Rating: 
Summary: Keep an eye on Jennifer Donnelly
Review: She is one of the most compelling new authors out there. After reading the excellent "Tea Rose" last year, I picked up her YA novel "A Northern Light." What a great and multilayered story. Maddie is a heroine that transcends generations. She is an intelligent girl with lofty dreams and a great personality. The reader is rooting for her from the very first page and feels her sense of confinement when she realizes that her family cannot hold together without her. The book also gives a very positive picture of what it means to be an intelligent woman, and to be proud of that. Even today, teenage girls feel that intelligence is an attribute to be hidden away for fear of offending someone or becoming unpopular.
It is difficult to sell a historical to a YA audience, but this title is worth the effort. We'll be seeing more of Jennifer Donnelly, and I can't wait.
Rating:
Summary: Lyrical and haunting
Review: This book -- like To Kill a Mockingbird or, say, Lord of the Flies -- should never be considered "just" a young adult book. The story is so haunting and the writing so deft that it will stay with and inspire young people and adults alike for many years, if not a lifetime. Who knows if it will become a classic, but it should. Either way, it should be required reading for any high schooler with an inclination toward reading or writing; and any adult who (like Mattie) finds truth and redemption in words.
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Summary: don't miss this book -- but read it on the weekend!
Review: This book is full of heart and wit. Though packed with details from a fascinating period and place, it follows a dramatic story that has contemporary resonance. In the context of a mystery story, A Northern Light captures that difficult moment in growing up when one is presented with choices that have broad consequences and no easy solutions. I found the book impossible to put down. I read it in one sitting - until two in the morning. Then I bought more copies (wanted to keep mine!) and gave them to my daughter (age 15) and my brother (age 35). Both of them found it compelling as well. I saw my daughter reading it as she walked home from school, and it was with many protests that she stopped reading long enough to finish her homework that evening. We have since had several interesting discussions about growing up, falling in love, doing the right thing, and finding the moxie to pursue a dream. Highest recommendation!
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Summary: An Historical Fiction Masterpiece
Review: This is one of those books where about a third of the way through, you anxiously thumb the remaining pages, knowing that despite your best efforts to savor it, the book will be over all too soon. When A NORTHERN LIGHT falls open, you,the reader, will fall in. Descriptions of this book by previous reviewers, while excellent and accurate, still do not prepare you for the sheer delight and pleasure of reading this story. While it has been classified as a Young Adult novel, as it does contain some language and situations, every word is absolutely true to the character who is speaking or being spoken of. I urge every teenage girl to read this, then pass it on to her mother, all of her girlfriends, aunts, a favorite teacher--in short, anyone who has a love of words, of learning, of mysteries, and a belief in the power of young women. A NORTHERN LIGHT is a most extraordinary book. Don't miss it!
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Summary: Voice of true independence
Review: This story is about Mattie, who gets accepted into a college, and she has to decide if she wants to stay with her family and friends or to pursue her dreams of becoming a journalist in New York, if her Pa will even let her go.
She has to learn on her own what she wants, and not what others want for her to be. This is a truly inspirational book for anyone who is trapped between two worlds.
Rating:
Summary: READ IT! READ IT! READ IT!
Review: Well, this book is the best book, it has something for girls, boys, young, or old (but not under 12, some graphic material) This book is about Mattie, a poor farm girl who loves books, writing, and the plainest, but mst handsome boy in town, Royal Loomis. Mattie must choose between the two. She reads letters from a dead womans hand, allegedly burned, and finds more than a murder mystery, she finds herself.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful story about a girl finding herself in the world
Review: What more can I say? It's an honest coming of age story for a young lady, Mattie, growing up in the early 1900's. It's her dream to be a writer, but family obligations have other ideas for her. Simultaneously, an unusual death takes place at the summer resort where she is working. The death is historically true, which adds an extra angle to the book. Through this other woman's death, and a compassionate teacher, Mattie understands her own life and her own path. A sweet read and encouraging for girls coming of age, even if the story was set a century ago.
Rating: 
Summary: Discovery
Review: When I picked up this book, i did not expect two things to happen. I actually liked the book and i found a source of strength to pursue my own goals. This is a story about a young girl, who yearns to pursue her dreams of attending college and becoming a writer, but must overcome obstacles do do this, which adds to the drama and makes the book what it is. It is also compelling, because it is set in the backdrop of a real-life event, of a murder that was solved by the evidence in her letters. Though sad, I like the way the young women, Matt, is given courage to pursue this near impossible dream. To read this book, is to give hope to chase your own dreams, and to conquer the obstacles that stand in your way.
Rating:
Summary: HISTORY, MYSTERY AND LOVE
Review: Young Mattie Gokey uses words as shields, she stores them away in her mind as buffers against her hard scrabble existence in the early 1900s. Due to the unexpected death of her mother the raising of her younger sisters falls to Mattie. Add to that seemingly never ending, arduous farm chores.
Her dull days aren't even relieved by romance as Royal Loomis is handsome but boring. Accomplished Broadway actress and active film performer (About Schmidt, Hearts In Atlantis) gives memorable reading to Mattie's thoughts and aspirations, her hopes of attending college in New York City.
Thoughts of her future are pushed aside when the body of a young drowning victim, Grace Brown, is found. As it turns out it was only hours before her death that Grace gave Mattie a packet of love letters. These letters are a landmark in Mattie's life. Based on a turn of the 20th century murder case that was also the inspiration for Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, A Northern Light is a compelling coming-of-age tale woven of history, mystery, and love. - Gail Cooke
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