Book Blurb
Can one mistake destroy the chance of a lifetime? A girl discovers there are many ways of being true in this magnificent ode to handwritten letters and the shining power of friendship from the author of Dovey Coe, set in the Appalachian mountains of 1920s North Carolina.
One true friend. Someone shining. That’s all twelve-year-old Arie Mae wants. But shining true friends are hard to come by deep in the mountains of western North Carolina, so she sets her sights on a cousin unseen, someone who lives all the way away in the big city of Baltimore, Maryland. Three unanswered letters later, Arie Mae learns that a group of kids from Baltimore are coming to spend a summer on the mountain.
Arie Mae loves her smudge of a town—she knows there’s nothing finer than Pa’s fiddling and Mama’s apple cake, but she also knows Big City folk might feel differently. How else to explain the song catcher ladies who have descended upon the village in search of “traditional tunes” and their intention to help “save” the townspeople? But when the group from Baltimore arrives, it seems there just might be a gem among them, one shining boy who doesn’t seem to notice Arie Mae wears the same dress every day and prefers to go barefoot. So what if he has a bit of a limp and a rumored heart problem—he also is keen about everything Arie Mae is keen about, and has all the makings of a true friend.
And so what if the boy’s mother warns him not to exert himself? He and Arie Mae have adventures to go on! In between writing letters to her cousin, Arie Mae leads her one shining friend on ghost hunts and bear chases. But it turns out those warnings were for a reason…
Links
Toot's Review by Stacy Sabala
Twelve year old Arie Mae Sparks doesn’t have a best friend and she is very unsettled about it. She decides to write to her cousin Caroline whom she has never met to see if they can be friends. Arie Mae lives in Stone Gap, North Carolina in the mountains and Caroline is from the big city of Raleigh. Arie Mae continually writes letters telling Caroline what is happening to her on the mountain. She tells stories, explains traditions and reveals her feelings. She excels at ghost stories. She doesn’t receive any letters back but she continues to write. Her mama tells her not to give up.
The reader gets to read every letter as the author did a fabulous job using them to write the story. I thought it a creative way to grab the reader and keep them involved in the story. As a result the story was fun to read, full of adventure and fun that children living in the mountains of North Carolina had.
Arie Mae and her family were excellent characters set in the 1920s. The time, however, doesn’t really play much of a role. Kids play, have adventures, and have pride in where they are from no matter what the year. The themes are universal.
It is a great read for children to see the differences of time and location, but that people are similar. A very cute story that I recommend to any reader. I give it a 4 out of 5.
No comments:
Post a Comment