If you’re looking for a clean middle-grade book that handles difficult topics like cancer and school troubles, then this book is perfect for you. The If you’re looking for a clean middle-grade book that handles difficult topics like cancer and school troubles, then this book is perfect for you. The unique approach this book takes in exploring how math isn’t all about just numbers but also about concepts and ideas were developed tastefully and tied in well the personal struggles the main character dealing with her mother’s cancer.
I would have liked to have seen more of Mika’s school life besides her math class, but the scenes and story development in California with Mika’s dad made up for it. Some of the book’s impact was a little lost on me, being a homeschooled high school senior, but I can definitely relate to Mika’s quiet but deep and very present fears and dislike of change. I went through that time period myself as a ten-year-old; I have to applaud the author for so realistically slipping into a ten-year old’s mindset. I love how Mika used her math journal as a way of processing everything and wasn’t resentful when her best friend made other friends and instead looked to develop and build other relationships with the girls in her class.
Well written, uniquely themed, and sweetly illustrated.
Sometimes you see a book around so much that you get a mental picture of it without ever reading the back blurb. That was me with this book; so, goingSometimes you see a book around so much that you get a mental picture of it without ever reading the back blurb. That was me with this book; so, going into it, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I actually loved it.
I think it was the beautiful world building that captured by heart. The small town mountain lifestyle and fierce togetherness of the people, yet how they’re willing in the end to listen to their own, grow, try new things, and better themselves. The concept of speak through the lindor—wow! And how tight a bond it forms among those in the quarry and later in the girls at the academy through Miri.
I love the father-daughter arc, the rules of diplomacy, the songs, and the lessons of friendships demonstrated. To say that this book with nothing like I expected would be a huge understatement. Instead of a cheesy, middle-grade book centered around a love triangle that I thought it would be, I found it to be the kind of book that makes you nostalgic for a home you never had, one in a mountain village like this in a fantasy land.
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I know it’s a series, but I’m completely content to leave the story finished as it is and let my own imaginings fill in as much or little of the rest of the story that I want.
4 stars, and a serious contender for the Single-most-book-read-in-2018-that-I-wish-I’d-discovered-as-a-younger-kid Award ...more
The complexity of just what people envy in each other’s lives is masterfully shown in Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s fiction novel Faith, Hope, and Ivy JunThe complexity of just what people envy in each other’s lives is masterfully shown in Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s fiction novel Faith, Hope, and Ivy June. Two Kentucky girls, Ivy June of the small mountain town of Thunder Creek and Catherine of Lexington, are participating in an exchange student program. They each will take a turn to live at the other’s house for two weeks to learn about the way the other lives and see if it matches up to their expectations. Throughout the weeks they are to write in their journals about their experiences to compare how they line up with the stereotypes they have in their minds. Both girls come to learn that it is not things that they envy most about the other, but rather more intangible things and also learn that everyone expresses love in their own way.
Despite the extreme differences in wealth between the two girls, both find that what they desire most about the other’s life is not material things. When Ivy June returns from her stay with Catherine’s affluent family, she thinks about the opera house she visited, how nice fancy clothes would be, or even having the simple luxuries of running water and being driven to school instead of walking; but at the end of her musings, ”those were the small things. She would love a daddy like Catherine’s who asked about her day, inspected her homework… A family who encouraged her to broaden herself and told her how well she was doing when she tried something new” (141-142). Catherine, likewise, wrote in her journal during her stay with Ivy June, who lived with her grandparents because her own family’s home was too crowded for her, “I wish I had grandparents I loved that much” (163). When calamity strikes Thunder Creek and Catherine sees how the community sacrificially gives and gathers around the affected family, she knows she cannot say the same of her own people and writes wistfully that she wonders if Ivy June knows how lucky she has it. As both girls record their experiences in their journals they find that what they long for most of each other’s worlds is not the material but rather the intangible unique blessings given only by God.
Equally important as a lesson, Naylor points out that love looks diverse coming from different people. When Ivy June is homesick, she calls the lonesomeness she has for her mother and father different than that for her grandparents, more of a longing for the relationship she wishes she had with them, but she’s wise enough to see that her parents do love her in their own way. She writes in her journal, “I figure we all [speaking of her family] love each other down underneath where you can’t hardly see it” (37). Catherine experiences the same strained relationship with her worldly-minded Grandmother Rosemary. Naylor shows to the reader through the girls’ experiences that just listening and learning their loved one’s stories goes a long way to bridging the gap and being the one willing to take the first step forward to a deeper relationship. While the love of Catherine’s parents’ and Ivy June’s grandparents was very easy to see, equally existent was the love of Catherine’s grandparents and Ivy June’s mom and dad; love is shown in different ways.
Faith, Hope, and Ivy June is a book this generation will appreciate for its life lessons that show possessions are not what people are most jealous of nor is love a simple passion that always looks the same in people. With local color, realistic portrayal of life, and a beautiful setting Naylor will continue to capture readers of future years with this novel.
I finished this book with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. Why? Because, while this book is tough and raw to read for realistically portrayinI finished this book with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. Why? Because, while this book is tough and raw to read for realistically portraying its subject, it’s beautifully written and acutely heartwarming.
The New York Times reviewed the book as, “Not only a tense adventure story but also a moving picture of one small boy’s tenacious courage.” I give that assessment a hearty amen! The action of this book is quite gripping, but it was the pull to root for Tien Pao, this little Chinese boy, and his little piglet against all odds that was the heartthrob of the story.
Tien Pao and his family have just escaped from their Japanese-attacked village that the Japanese and have escaped in their tampan, a boat, upriver to the city of Hengyang, now the 2nd largest city in China. When the tampan is accidentally unmoored and washed downriver with Tien Pao and the piglet he names Glory-of-the-Republic, his endurance is tested. On the long journey back to Hengyang, he risks his own life to save an injured American airman lieutenant, helping the Chinese fight the Japanese, as well as encountering the Chinese resistance, who act as guerrillas by night and farmers by day.
When he finally arrives in the city it is only as the Japanese do, and Tien Pao bravely tries to find his family in the chaos. And that is how his sixty fathers find him, on a rock overlooking the road out of Hengyang asleep and curled up with his piglet.
I loved seeing the interaction between the boy and the American airmen, who “adopted” Tien Pao out of gratefulness for how he saved their lieutenant’s life! Finding out that the book is based off a true story only endeared this book and those scenes to me more.
This is my third Meindert Dejong book and certainly not my last. I’ve found him to be an author capable of masterfully writing to capture my heart and move me to tears, even in his simplest novels. I look forward to reading more by this author....more
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