Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

This morning I finished Natalie Kinsey-Warnock’s Lumber Camp Library, which was short and sweet and possibly poorly named.  I suppose you could see the whole book as leading up to the creation of said library, but since that didn’t seem to be the main idea of most of the book–I don’t know.  You’ll have to read it and judge for yourself.

It is a nice little story, though.  And while it all wraps up nicely into a taking-good-care-of-everybody sort of happy ending, there is enough real life in it to save it from being corny.  (The book jacket actually says that Kinsey-Warnock bases all of her stories on either her own life or family stories that have been passed down to her, which may explain that.)  It should be easy reading for my 7-year-old that still has enough meat in it to be worthwhile.

Ruby, the main character, idolizes her lumberjack father, and he dotes on her even while also loving her mother and 10 (yes, 10) siblings.  When he dies while rescuing a fellow lumberjack, however, the Sawyer family’s life changes completely.  How they find a new place in life that they can all be happy with takes the entire rest of the book; to tell more would be spoiling it.

I’d recommend this one for people–like me!–who love either historical fiction or stories of New England.  It’s also a good pick for middle elementary school.  Enjoy!