Strawberry Hill

I checked this one out of the library, and my daughter and I loved it so much it has to be bought! There are so many things I love about this book. Even though it was appropriate for my 7 year old (we alternated reading chapters), there are so many grown up issues here that she started to think about - for instance, that people are sometimes not all good or all bad (for example - Mimi's mom - a rather complicated character for a child's book). The details are lovely (yes, I want some alphabet paper dolls, too). This is truly a special book for my little girl and for me. I look forward to more fiction from this author.

Thanks to other reviewers, the subject matter is already well covered. I just wanted to chime in to say that I just finished reading this to my six-year-old daughter, and she absolutely loved it. She kept begging for another chapter, another chapter...we read it in three nights. Mary Ann Hoberman is also the author of one of our all-time favorite picture books, A House is a House for Me. I hope this won't be her last chapter book!

Because her best friend Ruthie lives in the upstairs apartment of their duplex, and she likes sleeping with her little brother Danny, Ten-year-old Allie is reluctant to move. However, when she hears that their new address is "12 Strawberry Hill,"she imagines that she is going to live on a hill covered with real strawberries, and her reluctance disappears. Great was her disappointment when she discoversthere are no strawberries on Strawberry Hill. There are two girls her own age, however, Martha who lives next door and shy Mimi who lives across the street. Set in the Great Depression, this book follows the vicissitudes of a thoroughly delightful child. The times are perfectly captured, from playing with paper dolls through wearing bloomers --horrible, handmade, polka-dotted ones at that -- for dance class. The clear prose brings Allie to believable, lovable life.

In STRAWBERRY HILL, well known poet Mary Ann Hoberman creates a girl in fourth grade who thinks and acts authentically as she struggles to find friendship and negotiate the peer relationships in her classroom and neighborhood. In doing so, she meets anti-semitism for the first time, learns to confront others, and also gets her assumptions challenged about a girl across the street who is not popular and often shunned. Third and fourth grade girls are the most obvious audience for this book, and they will find plenty to talk about and think about. Wendy C. Kasten, Ph.D. Kent State University Co-Author, LIVING LITERATURE (w/Kristo & McClure, Pearson Ed, 2005)Living Literature: Using Children's Literature to Support Reading and Language Arts

Strawberry Hill in Stamford, Connecticut, turns out to be nothing like what 10-year-old Allie originally thought it would be. For starters, there are no strawberry plants as far as the eye can see dotting the suburban landscape. The Willie Wonka world she imagined her new home to be turns out to look an awful lot like any other one --- with some added features for which she is completely unprepared. Anti-Semitism is the main conflict in Mary Ann Hoberman's STRAWBERRY HILL, and it brings together and breaks apart a number of fourth grade friendships. With an emphasis on the "can't we all just get along" genre, Allie's adventures in suburbanland are not without some serious pitfalls. Among them, of course, are rocky friendships --- the young Jewish girl across the street with whom Allie feels a great connection but who is shunned by prejudiced families in the area; the next-door playmate who seems to be caught between the innocence of their nine-year-old lives and the strange and strained considerations of the adults with whom she is surrounded; her little brother, so full of wonder and yet so astute about the relationships that are forming amongst the kids; the bookie dad who's been thrown in jail; and the hobo who wanders into their new yard looking for food and friendship. Conducting this orchestra of Depression-era confusion is Allie's mom, who stands up to racism and injustice and teaches all the children a lesson about compassion, true kindness and friendship. Hoberman, an award-winning poet who is responsible for the You Read to Me books that help fledgling readers begin to read on their own, adopts a very simple and direct language, and keeps the racist undertones right at the top layer of the story so that everyone knows exactly what is going on. That kind of fierce and uncompromising look at racism and how it affects people so deeply makes STRAWBERRY HILL more than what it looks like it will be from the first easy chapters. With a questioning and thoughtful protagonist like Allie, the book marches forward, throwing petals of intelligent history down on its path and making the bad (which also includes a nasty case of scarlet fever) a lesson with a happy ending. Although the target audience is kids ages 8-12, STRAWBERRY HILL feels very much like a first chapter book, long enough to be a challenge but easy enough in its language to be fun for the early reader. Nonetheless, Hoberman's latest will strike a chord with the children of this difficult economic era and show that, even when the past repeats itself, there is hope that things can turn out okay in the end. --- Reviewed by Jana Siciliano