Maggie's Door
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Maggie's Door description
416 Smith Street, Brooklyn, America: this is the ultimate goal for Nory Ryan as she flees her famine-ridden home in mid-1800s Ireland. One by one, her family has departed for a new life in America; Nory is the last to go. Keeping her sister Maggie’s address close to her heart, Nory embarks on the perilous, heart-breaking journey to Galway and onward. Meanwhile, her friend Sean Red Mallon is just a few days ahead, traveling with his mother and Nory’s little brother, Patch, with the same destination in mind. Picking up where Nory Ryan’s Song leaves off, award-winning author Patricia Reilly Giff’s historical novel tells, in alternating voices, Nory and Sean’s stories. Readers will be engrossed in the series of dramatic events, as well as the grueling day-by-day struggle, as the protagonists suffer injuries, thievery, separations, and horrific sea passages. The very real tragedy of the Irish potato famine and the subsequent exodus from that country is brought to life in a fictional account that will make a profound, lasting mark on the memories of young readers. (Ages 9 to 12) --Emilie Coulter |
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Maggie's Door Customer Reviews
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Book 2: Crossing the Atlantic
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A tribute to determination, fortitude, the staying spirit, "Maggie's Door" is a historical novel of the crossing of a microcosm of Irish from Maidin Bay to Galway to New York to Brooklyn to Maggie's Door.
The potato blight, which began in Ireland in 1845, continued for several years and was the catalyst for two to three million Irish immigrants to America. Leaving with only what they had on or could carry in a cloth bag, these Irish sought a new life, free of the downright mean English, fetid fields, and absolutely no food for people who worked the hostile land for potatoes as their only sustenance.
The trip by ship in cramped, filthy conditions was hardly better, but at least they had bug-filled meal to heat in a little water to eat. At least, a chance at a new life awaited them, making the journey worth its horrible conditions. (There is a museum in southern Ireland which depicts the Crossing and all its horrors.)
The microcosmic story of Nory Ryan features this twelve-year-old girl, who faces unknown perils to walk to Galway to find any family to make the Crossing. Her family is divided: Maggie and her husband went ahead a year ago. Da, Granda, and a sister have gone, and now Nory. Her life-long friend and neighbor Sean Red, also went ahead with his Mam and Patch, Nory's three-year-old brother.
Patricia Reilly Giff tells the story in alternating voices, first Nory's, then Sean's and how the stories meet on the Crossing. The writing is so vivid that I felt right there as part of the story, not as a reader looking in. I felt the panicky confinement, the malodorous smells of vomit, urine, feces, tasted the puckering of the meal. At the end of the journey some tried to wash their clothes by tying them to strings and dipping them in the ocean. After all, a doctor would examine them. If they did not meet health standards, they would be sent back.
Will this little band of Irish make it to Maggie's Door? Will more problems arise to torment them in the new country? What more is there to endure?
There is a third book in the series--"Water Street." The reader interested in this tragic piece of Irish history and the transition to the American history of many of our ancestors can find a great fictional account in this trilogy.
Nory Ryan's Song Book 1
Maggie's Door Book 2
Water Street Book 3 |
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Maggie's Door Books In Print, Audio Books.