Annie Quinn in America

• Publisher:   Carolrhoda Books
• Number Of Pages:   246
• Publication Date:   2001-07
• ISBN-10 / ASIN:   1575055104
• ISBN-13 / EAN:   9781575055107

To escape the Irish potato famine of the 1840s, twelve-year-old Annie and her brother emigrate to New York City where they join their older sister as servants, earning money to bring the rest of their family to America, where they discover that both food and hardships abound.

Annie Quinn's story is set in the days of the Irish potato famine. Food is not the only thing in short supply: justice, education, decent housing and staying together as a family are missing from Annie's life. However, she can play the fiddle, which she learned from her dead father, and when she goes off to America, without her mother and younger brothers, she takes her father's fiddle with her.

The city of New York in which she arrives is different but not necessarily better than the Irish countryside she has left behind. In New York, she learns to get along with people who are not Irish and accept their help as human beings. This is Annie's salvation. She survives and thrives even though her family will be never be as happy as it was before.

The reason I think this book is so special is that Annie loves music so much. Sometimes the story is unendurably sad but when Annie plays, her troubles dissolve. When she loses the violin, she still thinks about the happy days when she played with her family and friends. When she gets a new violin in the end, it is a great moment for the reader as well as for Annie.

I would recommend this book for any girl who loves music as well as an Irish girl.

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