Faith, Hope, and Ivy June

Ivy June, an Appalachian coal miner's daughter, and Catherine, a member of the Lexington horse set, meet and share families through a school exchange program. Narrator Karen White could have gone with the obvious and given Ivy June a heavy drawl and Catherine a posh tone. Instead White follows the author's lead, using subtly distinct voices to concentrate on the similarities of two girls who both experience culture shock, school woes, and family hardships. This familiar plot gets a boost from White's depictions of the Appalachian characters. When Ivy June's grandfather is trapped in a mining accident, she explains to Catherine that he's OK because he can listen to the mountain. White makes us believe we can hear it, too. M.M.O. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

Starred review from June 15, 2009
Newbery Medalist Naylor's (Shiloh
) reflective, resonant novel shapes credible portraits of two Kentucky girls participating in a seventh-grade exchange program. Since her parents' house is too cramped, outspoken Ivy June lives nearby with her bighearted grandparents in aremote mountain hollow, with no indoor bathroom or phone. More reserved Catherine attends private school in Lexington, where she shares a rambling home with her family. In thoughtful, articulate journal entries interspersed with third-person chapters, the girls, who spend two weeks together with each family, share their initial expectations and subsequent impressions (“if Mammaw ever saw the stuff they put on our plates, she'd give it to a dog,” Ivy June writes about the cafeteria food). The bond between the girls strengthens when they simultaneously experience traumatic events (Ivy June's coal miner grandfather becomes trapped underground; Catherine's mother undergoes emergency heart surgery). Leaving the hollow, Catherine responds to a comment that she'll have a lot to tell when she arrives home: “To tell it's one thing.... To be here—that's something else.” Naylor's deft storytelling effortlessly transports readers to her Kentucky settings—and into two unexpectedly similar lives. Ages 9–12.