Frances [Paperback]

W. D. Valgardson (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 11 and up | Grade Level: 6 and up

Frances lives in a beach town on Lake Winnipeg, the center of Manitoba’s Icelandic community. Her family has lived in the town since Icelandic immigrants settled there in the late 1800s. One day Frances finds an old journal. The entries are written in Icelandic, and the pages are torn, moldy, and blurred. Yet Frances can’t bring herself to throw it away. At the local old folks home, Frances finds a cranky, ailing man who agrees to help her read the journal. A friendship grows between them as the story of the journal unfolds. It’s a tale of love, hardship, scandal, and a group of mysterious stowaways — the story of Frances’s great-great-grandparents. Frances digs into her past and uncovers more than one family secret. In the end, Frances learns to use the past to navigate a future that will take her full circle — back to the land of her ancestors. “A splendid addition to the numerous intergenerational stories and many other fine books in which characters explore their family trees.” — School Library Journal

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Gr. 6-10. "Don't go delving into the past; some things are better left alone," Frances Sigurdson's mother warns her, but the young teenager in an island community in Manitoba, Canada, wants to know about her family, not only about her own father's mysterious disappearance before she was born but also about her Icelandic ancestors who came to Canada more than 100 years ago. The pace of the story is slow. Frances finds the diary of her great-great-grandmother, who arrived in 1888 at the age of 13. An old man reads the Icelandic and painstakingly translates it for Frances in bits and pieces. She digs into her ancestors' old homestead, and creatures from Icelandic folklore hover just at the edge of her vision. What will hold readers is the lure of family secrets, past and present, as well as the strong characterizations across generations and the sense of the wild, beautiful place. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 11 and up
  
• Paperback: 172 pages
• Publisher: Groundwood Books (February 27, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0888993978
• ISBN-13: 978-0888993977
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,595,442 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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