Hunger by Donna Jo Napoli - OPTIONAL

Hunger by Donna Jo Napoli, 259 pages.  Simon and Schuster, 2018.  $17.  

Language: G; Mature Content: PG; Violence: G.  

BUYING ADVISORY: EL, MS – OPTIONAL  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: LOW  

Lorraine is a twelve year old living in Ireland during the potato famine.  It is 1846 and regardless of the precautions taken by the farmers, the potatoes are rotting, and people are starving.  Lorraine watches as her village grows smaller because people are starving to death, dying of illness or moving away in hopes of better opportunities.  Lorraine finds a wealthy British girl on the nearby estate, and although Lorraine sometimes finds food for herself, she feels guilty that she can’t share with her family, so she comes up with a plan.  

This book is slow and the amount of detail put into their starvation is exhausting.  The first half of the book doesn’t really have a story line because it is mostly descriptions of the foods the kids are dreaming of eating.  Lorraine is a likable character and the helplessness of those who lived during this famine is conveyed.  The back of the book has an extensive timeline of Ireland through the end of the famine, but I don’t think it’s something kids would spend the time to read.  The violence is rated PG because Lorraine sees someone shot during an uprising. 

C. Peterson