Release date is 2026-05-18

Such a happy day by Catharine Shaw is a children’s family story written in the Victorian era. It revolves around a Golden Wedding celebration that gathers several generations for a day of reunion, using linked domestic scenes to highlight kindness, faith, and the quiet pleasures of home life.

From morning to night, the narrative traces the extended Forde family as they converge on the grandparents’ home at Bickley for their fiftieth anniversary. Alongside playful country episodes—flowers at dawn, farmyard scrapes, haymaking, gingerbread in the kitchen—the story threads gentle moral moments: a London flower girl hears of Jesus from a young schoolmistress; Grandfather tells of orphaned Minnie and her brother finding shelter; Grandmother reflects on swallows and God’s unfailing love; and Jack, after a comic mishap, quietly does brave deeds and later finds a lost baby in the dusk. Amid laughter, games, and affectionate farewells, Lily Archer accepts an offer of a home from Claude Champion, and the day closes with grateful “Good-nights,” the family’s joy shaped by simple faith and mutual care. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: London: John F. Shaw & Co., Ltd., 1894