Ransom doesn't let you forget that these Blackburn kids are *screwed up,* something that touched me much more clearly as an adult.

And little brother Edward's obsessive need to build castles out of blocks is rather heartbreaking in its desperation. Like her wealthy, proper parents are going to stand for *that.*Ī 'defiant little rich girl' story could have easily fallen apart, but Ransom makes it work, mostly due to her evocative depictions of Emily's extreme depression. But a little spark of interest has come back into Emily's life, and it's not long before she's thrown herself into a new role as a volunteer nurse at the hospital where Stephen works. Emily's impressed with Stephen's knowledge, but he makes it clear that he hates the Park Avenue crowd. The doctor brings a handsome medical student named Stephen Reed along on his house calls. Everything changes when her little brother catches scarlet fever, and Emily makes a decision to stay in New York and care for him. She's not just bored with the Gilded Age, she's dangerously depressed over her stifling lack of options.Įmily has been reduced to wandering through life, feeling dull and empty, unable to enjoy the company of her cousin Annabelle and her best friend, Worthington Bates, and listlessly preparing for a trip to Europe she doesn't want to take. It's to be expected that a plucky Sunfire heroine would be bored by this, but Ransom takes it a few steps further with Emily. She literally has nothing interesting going on in her sharply regimented life. Yeah, they kinda did! Emily Blackburn is a ridiculously wealthy kid in turn-of-the-twentieth-century New York City. I hastily re-added it to my collection and curled up on the couch one day to see if my nostalgic feelings towards Emily would hold up. I looked back on this particular Sunfire quite fondly as one of my childhood favorites. Rustad and illustrated by Christine M.(See my review of Amanda for my general review of the series.) “Why Do Puddles Disappear?” written by Martha E.“Let's Explore Phases of the Moon” by Laura Hamilton Waxman.“ Let's Explore the Five Senses” by Candice Ransom.This reading challenge and curated ebook collection introduces students to attention-grabbing scientific topics, experiments, and discoveries. Each ebook reading challenge includes three curated and leveled ebooks with perpetual simultaneous use licenses, so that your readers have unlimited access to top-notch reading content within Beanstack, anywhere and anytime your challenge is running. These challenge materials are for use with purchased ebook reading challenges, which school media specialists and librarians can order via their Challenges dashboard.

Emily by Candice Ransom