Status
Checked out
Due Dec 14, 2023
Collection
Publication
Clarion Books (2016), 192 pages
Description
In 1911, when orphaned ten-year-old Inge comes to live with her stern grandmother in a remote island village in Bornholm, Denmark, she ends up changing the climate of the town, bringing joy and laughter to her grandmother's life and finding a new family for herself to help assuage her grief over losing her mother.
Local notes
Publishers Weekly Starred, 10/18/2015
“We are told to be mature and behave, and for some silly reason, we believe this means that we can no longer have fun. We forget how to laugh, how to yell, how to run, and worst of all, how to delight in each other’s company.” Thank goodness, then, for Inge Maria Jensen, the “spirited and jolly” heroine of this delightful tale from Australian author Nannestad, about a Danish orphan rediscovering joy after loss. Life in her grandmother’s quiet village is nothing like what Inge Maria knew in Copenhagen, but with the help of Grandmother (who has a tendency toward mischief herself), a brood of lively farm animals, and an imagination bolstered by the stories of Hans Christian Andersen, the 10-year-old soon has the neighbors talking—and eventually laughing along with her. The rural, early-20th-century setting and many of the characters hark back to classic stories like Anne of Green Gables, but Inge Maria’s voice has a contemporary edge that makes for an easier but no less pleasurable read.
“We are told to be mature and behave, and for some silly reason, we believe this means that we can no longer have fun. We forget how to laugh, how to yell, how to run, and worst of all, how to delight in each other’s company.” Thank goodness, then, for Inge Maria Jensen, the “spirited and jolly” heroine of this delightful tale from Australian author Nannestad, about a Danish orphan rediscovering joy after loss. Life in her grandmother’s quiet village is nothing like what Inge Maria knew in Copenhagen, but with the help of Grandmother (who has a tendency toward mischief herself), a brood of lively farm animals, and an imagination bolstered by the stories of Hans Christian Andersen, the 10-year-old soon has the neighbors talking—and eventually laughing along with her. The rural, early-20th-century setting and many of the characters hark back to classic stories like Anne of Green Gables, but Inge Maria’s voice has a contemporary edge that makes for an easier but no less pleasurable read.
Awards
Great Stone Face Book Award (Nominee — 2017)
South Dakota Children's Book Awards (Nominee — 2019)
Grand Canyon Reader Award (Nominee — Intermediate — 2019)
CCBC Choices (2016)
Children's Favorites Awards (Selection — 2017)
Notable Children's Book (Middle Readers — 2017)
Lexile
930L