The Book

I haven't read the book, but I've seen the 1938 film version with Anne Shirley and Ruby Keeler.

It took me a while to realize I was watching a remake. In the older movie, you seen the family before the father dies. There are two older sisters, a teen brother and a young boy. The sisters fall in love with the same man. The one not picked falls in love with the son of the house's owner.

I have no idea if you're still interested in this answer, but I have a copy of MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS. Both Disney's SUMMER MAGIC and the 1930s film of the novel take some aspects of the novel, but not all of them.

In the book there are four children, Nancy, Kathleen (Kitty), Gilbert and Peter. The book opens with Mrs. Carey going to nurse her sick husband, then has a flashback to the children with their father, then Mr. Carey has died as the story returns to the present. They don't move into the house in Beulah until six or seven chapters into the book. Nancy thinks of going to the Yellow House, but Gilbert is actually dispatched to Maine to make arrangements. Osh Popham in SUMMER MAGIC is actually a combination of two characters in the book, Osh, handyman, and the caretaker of the house. The latter character does not hide the fact the Careys are living in the house; the elder Mr. Hamilton knows all about it and approves, since no one in the family except young Tom ever cared about the house. Tom does show up at the end of the book and takes a shine to Nancy.

There are also two neglected children in the book, Olive and Cyril Lord. Their father is a Ph.D. and always too busy to bother with them, even after their mother dies. They become constant visitors at the house and Cyril considers Mrs. Carey as an adoptive mother.

Julia does not appear in the 1930s movie. In that film Kitty is the one who "gets" the handsome schoolteacher, whose name is Ralph Thurston, as in the book, not Charles Bryant. The Careys DO NOT take in boarders and have a mean couple trying to get them out of the house as is shown in the 1930s film. Also, Julia is only thirteen in the book, so she doesn't have a romance with anyone. She IS a pill in the book, too, and does always waffle on about Gladys Ferguson. It's Kitty that tells Julia the truth about the family money in the book, not Nancy.

They actually do have a ceremony with the mother's picture in the book but it's done perfectly seriously, with an actual portrait of the mother.

Also, the dog is complete Disney. The 1930s film actually takes place in Rhode Island, not Boston and then Maine like the book and in SUMMER MAGIC.

On a side note, Katherine Hepburn said in an interview that her studio wanted her to do Mother Carey's Chickens. She abruptly refused and left RKO because of it.

My library does not carry this book. It is not in their card catalogue. But I want to read it. I found it in e- book form and put it on my wish list. Wish I didn't have to buy it. In case I don't like it.