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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. GL 4.9,AR 4.3,8 copies  Totarobookroom | Jul 25, 2009 |  GL 4.9,AR 4.3,8 copies Totarobookroom | Jul 24, 2009 | When a terrible blight attacks Ireland's potato crop in 1845, twelve-year-old Nory Ryan's courage and ingenuity help her family and neighbors survive. (  ) ERMSMediaCenter | Feb 9, 2009 | When a terrible blight attacks Ireland's potato crop in 1845, 12-year-old Nory Ryan's courage and ingenuity help her family and neighbors survive. prkcs | Apr 25, 2008 | Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2000 (Vol. 68, No. 12)) Newbery Medal-winner Giff ("Lily's Crossing", 1997, etc.) weaves wisps of history into this wrenching tale of an Irish family sundered by the Great Potato Famine. The three Ryan sisters, their mother dead and their "da" away at sea, are struggling to make ends meet and care for old Granda and three-year-old Patrick, as their predatory English landlord waits for his rent on one side and America's golden promise glitters over the horizon on the other. Heralded by an ominous odor, blight sweeps through the potato fields, wiping out the crops overnight. Through young Nory's eyes, the aptly named Great Hunger is devastatingly real: not only do livestock and grain disappear, but so do shellfish and kelp, and finally even nettles and other weeds. Families are mercilessly driven from their homes, the dead are buried without ceremony, and little Patrick becomes ever thinner and more pitiable. Grasping at a sudden chance, big sister Maggie takes off for America, then Granda and teenage Celia set out for Galway, hoping to meet Da on the docks--leaving Nory to care for Patrick, and for old Anna Donnelly, a neighbor with a tragic past, as well. Nory makes the hardest sacrifice of all when an emigrating family invites her along and she sends Patrick in her place. So grim is the picture Giff draws that readers are likely to be startled by the sudden turnaround at the end, when news of Da's reappearance brings ship's passage for all and the prospect of a happy reunion in New York. Still, Nory's patient, stubborn endurance lights up this tale, and the promise of better times to come is well deserved. Riveting. 2000, Delacorte, $15.95. Category: Fiction. Ages 11 to 13. Starred Review. © 2000 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved. The Golden Kite Award Honor Book 2000 Fiction United States  sdavis | Oct 23, 2007 |  no reviews | add a review
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As Patricia Reilly Giff writes in her note to the reader, the Great Hunger of 1845 to 1852 was a tragic time for the Irish. Enough food to feed double the population was sent out across the sea, while an indifferent government ignored the starving masses. More than one million of the eight million people in Ireland died. Nory Ryan's Song, a fictionalized account based on this terrible era in history, describes the heroic struggles of one girl who refuses to give in to hunger, exhaustion, and hopeless circumstances. Young readers may have heard of the Irish Potato Famine, but they won't truly understand it until they meet Nory. Giff is the author of many beloved books for children, including the Newbery Honor Book Lily's Crossing and the Polk Street School series. (Ages 9 to 12) --Emilie Coulter
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:22 -0400)
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