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A Northern Light by: Jennifer Donnelly Childrens Bookshop Price: $8.95 Prices subject to change. |
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Binding: Paperback EAN: 9780152053109 ISBN: 0152053107 Label: Harcourt Paperbacks Manufacturer: Harcourt Paperbacks Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 408 Publication Date: September 01, 2004 Publisher: Harcourt Paperbacks Reading Level: Young Adult Studio: Harcourt Paperbacks Sales Rank: 16403 Related Items:
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Editorial Review: Product Description: Sixteen-year-old Mattie Gokey has big dreams but little hope of seeing them come true. Desperate for money, she takes a job at the Glenmore, where hotel guest Grace Brown entrusts her with the task of burning a secret bundle of letters. But when Grace's drowned body is fished from the lake, Mattie discovers that the letters could reveal the grim truth behind a murder. Set in 1906 against the backdrop of the murder that inspired Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, Jennifer Donnelly's astonishing debut novel effortlessly weaves romance, history, and a murder mystery into something moving, and real, and wholly original. Includes a reader's guide and an interview with the author. Amazon.com Review: It's 1906 and 16-year-old Mattie Gokey is at a crossroads in her life. She's escaped the overwhelming responsibilities of helping to run her father's brokedown farm in exchange for a paid summer job as a serving girl at a fancy hotel in the Adirondacks. She's saving as much of her salary as she can, but she's having trouble deciding how she's going to use the money at the end of the summer. Mattie's gift is for writing and she's been accepted to Barnard College in New York City, but she's held back by her sense of responsibility to her family--and by her budding romance with handsome-but-dull Royal Loomis. Royal awakens feelings in Mattie that she doesn't want to ignore, but she can't deny her passion for words and her desire to write. At the hotel, Mattie gets caught up in the disappearance of a young couple who had gone out together in a rowboat. Mattie spoke with the young woman, Grace Brown, just before the fateful boating trip, when Grace gave her a packet of love letters and asked her to burn them. When Grace is found drowned, Mattie reads the letters and finds that she holds the key to unraveling the girl's death and her beau's mysterious disappearance. Grace Brown's story is a true one (it's the same story told in Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy and in the film adaptation, A Place in the Sun), and author Jennifer Donnelly masterfully interweaves the real-life story with Mattie's, making her seem even more real. Mattie's frank voice reveals much about poverty, racism, and feminism at the turn of the twentieth century. She witnesses illness and death at a range far closer than most teens do today, and she's there when her best friend Minnie gives birth to twins. Mattie describes Minnie's harrowing labor with gut-wrenching clarity, and a visit with Minnie and the twins a few weeks later dispels any romance from the reality of young motherhood (and marriage). Overall, readers will get a taste of how bitter--and how sweet--ordinary life in the early 1900s could be. Despite the wide variety of troubles Mattie describes, the book never feels melodramatic, just heartbreakingly real. (14 and older) --Jennifer Lindsay Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Couldn't put it down !!!This is an excellent book. Very easy to read. It made me laugh and cry. Rating:  - The memories left behind...Lovely, lovely, lovely. Mattie's intelligence and innate good sense, her curiosity for life and learning and her compassion shine through. Odd to say "lovely" about a book that grows around a murder, but it's true. And that this is a "first novel" is even better, because it means I can hope for more from this author. Passages such as: They leave things behind sometimes, the guests. A bottle of scent. A crumpled handkerchief. A pearl button that fell off a dress and rolled ... Read More: Rating: - A New FavoriteI got this book several years ago, but have put off reading it until recently. Now I know just what I was missing! This story weaves a tale of a young girl whose life has been alterted so dramatically that she has forced to grow up faster than expected. I relates so much to Mattie throughout the story. I felt like I was sharing her every triumph and suffering from her every loss. This book is both dark and compelling, and is one of my new favorites. Rating: - One of the best "true" fictions I've read...Lest I get carried away with verbose praise, I just want to say that this is superb storytelling by Donnelly. Admittedly, I had no knowledge of the real murder of a Grace Brown. And though her letters were indeed heartbreaking, and at turns, horrific to read, I was more fascinated with the lives of Mattie and Weaver - two of the strongest characters I've ever encountered. After reading this novel, I found myself grateful that I, as yet, have not gone through the kind of back-breaking, and, dare I say ... Read More: Rating: - A Northern LightI loved this book. I thought it was well written and the author is a great story teller. I will be looking for other books written by her. |
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