Customer Reviews

Changes for Samantha: A Winter Story (American Girl)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Changes for Samantha, is a wonderful adventure story. It kept me on the edge of my seat, i couldn't put the book down. That is how exciting it was! ALL of the Samantha books are very exciting! I LOVE them! So if your around 9-12 and you want adventure and fun, pick up the Samantha books. Their exciting from book 1-6! READ THEM!

I liked this book alot.It is about a girl named Samantha who lives with her aunt and uncle while her grandma is on a cruise with her fiance.Nellies parents just died and she has too go with her uncle but then her uncle mistreats her and her sisters so now Nellie and her sisters have to go to a orphanage with a very cruel lady what else could go wrong?

This is another in the American Girls Short Stories series about Samantha Parkington, a nine-year-old orphan girl living in the America of 1904. In this book, Samantha is appalled when she learns that the parents of her friend Nellie have died of influenza, and now she and her sisters are in an orphanage. Nellie isn't too unhappy, as she can stay together with her sisters, but when Nellie is scheduled to ride an Orphan Train out West, Samantha must take action.

The final chapter of this book contains a highly informative chapter on life in 1904 America. This is another excellent American Girls book. This book certainly shows the seamier side of the "good old days." In this book, the treatment of orphans is covered. My daughter and I recommend this book very highly.

changes for samantha was a good book. it talks about a girl and 3 friends who live in an orphnage. the days that samantha visited nellie they planed to escape from the orphanage. they finally escaped. PLEASE READ THIS BOOK.

CHANGES FOR SAMANTHA is about a 10-year-old girl who lives in New York. The year is 1904 and she lives with her aunt and uncle. Her best friend's parents just died, so her best friend, Nellie, is going to stay with her uncle in New York. Samantha gets a letter from Nellie, who promises to come and visit her. The only problem is that Nellie's uncle mistreats her and puts her and her two sisters in a room with no food, water or blankets. A woman who lives below comes and finds them all cold and hungry. Since she has 7 children, she puts Nellie and her sisters in an orphanage.

Samantha gets really worried and she tries to figure out where her best friend is. The lady tells Samantha where the orphanage is and Samantha tells her aunt.

I think this book is really interesting and is the best one in the Samantha series because Samantha goes through a lot of adventures to find her best friend, Nellie. It's the only one that got my heart really pumping as I read to figure out what happens next.

Imagine your best friend lives in an orphanage. How would you feel? Well in this story there¡¦s a girl named Samantha with your uncle and aunt to named Samantha, and she moved to New York with her Uncle Gard and Aunt Cornelia. Samantha felt very unhappy. She didn¡¦t know what to do.

Samantha¡¦s best friend is named Nellie; Nellie has two little sisters named Bridget and Jenny. All of the sisters got sent to the orphanage. Nellie and her sisters got sent to the orphanage because their parents died and their uncle, Mike O¡¦ Malley, gave them to a woman, and then the women sent Nellie and her sisters to the orphanage. The orphanage is called Coldrock House. Coldrock House is a place for homeless girls.

The place was different because it was in 1904, where cars are different with out a roof, where there are no telephones and when they used fire to heat the house.

My favorite part is when Samantha took the orphan girls to her aunt and uncle¡¦s house. She kept them in the attic and didn¡¦t tell her uncle and aunt. She treated them in a kind gentle way. She¡¦s very helpful girl. I have a connection because my friend treats me in a kind gentle way too.

This is a great book. This book tells people how to treat people kindly. This book is good for second and third graders.


Vivienneº

Imagine your best friend lives in an orphanage. How would you feel? Well in this story there¡¦s a girl named Samantha with your uncle and aunt to named Samantha, and she moved to New York with her Uncle Gard and Aunt Cornelia. Samantha felt very unhappy. She didn¡¦t know what to do.

Samantha¡¦s best friend is named Nellie; Nellie has two little sisters named Bridget and Jenny. All of the sisters got sent to the orphanage. Nellie and her sisters got sent to the orphanage because their parents died and their uncle, Mike O¡¦ Malley, gave them to a woman, and then the women sent Nellie and her sisters to the orphanage. The orphanage is called Coldrock House. Coldrock House is a place for homeless girls.

The place was different because it was in 1904, where cars are different with out a roof, where there are no telephones and when they used fire to heat the house.

My favorite part is when Samantha took the orphan girls to her aunt and uncle¡¦s house. She kept them in the attic and didn¡¦t tell her uncle and aunt. She treated them in a kind gentle way. She¡¦s very helpful girl. I have a connection because my friend treats me in a kind gentle way too.

This is a great book. This book tells people how to treat people kindly. This book is good for second and third graders.


Vivienneº

Rounding out the Samantha series, our young protagonist now heads off to New York to live with her newly married Uncle Gard and Aunt Cornelia. In contrast to the staid and demure life she knew with Gradmary, turn of the century New York City is bustling with energy, activty....and injustice.

Samantha discovers her old friend Nellie is also in the area, but fell on harder times when her uncle turned out to be abusive, and the best the equally impoverished woman downstairs could do was to take Nellie and sibblings to the local orphanage. Even if she personally liked them, this woman also realized the times they all lived in did not provide the means for reasonable support options.

Decidely more sober, coiffed, and put together than Miss Hannigan of Annie fame, the directress Miss Frouchy has simmilary warped social betterment ideas. Reinforcing the Victorian immutability of economic class and punnitative 'stain' of institutionalization, Nellie's hair is drab and she wears an equally unbecoming sack (which appears to be constructed of burlap).

Yet, this same social structure can be easily altered as demonstrated by Aunt Cornelia and Uncle Gard's adoption of Nellie and her sisters into their own homes---not as servants, but offspring. Because adoption of older children (from any social class, let alone low-income) was especially radical in the Victorian era, and still today (where infants are prefered)the story is a bit difficult to believe at this point, but the charming illustrations manage to convey friendship and loyalty throughout.

I just finished reading "Changes for Samantha:A Winter Story" in the American Girls Collection. I loved the book. Even though I loved the story, for some reason I liked the portraits in the beginning of the book best. The story is about a girl named Samantha who is an orphan. Something bad has happened to Nellie, Samantha's poor friend who works as a maid. Nellie's parents died from influenza and now she too is an orphan.When Samantha finds out where Nellie is, she goes to the orphanage. She sees Nellie's house, but when Samantha finds out that Nellie is going west on an orphan train, she hatches a plot. Can Samantha keep her secrets safe from Gertrude, the maid whose eyes never miss a thing?

For those familiar with the delightful American Girls series, Valerie
Tripp presents Victorian Samantha in 1904, the 5th chronologically in a series featuring 7 different girls (eras in American history and ethnicities). Each young female protagonist stars in 6 books in her own mini series; after a story of 5 chapters (some 60 pages) readers are treated to an easy introduction into the mores and fashions of the day in the final, non-fiction section, A PEEK INTO THE PAST.

Set in Victorian NY City CHANGES opens as Samantha is preparing to celebrate Valentine's Day with her loving Uncle Gard and Aunt Cornelia, while her grandmother is honeymooning abroad. Aside from a critical servant, things are just fine for Sam, but be assured that we will meet or hear about various villains and cold-hearted characters, which offset her pleasant existence. Alas, her dear girlfriend from Mount Bedford, poor Nellie, faces personal disaster as the influenza epidemic takes both her parents--leaving the three sisters suddenly orphaned.

Samantha is abruptly brought to face the harsh reality of big city callousness toward children of poverty. First, their only relative, a hooligan uncle, robs and deserts them; then they are taken to an orphanage (think "work house") where they will be trained as future domestics. Manipulated by the heartless directress the sisters are little better off as they are browbeaten into servitude. The only fate worse than this institution for legalized robbery and cruelty is the dreaded Orphan Train, which will mean separation of the sisters forever. How can generous Samantha help these girls from being torn apart?

No matter how young, girls want to preserve their human and feminine dignity. Family values surface as the satisfying denouement--however implausible--concludes the series of Victorian adventures. The Peek into the Past provides excellent photographic documentation and a gentle
introduction to future Social Studies or pop cultural history. Excellent fare for grades 4 - 6, this series brings the past alive for today's girls. (Wonder when they will come up with a 60's heroine... )