OUR ONLY MAY AMELIA
by Jennifer L. Holm
HaperCollins
ISBN: 0060278226
Ages 8-10

May Amelia Jackson is 100% tomboy. She has an eye for adventure, a nose for trouble, and no problem finding it. Not to mention seven older brothers who seem to have so much more fun doing things that "Proper Ladies" would never do. Not that May Amelia worries about what "Proper Ladies" can and can't do. To the annoyance of her parents, May Amelia has no intention of being a "Proper Lady."

Normally a book's genre can be determined just by looking at the cover art or reading the first chapter. Not this time. Told through the eyes of twelve-year-old May Amelia, the author, Jennifer L. Holm, shows what life might have been like back in the 1800s. The combination of being written in an old fashion dialect, with authentic looking pictures, makes OUR ONLY MAY AMELIA look and read like an autobiography instead of historical fiction. It is so convincing that you may find yourself looking for OUR ONLY MAY AMELIA in the non-fiction section . . . and you may even be successful in finding it there.

--- Reviewed by Kathy Hale

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