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theresidentbookworm's review
3.0
I've read so many of the Dear America books I'm not sure which ones I haven't read. I don't know I have read this one or not. If I haven't, I'm sure it's very good. The Dear America series is usually very good.
soulwinds's review
3.0
3 stars for So Far From Home
Plot and Thought
Mary Driscoll is a young (14yr old) Irish immigrant who came to America to escape the Great Potato Famine gripping Ireland. Her older sister is already in America working as a maid as well as her aunt (who paid for her to come over) who works as a school teacher. She leaves behind her parents who cannot afford the cost. Her plan is to get to America and take a Mill job so she can send home money to help feed and cloth her parents until she has enough to buy them passage to America.
Some people have complained that the diary form is jarring and the separation in them based on location (Ireland, Atlantic Ocean, America) removes the reader, but I disagree. The tis and thee's are there to try and show how people talked and wrote back then without being completely foreign (Shakespeare anyone?). The complaint that Mary has bad grammar is stupid, to be quite frank. This is a diary simulating someone how has had limited education and I personally found it easy enough to read.
The epilogue was...brief. We don't learn too much about what happened to all the people we were reading about. Everyone of them gets one sentence to tie up their lives, maybe two. Mary herself dies from cholera, which is covered quite prominently in a Dear Canada book about a Irish Mill worker in Ontario, so I can believe that she may have caught it as she seemed to be ill quite frequently in her journal. The cholera epidemic killed hundreds (611 in Boston alone) in 1849.
In Conclusion
So Far From Home gives the reader a general view of life in America for a fortunate, young, Irish Immigrant who manages to get a job at a mill. It doesn't go into detail about the hatred Americans had for the Irish workers who they thought were driving their wages down and stealing their jobs. It doesn't go into detail the unionization of factory workers, the strikes, or anything really, which is kind of nice. It's a short, general overview of the era told by a 14 year old girl.
Age range: older middle school and up
Content: Does mention dangers of mill work happening to people such as loosing a finger, taking a shuttle to the head, getting scalped due to loose hair. Also vaguely describes people dying of sickness and starvation, but it doesn't go into great detail about anything.
Plot and Thought
Mary Driscoll is a young (14yr old) Irish immigrant who came to America to escape the Great Potato Famine gripping Ireland. Her older sister is already in America working as a maid as well as her aunt (who paid for her to come over) who works as a school teacher. She leaves behind her parents who cannot afford the cost. Her plan is to get to America and take a Mill job so she can send home money to help feed and cloth her parents until she has enough to buy them passage to America.
Some people have complained that the diary form is jarring and the separation in them based on location (Ireland, Atlantic Ocean, America) removes the reader, but I disagree. The tis and thee's are there to try and show how people talked and wrote back then without being completely foreign (Shakespeare anyone?). The complaint that Mary has bad grammar is stupid, to be quite frank. This is a diary simulating someone how has had limited education and I personally found it easy enough to read.
The epilogue was...brief. We don't learn too much about what happened to all the people we were reading about. Everyone of them gets one sentence to tie up their lives, maybe two. Mary herself dies from cholera, which is covered quite prominently in a Dear Canada book about a Irish Mill worker in Ontario, so I can believe that she may have caught it as she seemed to be ill quite frequently in her journal. The cholera epidemic killed hundreds (611 in Boston alone) in 1849.
In Conclusion
So Far From Home gives the reader a general view of life in America for a fortunate, young, Irish Immigrant who manages to get a job at a mill. It doesn't go into detail about the hatred Americans had for the Irish workers who they thought were driving their wages down and stealing their jobs. It doesn't go into detail the unionization of factory workers, the strikes, or anything really, which is kind of nice. It's a short, general overview of the era told by a 14 year old girl.
Age range: older middle school and up
Content: Does mention dangers of mill work happening to people such as loosing a finger, taking a shuttle to the head, getting scalped due to loose hair. Also vaguely describes people dying of sickness and starvation, but it doesn't go into great detail about anything.
lisa_serenitynow's review
5.0
Great for young readers. Follows Mary as she leaves Ireland aboard a ship (which is miserable) and arrives Lowell, Massachusetts to work in a textile mill. Great reminder of how the Irish faced much discrimination. Today's arguments about immigration are nothing new.
saturndoo's review
5.0
And another one in this series that was a great read :) I highly recommend this series. Great delivery of the story and well developed characters. Time to move on to the next one!!!!
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