A Northern Light

Citation: Donnelly, Jennifer. A Northern Light. New York: Harcourt Inc., 2003.

Ages: 13 and up

Genre: Historical Fiction

Themes: Turn of the Century Life, Northern New York Culture, Farming, Friendship, Murder,

Main Characters: Mattie, Weaver, Mrs. Wilcox, Mattie's Father and Sisters, Royal Loomis

Plot Summary:

Mattie is a young girl living in the North Woods of New York state during the early 1900's. Her mother has died of cancer and she is now the responsible female in the household taking care of her father and her three sisters. She is a very smart girl and enjoys going to school. Her teacher encourages her to take her Regents exams, get her high school diploma, and go to college but she feels that she can no not break the promise she made to her mother on her death bed, which was to take care of her family. She decides to apply anyway and she gets in with a full scholarship. She longs to go but her father will not allow it. Mattie is soon being courted by a young man in the town and decides perhaps she will not attend college and marry instead. Meanwhile her best friend in school is Weaver Smith, an African-American boy who also wishes to go to college and become a lawyer. They each take a job at the Glenmore Inn to earn cash over the summer and while they are there a young woman, Grace Brown visits the inn with a her fiance, Chester Gillette. The woman is killed in what at first is thought to be an accident but Mattie knows better because before the woman died she gave Mattie a number of letters to burn which reveal the truth about her sudden death.

Writing Style:

A Northern Light is written from Mattie's perspective. The story goes back and forth between past and present tense, or before Grace Brown's death and after. Mattie and her friend Weaver love words and each day Mattie looks up a new word in the dictionary to learn. The way the author distinguishes between the past and present tense is by putting words in bold letters at the beginning of the chapters which tell about Matties life before the young woman's murder.

Assessment of Quality and Utility:

A Northern Light is a fantastic book about choosing between right and wrong, sticking up for what is right, friendship, loyalty to family, keeping one's promises and ultimately making decisions that are best for yourself. Mattie is a terrific role model for any young adult reading this book. She evetually learns to believe in herself and in her convictions and turns out to be the one responsible for ensuring that the right man was arrested and convicted of Grace Brown's death in the book. Mattie's friends are also respectable people who show that it is more important to look out for each other then to get ahead in life. A Northern Light truely shows how life was in the past because it is well researched.

A Northern Light could be used in a Social Studies class discussing the turn of the century life. It is particularly interesting to those living in New York state because it takes place here in the northern region of the state and many of the town and city names are recognizable for students, bringing the story home for them. The story is very interesting but at the same time the reader is learnering about a real murder that really took place. A few of the characters are real and many of the facts are real as well. It would be a great book to help students learn what it was really like to live at the turn of the century in Northern New York.