A heart-wrenching novel in verse about a poor girl surviving the Irish
Land Wars, by a two-time Newbery Honor-winning author.
For Anna, the family farm has always been home... But now, things are
changing.
Anna's mother has died, and her older siblings have emigrated, leaving
Anna and her father to care for a young sister with special needs. And
though their family has worked this land for years, they're in danger of
losing it as poor crop yields leave them without money to pay their
rent.
When a violent encounter with the Lord's rent collector results in Anna
and her father's arrest, all seems lost. But Anna sees her chance and
bolts from the jailhouse. On the run, Anna must rely on her own inner
strength to protect her sister--and try to find a way to save her
family.
Written in verse, A Slip of a Girl is a poignant story of adversity,
resilience, and self-determination by a master of historical fiction,
painting a haunting history of the tensions in the Irish countryside of
the early 1890s, and the aftermath of the Great Famine.
A Junior Library Guild Selection
A Bank Street Best Book of the Year