A Northern Light

This is a quiet, thoughtful book about the struggles of a 16-year-old girl living in upstate NY in the early 1900s. All Mattie wants to do is go to college and be a writer, but with several younger siblings to care for and with the family farm in a shambles after her mother's death, Mattie can't figure out how this dream will ever come true.

This was a beautifully written and touching story, yet I almost didn't finish reading it. The story starts off with a bang--with the discovery of a dead body at a nearby lake--but then suddenly screeches to halt, with Mattie's life being presented to us one poignant hardship at a time. The story slowly (oh so slowly!) interweaves past and present as we learn about the dead girl and how Mattie came show more to meet her. But don't be misled as I was--the early presentation of the dead body made me think the story would have more of a mystery element to it. However, I was disappointed to find that actually the murderer was easily figured out early on (which I suppose can't be helped since this was a famous historical murder case), and that the girl's drowning turns into more of a metaphor for Mattie's life than a whodunit.

I am also getting a little bit bored by stories about kids who decide they want to be writers and thus have exceptional vocabularies. While I can appreciate how an author could have a fondness for children who love words and want to grow up to be writers themselves, I think this is a bit overdone. The author also uses the single-word-as-chapter-title device that I have seen in several other books recently and never liked that much in the first place. In this case, Mattie has a word of the day that she picks at random from her dictionary which (of course!) finds its way into being a central theme for the chapter.

But my own personal pet-peeves aside, the author writes masterfully, presenting a myriad of characters who are each lovingly crafted and highly relatable, and a setting that is so meticulously researched that I almost felt that I had really been to Mattie's home and had lived everything along with her. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a heart-wrenching yet still uplifting story with a strong feminist message. show less

The first five-star book I have read in a while, YA or adult. Set in the Adirondacks in 1906, A Northern Light is the story of Mattie Gokey, who, after her mother's death, has shouldered most of the responsibility for her younger sisters and the family farm. She dreams of becoming a writer, and has a teacher who wants to help her get to college, but she promised her mother on her deathbed that she would take care of the family. Eventually, Mattie's father allows her to spend a summer working at a hotel for tourists; there, a guest gives Mattie a bundle of letters with the instructions to burn them. Not long after, the woman's body is dragged from the lake, and her male companion nowhere to be found. Reading the letters, Mattie discovers show more the couple's real story, and the woman's death is what propels her to leave and live her own life after all.

It is a quiet, not sensational, plot, but what is incredible about this book is the characters - Mattie herself, but also her black friend Weaver, her childhood friend (now the mother of twins) Minnie, her father and sisters, her teacher Miss Wilcox, her beau Royal Loomis, and Emmie Hubbard, who struggles to take care of seven children on her own. No one's life is easy, and all are brought to life in vivid detail; the author did a tremendous amount of research, and the story is deeply realistic without being packed with unnecessary historical facts.

I'm at a loss to describe how amazing this book is; you root so hard for Mattie, but her decision is a hard one and she is beset by constant obstacles. Words keep her going; she chooses a word of the day from her dictionary every morning (these words stand in for chapter numbers or headings), and finds a way to apply that word or another one to her situation throughout the day. She is strong, unselfish, and pragmatic throughout the whole book, but follows her dream in the end - and you cheer for her.

"...but I wondered sometimes, how do you stand up like a man when you're a girl?" (33)

"God took her life and she took yours." -Weaver
...
"I'm not sorry. It's true." -Weaver
"Lots of things are true. Doesn't mean you can go round saying them." -Minnie (36)

...It's unkind to leave the dead all alone in the dark. They have darkness enough ahead of them. (135)

"How old are you...seventeen or seven? Don't you know that what should be and what is are two different things?" (260)

"You are many, many things, Mathilda Gokey, but selfish isn't one of them." (309)

There's no going back once you're already gone. (377) show less

Sixteen year old Mattie Gokey dreams of moving to New York City, attending college and becoming a writer but she's trapped. Her mother died, her old brother ran away and Mattie is forced to help her father take care of the farm and raise her younger sisters. Yet she refuses to give up her dream. She takes a job working at a nearby resort to earn money to pay for travel expenses to New York City and along the way begins to give up on her dreams and settles on the idea of marriage and family. Then, a woman's body is pulled from the lake the resort and, through the dead woman's letters, Mattie realizes that she was murdered.

I LOVED this book. Jennifer Donnelly has a beautiful way with words and the story was very compelling. I loved Mattie show more and how she never really gave up on her dreams. Maybe it is my own dreams of someday writing that made me love Mattie so much. I also loved the way that Donnelly used words and their definitions to tell the story. That just played to the English major in me. It's a beautifully told story and Donnelly is a master of language. show less

This is a terrific historical fiction YA book that combines true crime with an excellent coming-of-age narrative of self-discovery. This novel is set in the North Woods of New York in 1906. Young Mattie Gokey bears the responsibility of caring for her three younger sisters (and her destitute neighbors) and helping her father tend their 60-acre farm following the death of her mother and angry departure of her older brother. While she lives the life of a poor farm girl, she is captivated by books, enchanted by words, and has the support and encouragement of her worldly and gentle teacher to write true to her inner voice and dream of a college education. The book frankly presents a moving first-person narrative that bears witness to show more poverty, grief, racism, abuse, and the precarious path of women who desire education. Mattie tries to do right by her family and herself, while also falling in love with a handsome neighboring farm boy. She persuades her father to permit her to earn extra money by working in a local lake resort, where a young guest makes a mysterious request of her, and soon after dies under mysterious circumstances. This young guest is Grace Brown, an actual murder victim from 1906, whose murder is the basis of Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy. This book is very well done, and a wonderful story for young adult readers. I listened to an excellent narration by Hope Davis. My only complaint was the constant shift in time of the narration. The whole book spans a few months, but the action shifts between events, and was sometimes hard to follow on audio.

Curriculum: would be an interesting mentor text for the examination of how authors portray real historical events in works of fiction.

Donnelly, J. (2004). A northern light. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc. show less

This is one of those books where about a third of the way through, you anxiously thumb the remaining pages, knowing that despite your best efforts to savor it, the book will be over all too soon. When A NORTHERN LIGHT falls open, you, the reader, will fall in. While it has been classified as a Young Adult novel, as it does contain some language and situations, every word is absolutely true to the character who is speaking or being spoken of. I urge every teenage girl to read this, then pass it on to her mother, all of her girlfriends, aunts, a favorite teacher--in short, anyone who has a love of words, of learning, of mysteries, and a belief in the power of young women. Donnelly weaves a compelling plot while keeping the story and the show more characters together. She is truly a gifted writer. I love the historical placement, too--this book provides a glimpse of what life was like in rural America in the early 1900s. Most of all, I love that this book is about the struggles and decisions that all women make in pursuit of their dreams. Mattie Gokey is like a kindred spirit! It weaves racism, discovering sexuality, the pains of growing up, and just discovering oneself, plus a historical mystery, all into an amazing novel. I went through excitement, anxiety, laughs, pain, and joy with the main character. show less

This will be a different kind of review than I usually do. I enjoyed the plot of this book intended for Young Adults, but the prose is so beautifully crafted, I decided to forego a detailed exposition of the story and instead share a number of passages with you that seemed particularly compelling to me. (There are so many I found irresistible that it turned into a long post!) First, a brief summary of what happens:

In 1906, 16-year-old Mattie Gokey lives with her Pa and four siblings on a farm in the North Woods of New York (The Adirondacks). Her Mamma died the year previously from cancer. On her death bed, she asked Mattie to promise she would stay and take care of the others. Although Mattie wants to go to college, she feels she show more can’t go back on the promise she made to her dying mother. She takes up "sparking" with a handsome local boy named Royal, although she is a bit perplexed that he would like a "plain" girl who likes books more than bows and ribbons.

When their only mule dies, the family is desperate for more money, and Pa allows Mattie to take a job with her friends at one of the resort hotels in the area. While she is working at The Glenmore, a young woman, Grace Brown, drowns in what appears to be a boating accident. As Mattie is forced to open her eyes to what happened to Grace, she also gains insights into her own situation with Royal and with her future.

By the book’s end, Mattie has turned seventeen, and understands that, as her best friend Weaver puts it, the difference in whether an ending is happy or not depends on who is writing the story.

These excerpts show some of Mattie’s decency, spirituality, and spunkiness, and provide a taste of the author's ability to combine passion with eloquence in a way that still stays true to adolescence:

Mattie on her neighbor, Emmie Hubbard:

"Emmie Hubbard certainly was crazy, and I was pretty sure the county would take her one day. …madness isn’t like they tell it in books. It isn’t Miss Havisham sitting in the ruins of her mansion, all vicious and majestic. And it isn’t like in Jane Eyre, either, with Rochester’s wife banging around in the attic, shrieking and carrying on and frightening the help. When your mind goes, it’s not castles and cobwebs and silver candelabra. It’s dirty sheets and sour milk and dog shit on the floor. It’s Emmie cowering under her bed, crying and singing while her kids try to make soup from seed potatoes."

Mattie on her best friend, Weaver Smith, who is black:

"Weaver always says freedom is like Sloan’s Liniment, always promising more than it delivers. He says all it really means is being able to choose among the worst jobs at the logging camps, the hotels, and the tanneries. Until his people can work anywhere whites work, and speak their minds freely, and write books and get them published, until white men are punished for stringing up black men, no black person will ever really be free."

Mattie on her nasty, parsimonious Aunt Josie:

"My aunt could be very trying and she made me angry at times, but mostly I felt sorry for her. She thought that figurines on your shelves and white sugar in your tea and lace trim on your underthings were what mattered, but that was only because she and Uncle Vernon didn’t sleep in the same room like my mother and father had, and Uncle Vernon never kissed her on the lips when he thought no one was looking, or sang her songs that made her cry, like the one about Miss Clara Verner and her true love, Monroe, who lost his life clearing a logjam.”

Mattie's observations about The Glenmore Hotel:

"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 the windowpane like a bird that flew in and can’t get back out. I can feel these things. They dart and crouch and whisper."

Mattie, thinking about her Mamma:

"Sometimes she would pick a basketful of berries in the afternoon and set them, sun-warmed and fragrant, on the kitchen table, along with a dish of fresh cream and one of maple sugar. We would dip them first into the cream, then in the sugar, then bite into them greedily. Somehow, they always tasted of more than themselves. They tasted like my pa whistling as he came in from the fields at night, or like a new calf getting to its feet for the first time, or like Lawton telling us ghost stories around the fire. I think that what they tasted of was happiness.”

Mattie talking to her teacher, Miss Wilcox, about the characters in books:

"People in books are good and noble and unselfish, and people aren’t that way…and I feel, well…hornswoggled sometimes. By Jane Austen and Charles Dickens and Louisa May Alcott. Why do writers make things sugary when life isn’t that way?’ I asked too loudly. ‘Why don’t they tell the truth? Why don’t they tell how a pigpen looks after the sow’s eaten her children? Or how it is for a girl when her baby won’t come out? Or that cancer has a smell to it? All those books, Miss Wilcox,’ I said, pointing at a pile of them, ‘and I bet not one of them will tell you what cancer smells like. I can, though. It stinks. Like meat gone bad and dirty clothes and bog water all mixed together. Why doesn’t anyone tell you that?'”

The impressive thing about this book is that this poetic sense sounds authentic for this character. I have not felt a similar confidence in such a lyrical voice in other YA books, but this one feels right. This feels like Mattie.

Evaluation: This wonderful book, marketed as A Gathering Light in the UK, has won a number of awards, including the 2003 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature, and the 2003 Carnegie Medal (UK prize for an outstanding book for children and young adult readers). It was named one of the Young Adult Library Services Association's top ten books for young adults in 2004, and also was a Michael L. Printz Award honor book that year. In 2007 it won the CILIP (UK) Medal as one of the UK's ten finest children's books of the past seventy years. I find all these awards to be well deserved. show less

Using Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy as a springboard, Jennifer Donnelly weaves a rich tapestry of history, romance, poverty, the desire to succeed, the love of books, and a turn of the century murder.

When young Mattie Gokey's mother dies, she is overburdened by the needs of her father and siblings. Longing to escape poverty and the back woods of upstate New York, Mattie's love of books propels her forward to a dream of education and fulfillment of her dream.

Highly recommended.