SMITHSONIAN HISTORICAL FICTION Part 2

I'm glad to see this series continuing. I enjoyed the different topics the first four books covered. 

Ollie's book is set in 1871 and is about the great Chicago fire. Ollie works for the same wealthy family his parents worked for before they died. They kept Ollie on as a worker, but his younger sister had to go to an orphanage. Once the fire gets bad, Ollie goes to the orphanage to rescue her and is followed by Leo, the family's young son that he helps care for. The three kids fight their way through the dangerous streets and Ollie finds a nice woman and her son that let them stay in their rowboat out in Lake Michigan. Upon returning to Leo's house, they find it burnt down, but the family is so grateful to Ollie that they help him get a job as a teacher for younger kids, which also includes a place to live for himself and his sister, as well as the ability to continue his own education. Maybe a little too farfetched a happy ending, but I'll take it. 

Absolutely adored this one! David is a young Chinese-American boy travelling with his parents in 1889. They're fleeing San Francisco and trying to find David's uncle, hoping to work with him. Along the way, they meet a man helping organize a paleontological dig and he hires the entire family to help out. 

This one suffers because it's so short. I love the idea of Chinese immigrants helping with paleontology. It's a subject that's never been done before as far as I know, and I would have loved a longer book that told more about the early methods of digging, and the practices of museums. So my only complaint is that it should have been about five times as long!

 

Marika is a 13-year-old girl in 1970 who dreams of going to Harvard and studying economics. She can't understand why her white father and Indian mother, who struggled with prejudice because of their interracial marriage, don't understand prejudices against women. She gets wrapped up in helping her friend and that friend's family with a women's march for equality. 

This one again had nothing wrong except that it could easily have been much longer. I miss Dear America and wish they'd done topics like these two books.

This was a good one, again disappointing because I wish it was longer. 

Syretia, by the way, is pronounced like Saoirse. Ser-sha. This is Irish in the book, but I've never seen it spelled that way before and I'm wondering how true it is. Syretia is Irish and part Chinese. It's not clearly said, but I think her dad is half-Chinese. 

This takes place in 2012 at the same time as the landing of the Mars Curiosity Rover. The STEM camp is interesting, but again, I wish there was more. These books are simply too short!