Ivy lives in the mountains in a tiny house with her Grandparents in Thunder Creek, Kentucky. She takes a long bus ride to school everyday. Her house doesn’t have an indoor bathroom.
Catherine lives in a large house in Lexington, Kentucky. Catherine’s mom drives her to school everyday. Her house has four bathrooms.
It’s hard to imagine that these girls are alive at the same time, since their way of life seems so different. Ivy seems like a girl from the past, but she isn’t. Their different ways of life are the reason each girl has been chosen to represent her school in an exchange program. Ivy will go live with Catherine for two weeks and then Catherine will go live with Ivy for two weeks. Can these two girls with such different lives find anything in common? Can they be friends?
As part of the exchange, each girl is asked to keep a journal of the time they spend together. The journal entries are part of the story. Ivy writes about finding out that Catherine shares a whole indoor bathroom with just her sister. Catherine writes about the fact that Ivy only washes her hair once a week and that the bathtub is a large tub on the back porch!
I really liked reading how each girl felt as she met and learned to know the other girl’s family. I liked reading about how the girls worried about what school would be like and what the kids would think. In the journals the girls are honest. Sometimes they don’t like what they are finding out and sometimes they do. I really liked the girls’ families and how each one reacted to their visitor.
“Different” doesn’t mean “better” or “worse,” it just means different, and different can be really, really good. Author: Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
- Read Chapters One and Two
- Amazon Look Inside Faith, Hope and Ivy June
- Google Preview Faith, Hope and Ivy June
- Faith, Hope and Ivy June on CD, Downloadable eBook or eAudio
| If you like the idea of an exchange, try The Whipping Boy or Freaky Friday. In both stories kids trade places just like Catherine and Ivy to walk a mile in someone elses shoes. You also might like Extra Credit. The kids in this story don’t actually trade places, but they do write each other letters to find out about a very different life. | |||
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