![]() ![]() Nory makes the hardest sacrifice of all when an emigrating family invites her along and she sends Patrick in her place. Grasping at a sudden chance, big sister Maggie takes off for America, then Granda and teenage Celia set out for Galway, hoping to meet Da on the docks-leaving Nory to care for Patrick, and for old Anna Donnelly, a neighbor with a tragic past, as well. Families are mercilessly driven from their homes, the dead are buried without ceremony, and little Patrick becomes ever thinner and more pitiable. ![]() ![]() Through young Nory's eyes, the aptly named Great Hunger is devastatingly real: not only do livestock and grain disappear, but so do shellfish and kelp, and finally even nettles and other weeds. Heralded by an ominous odor, blight sweeps through the potato fields, wiping out the crops overnight. ![]() The three Ryan sisters, their mother dead and their "da" away at sea, are struggling to make ends meet and care for old Granda and three-year-old Patrick, as their predatory English landlord waits for his rent on one side and America's golden promise glitters over the horizon on the other. Newbery Medal–winner Giff ( Lily's Crossing, 1997, etc.) weaves wisps of history into this wrenching tale of an Irish family sundered by the Great Potato Famine. ![]()
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