Whisper of Love - Softcover

Gr 6-8-- Maudie is a six - year - old Amish girl at the beginning of the story, which follows her to adulthood and closes with her plans for marriage. Although said to be a romance, this is really more of a family story; the first two-thirds focuses on Maudie's childhood and early adolescence. In the course of the tale her farming family moves first to a different part of Kansas, then to New Mexico, and then back to their home state. The long time span may account for the book's episodic quality and will limit its appeal--those reading romances aren't anxious to know a lot about the heroine's childhood. What readers do get is a sense of a close, loving family and the hard work daily life entailed in the early 1900s. The writing has a nostalgic, affectionate tone for the past and how wonderful it was, despite the difficulties, rather than letting readers really feel what it was like, good and bad. The result is an interesting, but finally disappointing, look at a special way of life. There is better historical fiction available, and Rachel (Herald, 1990) by Mary Christner Borntrager is a stronger story about the Amish way of life. --Jane Gardner Connor, formerly at South Carolina State Library, Columbia

Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information, Inc.