Rating: 
Summary: It's a tough life out there but nothing Amelia can't handle
Review: OUR ONLY MAY AMELIA
May Amelia lives on the Nasel River in Washington. May Amelia has seven brothers and one cousin, Kaarlo, who lives with them. Amelia and Kaarlo have some clashes when she plays some trick on him. Then she gets throne in the pigpen. Other frightful events happen that are like that Her mother is going to have a baby and May wants it to be a girl so bad because she's the only girl on the Nasel. Her closest brother Wilbert always sticks up for her and goes on adventures with her to places: Baby Island, Astoria and swimming in the Nasel. He even teaches her how to shoot a gun. Will everything change when cruel Grandma Patients who hates every living thing?I totally enjoyed this book because it's marvelous to read books where girls have lots of spunk. For me the best scene in the book is when she stands up to her mean old granny. Even when she knows that the consequences are terrifying. I like this scene best because it takes lots of courage to do that. I also live in Washington and it's interesting to go to the spot where this took place. I felt so honored and special that I could be to that very place. Kids and gown-ups that have lots of spunk should read this.
Rating: 
Summary: Great 6th Grade Lit Group choice
Review: I read this book as a preview for my 6th grade literature groups. What a sweet story. My students (girls) are enjoying it. It isn't really a page turner but it has it's own draw and provides geographical and multicultural insight to the Finnish immigrant experience to rural western Washington State in the 1890's. Nice language and vocab exposure with Finnish thrown into the mix as well.
Rating: 
Summary: I HATE THIS BOOK!!!!
Review: This is a very interesting story based in part on a diary found by the author's grandaunt, Alice Amelia Holm. It's about a 12 year old Finnish girl who lives in Washington on the Nasel River. She has seven brothers (even though one is actually a cousin). There is a good map in the beginning of the book.
This book is immediately interesting. The odd style of capitalization and punctuation (or lack of it) makes you feel
like someone is really talking to you. And the way things are
often described in the present tense makes you feel like you are there. The family is deeply connected, even aunts and uncles who don't live there. And the grandmother - even though
she was so terrible, it's the family connection that makes them
let her live there.
I can't recommend it because there is an incredible amount of death, even murders, and it's too much to bear. Also, so much talk of spirits and ghosts and curses, etc. Finally, one thing
happened that was just so unbearable it nearly ruins the whole
book, charming as it is.
There is one girl in our family and I thought this book would really help her and her brothers because this family really loved each other and they understood how special each one was.
She said to her one brother whom she didn't want to leave "you're the only Matti I've got" and he said "just remember, you're the only May we've got". I read the book to
the kids by crossing out most of the deaths and all of the
ghosts and swearing. After that, it was a really good book.
Rating:
Summary: Richie's Picks: OUR ONLY MAY AMELIA
Review: I'm a guy who lives in a farmhouse on a hillside amidst four women of various ages. If I count in all the warm-blooded critters on the farm, there are sixteen of "them" and three of "us"--a goofy male retriever named Samwise, a young and excitable male Nubian dairy goat, Cool Hunter (named for a character in the book, SO YESTERDAY), and me.
I serve on the Best Books for Young Adults committee which consists of fourteen female librarians and myself. I am represented by a female member of Congress, two female members of the US Senate, and a female member of the State Assembly. Often a Saturday afternoon will find another six to eight female schoolmates--friends of our girls--giggling and screaming around the farm.
Thus I kind of know what it feels like to be May Amelia.
"There's no accounting for luck, especially luck in getting brothers."
May Amelia is a twelve year old girl living in Washington State in 1899 with her parents and her seven brothers. There is not another girl in her neck of the woods with whom to play or commiserate. There are Indians, bears, cougars, logging camps, a school you reach by boat, and one more baby on the way.
Will this baby turn out to (finally) be another girl?
Jennifer Holm does a superb job of characterizing each of May Amelia's seven brothers. (One, Kaarlo, is technically a blood cousin--and a rather grumpy and rude one at that--who lives with them.)
I really like Isahiah who is in charge of the family herd of sheep. Having quietly named each of the sheep after one of their human neighbors--based upon the sheeps' visages and those of the neighbors'--there is a hysterical scene that follows Isahiah's opening a door and yelling, "Hurry! Mrs. Peterson has broken her back out in the south pasture," and May Amelia's dad then ordering another brother to fetch Mrs. Peterson's son Lonny on his way out there.
But the special brother--the one who is charged with keeping his eye on their sister, is close to her age, and is always there for her--is Wilbert.
"For every evil God sends to me he sends an angel and I know sure for certain that Wilbert is my guardian angel."
The evilest of those "gifts" turns out to be a grandmother from hell who comes to live with her family.
Through the series of adventures that together make up OUR ONLY MAY AMELIA, we get a real sense of the frontier that still existed in the Pacific Northwest a mere hundred years ago. We also get the fascinating paradox of having most of the males in her life constantly chiding May Amelia to be a Proper Young Lady while most of the grownup ladies around her are really pretty tough frontier women. And, finally, we get a lively portrait of a sister surrounded by brothers who is so often struggling to just be "one of the boys."
Rating:
Summary: May Amelia is Cool
Review: Our May Amelia, a book by Jennifer L. Holm is a great selection for a Historical fiction book. When May Amelia is coming full circle into an adolescent, she finds her pre-teen years natural to be a rough tomboy rather than a pretty young lady. The story begins with May Amelia introducing her siblings, and a brief description of her infamous boy-like appearance. After a lot of disapproval, May Amelia is accepted as the adventurous young lady she is to her family.
I really enjoyed this book. The meaning is very clear: do not judge a book by its cover-character counts. Amelia's despair of making her father and grandmother pleased causes her to lose hope. Although her grandmother and father tend to disapprove of her unlady-like mannerisms, her brother Wilbert shows support and lets her know that he loves and cares for her no matter what. Wibert, her brother, is a very important person who helps May in the times of non-conformity. Amelia's journey of finding herself is essential.
This book was a great story about a rebellious young girl who was adventurous in the pioneering days. Our May Amelia would be a perfect book to promote young-readers and create a valuable family lesson plan.
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