Title:
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

The book that I chose for this book talk is "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town,"
written by a famous Canadian writer, Stephen Leacock. I came to choose this book
because I have not read any book written by Canadian and I also wanted to know
the life of a small town in Canada.

In this novel, Leacock describes life in a small mythical town called Mariposa in
Ontario. Even though the town is ordinary, the life of the people in it is unique and
most unusual because every townsman has very interesting characteristics. This
novel is divided in twelve chapters, and while each one is about a separate story,
they are interrelated and help us to understand other chapters better since they all
take place in one town.

Of these twelve stories, my favorite one was the chapter about Mr. Smith who was
the funniest and the most attractive character. Mr. Smith came to this town,
Mariposa, from north about 30 years ago, and bought a little hotel that almost failed.
Even though he is illiterate, since he is very intelligent in business matters, he
improved the hotel to a very fancy and elegant one that everyone in town became
proud of. The story begins when he is revoked his liquor license because he has
run an after-hours bar. Mr. Smith has been a philanthropist and never afraid of
spending or betting the money on anything; for example, one day, he gave free
rides to the children of the town on merry-go-round all the night. To save himself
from losing the hotel, he builds a huge hotel with a world-class restaurant and hires
a master chef from France. He sells the food for only 25 cents when normally the
price would be more than a person can afford. People and even the officials who
closed down the hostelry become impressed and sympathetic to him, so they start to
write a petition to preserve his hotel, and finally he regains his license. Mr. Smith
continues this cheap restaurant and becomes very popular, so he goes on to run as
a candidate for a mayor of the town, which is another chapter of the novel. The
other chapter of the book contain humorous stories like this about the town, but
with different characters.

Because this novel has a lot of different stories which has each owns theme, it is
hard to tell what Stephen Leacock wants to tell the reader. However, in every story,
he talks about the honesty of the people in this fictional town and is sometimes
satiric about their weaknesses. While most of the townspeople appear to be quite
simple and na•ve, they represent other people in Mariposa or any other town in
Canada. The title, "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town" suggests that the author is
optimistic about the life of people in these little towns.

I liked this novel very much because it was the funniest book I have read and it tells
of the interesting aspects of the town's culture. I would recommend this book to
everyone in the class, especially if you want a good laugh and if you have been
bored by many books on the reading list.