Growing Up Ivy

Submitted by dmacdonell on Sun, 2009-10-04 14:59

Growing Up Ivy

By Peggy Dymond Leavey

978-1-55488-723-1
July 2010
256pp, Paperback
$12.99 CAD

Shelve it

Peggy Dymond Leavey has written an engaging and moving story of a likable, imaginative girl. I kept reading late into the night, empathizing with Ivy and wanting to know what happened next. The realities of the Great Depression are brought to life with authentic, well-researched details.

middleschoolbookreviews.wordpress.com

Her inclusion of crisp, historical details makes this book believable. It is a suitable read for a middle-grade (Grades 7 and 8) reader who enjoys a sweet story about an intelligent girl.

KW Record (Kitchener-Waterloo)

Ivy is not the only wonderful character in this fine book, but this is definitely her story. The writing is commendable, the characters lively and likeable, the setting strong and the sense of community vibrant. I read late into the night wanting to know what would happen to these people that I had come to like so much. I enjoyed every page and recommend it highly. It would make a great read in an intermediate classroom and is certain to encourage discussion of the hard times that so many faced in the 1930s.

Sal's Fiction Addiction

Peggy Dymond Leavey has mastered the art of "showing" rather than "telling. In the early part of Growing Up Ivy, actions speak louder than words, giving readers a subtle yet clear picture of Ivy Chalmers's life with her mother, Frannie, in Depression-era Toronto.

Canadian Materials

Living in grim Depression-era Toronto with her actress mother, Frannie, Ivy Chalmers has never met her father. In 1931, Frannie sends twelve-year-old Ivy to stay with her paternal grandmother in Larkin, Ontario, while she seeks stardom in New York City. When Ivy's father, Alva, arrives unexpectedly in Larkin, he turns out not to be the Prince Charming she imagined, but an illiterate peddler. Rescuing Ivy from her uncompromising grandmother, Alva takes her with him for the summer, wandering the countryside by horse-drawn caravan, selling shoes.

Back in Larkin at summer's end, Ivy meets teenager Charlie Bayliss, orphaned as an infant and raised by his aunt on a farm outside town. Ivy has a flair for writing and boundless imagination, while Charlie loves baseball and loathes farming. Unknown to both of them, though, is a secret connection they share. When the final pieces of the puzzle of their lives fall into place, nothing will ever be the same.