Publishers Weekly
★ 03/24/2014
Inspired by a few lines from her immigrant great-great grandmother's diary, Newbery Honor author Preus (Heart of a Samurai) spins the sometimes harrowing tale of Astri, a 13-year-old Norwegian girl sold into hard labor by her greedy aunt. With a dead mother, a father in America, an imperiled younger sister, and the foreboding goat-keeper who has bought her, Astri is like a girl out of a fairy tale, and the native folktales that Preus weaves through the narrative serve as guides, lessons, and inspiration for her. Determined to escape her cruel master, rescue her sister, and join her father in America, she learns firsthand the sacrifices—financial, physical, and emotional—that immigrants face. Astri is fierce and brave enough to bargain with Death, and not always innocent; likewise, the villain is also an agent of salvation. In the reality these folktales frame, there are no easy or absolute categories. A threat of sexual violence and a grisly death might be hard on sensitive readers, but this immigrant's tale would ring false without them. Ages 10–14. Agent: Stephen Fraser, Jennifer De Chiara Agency. (Apr.)
School Library Journal
★ 04/01/2014
Gr 5–8—Astri is 13 when she is sold by her aunt and uncle to a goat farmer named Svaalberd to serve as an unpaid laborer. Defiant but practical, she spends months with the brutal and superstitious Svaalberd, cooking, cleaning, and caring for the goats, before she escapes the farm with her fellow captive, the mysterious Spinning Girl. Astri fetches her younger sister, Greta, from her aunt and uncle's house, and hightails it with Svaalberd's "treasure" to the coast in order to sail to America. At its most basic, this is a tale about a girl escaping a poverty-stricken life in mid-19th century Norway. But from the beginning, the mystical and wondrous elements of Norwegian folktales are woven into the narrative, lending a timeless quality to a story inspired by the author's family history. The harsh realities of that time period, from rickets to tetanus, take on a strange, magical, and often terrifying aspect, as seen through Astri's naive eyes. She compares her servitude to Svaalberd with the story of White Bear King Valemon, who steals a young girl away, but really, Svaalberd is more like a troll to Astri. Folktales inspire the protagonist and allow her to imagine her own situation as a sort of legend—but in real life, actions have consequences. The decisions Astri makes to survive come to haunt her, and with her regret comes a new maturity, strength, and an ability to face her future in America. Enthralling and unflinching, this historical tale resonates with mythical undertones that will linger with readers after the final page is turned.—Eva Mitnick, Los Angeles Public Library
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2014-01-29
Thirteen-year-old Astri is a goat girl, but she's no Heidi; she's a sharp, stone-hard girl who hasn't yet found the goodness inside herself. In fact, her life is as wretched as the darkest Norwegian fairy tale. Instead of being taken by White Bear King Valemon to his castle, Astri has been sold by her own aunt and uncle for "two silver coins and a haunch of goat" to a nasty old hunchbacked goatman named Svaalberd who lives in squalor. Folk tales from "The Twelve Wild Ducks" to "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" weave through Astri's often dryly humorous, suspenseful first-person account until one feels like the other…including her riotous escape from the violent man-troll and the rescue of her beloved little sister. The girls' odyssey over hill and dale, aided by a kind milkmaid and lonely widow, takes them all the way to an America-bound ship—the Columbus. Whether or not their father is still alive in America, the country beckons like the castle in the bear story that "lies east of the sun and west of the moon." Preus, who won a Newbery Honor for Heart of a Samurai (2010), was inspired by her Norwegian great-great-grandmother, who immigrated to America in 1851, as she explains in an author's note, even providing reproductions of some of her great-great-grandmother's papers. Norwegian history, fiction and folklore intertwine seamlessly in this lively, fantastical adventure and moving coming-of-age story. (glossary, bibliography) (Historical fiction. 11-14)
