The Unexpected Lives of Ordinary Girls

(Hardback)

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A child of immigrants feels caught between two worlds and two selves in this powerful, luminous middle grade historical novel about self-determination, community, and what it means to belongperfect for fans of Esperanza Rising and Katherine Marshs The Lost Year.

When your family comes from Eastern Europe, you get used to being called a Bohunksomeone whos ignorant, lazy, and still has Old World farm dirt in their ears. Someone from a place that people dont care enough about to learn its real name.

Stanislava feels stuck in her deeply traditional Slovene community in Colorado in 1910. But when she finds a library book about an immigrant girls college adventure, she discovers a dazzling world of opportunity. Shes desperate to be like the books heroine, Katinka, who starts life anew as Katie and is seemingly living the American dream. So, like Katie, Stanislava adopts an American name: Sylvia.

Sylvia fantasizes about escaping her claustrophobic life and going off to collegeuntil her dreams are shattered when her older sister, Stina, elopes with a man their family disapproves of. Now Sylvia finds herself at a crossroads: quit school to fill Stinas role as the familys caretaker or run away from home. Stanislava would do the former. But Sylvia is determined to be free

Author Bio

J. Anderson Coats has masters degrees in history and library science and has published short stories in numerous literary magazines and anthologies. She is the author of the acclaimed novelsThe Wicked and the Just,The Many Reflections of Miss Jane Deming,R Is for Rebel,The Green Children of Woolpit,andThe Night Ride, as well asA Season Most Unfair and The Unexpected Lives of Ordinary Girls. She lives with her family in Washington State. Visit her at JAndersonCoats.com.