Love Thy Neighbor: the Tory Diary of Prudence Emerson

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Description: This is not the life I imagined I would have. So laments Prudence Emerson, an inquisitive, distinctly non-prudent 13-year-old girl from Massachusetts who wants to be cheerful but who must, along with her Tory family, live in fear of her Patriot neighbors in the months leading up to the American Revolution. Like the other books in the Dear America series, Ann Turner's Love Thy Neighbor is recounted in diary form--a fictional diary that reveals the innermost thoughts of a young woman while painting a vivid picture of the times in which she lived. The innate complexities of the conflicts between Tories and Patriots are clearly presented, and readers will certainly gain a new understanding of the challenges of overthrowing foreign rule and beginning a democracy from the rarely explored perspective of a family "on the wrong side" of the war. Readers will also learn about daily colonial life--when bacon came from the pigs one owned, where ink was made from ink powder or maple bark, where girls were expected to embroider, wear corsets, scrub floors, go to church on Sundays, and generally mind their manners. Pru is a strong, spirited heroine whom readers will cheer on as she endures alienation from her Patriot friends, the sickness of her little sister, rising hostility, and ultimately, being uprooted from the home she loves to flee the danger of war. A note in the back further illuminates life in the Colonies, as do historical illustrations and a note from the author about her own family connection to this turbulent time. Two other fictional diaries set during the Revolutionary War are Kristiana Gregory's Dear America book The Winter of Red Snow: The Revolutionary War Diary of Abigail Jane Stewart and Barry Denenberg's My Name is America book The Journal of William Thomas Emerson: A Revolutionary War Patriot. (Ages 9 to 14) --Karin Snelson

Genre: Juvenile Fiction; Revolution, 1775-1783; Historical - United States - Colonial; Juvenile Historical Fiction; Children's 9-12 - Fiction - Historical; Massachusetts; Children: Grades 4-6; History; Juvenile Fiction / Historical / United States / Colonial and Revolutionary Periods; United States; American loyalists; Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Diaries; Fiction;

Average Review: 4.5 stars

Review: Poor Pru : For starters, let me just say two little things! I read this book over and over again. I can't help it! It is that good! I can really relate to Pru when it comes to feeling left out because you feel a certain way! People whom she thought were her friends only ended up stabbing her in the back! What could ever be worse than that? Her so called 'friends' did what they did just because she did not want a war to happen. "Love Thy Neighbor" is a very sad book and very good. I even read this book to my friend Ben in 7th grade. I had to help him read it because he had Dyslexia at the time. [I bet he still does.] Anyway, no one had forced me to help him, but I really wanted to help him overcome it. I bought this book for him at Borders as a gift, then began to read it to him in Civics class. He loved it!