Gail R. (abigailsdaughter) reviewed on + 201 more book reviews
It's seldom I read a book and then reread it immediately, but I really enjoyed this one:
"The Year of Miss Agnes," by Kirkpatrick Hill,is about a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in a rural Alaskan village in 1949, where the Athabascan villagers make a subsistence living, and all the grownups have had little or no education. No teacher has lasted there more than a year.
This short narrative is told by 12-year-old Fredericka, and is not only about the new teacher's unusual teaching methods and the changes she causes in the village and the school, but also about the villagers' mixture of traditional and modern living. For example, they sell (and use) fur mittens and shoeshoes they make in the traditional manner, but buy their parkas through the Sears catalog.
The dedication is "In memory of Sylvia Ashton-Warner and all unorthodox teachers." The author (who has written other children's books) spent many years teaching elementary school in the Alaskan hinterlands.
"The Year of Miss Agnes," by Kirkpatrick Hill,is about a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in a rural Alaskan village in 1949, where the Athabascan villagers make a subsistence living, and all the grownups have had little or no education. No teacher has lasted there more than a year.
This short narrative is told by 12-year-old Fredericka, and is not only about the new teacher's unusual teaching methods and the changes she causes in the village and the school, but also about the villagers' mixture of traditional and modern living. For example, they sell (and use) fur mittens and shoeshoes they make in the traditional manner, but buy their parkas through the Sears catalog.
The dedication is "In memory of Sylvia Ashton-Warner and all unorthodox teachers." The author (who has written other children's books) spent many years teaching elementary school in the Alaskan hinterlands.
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