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What Members Thought
11-year-old Audrey has a hard life. The oldest of four girls, she lives with her Mommy and Daddy in the coal mining town of Jewell Valley in southwest Virginia in 1948. Her family is poor, living on the scripts her Daddy earns from working in the coal mines. They don’t have a refrigerator, and thanks to her Daddy’s drinking, they often don’t have food. But there is hope in Audrey’s life as well. She has a wonderful new friend Virgil, and loves her teacher. But something will happen that will cha
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Very short, but very powerful. This novel about life in a mining town in the 1940s really grabbed me. This is no "safely padded" book about the joys of rural life. In a way, it's as gritty as the more urban novels about life in poverty. The details are so painful that they may make you cry.
The only weakness of the story is how little we see of the mother. I think that is due to how short the novel is, but even so, I wished for more.
Jewell Valley, the setting of this novel, is a real place which ...more
The only weakness of the story is how little we see of the mother. I think that is due to how short the novel is, but even so, I wished for more.
Jewell Valley, the setting of this novel, is a real place which ...more
