Dante's Daughter by Kimberley Heuston

Dante’s Daughter by Kimberley Heuston

Dante Alighieri’s daughter, Antonia, has a life that is full of upheaval and change. Politics forces their family to flee Florence and to split up. She lives with her uncle while her brother, mother, and father find refuge elsewhere. Then her father comes for her so that she can join him on a pilgrimage to Paris. She has to learn to get along with her father, and endure a long and often hard journey.

I enjoyed this book not as much as the Shakeress, but it still kept me intrigued. Once again the book really doesn’t have a clearly defined plot, but kind of wanders along with the character in the way that I kind of like. Though this time I did feel that the wandering did last a little bit too long.

Periods of hardship and darkness are tempered by times of extreme joy and happiness that comes from having a safe place and loved ones near. The book does have an annoying habit of throwing in Italian words without translation. The vocabulary of the book wasn’t as alienating for me because I lived in Italy for 6 weeks and visited Florence and Ravenna (I’ve seen Dante’s tomb! Both of them.) So, I kind of knew the setting and a miniscule amount of Italian. There are some sections of French without translation too. Most of the Latin was translated though, funnily enough, or given context at the very least.
It is a weakness and strength of the book that you kind of have to have a certain amount of background knowledge to fully enjoy it. It also has some vocabulary and concepts that relate to art that could be confusing if you don’t have background knowledge. So, yeah, kind of tough reading for Y.A. I’m sure some kids will be up to it though.
I enjoyed it for the most part, but could understand it not appealing to some people.

Book Review: The Shakeress by Kimberly Heuston

The Shakeress by Kimberly Heuston

Naomi’s life dramatically changes when her family’s farm goes up in flames one night. Her littlest brother and her parents are now gone. The rest of her family, two brothers, one sister, are now living with their mean Aunt Thankful. When Thankful wants to send Naomi off to the mills to work, and separate them Naomi comes up with a plan.

She decides that she want to go live in the shaker community. They take in many orphaned kids since the community doesn’t believe in having children of their own. The change is good for her family and they are given a place to grow their talents. Naomi works in the gardens and helps Sister Martha with doctoring things. Naomi loves learning about plants and doctoring, but still feels that something is missing in her life: a real family.

She leaves the Shaker community to take care of an old lady bed-ridden with liver disease, but when she arrives, some Mormon missionaries have healed her. Naomi continues to live with the Snow family in Vermont, doctoring for their small community, still trying to discover how to fill that missing piece inside her. She may find that it lies with these visiting missionaries.

I stumbled across this book as I was looking for Dante’s Daughter by the same author. The premise of the book immediately intrigued me. A shaker girl converting to Mormonism? I’ve never seen that plot line before. So, I picked it up at the library, and really enjoyed it. The book is well-written and the history well presented. I love how the main character completes a realistic journey to find herself, and has to make hard and scary decisions to progress forward in her life. This would be a really great novel for teenagers because of that theme. There isn't a whole lot of plot, but I really loved the character of Naomi and wanted to know about her story. I really enjoyed reading Shakeress and would recommend it to all who love a really good historical novel.

This novel won an honorable mention in Young Adult Novel from the Association of Mormon Letters in 2002.
A biography of Kimberly Heuston is here: http://www.answers.com/topic/kimberley-heuston