Summary: May Amelia is a tomboy living with her Finnish-American family in Oregon during the early 1900s. This is a story about everyday living during the early 1900s in the eyes of May Amelia. She describes her struggles with her own family and becoming a woman.
Citation: Holm, J. L. (1999). Our only May Amelia. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers.
Impression: Overall, the book lacked a plot and it left the reader wondering the overall point of the book. The book does give great historical descriptions about how life once was along the western coast of Oregon, but other than that May Amelia just seemed like any ordinary girl. Perhaps the author intended the story to be just that but the reader was always waiting for the story to develop into something more.
Review:
Louise Foerster (The Lorgnette - Heart of Texas Reviews)
May Amelia is a twelve-year-old and considered a Miracle because she is the only girl child born in the community of Nasel in Washington state. Also she is the only girl in the Jackson family with seven brothers. Life is hard for her. Most of the time she is treated like a boy, but then again she must be more lady-like. Her greatest wish is that the baby her mother is carrying be a girl--a little sister. OUR ONLY MAY AMELIA is based on a diary of the Finnish-American grand-aunt of the author and gives an authentic picture of rural life in the Northwest at the turn of the century. It will encourage girls who also feel lonely and isolated.
Foerster, L. [Review of the book Our only May Amelia by J.L. Holm]. The Lorgnette, 12(3).
Susan Dove Lempke (Booklist)
May Amelia, age 12, lives with her stern Finnish father, pregnant mother, and seven brothers in the state of Washington in the late 1800s. She records the details of her life in a diary using the present tense and a folksy speech pattern: "I go about fixing dinner real quiet-like so they can talk and tell secrets." Aside from quarrels with her adoptive brother Kaarlo, May lives a relatively bucolic life until the arrival of her shrewish grandmother, who finds fault with everything May says and does. The author bases her story on her aunt's real diary, so the everyday details of life among Finnish immigrants add a nice specificity to the background, and May is appealingly vivacious. However, the lack of quotation marks, the overuse of certain expressions (among them, "indeed"), the length, and sometimes slow pacing may make this a secondary purchase.
Susan Dove Lempke (Booklist)
May Amelia, age 12, lives with her stern Finnish father, pregnant mother, and seven brothers in the state of Washington in the late 1800s. She records the details of her life in a diary using the present tense and a folksy speech pattern: "I go about fixing dinner real quiet-like so they can talk and tell secrets." Aside from quarrels with her adoptive brother Kaarlo, May lives a relatively bucolic life until the arrival of her shrewish grandmother, who finds fault with everything May says and does. The author bases her story on her aunt's real diary, so the everyday details of life among Finnish immigrants add a nice specificity to the background, and May is appealingly vivacious. However, the lack of quotation marks, the overuse of certain expressions (among them, "indeed"), the length, and sometimes slow pacing may make this a secondary purchase.
Lempke, S.D. (1999, September 1). [Review of the book Our only May Amelia by J.L. Holm]. Booklist, 96(1).
Uses: This book could be used for a "girls only" summer reading group. The books selected could be geared toward the outdoors and tomboy themes.
Uses: This book could be used for a "girls only" summer reading group. The books selected could be geared toward the outdoors and tomboy themes.
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