{Book Review} The Story of the Trapp Family Singers written by Maria Augusta Trapp

I wrote this review several years ago and posted it on my old blog. Reading through this makes me want to read this book again!

I’ve had this book for a couple years. Hannah had read it and would always tell me I needed to read it because it was so good. With books, for some reason I have this mentality to save the best for last. Unfortunately, I have so many other books to read that most of my interesting (i.e. WWII) books get left of the shelf to collect dust. Many times when I’d go on a trip with an almost-finished book, I’d bring along “The Trapp Family Singers” to reward myself (I don’t like to read boring books in the car. I get sick reading on road trips anyway, so only risk it with interesting ones. =P), but I just never would start the book.

I finally bit the bullet (weird metaphor) and began the book. I heartily agree with San Francisco Chronicle reviewer Joseph Henry Jackson in his emphatic praise: “You’re missing something if you don’t read it right away…It is a thoroughly entertaining personal history of a woman worth meeting and worth knowing. Maria and her book will make a friend of you in the first half-down paragraphs, and keep you as a friend to the final page.”

This book is more than the happy-go-lucky story of a girl who teaches seven motherless children to sing, and then sing through mass, romance, adventure, and danger. (This is all tongue and cheek – I’m in love with the movie. I love Maria’s fun personality, everything about Captain von Trapp, “My Favorite Things”, the WWII stuff, the dancing, the quote “’But it’s too early for blueberries.’ ‘They were strawberries. It’s been so cold lately they turned blue!’”, the all-around great family movie!) The book is a history of the Trapp family. You all know the beginning – Maria a young postulant, leaves the Abbey to be a temporary tutor for Captain Trapp’s daughter Maria (portrayed as Louisa in the movie). Fraulein Maria helps reunite the family (though they certainly aren’t as distant and cold as the movie), while encouraging them to sing, and spend time together. The Captain begins to fall in love with Maria, breaks off his relationship with the Baroness, and proposes. But, unlike the movie, Maria hasn’t fallen in love. She doesn’t want to stay. She consults Mother Superior, who gloriously sings “Climb Every Mountain”, inspiring Maria to become a mother to the seven children. Just kidding. Mother Superior not only gives permission for her to marry, but says it is God’s will for her life. Maria sobs all the way back to the von Trapp mansion and, in tears, tells the very-much-in-love Captain that she’ll marry him. You pretty much know everything until the family escapes Austria. Learning a new language and different customs is difficult. The family travels around the U.S. giving concerts; they finally settle down in Vermont. Wait, I shouldn’t be telling you all the good parts. Just go read the book. You won’t be disappointed! [One disclaimer: there is a lot of Catholicism throughout the entire book.]