ninteen year old girls did. Although it was set in the 1920's and I could not catch every person to which they referred, I still got the point of the book and enjoyed it immensely. I would definitely recommend this book to other teenagers and older because this book was one of the best books I ever read. The things they did I would never have done and the people they met were werid, yet I felt that without being able to relate very much to the book made it all the more interesting to read. I hope this book is read by others so they can all laugh as much as I did.

This is definately my favorite book. It is light, hilarious and such a joy to read. I tried to put off finishing it, trying to extend my pure delight in reading it, but I couldnt keep myself away, so I finished it rather quickly. However, I still longed for more and began to read it agian. The story is true, well written and fun. The adventures Cornellia and Emily have during their first trip to Europe will literally make you laugh until you cry. I wished I could be one of the girls, along for their trip, until I realized I was there as well, enjoying it as much as they were. Cornelia and Emily are the perfect companions for such a trip, and it was so kind of them to share it with us. This is one of those books that become dear friends, and anyone who has not yet read it must do so now, or else they will miss out on the greatest trip of their lives.

A long time hobby of mine has been to watch classic films, then scour used bookstores looking for the original work on which the films was based. When I first saw the film "Our Hearts Were Young And Gay", I knew I just had to find the book! Little did I realize that the European adventures of these two girls in the 1920s was actually not a work of fiction! There is even a line at the introduction of the book that reads "Lest the reader should be in any doubt, we wish to state that the incidents in this book are all true and the characters completely non-fictitious." I recently took this book on my first trip to Europe and found it delightful and funny. Great for those long hours waiting for and flying on planes. I must admit that this is the first book that ever had me literally laughing out loud.

Of course with any story turned into a film, it was kissed with a bit of Hollywood glamour and parts were left on the cutting room floor, but the story is truly witty, charming and fun and follows very closely to the book. See the movie if you can catch it on a classic movie channel! It hasn't been released on video or DVD yet. As for the book, the pages are worn and the dustjacket is ripped but it will always be in my library and I look forward to reading it over and over again.

Emily Kimbrough is the co-author, with Cornelia Otis Skinner, of the classic, OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY. On her own, she was a prolific author, and I wish that her publishers would re-issue more of her books. HOW DEAR TO MY HEART is a 1991 re-issue, underwritten by the Delaware County Historic Society, of her reminiscence of her earliest childhood in Muncie, Indiana at the turn of the 20th century. The original printing was in 1944.

As always, Ms. Kimbrough's writing is lyrical, and one easily can imagine through her those defining years for our nation, a moment when electricity and automobiles first were entering everyday life, and the telephone still was in the experimental stages. Ms. Kimbrough's vivid style makes that moment understandable, and she remembers her childhood, the places and the people, with great affection.

Like all children, she assumed that her realities were the only ones, but the truth is that she grew up in one of the most prominent and affluent families in a small town and, as such, her upbringing was that of an American princess. Still, her family's excellent values shine through, as they do in all her books, and she demonstrates a slice of life that never again will be recaptured. Christmas in Muncie in 1905 is somewhere between Dickens and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, and it makes for marvelous reading.

Consistent with all of her other books, there are plenty of funny anecdotes interspersed with studies of the characters in her life, her paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother (and that grandmother's next-door neighbor, President Benjamin Harrison) and her nanny, the daughter of former slaves.

The charming drawings add to the overall feeling of the book. I believe that the same artist also did the illustrations for the early Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace; essentially, these stories are about similar little girls in similar towns. Maud's girls are fictionalized and Emily's story is her own, but the spirit of both their styles are much the same.

This is a wonderful book.

Ms. Kimbrough's first job was at the Marshall Field & Company department store in Chicago. She began in the advertising department in 1923, knowing nothing. Through her eyes and experiences, we learn with her all about the people and inner workings of such a place. Her vivid and amusing style catch you up and make you crave for (as she did) her daily chats with dept. store "heads." During her her 5 years there, she worked on the bimonthly Field's magazine "Fashions of the Hour". Her anecdotes of trying to write copy for it will have you laughing on the floor. Before I tell too much, maybe I should just stop and say: Read it!

The book is beautifully written - a history of Marshall Field and a piece of life in 1920's Chicago. By the way, Charley was the doorman at the Wshington street entrance that she knew since she was a child.

I am a fan of Emily Kimbrough's gentle, arm-chair travel books. But I was disappointed in this one.

Here earliest book, "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay", coauthored with Cornelia Othis Skinner, is a perennial delight, a book to be read and reread, especially when one needs a little cheering up or laughter.

Here later books, written alone, don't have the same poignancy but are still enjoyable. Included in these are "Floating Island" [cruising on a barge in France]; "Forty Plus and Fancy Free" [touring Italy]; "Water, Water Everywhere" [Greece, and barging in England]. The set-up is the same: 6 to 8 close friends travel together, from 2 to 4 weeks. Ms. Kimbrough weaves together gentle observations on human frailities with low-key and non-critical sightseeing.

"Floating Island" is one of her later books, and lacks much of the zing of the earlier ones. The book relates the adventures of a two-week cruise on a barge on the river Shannon in the early 1970s.

I recommend Ms. Kimbrough's earlier books [particularly "Our Hearts were Young and Gay", but also "Forty Plus and Fancy Free"] more than this book, if you are interested in a gentle read.

If you are interested in serious armchair travel, you would do better with any of H. V. Morton's classics ["A Traveller in Rome"; "In the Steps of St. Paul"; etc., recently reissued in paperback].