Donnelly is a vivid, descriptive author, but her prose was the only thing that kept me reading this book. Mattie, the main character, is a boring, unintelligent narrator with little to offer the story by ways of new insights or humor. Still, the setting is convincingly portrayed and many of the supporting characters are better developed and more interesting than the protagonist. I wished the story expanded to cover more of their exploits, and less of Mattie's plain life. ( )

Donnelly creates suspense and intrigue as Mattie discovers the letters from Grace,the dead woman, which were left in the hotel. As the clues are read, the reader finds parallels between the two worlds: Mattie's and Grace's. Romance, love, maturation, and finding one's place obscure Mattie's vision about the murder and her own pathway. Donnelly's style allows the reader to escape to 1906 and feel like a character in the story following Mattie, understanding her thoughts, and aching with her through each tough decision...event the very last one. ( )

Richie's Picks: A NORTHERN LIGHT by Jennifer Donnelly, Harcourt, April 2003

I know! I know! Here I am, still on my 2002 summer vacation, and rather
than talkin' back-to-school highlights, I'm about to go off and tell you
about the first "biggie" of 2003. A NORTHERN LIGHT by Jennifer Donnelly
should hit the shelves just in time for Spring Break and the Easter Bunny.

But if you're fortunate enough to either attend a regional trade show this
fall, NCTE, or ALA Midwinter, then it is imperative that you keep your eyes
peeled for the advance copies of this one.

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, thorough 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
http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy at aol.com ( )

Very well-written and engaging. Donnelly tells the story of Mattie Gokey, a young and smart girl living in upstate New York at the turn of the century. Her mother has died of breast cancer, leaving her to take care of her younger sisters and her father. But Mattie's dreams lie far beyond the farm - she wants to travel to New York City and be a writer. Words have always been a comfort for her. One summer, as she works at a nearby hotel to earn wages in order to fund her train fare to New York, she encounters Grace Brown, who hands her a bundle of letters and tells her to burn them. The next day, Grace's body is discovered in the lake. What has happened? Donnelly's prose is beautiful and Mattie's story is always interesting, never failing to captivate me. I always especially love stories that point out the importance of the written word. Mattie is surrounded by quite a nice cast of characters and I really believed her struggles in deciding what sort of woman she would be. Just really well done. I would like to check out more from Donnelly. ( )

I truly enjoyed this book. The literary references, vocabulary, murder mystery, romance and historical aspects made it a great YA read. Mattie Gokey had a true and genuine voice which resonated with me. I was especially interested in the murder of Grace Brown which actually occurred in 1906. ( )