Back to the Books: Amy Moves In

I was a voracious reader as a child. 

Now I don't kow if that love stemmed from my father reading to my sister and me (with my father sitting in the middle with the books), my severely asthmatic childhood (which forced me indoors), or the fact I simply love a good story.

But my Scholastic book order all through my grade and high school years always came in a large box. A few other students typically received a book or two, maybe three. And the box came to me. 

I loved when the teacher distributed those flyers with the featured books. I read all the synopsises and circled anything that looked intriguing.

I read lots of good stories through the years. One story that's remained a forever is Amy Moves In by Marilyn Sachs. 

I first read it when I was eight or nine. Looking back, I'm amazed at the sophisticated sentence structure for younger readers at the time, which probably influenced mine, despite what the Flesch Kincaid reading level calculator says when I upload text from my books.

The copy above isn't my original one, which disappeared years ago. It's the one I ordered on Amazon, so Rebekah could read it, too.

Now Amy Moves In was published in 1964, a few years before I read it. Here is what Kirkus Reviews wrote at the time.

And here is a wonderful examination of the book from a blogger who'd also read it.

Although I read the story nearly thirty years after its setting (the early 1940s), the story or characters never felt dated to me.

It was my first introduction to customs of the Jewish faith, although I didn't realize it at the time.

I didn't realize that Rosa was Hispanic, just that she was pretty and struggled with English.

The book realistically addresses family life, bickering, bullying, lying, friendship, cliques, idiosyncrasies in personalities, and more in ways in ways that feel honest and true.

In high school, I found the second book in the series sitting on friend's book shelf when I spent the night. And now, due to the power of the internet, I have since learned the series has a third book, too.

Yes, I will definitely order one.

The first book left so many unanswered questions, I now want to find out, finally after more than fifty years, how all those threads are tied up at the end.

Highly recommended.