Rosie’s #Bookreview Team #RBRT 1930s American #HistoricalFiction THREADS by @CWhitneyAuthor

Today’s team review is from Terry, she blogs here, https://terrytylerbookreviews.blogspot.co.uk/

Terry has been reading Threads by Charlotte Whitney

4 out of 5 stars

Threads is a set on a farm in Michigan during the Depression, about a family struggling to survive.  The novel is told in alternating first person points of view of the three daughters: Flora, who is seventeen, Nellie, the youngest, who is seven, and Irene, somewhere in the middle.  Nellie is a tad wild, with a vivid imagination; Irene is a rather smug goody-goody on the surface, but is clearly suffering from ‘middle-child syndrome’, while Flora is very much the ‘big sister’, nearly an adult, who sees how the world works outside the concerns of the other two.  Each sister’s character is clearly defined, with her own distinctive voice.

The novel is primarily concerned simply with the way of life of that place and time; it is character rather than plot-driven, an illustration of the family’s world and their fears, joys and struggles.  These people were POOR.  If you’ve never dined on potatoes every night, or looked on a bean sandwich as a treat, you should never think of yourself as hard-up again!  Within the girls’ narratives, Ms Whitney has shown us a larger picture of the country in the 1930s; they tell of the ‘train riders’; unemployed, itinerant young men who travelled the country by stowing away on trains, begging for food wherever they stopped.  The way the community pitched in to help each other.  The fears that consumed them all; if they couldn’t sell enough produce, they would lose their homes.

I found Flora’s chapters the most interesting as she was concerned not only her own insular world (what happened at school, etc) but talked about the way of life as a whole.  On occasion, though, Irene and Nellie would reveal much within their own childlike eye-view; this was done most skillfully.

If I have any criticisms, it’s just that I would have liked a bit more actual plot; events coming to a climax and then being resolved, at some point.  There is a little mystery concerning an event from the first chapter about which we don’t get the answer until the end, but I felt there were missed opportunities to make the story more of a page-turner.  However, I did enjoy it, throughout, and would most certainly recommend it as an insightful and highly readable look at this recent and still relevant time in America’s history.

It’s a boring, hardscrabble life for three sisters growing up on a Michigan farm in the throes of the Great Depression. But, when young Nellie, digging for pirate treasure, discovers the tiny blue-black hand of a dead baby, rumors begin to fly. Narrated by Nellie and her two older sisters, the story follows the girls as they encounter a patchwork of threatening circumstances and take it upon themselves to solve the mystery.

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Rosie’s #BookReview Team #RBRT Depression Era #HistoricalFiction THREADS by @CWhitneyAuthor #TuesdayBookBlog

Today’s team review is from Noelle, she blogs here https://saylingaway.wordpress.com

Noelle has been reading Threads by Charlotte Whitney

Threads is my introduction to Charlotte Whitney and I have discovered a talented writer. Threads follows the lives of three sisters growing up on a hardscrabble farm during the depression, and the story alternates among their points of view. Nellie is the youngest and in second grade, and she has the most pronounced mid-Michigan farm dialect. Irene is in sixth grade and a definite middle child. She and Nellie attend a one room school. The oldest sister, Flora, is in high school.

Nellie is a real tomboy with a vivid imagination. One afternoon, while she explores the meadows and woods surrounding the farm, she spots a tiny black hand poking out of a mound. Nellie is terrified and listening to her parents talking that night – she can hear them if she puts her ear to the heat register in the floor of her bedroom – she learns it was a baby boy. The sheriff had been called but no one had any idea about whose baby it was. Her parents worry they will be blamed.

Irene is sassy, intelligent, and has become the pet of the school’s teacher Miss Flatshaw. She thinks Nellie is stupid. Flora is on the cusp of adulthood. She is a caring and perceptive young woman who has considerable responsibility in the work of the farm and realizes that her life will be one of a farmer’s wife, despite her desire for a career.

The three girls’ personalities are wonderfully wrought – you can hear their voices in your head. You live with them over the next years, through all the details of running a farm, struggling to put enough food on the table to feed everyone, the penny-pinching and making-do, the sharing of whatever they have with those more in need, and the whims of the weather on which their livelihood depends. The descriptions take the reader into life on a farm, into a loving but stressed family, and through all of life’s transitions: from one grade to another, graduation, first love, surprising traumas. Woven in is the continuing mystery of the dead baby’s origins. I particularly liked the last chapter, which presents us with the girls as adults with lives of their own.

I highly recommend this book. It was a joy to read. The author’s knowledge of, and passion for, this era shines through.

It’s a boring, hardscrabble life for three sisters growing up on a Michigan farm in the throes of the Great Depression. But, when young Nellie, digging for pirate treasure, discovers the tiny blue-black hand of a dead baby, rumors begin to fly. Narrated by Nellie and her two older sisters, the story follows the girls as they encounter a patchwork of threatening circumstances and take it upon themselves to solve the mystery.

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Rosie’s #Bookreview Team #RBRT #HistoricalFiction THREADS by @CWhitneyAuthor

Today’s team review is from Cathy, she blogs here https://betweenthelinesbookblog.wordpress.com/

Cathy has been reading Threads by Charlotte Whitney

The Great Depression began after the market crashed in late 1929 and drastically affected the world’s economy. Threads tells the story of a farming family in Michigan and is narrated by the three daughters. Flora, is the eldest at seventeen. Irene, the middle sister, is eleven and Nellie, the youngest, just seven.

Narrated in alternating short chapters, the story is told from the perspective of each sister, giving individual views on their lives and the people around them. In this way the characters and their very different personalities are developed extremely well as they navigate their way through daily life on the farm, at school and with their friends and neighbours.

Nellie loves making up stories and talks to imaginary friends, which include the animals. Irene can be opinionated and thinks she’s the smartest. Flora wants to get married and be a farmer’s wife. Neither of the younger girls understand quite what’s going on and complain about the changes and things they can’t have.

Nellie loves to play down by the creek and escapes there as often as she can. On her way through the woods one day, she notices a mound of disturbed earth. Thinking it might be pirates’ treasure she begins to root around. What she unearths sends her running back home as fast as she can.

“Tonight I couldn’t git that dead hand outa my mind. Ma gave us girls each a piece of bread for supper, but I couldn’t eat. I wanted to pretend it never happened. Even though I wanted to go to sleep and forget about today, the heat register was still calling to me.

Jist ’bout every night I listen in on Ma and Pa from the heat register on our bedroom floor. It’s right above where Ma and Pa sit in the parlor, right down from my side of the bed.”

The descriptive and realistic prose, showing how a farming family coped during the depression through the eyes of the sisters, paints such a vivid picture of the hardships of the time. Working from dawn to dusk, the girls doing their part with chores before and after school, working most of the day during the summer holiday, and still not having enough to eat. But what really shines out of the story is the endurance and kindness, even through the deprivation the farmers face. Neighbours look out for each other, people passing through are given whatever food can be spared, even if it’s just a slice of bread. Amid all this, there is mystery, rumour mongering and danger.

I enjoyed the fact Charlotte Whitney used the mid western dialect, lending an authenticity to the narrative, along with her personal knowledge of growing up on a farm. I had no idea what to expect when I began reading, but soon became immersed in the lives of the family and was pleased the author included an epilogue so we learn if Nellie’s, Irene’s and Flora’s hopes and dreams for the future materialised.

It’s a boring, hardscrabble life for three sisters growing up on a Michigan farm in the throes of the Great Depression. But, when young Nellie, digging for pirate treasure, discovers the tiny blue-black hand of a dead baby, rumors begin to fly. Narrated by Nellie and her two older sisters, the story follows the girls as they encounter a patchwork of threatening circumstances and take it upon themselves to solve the mystery.

AmazonUk | AmazonUS