young adult Archives - Page 83 of 103

Maud: A Novel Inspired by the Life of L.M. Montgomery
by Melanie Fishbane (Author)

Booktalk: Fourteen-year-old Lucy Maud Montgomery — Maud to her friends — has a dream: to go to college and become a writer, just like her idol, Louisa May Alcott. But living with her grandparents on Prince Edward Island, she worries that this dream will never come true. Her grandfather has strong opinions about a woman’s place in the world, and they do not include spending good money on college. Luckily, she has a teacher to believe in her, and good friends to support her, including Nate, the Baptist minister’s stepson and the smartest boy in the class. If only he weren’t a Baptist; her Presbyterian grandparents would never approve. Then again, Maud isn’t sure she wants to settle down with a boy — her dreams of being a writer are much more important.

Snippet: The Four Musketeers had decided they would meet in front of Nate’s house, and as Maud and Mollie approached, the boys emerged.

“As promised, we have kept our solemn vow to take you home once again.” Nate bowed.

“In plain English, we are here to walk you home,” Jack said, following his friend’s gesture.

Maud and Mollie giggled.

Again they paired up, and Maud took in the late autumn stars and the full moon as she and Nate talked of books and the lectures and her plans to go to school and write.

Evelyn Cameron: Photographer on the Western Prairie
by Lorna Milne (Author)

Booktalk: In 1889, a young spunky British woman of genteel upbringing set sail for the United States against her family’s wishes. She traveled with a friend, Ewen Cameron, the man who later became her husband. They were bound for eastern Montana to hunt big game along the Yellowstone River, only thirteen years after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The next fall the Camerons returned to England, packed up, and moved to Montana, where they lived for the rest of their lives.

Snippet: Evelyn and Ewen’s adventurous honeymoon–the trip that led to Montana grizzlies living out their lives in a British zoo–was the first of many long forays the Camerons took into the badlands. Sometimes they hired a cook, often they went with friends, and before long they became the guides. Evelyn waxed poetic about the sporting life:

Where the wife shows any liking at all for life in the open I consider a hunting expedition one of the most desirable ways for a couple to spend a holiday. It is wonderful what comradeship is developed between them. All sorts of cobwebs get blown away in the long days together on the windswept prairies or in the gulches and trails of the Bad Lands.

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)