Faith, Hope, and Ivy June by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor tells the story of two girls from very different places who are given the opportunity to see how the other half lives in an eye-opening way.
Summary
Catherine and Ivy June are two girls who live in Kentucky, one in Lexington and the other in the mountains of Appalachia. The girls are selected to participate in a cultural exchange program where each goes to live at the others home for a 2 week period of time. The girls keep journals which they can share if they would like, but they have to write in them daily so that they can reflect on how they changed by the end of the program.
Both girls start out being mistrustful and somewhat leery of others in their new surroundings. They deal with their own feelings and insecurities about judgements and prejudices in their own ways and also have to navigate issues with family members and friends at school. They come from different worlds, but in the end they find that they have a lot in common too.
Impressions
This is an honest book that touches on some difficult subjects of growing and discovering what you think and feel as an individual. Each girl has struggles with their own prejudices and preconceived ideas and each has to stand up to friends and family members who are unkind and insensitive. Personal integrity and humility help the girls come to grips with their differences and understand their own strength.
Professional Reviews
Ivy June is a poor Kentucky mountain girl who, in an age of cell phones and computers, still goes to the bathroom in an outhouse; Catherine Combs is a wealthy private-school girl from Lexington. Their schools plan an exchange that has each girl living with the other for two weeks, journaling and reporting back to their schoolmates about their experiences. Although the book offers journal entries from both girls, this is by no means a balanced narrative; rather, it is Ivy June's story of seeing life beyond her mountain home. The girls experience the rather predictable culture shocks as well as the commonalities of friendship troubles, but it isn't until they both suffer serious worries about their loved ones—Catherine's mother has heart surgery while she is staying with Ivy June, and Ivy June's grandfather is trapped in a mining accident and may die—that they realize their true connections. There is a pretty fair balance of profound insight and trite banalities here; most interesting are Ivy June's observations about the way children fit into their families, with her and her brothers and sister integral members of her family with necessary work to do, and Catherine and her siblings earning more praise and attention without practically contributing to the daily functioning of the family. The girls are just a bit too golly-gee and mannerly, even in their private journals, to be wholly credible or interesting, but their situations are compelling and detailed enough to cause readers to give some serious thought to what they themselves take for granted.
Coats, 2009
Ivy June Mosley and Catherine Combs are participating in the first-ever exchange program between their schools. Both are seventh-graders in Kentucky, but their worlds couldn’t be more different: Ivy June lives with her grandparents in their mountain home without indoor plumbing or a telephone, while Catherine lives in a big house in Lexington and has her own cell phone. While spending two weeks in each other’s homes, the girls record their observations in journals, and the well-chosen details and scenarios lend authenticity to the girls voices. Catherine is horrified to learn that she can only wash her hair once a week, for example. Jealous friends and a tactless grandmother add challenges, but two large events cement the girls’ relationship. Ivy June and Catherine are mature beyond their years, and a mine accident is too heavily foreshadowed, but both the settings and characters are described with affectionate nuance. Readers will connect to these engaging girls and celebrate as they learn they are “more alike than different.”
Rutan, 2009
Library Uses
This would be great as a book talk along with other similar titles about friendship and tolerance from the realistic fiction genre. It could also be used as a way to get kids interested in journal reading/writing.
References
Coats, K. (2009). Faith, Hope, and Ivy June. Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, 63(1).
Naylor, P. (2009). Faith, hope, and Ivy June. New York, NY: Delacorte Press.
Rutan, L. (2009). Faith, Hope, and Ivy June. Booklist.
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