The Year of Miss Agnes

A sweet children's book about the impact of a great teacher on a small community in Alaska. I really enjoyed this one!

Another Battle of the Books selection. Set in a poor Alaskan fishing community in the early 1900’s, this book is a story about a one-room schoolhouse. Reminded me of Little House on the Prairie in Alaska.

This book tells the poignant story of the students in a one-room school in a remote Alaskan town during the 1940's. Due to its remote location, difficult lifestyle, and unruly children, the community has difficulty in both attracting and keeping teachers. As a last-ditch effort to save the school,

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the superintendent sends Miss Agnes, the quirky and indomitable British schoolteacher, to the small town. Miss Agnes both encourages and challenges her students, tailoring their education to their environment, culture and upbringing. The children blossom into excited, active learners with an understanding of the wider world and their place in it. This warm story will appeal to children who are interested in history or Alaskan life, but will appeal more generally to anyone who has had an amazing teacher change their life.

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I great teacher wins the children over. They are sad when the end of year comes around for they think they will never see her again. The good teacher comes back to the children of this one room school house in remote Alaska.

In a one room schoolhouse in a small village in Alaska, Agnes Sutterfield begins teaching and completely changes the community. Unlike the other teachers that the students have had, Miss Agnes is different. She doesn’t complain about the fishy smell that never seems to go away. She even gets to

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school early to make sure the school house is warm and comfortable for the students. Miss Agnes changes everything. With her strange accent and fun-loving nature she lights up the children’s faces when she is in their presence. Miss Agnes cares for everyone. She tutors students and parents in her own home and even learns sign language so a child’s sister can attend school. Miss Agnes impacts the entire community through her teaching and generosity. This is truly an inspirational book for anyone who reads it. A perfect edition in any elementary classroom library, The Year of Miss Agnes is a wonderful read-aloud to get a school year started off right.

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Summary: Miss Agnes is teaching the children in an Athabascan village in a one-room schoolhouse on the Alaskan frontier in 1948 is not every educator's dream. Then one day, tall, skinny Agnes Sutterfield arrives and life is never the same for the community. Frederika (Fred), the 10-year-old

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narrator, discovers that unlike previous teachers, Miss Agnes doesn't mind the smell of fish that the children bring for lunch each day. She also stokes the fire to warm the schoolhouse before the students' arrival each morning, wears pants, and speaks with a strange accent. Miss Agnes immediately packs away the old textbooks, hangs up the children's brightly colored artwork, plays opera music, and reads them Robin Hood and Greek myths. She teaches them about their land and their culture, tutors both students and parents in her cabin in the evening, and even learns sign language along with her students so that Fred's deaf sister can attend school. Hill has created more than just an appealing cast of characters; she introduces readers to a whole community and makes a long-ago and faraway place seem real and very much alive. This is an inspirational story about Alaska, the old and new ways, a very special teacher, and the influence that she has over everyone she meets. A wonderful read-aloud to start off the school year

Personal: I found this book very interesting and a good eye opener. It made me realize how things were and how different it was. It is also cool because she teaches them so much about there land and culture, because I wish we could be taught more of that then all the new things in life these days.

Classroom:
Culture aspects in life.
learning about new things and past
Being able to understand important life lessons.

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This book is one of the selections in our reading adoption. I attempted to read it with the lowest fourth grade reading group. We got about five chapters in and my students were not engaged in the story. I think the vocabulary was a bit much for them. I found myself explaining way too many things

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throughout the first five chapters. I enjoyed the book and may use it again with a different group of students.

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Though she is just ten years old, Frederika has seen many teachers come and go from the school in her village. For some, it is too remote from the rest of civilization. For some, the hardships are too great. For some, the constant smell of fish is just too overpowering. In October of 1948, one such

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teacher leaves the village -- and another one comes. Miss Agnes, a veteran teacher who has worked for years in another part of Alaska, was on her way home to England, but she agreed to stay through the school year to help out Fred's community. Miss Agnes is a teacher like none Fred and her friends have ever met. She wears pants! She throws away the battered old schoolbooks and brings out her own collection of books, maps, and supplies! She even encourages Fred's older sister, who is deaf, to attend school, and she and the children learn sign language together. Miss Agnes talks about children from Fred's village as if they have a future beyond the confines of their rural area, and the children start to believe it, too. But what will happen when the year is up and Miss Agnes returns to England? Will everything go back to the way it was?

I had never heard of this book until I picked it up from the library shelf, where it was languishing in quiet obscurity. It portrays a way of life that will be unfamiliar to many readers, coupled with the tale of the triumph of alternative methods of education. I enjoyed the story, though it's a quiet one that will not necessarily appeal to all readers.

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Told from the perspective of ten year old Fredericka, the reader is drawn into the story of a beloved teacher who changes the lives of her young pupils.

The year is 1948 and while many teachers have come and gone, Miss Agnes is different. Unafraid of the rough Alaskan frontier, and empathetic to

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children who have rudimentary social and intellectual skills, the children thrive under her tutelage.

This is a wonderful story, filled with hope and courage.

With a gift of teaching and the ability to impart the thrill of knowledge, this is a woman who made a difference, simply by being herself and accepting others.

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Very inspiring story of a teacher who came to a small community in Alaska where she transformed the environment of the school and changed lives of students and parents alike. I think it would have appealed to me in upper elementary school grades.

Fiction: Chapter Book
Hill, Kirkpatrick The Year of Miss Agnes. Simon &Schuster, 2000. 115p. Upper Elementary
In 1948, in a small Athabascan village on the Koyukuk River, 10-year old Fred, her deaf sister Bokko, and the other children, get a new teacher, Miss Agnes Sutterfield, originally from

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England. This is Fred’s first person account. Told using words a child of that place and time would use; it is easy-to read. The tone is heart-warming and hopeful. Theme is the great value of a teacher who believes in her students.
AK: Athabascan village life, Koyukuk River, fish camp
Activity: Have the students find the Koyukuk River on a map. Ask them is they would like to have a teacher like Miss Agnes-why or why not?

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Lovely. Heart-warming, entertaining, and educational.

First, though, I have to disagree just a bit with another reviewer who accuses this of being just another unrealistic story about the amazing success of an inspirational teacher. Miss Agnes had already honed her craft on other Alaskan children

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for years in another, larger school. And most of these kids were *eager* to learn whatever they could in between all the migratory fishing and trapping activities.

And Miss Agnes knew enough about their traditional culture to respect it. Compared to the other teachers who had tried to serve in this village, almost anybody could have had some success - Miss Agnes had more because she knew her stuff - and because the student body, even at full-capacity, was fewer than a dozen students in all grades together.

And that's what made this very short book so successful for me. I did believe in it, and Miss Agnes' teaching strategies, with all my heart. I especially found the details of Alaskan life and culture, circa 1948, very interesting. I like how Fred tells Grandpa that 10M. people died in WWII, 20 M wounded, and Grandpa reflects about how isolated they were, and how they had no idea the war was such a big deal.

Lots of good stuff in a very short book. Hill could have written an adult-sized novel, but instead she pared every non-essential episode, every non-essential word, from the story, making it accessible to even the youngest independent readers. A fast reader should take the time to reread it, and catch more of the details as they skip by.

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In her small Alaskan village, Fred (short for Frederika) is used to having teachers come and go...but mostly go. This teacher seems different. Miss Agnes doesn't mind the fish smell from lunch, she puts the dingy old books in storage and covers the walls with maps and pictures and reads aloud. She

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even invites Fred's older sister Bokko to come to school even though she's deaf. The students know that they only have Miss Agnes for one year before she moves back to England but they are determined to learn as much reading, writing and math as they can - and so is Miss Agnes.

This book makes me smile! I love the simple dedication Miss Agnes has to teaching and the pride Fred and the other students take in their learning is fantastic. Between being set in 1948 and in the Alaskan wild, there is a lot for students to take in that is quite different than the world they know.

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