SUMMARY: Seven-year-old Julie Trelling and her older brother Chris are left to live with their firm, but kind Aunt Cordelia when their father is widowed. Bright, sensitive, and a bit of a rebel, Julie faces the tough challenges of growing up smart and female. During her childhood, Julie learns bittersweet lessons in heartbreak and compassion and justice and love as only as children do. As idyllic as her country life seems, there is prejudice, meanness, and smallness of human spirit in all corners of the world. As Julie grows up from a young child of seven to seventeen, she tells her story in a voice both immediate and honest. While this is primarily Julie's story, it also features the formidable Aunt Cordelia, whose own life could have been Julie's life. The book isn't all lessons and wisdom. It's mostly evocative and reflective, stringing together significant moments in growing up with precise detail of everyday things, rather than being action-packed or plot-driven. Hunt tell us that growing up isn't simple, but you're also never alone even when you want to be, as even enemies and bad experiences shape us as much as the loved ones and good times do. (adapted from an Amazon.com review)
OPINION: I was removing books from the teen collection this week, and I pulled Up a Road Slowly off the shelf. It was all yellowed with age and the cover was ugly, so I was going to get rid of it. It hadn't been checked out in years, and I didn't know anything about it, even though it was the 1966 Newbery Award winner. But then I started reading it. I have a thing for quaint stories like Little Women and Anne of Green Gables and Betsy-Tacy. If you like those old sweet stories which were written as contemporary fiction, but now read like historical fiction from a kinder, gentler time...this one's for you. But I think I might buy a new copy with a better cover!
Orignal cover vs. new cover...
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