Bonnie Pryor

This book is about a young girl named Lottie, who has a dream to live by the ocean. As a young girl she doesn’t have much of a choice, except to move where her parents move to which is now Kansas. While there she learns to accept and make the best out of the situation, even though this is not exactly where she wants to be. As time goes on Lottie meets her husband and they get married, and as time goes own, they have children of their own and eventually grandchildren. Lottie never got the chance to move close to the ocean like she always dreamed of until her husband passes away, then she decides to finally move close to the ocean and lives right off it. I think there are two different life lessons you can learn from this book. One being that if you have a dream follow it and chase it. As a young girl Lottie could not do so, but when she got older, she could’ve done what she’s always dreamed of as a young girl. Lottie still got to live near the ocean but not till very late in her life, if she would’ve done so earlier in her life, she could’ve had more time to enjoy it. I still think this is a good book to read to children but in the upper grade level, because I think they would have a better understanding of the book.… (mais)

I enjoyed this book because of the language and descriptions. The language in this book really reflected the times that the book took place. For example, "You're too young to have seen such things." The author uses an older vocabulary to reflect the time period and does this effectively while also keeping the book age appropriate. I also like this book because of the descriptions, they allow the reader to visualize everything that is going on. This is important to have in a 3-5 grade book because they are most likely used to picture books and need that visual aid in order to stay engaged. For example, "Joseph saw boxes of uniforms and rolls of tent cloth being loaded in one car and sacks of flower and barrels of molasses in another." The moral of this story is to stand up for what you believe in.… (mais)