Hold on There, Sadie Coggins!

A spirited bildungsroman set in the late 1800s and woven from the history of debut author Wuorinen’s (Cully’s Gold, 2010, etc.) hometown.

Sadie Coggins is thrilled to have been accepted into a private high school far from her sleepy little home in Lamoine, Maine. Unfortunately, her father’s financial losses and her mother’s never-ending list of chores make leaving for school impossible. Aghast at the idea of staying home with bullies like her nemesis, Frank Smith, Sadie vows to save up money for school in any way she can. She’s happy to work at her uncle’s fishing camp, but when she’s offered the opportunity to profit from a dubious trade, she finds her morals at odds with her ambitions. She’s not the only Lamoine youngster yearning to leave home: Her best friend, Rosa May, shares her desire to attend high school, and Frank dreams of sailing away on his father’s ship. When a mean-spirited prank goes too far, however, all of their dreams are suddenly endangered. Meanwhile, Sadie finds her personal relationships in disarray as she drifts apart from Rosa, disappoints her father and develops a relationship with her tomboyish co-worker Nell, whose ideas about staying home are nowhere close to Sadie’s. Middle-grade historical fiction tropes abound: Headstrong protagonist Sadie, prissy good girl Rosa May and Sadie’s gruff but gentle father can feel a little too familiar to readers of Little House on the Prairie–style fiction, but Wuorinen offers enough backstory to allow the most important characters to feel fleshed out, if not fully authentic. The novel is deeply anchored in its setting; photographs of the Coggins family emphasize the fact that Sadie was a real person, and the dialogue captures the vernacular of the time. However, chapter headings detailing the times of sunrise and high tide lend a slightly gimmicky tone to an otherwise well-developed sense of place and time. As the conflict evolves into an upbeat yet satisfyingly complex conclusion, themes of feminism and delayed gratification arise but aren’t preached.

A well-constructed romp through a seldom-studied microcosm of American history.