May B.

roygbv - The book that I am reading is called MayB by:Caroline Starr Rose. This book takes place in the 19th century and it is about a 12 year old girl named Mavis Elizabeth Betterly (May B) who lives on the prairies of Kansas. Her parents send her 15 miles away from her home to help a neighbor with some chores just until Christmas. But the people she was staying with abandoned her, so she is forced to prepare for the long and harsh winter alone. I thought that MayB was a book to help the reader if they had struggles too because May B was always afraid and insecure about her abilities, later on in the book she has to overcome her fears and insecurities. And this was supposed to show that the reader or anybody can do the same. This genre is realistic fiction because the things in the book didn't actually happen to that specific character (s), but It could have happened to anybody during that time period. The kind of audience that would like to read this book is the audience that likes survival stories.The kind of audience that would like to read this book is the audience that likes survival stories because May B has to survive the long and harsh winter. An internal conflict in this book is when May B struggles to overcome her fears and insecurities. An external conflict in the book was when May B had to prepare for the long and harsh winter when she was abandoned. I would give this book 3 1/2 stars because it was interesting but also a little boring(especially in the beginning).

Starred review from December 5, 2011
Set on the Kansas prairie in the 19th century, this debut novel in verse presents a harrowing portrait of pioneer life through the perspective of 12-year-old Mavis Elizabeth Betterly, called May B. After a disappointing harvest, May’s family sends her 15 miles away to help a farmer and his new bride (“She’s fancy and tall,/ but I’ve caught it right away—/ she’s hardly older than I”). May bravely faces the loss of family and the opportunity to attend school, until a homesick Mrs. Oblinger runs off for Ohio and Mr. Oblinger follows, leaving May completely alone. The spare free-verse poems effectively sketch this quietly courageous heroine, the allure and dangers of the open prairie, and the claustrophobic sod house setting. Tension mounts as the weather worsens and supplies dwindle. May’s struggle with reading is particularly affecting, and readers will recognize her unnamed and poorly understood difficulty as dyslexia. Writing with compassion and a wealth of evocative details, Rose offers a memorable heroine and a testament to the will to survive. Ages 8–12. Agent: Martha Kaplan Agency.

Starred review from October 15, 2011
As unforgiving as the western Kansas prairies, this extraordinary verse novel--Rose's debut--paints a gritty picture of late-19th-century frontier life from the perspective of a 12-year-old dyslexic girl named Mavis Elizabeth Betterly… May B. for short. Between May and her brother Hiram, she's the dispensable one: "Why not Hiram? I think, / but I already know: / boys are necessary." Ma and Pa, hurting for money, hire out their daughter to the Oblingers, a newlywed couple who've just homesteaded 15 miles west--just until Christmas, Pa promises. May is bitter: "I'm helping everyone / except myself." She has trouble enough at school with her cumbersome reading without missing months… and how can she live in such close quarters with strangers? A misshapen sod house, Mr. Oblinger and his wife, a miserable teenager in a flaming red dress, greet her as "Pa tucks money / inside his shirt pocket." This sad-enough tale crescendos to a hair-raising survival story when May is inexplicably abandoned and left in complete isolation to starve… just until Christmas? Snowed in and way past the last apple, May thinks, "It is hard to tell what is sun, / what is candle, / what is pure hope." If May is a brave, stubborn fighter, the short, free-verse lines are one-two punches in this Laura Ingalls Wilder–inspired ode to the human spirit. (Historical fiction. 9-14)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 1, 2012
Gr 3-6-Times are tough on the Kansas prairie so May's family hires her out to tend house at a farm 15 miles away for the fall. Pa reminds the unhappy child that he'll be back to get her by Christmas. May knows that she'll be one less mouth to feed, but still can't bear the thought of leaving. She finds herself away from her parents and brother Hiram for the first time, and in a strange household, with a cold, unhappy bride from Ohio who cannot adjust to the hardships of prairie life. When Mrs. Oblinger runs away, and her husband sets off to bring her back, neither return, and May is left alone for several months, fighting the harsh elements and hunger and threatened by wolves, the trajectory of her story takes an unexpected turn. In desperation, she sets off on her own to get home. A subplot of May's internal struggle to teach herself to read despite an unnamed learning disability is believably realized and interspersed throughout. (The author's note indicates that dyslexia was, of course, unknown at the time.) Told in spare, vivid verse, May's story works on many levels; as a survival story, a coming-of-age tale, and a worthwhile next read for "Little House on the Prairie" fans.-"Jill Heritage Maza, Montclair Kimberley Academy, Montclair, NJ"

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2012
Grades 3-7 Furious that Ma and Pa have sent her out to work for the money they need, May Betts, 11, finds herself in a small, sod homestead on the western Kansas prairie in the late 1870s, 15 miles away from home, caring for a new, unsettled young bride, who is just a few years older than May. When the bride takes off, her husband leaves to find her, and May is all alonefrightened, furious, abandoned. Can she survive the five months until her parents come to collect her at Christmas? Told in very short lines, the spare free verse in spacious type is a fast read, poetic and immediate. The daily physical details are the heart of the survival story of finding food and keeping warm and safe as the snow comes, all against the dramatic backdrop of the prairie. The vast landscape is home to May, but to the new bride, the quiet is thunderous as a storm, the way / it hounds you / inside / outside / nighttime / day. Of course, Little House fans will grab this.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)