Dear Papa

It's 1943 and nine-year-old Isabelle Anderson lives with her mother, her two older sisters, Irma and Inez, her younger brother Ian, and her younger sister Ida in St. Paul, Minnesota. It has been one year since her father died and, ever since then, her life has been very different. Irma and Inez have boyfriends and her mother sold her father's filling station and got a job! But now her mother is always tired and not acting like herself anymore. She eventually becomes so tired that she sends Isabelle to live with Uncle Bernard and Aunt Jaye in Zumbrota, Minnesota. She also sends Irma and Inez to live with Uncle Edgar on a farm. That's when their new lives begin.While living with her uncle and aunt, Isabelle slowly adjusts to life in a small town. Even though she has new friends and her aunt and uncle are nice to her, she wishes she could be home to help her mother do everything around the house. She wants to be part of a happy family again. Then she starts thinking of a way to get back home with her sisters and to the rest of her family. One day, she steals some money from her aunt and uncle's house and goes to the bus station. Guess what? Inez is there too! They both get on the train to go back home.When they get back home, they discover that their mother is living in a new house with Mr. Colletti, the owner, and that she has sold their old house. Eventually she gets married to him and Isabelle slowly adjusts to him being her stepfather. Then one day, her mother finds out that she is going to have a baby by Christmas! Will Isabelle adjust to another change to her family? Will Irma come back home to her family?This heartfelt book of a girl who must experience many changes to her family touched me, because I felt the same way when I had to move to a new house and when my little sister was born. If I would have been Isabelle, I would have come home to my mother too because I would have missed her very much. If you like heartfelt and touching books, read this one to find out if her wish to have one happy family again comes true. --- (...)

Do YOU remember what it was like to be nine-years old? Can you remember what you were interested in, what your perspective was, what held your attention? Could you then write about it, in the voice of the child you once were? Anne Ylvisaker can, and does write with the perfect voice of a young girl from the 1940's, coping with the loss of her father, and the ensuing life in her family's house and various other homes following that loss. The series of letters that tell the story are by turns warm, sad, angry, hurt, funny, mischevious, warm, scheming and loving, and in every respect true to their time in history as well as the personality of young Isabelle.While ostensibly a book for younger readers, "Dear Papa," reads well for all ages, and should be very attractive to readers who grew up during World War Two -- they will recognize this little girl, and will be transported back to a time where their perspectives match those of the book's narrator. (Try it sometime -- read a letter or two from this book to a woman from the WW2 generation -- they'll swear that the author also grew up during that period! Ha -- she did not...)I *highly* recommend this book -- reading it (in one sitting!) gave the most pleasure I've had with a new work in a very long time.

In turns winsome, funny, and heart-wrenching, Dear Papa is a book of letters from Isobel to her dad, who "went to heaven," and her Aunt Izzy, her father's sister in California. We learn about Isobel's life in important moments, always through her particular lens on life. From being separated from her family when her mother can no longer cope with raising so many children and cleaning houses to support them, to being reunited when her mother (a Lutheran) marries a doctor (a Catholic), this is an observant, heartwarming book. Those of us who grew up in the Upper Midwest (a Lutheran) and married a gent (a Catholic) can most definitely identify with the words here. If you liked Jan Karon's Mitford books, or Lois Walfrid Johnson's Northwoods Adventures, or L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, you'll enjoy Dear Papa.

This book was a funny, heartwarming tale - I loved it as an adult! It would make a great gift for adults and children!

I read this book in one sitting. Isabelle writes wonderful letters to her father, who recently passed away. Readers will find out how her mother and siblings cope, and what happens to Isabelle when she has to live with her aunt and uncle. Isabelle is warm and funny, the type of girl anyone would want for a friend. I've been buying this as a gift for pre-teens I know, and even adults who would have been young in that era. I hope Anne Ylvisaker writes many more books!