Skip to main content

"One Came Home" by Amy Timberlake



I was both utterly delighted and totally bummed when One Came Home by Amy Timberlake was named a Newbery Honor book this past January. Delighted because I love the book and told a few people (including other librarians) about it. Bummed because I have had “Blog One Came Home” on my Things to Do List since March 2013. And now everyone was going to know about it before I blogged.

One Came Home excites me because it’s lyrical, it has an outstanding brave and human heroine, and it’s a quest novel. And it’s a quest novel that is not fantasy or science fiction! In fact, it’s historical fiction set in 1871 Wisconsin. Our heroine Georgie Burkhardt (13 years old) begins the novel by telling us she is attending the funeral of her older sister Agatha (18), but that she knows that Agatha hasn’t died (there wasn’t enough left of the body found on the side of the road for a proper ID), she’s just run away to attend the University of Wisconsin at Madison. So, there’s Georgie’s call to action. If no one else will go look for Agatha, she will. Georgie gets supernatural aid in the form of Billy McCabe (19), a young man in love with Agatha. Billy loans Georgie a mule (she asked for a horse) and then goes along with her.

The road of trials Georgie travels on includes pigeon-nesting sites, a cougar, more insects and bugs than she is comfortable with, a mini-betrayal by Billy, and counterfeiters. Georgie even develops a slight crush on Billy (a calling of the flesh). When they reach the place where the body was found, Georgie seems to have an apotheosis – at first, she seems ready to accept that her sister has died, but then she gets a brainstorm about what might have happened.

The rest of the novel is chaotic (in a good way) and thrilling (and a quest novel to the end). Georgie is a treasure. I love how she – a town girl who has never ridden a mule before, let alone the horse she asked for – deals with the great outdoors and uses the skills she picked up by working in the family store to track down Agatha. She also is a crack shot, which comes in very handy in the third part of the novel. I also love the language of this book, especially one scene in which Georgie is describing how her sister went out among a huge flock of pigeons and twirled with them. Or this passage where Georgie is relishing the moment:

Pause a moment. Feel the air surround the moment. Push against it, and find it truly exists. Blow on it, and see how the tiny barbs snag the wind and lift. Watch it fly.


Amy Timberlake has set this story against the backdrop of a huge passenger pigeon migration. Sadly, as Timberlake states in her author’s note, passenger pigeons are now extinct. They once numbered in the billions, she writes, but the last one died in 1914. (Even Timberlake’s author’s note is beautifully written, by the way.)

Highly recommended.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Harry vs. Septimus

Sometimes, I like the Septimus Heap series more than the Harry Potter series. There I said it. It’s a secret I’ve kept from all but my kids for a long time. Don’t get me wrong: I’m wild about Harry. I’ve knitted Harry Potter bookmarks (in Gryffindor colors, naturally). I’ve thrown at least two Harry Potter-themed birthday parties, complete with a sorting hat I made. I’ve stood at line overnight at Barnes and Noble waiting for the next book to come out three times. I read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire  in one day. But, often, I like Angie Sage’s Septimus Heap books ( Magyk , Flyte , Physik , Queste , Syren , and the just published Darke ) more. And I’m not entirely sure why. My current theory is that the Septimus Heap books are better written and, while also highly derivative, much more charming. The characters are human (muggles, even) and fraught with faults. Also, the Harry Potter books are, rightly so, about Harry. Everything is from Harry’s perspective. Sadly, we don...

"The Fifth Season" by N.K. Jemisin

I’m a horrible blogger. Several times this past year, I thought I should just quit this. But I keep being drawn back. So, I’m going to do a little catching up and see how well I remember some of the books I read much earlier this year. Stay tuned. Today, however, I’m just going to write about one. I’ve been singing the praises of The Fifth Season all year even though I’m late to the party: It was published in 2015, and Jemisin is well-known as a gifted writer in the sci-fi and fantasy world. Since then, she has come out with the next two books in The Broken Earth trilogy and has won the Hugo Award three years running. No author has ever done that, let alone a black, female author. Back in 2015 she was the first African-American to win the Hugo for Best Novel. Actually, this year’s Hugos were dominated by women as female authors won in all the major categories. This is important. I’ve been noticing odd twitter posts lately about how women really don’t play video games or ar...

"Eighth Grade Is Killing Me," by Jennifer Holm and

Remember the old J.K. Rowling web site? The one me and hundreds (thousands?) of teens and kids (other adults?) used to pore over as we waited for the next book to come out? It opened with a picture of her desktop, and you could click on gum wrappers, paperclips, her date book and then cool things would happen. It was neat. Eighth Grade Is Making Me Sick , a new book by Jennifer Holm and illustrated by Elicia Castaldi, reminds me a lot of that site (which no longer exists, by the way). Each two-page spread is a snapshot of what’s going on in Ginny Davis’s life. The story is told entirely through photos, notes, Ginny’s poetry assignments, comic strips, and other odds and ends. It’s an interesting format and a very quick read. At first I had wished there was more to Ginny’s story--she’s a likable character—but then I realized that the form fit the function. Tweens will appreciate every last detail of Ginny’s life as they pore over each page. The story has a good arc, there's ...