Reviewer: Lori Graham
Title: Laura's Victory - Sisters in Time
Author: Veda Boyd Jones
Publisher: Barbour
ISBN-13: 978-1-59789-103-5
Release Date: April 2006
Genre/Sub-genre: Youth Inspirational Historical Fiction
Publisher’s Age/Grade Recommendation: Ages 9-12
OUAR’s Age/Grade Recommendation: Ages 7-12
Year/Setting: 1945
Overall Rating: 4.0
Veda's Website: www.vedaboydjones.com
Laura is a second grade student who has to adjust to a wealth of events. First, her brother, Eddie, is diagnosed with polio. This means her mother is going to be spending time at the hospital with him since there is a nursing shortage with the war going on. The family lives in, and runs, a hotel so all of the children at home have to pick up extra chores to help the family out. This includes disinfecting the hotel after Eddie’s diagnosis and also means Laura is running the office in the afternoon. Working the business end of things gives her the opportunity to get to know the other people living in the hotel even better and a common bond develops as they all have the war to bind them.
Corrine’s fiancé is missing in action. Maude’s son, Mr. Arnold’s grandson and Mrs. Lind’s nephew are all serving, along with Laura’s oldest brother. Laura’s best friend, Yvonne, has lost her brother in the war; Laura can only pray that doesn’t happen to any of the rest of them. She feels a deep need to understand where her brother is and use that to stay better connected with him. Given that the censor’s remove any reference to where the men are located, Laura comes up with a code for each of them to use with their loved ones. Laura’s brother is in Europe so Laura assigns each country a food name and can now watch where he goes.
When Eddie returns home from the hospital, life begins to become more normal until a Japanese family moves back to the hotel. They had lived there before being taken to a relocation center. They have a girl Laura’s age and she is asked to show the new girl around.
Ms. Jones has created a very interesting piece as we watch the growth of a young girl named Laura. Laura’s Victory happens on many levels. She has to watch a brother who is very close to her struggle to survive and then to overcome the ravages of polio on his body. At the same time, she even is worried that she might get sick because she was so close to her brother. Very little was known about polio and how it was transmitted back then. She has to step up to great responsibility on a family level with their family stretched thin by her mother being gone. Laura finds she is really good at organizing things and working in the office pleases her. The skills she learns there later help her run for class president which was rare for girls during that era.
All of these things are very personal but are in the midst of major cultural shifts for this country. Laura’s heart went out to the young Japanese girl living with the family who moved back to the hotel. They were actually her foster family as her mother had died in the center and her father was part of the U.S. military. Because she was Japanese in her appearance, the kids didn’t accept her. Laura had to figure that out which meant pointing out that those in the class with German relatives weren’t necessarily Nazis.
Laura might be a bit wise for a girl in second grade but she was put in a position where she had to grow up very quickly. All in all, it was a pretty accurate depiction of the events unfolding in 1945 and captured some of the emotions a young girl struggling to understand the world around her would feel.
Lori
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