Review: The Memory Quilt

I found this to be a charming little book. While written as young adult historical fiction I did not feel the book was limited to the interest of younger people. This is a historical mystery, fantasy time travel genre tale in which a fictional adolescent girl falls asleep and finds herself living through the real life events surrounding the 1918 fires in Minnesota. She sees these events through the eyes of her great aunt as a teenager, who disappeared during the evacuation during the fires and whose fate was never known.

The tale moves swiftly and pulls the reader along. The characters are lively, the sights sounds and smells are brought vividly to the reader as the young woman just entering womanhood goes on an errand to town and is separated from her family as a prarie fire rapidly engulfs her town and the community is forced to evacuate by train only to face additional hazards and finally she loses all track of her family and is separated from them forever. This story seems more timely and relevant to todays young reader since the devastation of so much of our southern coast than at the time it was written.

The genealogy chart and map of the Cloquet area were nice additions to the book. During the story characters in the book run back and forth through the town attempting to rescue persons from the fire, getting to the evacuation center etc. While the book is easy to follow without the visual aid, one can appreciate the heroic efforts of these people more when following along on the map.

I did not give this book 5 paws because I felt there was a chapter missing. At the end of the book, the young girl wakes up having experienced the adventure of her great aunt, knowing her fate and why her aunt never again onnected with her family. I feel that to be true to the genre, the girl would do something about what she learned since the loss of that aunt meant so much to the family, like do a search to find out if there was any evidence to substantiate the experience she'd had while asleep, and that the question that remained with the family about her fate would have prompted a modern young girl to do something about it and maybe reconnect the family. And seeking proof that the time travel experience was real, is normal in the genre. While the book is satisfying as is, I felt the final sentence hinting these might happen was not a good substitute for that last chapter I wanted to see to wrap it all up. Nevertheless I recommend this book.

Book Review: The Memory Quilt