A Northern Light

Historical fiction abounds. It's not exactly hard to find a children's story about a kid who meets Abraham Lincoln or befriends Mark Twain or whatever it might be (in the adult section, too). It becomes a rarity when you stumble across a historical fiction book that works. Jennifer Donnelly's "A Northern Light" is one such work. In it, the real 20th century murder of Grace Brown is interwoven into the life of 16-year-old Mattie Gokey, as Mattie is working at the hotel in a town where a pregnant Grace is found drowned in the lake.



The story weaves between Mattie's present -- the summer of 1906 working at the hotel, getting to know Grace and then trying to understand her death -- and flashbacks to Mattie's past year working at home, going to school and trying to obtain her high school degree.

It's not hard to see why "A Northern Light" won a Carnegie Medal, Printz Award and was selected as a Borders Original Voice. The book deals with a lot of heavy issues - classism, racism, women's rights - in an accessible way, while still having an interesting plot and full characters. The Appalachian dialect of the early 1900s is done really well and really adds to the setting.

I had not heard of Jennifer Donnelly before reading this book. Her latest novel, "Revolution," came out earlier this year, and is also getting strong reviews. Looking forward to checking it out, too.