A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly

While it took me at least 100 pages to really get into the story, I ended up loving everything about this novel.  It was very interesting that Donnelly begins each chapter with a vocabulary word (at least, those chapters that take place in the past).  I found the shift between the past and the present in this novel to be very skillful.  However, as I was reading, I often thought about how aspects of this novel would be received in a high school classroom.  Not only might the shifts in time confuse students, but the sheer length of the novel and some of the dated ways of speaking and referencing might be intimidating.  But maybe I'm not giving today's teens enough credit.  I do know that my childhood reading interests and experiences greatly aided in my ability to comprehend this novel.  It felt so much like reading Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie (two of my favorite series when I was younger).  I have always been fascinated by this time period (late 1800s-early 1900s), so my enthusiasm for this novel continued to increase as I read.  Hopefully students' interest in the novel would increase as they read it as well.  I only wish that Donnelly had spent a little less time setting up the story and discussing Mattie's home life so students are less likely to stop reading before becoming thoroughly interested in Mattie's fate. 

Aside from the larger issue of women's rights and views of women's roles at that time, I couldn't help but focus also on the large number of references to farming and natural remedies to cure illness.  It really makes me wonder:  if we were unable to get our groceries at Wegmans and have access to a hospital in today's world, would any of us know what else to do?  Would we know enough to go out and dig up blackberry roots to help our families recover from illness?  And what on earth are fiddleheads?  I need to remember to look this information up once I'm done composing my post.  There are so many cultural differences, and it makes me feel almost sad for what we've possibly lost.  However, I do realize that we have gained much as well.  I often felt angered by Mattie's father's reactions to her writing and schooling.  I also felt angry at Mattie a few times too.  There were moments when I felt like screaming at the book, "Who cares about a promise you made to your mother?  She probably would've wanted you to go to college!"  Then I felt insensitive, so I tried to let that feeling go.  But I had to work really hard to remember that girls during this time were expected to get married and have children.

Miss Wilcox's storyline completely took me by surprise.  I suppose I should have seen it coming, but I was shocked to discover that she was actually the author of one of the books she gave to Mattie.  It seems unbelievable to me that a woman could get in so much trouble just by writing her true feelings about gender roles.  Thank goodness things are different now.  I find it sad to think about how we now tote the philosophy that everyone is a unique individual with different interests and can be whatever he or she wants to be, however during this time, all women were expected to want the same thing.  I can't imagine the fear and depression experienced by those women who realized they did not want to marry and have children.  It also seems awfully scary that a woman's husband could so easily send her to a sanatorium.  I've heard about how oftentimes people were put in those institutions in spite of the fact that they were not actually crazy or sick. 

I think I really started getting into the book once Mattie began reading Grace Brown's letters.  The whole Grace Brown/Chester Gillette story really interests me (as is probably evidenced by my previous post).  Once I started to read more about it, I realized I had heard about the murder before.  This book was a very clever way for Jennifer Donnelly to write about a historical event.  I'm also rather shocked that someone actually chose to write a YA book about a murder like this.  This isn't an event that history books usually even mention, yet I feel that this murder case does much to explain gender roles and expectations during this time in history.  While many history teachers may not view this event to be as significant as a war or other political event, it serves to demonstrate the position of women prior to the ratification of the 19th amendment.  I think this book would be an excellent example to teenage girls of the way that women's rights and gender roles have changed over time.  I also think that modern teen magazines still emphasize "getting the guy" as though that's the only important thing.  This novel serves to help underscore that, especially in today's world, women have many options about their futures, and they do not need to focus solely on marriage and children (unless they really want to). 

I love the ending of this novel.  Mattie made the choice that I was hoping she would make.  While it was a difficult choice for her, I am glad she is able to live her life the way she wants to and can potentially achieve her dreams.  If she had married Royal, she most likely would never have been able to write (or even read).  Royal would have wanted her to help him work in the fields or look after the house and their future children.  Since he didn't understand or appreciate Mattie's love of books, it is unlikely that he would have been sympathetic if she had expressed a desire to have time to write and publish any literature. 

I had so many favorite lines in this book!  I just have to include some here:  "There's no going back once you're already gone." (p. 377); "I know it is a bad thing to break a promise, but I think now that it is a worse thing to let a promise break you." (p. 374); "'Cripes, Miss Wilcox, they're not guns,' I said.  'No, they're not, Mattie, they're books.  And a hundred times more dangerous.'" (p. 203-204). 

Overall, this was a great book!