It is not often that I review children's books, but this one definitely deserves the attention.
Written in a simple, yet eloquent prose, this is a heartwarming story of overcoming life's challenges, of bonding, of staying together, and of the power of nature to heal the human heart.
Sorensen wrote a timeless novel aimed at middle grade children, yet this story is much more and will be enjoyed by both children and adults alike.
What a refreshing read. Through her writing, Sorenses made me long for the simpler days before technology ruled young lives the way it does today. The reader is not only taken on a journey with the main protagonist, Marly, and her family, but is afforded an educated look at the nature that surrounds them in their place of healing.
Marly's father, a POW with a broken heart, her mother, her brother, and Marly herself decide to leave the city and spend the summer in a small community in rural Pennsylvania. Her mother, who used to visit her own grandma there, promises Marly miracles, and miracles truly do happen on Maple Hill. Except they are not the sort of superficial miracles one associates with religion; they are the everyday miracles only nature can produce - the only miracles that can cure a broken heart and fill it with joy and peace once again.
A highly inspirational story set in a simpler time when the little things had the power to make big differences.
Reading this book reminded me how important timeless writing is. It reminded me that a novel like this one will be relevant fifty years from now, when all the technologically-centered books produced today for young readers will be long-irrelevant.
Highly recommended.