Thanks to Goodreads friend Gundula I own this book but it took backseat to library books with due dates for too long. I’m glad I got to it. Its companion book, Connecting Dots, is available as an e-book at my library. If/when I can figure out how to read the edition I will read it.

I would have loved this book at ages 9-11 or 12, and there were a couple details about it that might have felt lifesaving for me.

I liked it now too. I liked Lee, though I didn’t think she was an extraordinarily good writer, but I liked her drive and her interest and her honest storytelling.

Recommended for kids and other readers who enjoy orphan stories, Anne of Green Gables, stories about neglected kids, family and friendship stories.

The events take place in the 1960s with an 11 year old main protagonist/voice, and I was close to that age, so a lot of things felt familiar and nostalgic, though not necessariy in a happy way.

It’s a sweet book.

3-1/2 stars ( )

A wonderful coming of age book written in the adorable, irrepressible voice of eleven year old Lee Mets, in the guise of a school assignment.

Lee adores books, especially Anne of Green Gables and the Little House on the Prairie. Lee wants to be a writer, but it is the 1960s, and her mother would rather she be a teacher or a nurse, because she is female.

Much to Lee's delight, red-haired orphan Cassandra moves in next door, straight out a a book. Lee naively expects her to be just like Anne, and desperately wants to be best friends. Things are not as easy as they appear in storybooks, and both Lee and Cassandra learn a lot about each other, life and themselves.

Sharon Jennings has written Lee's voice to be so ingenuous, so full of thought and so poignant. Lee is so real and believable, I felt as if I were reading the journal of an actual, albeit incredibly eloquent, eleven year old aspiring writer, full of dreams and just trying to understand the world.

The way that she describes her neighbors is perfect, and the way she navigates pre-teen feelings and confusion is masterful. The time at the airport, the relationship with her Mother and her Father, and the trip to the cabin are all just perfect. This was the first book that I have read by Sharon Jennings, but it will definitely not be the last.

Highly recommended, for ages 10 - 110.


**eARC Netgalley**


( )

For sheer Anne-ish-ness, however, it would be hard to beat Sharon Jennings’ Home Free.

Lee (Leanna) Mets is excited to learn that an orphan will be moving in with the couple who lives next door to their family and she hopes that Cassandra Jovanovich will be like Anne. She’s not. At least not as Lee had hoped.

“Cassandra didn’t know anything about Anne Shirley, but I was pretty sure she knew all about Anne’s depths of despair.”

But many aspects of Lee’s life seem to have slipped directly from L.M. Montgomery’s stories. Miss Gowdy is like Miss Stacy. Kathy is like Josie Pye. Mrs. McMillan, the Sunday School teacher, is like Mrs. Allan. And Lee’s heart beats just like Anne’s (when she sees Gilbert when she’s half-drowned) when she sees David (who shares his copy of Cue for Treason with Lee).

Not all of these comparisons are drawn outright. But some are. Like this:

“I wanted to take my slate — of course, these are the Sixties and we don’t use slates these days — and break it over someone’s head, just like Anne Shirley did to Gilbert Blythe.”

It’s impossible to avoid the Anne-ish-ness of this sweet, bookish tale.

More, here, if you're curious! ( )

At first, I found the book a bit slow to grab my attention but I was sucked in by the constant referrals to Anne Shirley from "Anne of Green Gables". The protagonist is a lovable, awkward, grade 6 girl whom I feel girls of this age would be able to identify with. I always enjoy a book written in first person. ( )

[review coming]