May B. by Caroline Starr Rose

May is helping out on a neighbor's Kansas prairie homestead—just until Christmas, says Pa. She wants to contribute, but it's hard to be separated from her family by 15 long, unfamiliar miles. Then the unthinkable happens: May is abandoned. Trapped in a tiny snow-covered sod house, isolated from family and neighbors, May must prepare for the oncoming winter. While fighting to survive, May's memories of her struggles with reading at school come back to haunt her. But she's determined to find her way home again.


I picked this one up because it was on many of the potential Newbery contenders for this year, but I truly don't see why. For me, there just was simply no depth to the story at all. I really did not want to find out what happened or why. I really do not enjoy books in verse and although this book is in verse, that is not what did it in for me. There was just nothing to make me feel like I knew the characters or wanted to care for them or find out what happened to them.