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Summary: A Northern Light
Review: Mattie's mother has died and she has to take over the household. That is only one of her problems when a woman at the hotel she works at hands her a packet of love letters with a request to destroy them. The woman turns up drowned in a lake when her and her lover take a boat ride. Mattie has also been accepted to a writer's school in New York, but her neighbor wants her to stay so they can get married. Mattie is torn between a life as a housewife or an educated life in New York.
I recommend this book to teenage girls who like mysteries and books that has a girl standing up for herself. I liked that the narrator had a lot of problems but made all of the right decisions.
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Summary: Richie's Picks: A NORTHEN LIGHT
Review: A NORTHERN LIGHT is a great coming of age story that provides serious fodder for discussing women's history in America, and which wraps itself around the sensational, true murder mystery that rocked the Adirondacks just months after San Francisco was rocked by the big quake of 1906. "The main house has four stories plus an attic. Forty rooms in all. When the hotel is fully booked, as it is this week, there are often over a hundred people in the building. All strangers to one another, coming and going. Eating and laughing and breathing and sleeping and dreaming under the same roof.
"They leave things behind sometimes, the guests. A bottle of scent. A crumpled handkerchief. A pearl button that fell off a dress and rolled under a bed. And sometimes they leave other sorts of things. Things you can't see. A sigh trapped in a corner. Memories tangled in the curtains. A sob fluttering against a windowpane like a bird that flew in and can't get back out. I can feel these things. They dart and crouch and whisper.
"I get to the bottom of the staircase and listen. The only sound is the ticking of the clock. To my right is the dining room. It's dark and empty. Straight ahead, through the porch windows, I can see the boathouse and the lake, calm and still, its black surface silvered by the moon. I pray I don't run into anyone. Not Mrs. Morrison waiting up for her husband. Or Mr. Sperry doing the accounts as he does when he can't sleep. Or, God forbid, table six lurking in a corner like some horrible spider.
"I walk under the antler chandelier in the foyer, and by the coat tree made of branches and deer hooves. I pass the hallway that leads to the parlor and get a fright when I see light spilling out of the room onto the hall carpet, but then I remember: That's where Grace Brown is laid out. Mrs. Morrison left a lamp burning because it's unkind to leave the dead all alone in the dark. They have darkness enough ahead of them." Our narrator is sixteen-year-old Mattie (Mathilda) Gokey, who has just snuck out of the attic where the young female employees sleep. Grace Brown is the unfortunate, young, dead woman who is about to cause a sensation. She was just discovered, along with an overturned canoe, after she and her male companion failed to return to the resort hotel for supper. Shortly before the events that befell her, Grace had slipped a packet of letters to Mattie, and had instructed her to burn them. Like Mattie doesn't have enough problems already! After her mother died and her brother split town following an altercation with their angry father, unpleasant Pa makes it clear that Mattie's priority is to help run the farm and raise her three younger sisters. But Mattie is a gifted writer and passionate scholar who is determined to earn her high school diploma and surreptitiously longs to hoard sufficient money to leave town herself--for a college education in turn of the century New York City. Her accomplice is a neighbor, a black kid named Weaver, who is also a brilliant scholar and whose own dream is to somehow make it through law school and avenge some of the really bad stuff he's seen go down. It's hard enough trying to battle ignorance in 2002! It'll drive you crazy watching and listening to several of these bossy (dare I say stupid) white men from a hundred years ago. And then to also watch Mattie in her weaker moments, battling her raging hormones, is almost too much to bear. Author Jennifer Donnelly deftly juggles all of these issues, along with the murder of Grace Brown, as we nervously root for Mattie to somehow make it through those minefields without detonating another foolish male character or her equally foolish Aunt Josie. Young adult readers will so easily relate to Mattie and Weaver despite their having lived a hundred years ago. That Ms. Donnelly is able to achieve this while staying so consistent to the historic fictional setting makes A NORTHERN LIGHT a story that will be enjoyed by historic and contemporary fiction aficionados alike. Richie Partington
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Summary: top ratings..one day in one life and months in another
Review: Flipping from one strand of the story to another, watching the lives come closer and closer, hearing familiar places and names.... this author keeps the reader enthralled. I loved the way each chapter was titled with a vocabulary word from the character's studies and then woven in to the developments. The story is truly historical fiction: fiction set in a specific historical setting and event. This is a joy ride for the observant reader: character development, conflict resolution that is realistic to the situation and language that is sooooo satisfying.
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Summary: WHAT A BOOK!!!! THIS IS DEFINITELY A CLASSIC !!!
Review: Go back in time - the Adirondacks 1906 -- live with Mattie's hard-up family, cheer her on through her many struggles, enjoy the "Word of the Day", fall in love with her family, her sisters, her uncle "fifty", and mostly with "Weaver", meet busy-body aunts, a very smart teacher. I just simply loved this book -- Jennifer Donnelly is amazingly gifted, writes from her heart, yet with total understanding of farming life, the Adirondacks, the coming-of-age of young women in that time and place and the story which inspired her "An American Tragedy" by Theodore Dreiser. Moreover, she writes with deep feelings and yet is totally literary as well.
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Summary: A Northern Light was the best book ive EVER READ!
Review: I believed that A Northern Light was a finely written novel, and the historical aspect of it was highly intriguing. I disagree with a review written as a "kid's review" by someone saying it was impossible to have been based on a true story. Ithought the aouthor did a fairly nice job with intertwining the properly researched murder of Grace Brown into the story of fictitious Mattie Gokey. However, more development on Grace Brown would be a plus. I also thought that time gaps in the story, were uneccessary. The story would have been better written, in my opinion, if they were in chronological order so as not to be confusing. The author may have bettered the story with a little bit more on the life of Mattie's mother as well as a more constructed ending. The ending felt rushed. Thats all, I hope this was helpful!
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Summary: A Facinating Read
Review: I eagerly awaited the publication of this book after reading Jennifer Donnelly's The Tea Rose, which I loved. A Northern Light did not disappoint. Donnelly's first book for young adults is very engaging. I cared a great deal about the characters, especially Mattie, the clever female protagonist trying to do right by herself and her family. I enjoyed the use of vocabulary words as representations of situations or feelings in each chapter. The use of An American Tragedy as a frame for Mattie's coming-of-age is also inspired. Highly recommended for teens and adults!
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Summary: NOT JUST FOR YOUNG ADULTS--FOR ANYONE WHO LOVES A GREAT READ
Review: I finished A Northern Light in a weekend; what a pleasure! I don't fit the intended young adult demographic, but I've always had an interest in children's and young adult literature as a result of my many careers. Ms. Donnelly brilliantly captures the boom era of the 1900s New York Adirondack Mountain region. The story of Mattie Gokey, a young woman coming of age and struggling with difficult life choices, is a familiar story to most female readers. Her determination to become a writer reminded me of my own career aspirations. I found myself holding my breath and sighing with relief when Maddie finally decided her fate.
A Northern Light will stir passion, and even raise ire, among the young women who are fortunate to discover this beautiful book. Many readers will recognize themselves in Mattie, her teacher, Miss Wilcox, or even Weaver, her friend and fellow wordsmith. Most importantly, A Northern Light can be appreciated by readers of all ages, not just young adults, who appreciate great writing. A truly enjoyable read; I hope there's a sequel on the way. Also recommended: The Lightkeeper's Daughter, Witch Child
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Summary: A great book! i couldn't put it down!
Review: I found this book at the school library's new book shelf, i decided to read it and i was so glad that i did. This is about a girl living with her family and how she solves her problems and deals with the people she meets. After reading this book, I thought about life and people differently. I would recommend this book to people 12 years or older because it deals with some issues that may be....yea you get the idea. Overall, this is a great book. After reading this book, I also read other books by Jennifer Donnelly, they were also very good, but i felt this one was the best!
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Summary: Absolutely unable to put it down!!
Review: I have read many, many, many books. I can also think of many that I'd write a review about, but this is the first I've actually taken the time to write. This book was sooooo good. I laughed, cried and got angry, more than once. It is a great story told with great passion. I started reading it at 9:00 in the a.m. and finished with only a few breaks at 9:30 p.m. I wanted, at some point, to put it down so the I could savor it longer. I couldn't though, it was far too interesting and the characters so engrossing, that I had to find out what was going to happen to all of them. 387 pages were not enough. Thank you Jennifer Donnelly for a book I will never forget and will recommend to many.
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Summary: Highly recommended
Review: I read it whole, then kicked myself for finishing it too quickly. While it is a heartwarming, idealistic, girly book, it is also thoroughly believable and doesn't try to be cute. Her younger readers will appreciate that she has been truthful about subjects which affect most women, but which a lot of adults would prefer not to discuss (such as dirty old men, childbirth and how completely unpleasant and inconvenient it can be to be a woman sometimes). This is a terrific book - funny and refreshingly honest and I can't recommend it highly enough.
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