Another YA Saturday Night

I decided to add some more of my young adult favorites tonight, starting with Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt.



Julie isn't your typical teenager. She's quite literate and serious minded - and comes by it honestly; her father and step-mother are college professors and the maiden aunt who raised her teaches at a one-room schoolhouse in the country. That doesn't mean she doesn't suffer through your normal growing pains, though.

This story takes her from feisty primary schooler to high school senior. We mourn her mother's death with her. feel the loss she feels when the older sister she idolizes marries, and enjoy the playground escapades she gets into with her brother and his friend, Danny Trevort. Along the way, we come to appreciate her strict Aunt Cordelia, as she does, and learn about Cordelia's one, true, failed romance. Julie also has a gallant and alcoholic Uncle Haskell, Cordeilia's brother, who always claims to be writing, but who never seems to finish his opus. We learn to pity him, as Julie does as she matures into the writer she wants to be.

Julie's story comes from an era much slower-moving than ours. Its unfolding takes a while. But it's worth it. The ending is perfect.