Annie Quinn in America

September 1, 2001
Gr 4-6-Whether in Ireland, aboard ship, or in New York, Annie's life is hard. In the 1840s, the poverty at home is extreme, so the 12-year-old and her younger brother Thomas are sent to their sister Bridget in America, leaving their mother and other siblings behind but taking their deceased father's valuable fiddle with them. As they land in New York, a thief makes off with her possessions. Bridget, who is employed by a wealthy family, puts Annie to work for the joyless housemaid; Thomas is assigned to the abusive coachman. All too soon, however, this less-than-idyllic existence is cut short as first Thomas runs away and then Annie is pushed out, on the cook's trumped-up charge of stealing. Rescued by an African-American family who runs a boarding house and takes in laundry, the youngster is befriended by their daughter and remains determined to find her brother and the violin. Annie is a sympathetic heroine, and the cook and coachman are villainous enough to sustain some reader interest, but opportunistic plot turns and small details left dangling detract from the suspense, and the "all's well" ending is predictable. Patricia Reilly Giff's Nory Ryan's Song (Delacorte, 2000) far surpasses this treatment of Ireland's potato famine, and Avi's swashbuckling Beyond the Western Sea (Orchard, 1996) is a fuller description of the plight of the newly arrived Irish immigrant. A missed opportunity in many ways.-Carol A. Edwards, Sonoma County Library, Santa Rosa, CA

Copyright 2001 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.