ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
That's a good question. I've been trying to figure it out myself, spending most of my life crossing borders.
I was born Mitali Bose in Kolkata (Calcutta), India, and always tried to live up to my name—which means “friendly” in the Bangla language. I had to! Because my family moved so much, it was the only way I could make new friends.
By the time I was 11, I'd lived in Ghana, Cameroon, London, New York and Mexico before settling in California just in time for middle school. Yep, I was the new kid again, in seventh grade, the year everybody barely makes it through.
My biggest lifeline during those early years was story. Books were my rock, my stability, my safe place as I navigated the border between California suburbia and the Bengali culture of my traditional home.
After studying political science at Stanford and public policy at U.C. Berkeley, I taught in middle school, high school and college. When I began to write fiction, my protagonists were often—not surprisingly—strong female characters trying to bridge different cultures.
Mitali Perkins is the author of several books for young people, including SECRET KEEPER (Random House), MONSOON SUMMER (Random House), RICKSHAW GIRL (Charlesbridge), and the FIRST DAUGHTER books (Dutton).
MY THOUGTS:
This is an "old-timey" book. It really does remind me of Little Women in the classical sense. Truly, it was a nice change of pace from the more modern fare I normally read. The issues Emily faces are rather universal for all of us. At some point in time, all of us experience a time when life just seems to pass us by in some point or another. We see others moving on, as we would like to do, and yet circumstances just don't allow us to move forward.
Yet Emily learns, as do we all, that God's plans are always best, and despite the hardships we must face, all things are working for our good and His glory. This story is a classic in the truest sense, and I think it is appropriate for young and old alike.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Emily Webster, an orphan living with her grandfather, is not like the other girls her age in Deep Valley, Minnesota. The gulf between Emily and her classmates widens even more when they graduate from Deep Valley High School in 1912. Emily longs to go off to college with everyone else, but she can’t leave her grandfather. Emily resigns herself to facing a “lost winter,” but soon decides to stop feeling sorry for herself. And with a new program of study, a growing interest in the Syrian community, and a handsome new teacher at the high school to fill her days, Emily gains more than she ever dreamed...
In addition to her beloved Betsy-Tacy books, Maud Hart Lovelace wrote three more stories set in the fictional town of Deep Valley: Winona’s Pony Cart, Carney’s House Party and Emily of Deep Valley. Longtime fans and new readers alike will be delighted to find the Deep Valley books available again for the first time in many years.
If you would like to browse inside Emily of Deep Valley, go HERE.
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