Our Only May Amelia
Jennifer L. Holm
HarperTrophy
253p pbk
0-06-440856-6
Genre: Historical (Newberry Honour Book)
The story is set in Washington State on the River Nasel in the year 1899. The main character in the story is a Finnish girl named May Amelia and the story is also written from her persepctive. May is always getting into trouble and keeps getting told to act like a young lady. She is the only girl born on the River Nasel until her sister comes along near the end but soon dies and is buried on Baby Island. She has six brothers and one cousin who the family thinks of as a brother.
The story line in the book is really good because it could really happen in real life. The recommended age is 9 though I think that the age should be about 11+ because of the grammar used. (e.g. speech marks are not used when someone is speaking so it becomes difficult to understand when someone is speaking or to know who is speaking). The illustrations in the book weren’t that good because they didn’t really mean anything and didn’t show what was happening. The text for the recommended age of 9 was great because it wasn’t all squashed up in tiny font.
If you like emotional stories this one would be good for you because when people die, or get sick, the story is written in a way to make you cry or get upset. During the story there is a Red Scarlet Fever that makes half the town sick and nearly kills everyone in another town.
