I really liked a lot of things about this book. I'd never heard about it before, but it's a Newbery that our library had available as an e-audiobook, so I made my way through it this last week. The book is about a girl named Marly, and her family, who move to the country to live at her great-grandmother's old house, after her dad has come home after being a POW during WWII and needs time and help recuperating. Marly has all of these expectations about Maple Hill being full of miracles and making things happen to be better for them, and she is able to see lots of miracles there. Big ones, like her dad coming out of his depression and PTSD, and little ones, like finding the first spring flowers and seeing how to tap the trees for syrup. I loved Sorensen's depictions of the land around where they lived, and how beautiful it all was. And I loved the way Marly looked for miracles and was so happy with everything they found. The story was beautiful and fun.
But I feel like maybe, just maybe, this would have been one I would have liked better not as an audiobook. Marly came across as very annoying to me, as an adult. (But a kid might not see her as annoying.) I wonder if it might have seemed better not listening to her voice. I was also annoyed by how Marly and her brother Joe fought all the time and how Joe kept saying she couldn't do stuff because she was a girl, and how Marly would just say "I can too!" It really got old. But I feel like that was a small part of the story, and the rest of it was definitely worthwhile.
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