★★★★☆
Author: Hope Jahren
Genre: YA/Middle Grade Historical Fiction
Content Warning: fire, mild violence
Format/Source: physical copy provided by publisher
From Goodreads: In this brand new reimagining, Mary Jane—the red-headed spark from Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, who stole Huck’s heart in just 30 pages—comes to life with her own story of adventuring down the Mississippi River in the 1840s.
Meet Mary Jane Guild — she’s on a dangerous and unpredictable adventure down the Mississippi River — and she’ll steal Huck Finn’s heart along the way. In his classic work Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain briefly introduces “Mary Jane, the red-headed one.” In no time Mary Jane becomes the girl Huck thinks about “a many and a many million times.”
Now author Hope Jahren has created for Mary Jane a life as vivid and compelling as Huck’s. These pages will show you the real Mary Jane. A girl on her own dangerous, unpredictable journey down the Mississippi River in pre-Civil War America. Equipped with an uncanny ability for mathematics, a talent for sewing, and a bale of beaver skins, Mary Jane navigates deadly illnesses, angry mobs, treacherous landowners, outright thieves and swindlers, and more than a thousand miles of muddy water. What’s more, she thrives in the face of these challenges, thanks to support from strangers who become friends.
Traveling solo requires Mary Jane to grow up fast, but it ultimately leads her to a new resilience, a love of adventure, deep and enduring sisterhood, and a blue-eyed, ponytailed boy she can’t stop thinking about.
Jahren offers a wealth of layered characters and deeply researched, authentic details of changing times in the North and South. Using the language and style of Twain and shifting the point of view to a smart and determined young woman, she explores timeless themes of duty, family, romance, and betrayal, with grit and courage at the core.
While I absolutely loved the book – the tenacity of Mary Jane and the adventures she thrives in made me cheer – the author discussion was something else entirely!
Check it out below!
When did you start writing?
Before I remember! My dad kept a poem that I wrote when I was little – maybe about 5? – that he thought was interesting. I don’t even remember writing it!
What is your writing routine?
I wake up in the morning and go straight to the computer in my pajamas. I write until I start to feel yucky about what I am writing, like “ugh this isn’t any good, who would want to read this?” I’ve learned that that is my brain telling me to stop for the day. Then I go and do something else, go to the library and do some research perhaps. The next day I wake up and look what I wrote yesterday and think “hmm this ain’t half bad.” So I’ve learned that feelings of discouragement are actually just a function of my body clock, a signal to go elsewhere and wait for the writing urge to come back tomorrow.
What comes first for you — the plot or the characters — and why?
Both at the same time, I think. It’s impossible to separate them. They work themselves out in parallel.
What inspired the idea for your book?
Like a lot of people my age, I’ve read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn many times: in school, in college, to my own kiddo … but there was something about Mary Jane that didn’t sit right with me. She only appears near the end for a few pages, but the things she does and says don’t quite seem natural … and then there’s this dead body … I wondered about it for a decade before I decided that I had to figure it out. I had to discover her real story, instead of the one that Huck had assumed based on the little he knew of the world.
How would you describe your book’s ideal reader?
A highschooler or young adult who can be a friend to someone in trouble. Mary Jane’s got a lot on her plate, and she desperately needs friends – that’s why she’s telling you her story in the hopes that you’ll see something good in her and want to spend time with her. I want readers to walk away feeling like they’ve made a new friend.
Would you and your main character get along?
Probably, yes. My character is more like Joanna’s – Mary Jane’s cousin. She’s more introverted and less adventuresome than Mary Jane, but she loves animals and wants to learn everything about whatever she’d interested in. She goes on to have an exciting life full of unique adventures; I really hope that I get a chance to tell her story too.
About the Author:
HOPE JAHREN is a teacher, scientist, and book lover living in Oslo, Norway. Recognized asone Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, Jahren is the recipient of three FulbrightAwards and was named one of the Brilliant 10 by Popular Science magazine in 2005. She isthe author of two works of nonfiction: The Story of More and Lab Girl, winner of the NationalBook Critics Circle Award for autobiography. Adventures ofMary Jane is her first work offiction.
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