What Katy Did

What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge. What Katy Did is an 1872 children's book written by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey under her pen name Susan Coolidge. It follows the adventures of a twelve-year-old American girl, Katy Carr, and her family who live in the fictional lakeside Ohio town of Burnet in the 1860s. Katy is a tall untidy tomboy, forever getting into scrapes but wishing to be beautiful and beloved. 12-year-old Katy Carr lives with her widowed father and her two brothers and three sisters in Burnet, a small midwestern town. Her father is a very busy doctor who works long hours; the children are mostly in the care of his sister Aunt Izzie, who is very particular and something of a scold. Bright, headstrong Katy can hardly avoid getting into mischief almost daily under these circumstances, but she is unfailingly remorseful afterward. She dreams of someday doing something "grand" with her life: painting famous pictures, saving the lives of drowning people, or leading a crusade on a white horse. She also wants to be "beautiful, of course, and good if I can." When her mother died four years earlier, Katy promised to be a little mother to her siblings: in practice, she is the kind of big sister who is sometimes impatient or cross with them, but leads them into all sorts of exciting adventures.