Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson

Though this book was a Junior Library Guild Selection, this is a great book for any age!

Before I get into the book, I'm curious about one thing. I wonder if it was normal for an orphaned child to be shuffled around from relative to relative like an unwanted burden in the days of old. Anne of Green Gables comes to mind along with The Secret Garden and several others. Was it because resources were scarce and adding one more mouth to feed was indeed a tremendous burden? Or was it because there were more indifferent, if not more cruel relatives abound? Or worse still, the world they lived in placed little value on these orphaned children except for what labor could be gotten from them? It's really heart-breaking.

A 16-year-old orphan Hattie Brooks lived with her Aunt Ivy and Uncle Holt in Arlington, Iowa. She lost her father to a lung disease when she was two, and when she was five, her mother died of pneumonia. Since then, she's been passed from relative to relative, some of them with thin, tenuous claim to any relation. 

"I'd stay to help out with this sick person or that until I'd run of folks who needed help and didn't mind an extra mouth to feed to get it." 

This had been Hattie's existence until she was thirteen when Aunt Ivy took her in (but it was Uncle Holt who was a distant cousin). But instead of finding love and understanding, Aunt Ivy reminded her every day that she had nothing and no one. Aunt Ivy was on the verge of forcing Hattie to work at a boardinghouse when she received a letter from her dead uncle to come and inherit his homestead claim in eastern Montana. She jumped at he opportunity to escape the dreary existence of maid at a boardinghouse and set out for an adventure in January of 1918. 

And boy did she set out for an adventure. Her naive ignorance made her dismiss what the men on the train told her, but she should have listened to some of their comments with some credence. But she didn't. And the reality of winter in eastern Montana alone in a shack with a smart, considerate horse name Plug and a cantankerous cow named Violet almost did her in, except for the kindness of strangers (her closest neighbors) kept her alive and surviving everyday.

Though she quickly learned that "inheriting" a claim was really more like a curse than anything, she was determined to "prove" a claim and keep the 320 acre her uncle left her. However, there were conditions to be met. 

1. She must build and fence (set four hundred eighty rods of fence).
2. She must cultivate at least one-eighth of the claim (or 40 acres).
3. All the conditions must be met in three years or the person loses the claim. This gave Hatti ten months to prove her claim.

A school girl from Arlington, Iowa must do all this, almost by herself, in ten months.

Hattie took up the challenge. In the process of trying to prove a claim, she faced unimaginable hardships, both physical and mental, but in her depth of despair and hopelessness, which she shrugged off quite readily, she found her own family, made of strangers who come to love and care for her more than her own relatives.

Ultimately, she failed to prove her claim due to a natural disaster (hail storm) and must relinquish the claim, she had no regrets. She had done her best, and in the process of trying to prove the claim, she had learned that her future might not lie with farming, but writing. Though she worked at the boardinghouse to pay off her (mostly her uncle's) debts, she had hopes for a brighter future. At the end of the book, she's on a train, again, on her way to Seattle where her new family (closest neighbors) and her could-be sweetheart moved.

As I was finishing this book (I finished in 1 1/2 days), I thought, this is what makes America great. Because it's populated mostly by the people or the descendants of the people who desperately wanted to be here and to "make it" here. They were more than willing to work hard to make their dreams come true, whatever that dream might have been.  

To these intrepid immigrants, failure was not an option.  Hattie worked hard to payoff her debts before she was on the train to Seattle.

The long thread of people who held this country together had the same core values (hard work ethic, the indomitable spirit, and the spirit of independence, etc.) running through them whether they were the English, the Germans, the Norwegians, the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Mexicans, etc. 

We are but a small portion of the thread of greatness that ran from the beginning of our country's history. Hopefully, we could continue the work to make this a great country. 

Can you tell I really enjoyed this book? I think you should check it out, too.

O, Juliet by Robin Maxwell

O, what a fantastic book!

I'm a book lover, especially hardback books. I know I'm going to have to surrender to the digital age and buy an e-book reader or a tablet, but I'm still trying to hold out. However, collecting hardback books get to be a very expensive hobby. So, I frequent nearby thrift stores, dollar stores, and library book sales to get my fill of books. This was a dollar store find (I also teach science at my kids' school as a volunteer, and Dolllar Stores are great for science project supplies).

I never liked Romeo and Juliet. I prefer The Merchant of Venice, The Winter's Tale, Henry V, The Tempest, Macbeth, etc. Romeo and Juliet seemed overly sentimental and stupidly tragic. And Juliet's nurse and Romeo's Friar should have known better than to not only encourage but to aid in the teenage lovers' hair-brained schemes.

Having said that, I loved O, Juliet. If this had been Shakespeare's original play, I would have loved it, too. It added so many layers and texture to the story. Most of the characters felt real and alive, and each had strong motivation in their backstories to explain their own journey to the tragic end.

Spoiler Alert~ 

Set in the opulent world of Don Cosimo de Medici in Florence, our Juliet is best friends with Don Cosimo's would be daughter-in-law Lucrezia Tornabuoni, who replaces Juliet's nurse as her confidante. Lucrezia's upcoming marriage to Piero casts a pall on Juliet. She, too, has an upcoming marriage, except it's to a man she despises. At Lucrezia's betrothal ball, Juliet meets Romeo, and  they fall in love over Dante's love poetry.

Though they are from warring families and their hatred go back for at least two generations, there is hope. The parents on both sides, fathers especially, are more than willing to forgive one another and reconcile. However, Juliet's betrothal, Jacopo Strozzi, will not stand by and watch Juliet fall through his fingers. Though he doesn't love Juliet, he needs the business partnership with Juliet's father for secure his future, and he'll not lose out on that for something as silly and insignificant as love. 

Jacopo Strozzi sets the major pieces of Romeo and Juliet in motion and brings about the tragic end to their classic love story.

I can't say enough how much I loved this book. The original pales in comparison with this awesome book. 

Whether you pay $1 or $15, this books is well worth the price of the book (can you tell I like to buy books?). Go check it out and enjoy! I'm going to check out other books by the same author. Since I like de Medici's Florence so much, I think I'm going to check out Signora da Vinci, about Leonardo da Vinci's young mother.