Small Beauties: The Journey of Darcy Heart O'Hara [Hardcover]

This is probably one of the most moving tales in a children's book I have read in recent years. The story is simple but, unfortunately, a common story which affected many generations on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The time period in which the story takes place in the mid 1840s and the story begins in Ireland. The Great Famine, which more or less started in 1845 and lasted until at least 1851 is the background for the beginning of this saga. Darcy Heart O'Hara is a small girl living in a small house in Ireland. Her parents and Grandparents have a small holding, a small farm, in which they scratch out a meager, at best, living. Darcy is fond of small things, a flower, a pebble, a blade of grass, a bird in flight and his lost feather. All of these things make up Darcy's world as the world as she knows it is crashing around her as the first crop of potatoes fail and then the next. Darcy has the wonderful ability to see beauty where others see only hard work and ruin.

A very large number of Americans (and Canadians) today can trace their roots back to these horrible years in Ireland. It is as much our heritage as it is the Irish. They, in essence, are us. We tend to forget this and seem to be forgetting it more and more as each year passes. This book reintroduces this disaster and, through a child's eye, gives us a glimpse of where many of us come from. The book tells of the families' forced movement from their home by the "Lords in Authority," the burning of their home and possessions, and eventually their immigration to America. I will say at this point that the author has done a wonderful job of telling this story without the horrible details that were actually involved, something I feel would not be particularly good for this age group to read, i.e. the age group targeted by the book. The story conveys the feelings and the trauma, without giving the gory details. This is good.

Through all this, Darcy, the little girl, keeps her small treasures of beauty. We have the telling of wonderful tales by her old grandfather and are able to see the unconquerable courage of a little girl and her people. This is a tale well worth telling and well worth remembering.

The art work is masterfully done in pencil, oil and charcoal by Adam Rex and the pictures alone are worth the price of the book. The text is simple, concise and quite understandable. It goes perfectly with the illustrations.

I do hope that we all have the ability to keep a bit of the burnt hearthstone with us always.
Highly recommend this one!

At its core, "Small Beauties" is a story of heartbreak and loss. It's the fictional tale of a single family, among many, who were displaced by the famine that swept over Ireland's potato fields in 1845 and forced countless starving, poverty-stricken people to emigrate from their beloved green isle.

But this story, written by Elvira Woodruff and lovingly illustrated by Adam Rex, focuses on a young girl, Darcy Heart O'Hara, who is too young to understand the disastrous events around her. She only knows that her family has been evicted, their tiny home burned, and they are headed across the ocean to a new life in America. She knows she will probably never see her grandparents again, and that, more than anything, breaks her heart.

But Darcy has an eye for small beauties, the small things usually overlooked, and she's sewn some of these tiny wonders into the hem of her dress, where they stay throughout the long journey to Manhattan. There, huddled in a cramped room while they prepare to meet their fate, she brings out these tokens and shares with her miserable family small memories of home: a magpie's feather, a bead from her grandmother's broken rosary, a chip of stone from their hearth.

And for one night, at least, it's enough.

Woodruff says in her afterword the story, though fictional, was inspired by the true travails of manufacturing pioneer Henry Ford's grandparents, among others. The story is short, sweet and touching, a reminder of the vital connections to home that can sustain people forced to leave. The large illustrations are painted in warm, subdued colors, giving an expressive human face to the O'Hara family's suffering and joy.

"Small Beauties" is a tiny slice of a very large story, perfectly condensed and presented for young readers who also might miss the grander scope of the Irish Famine.

by Tom Knapp, Rambles.NET editor

Peering through the eyes of a young girl, readers can understand and appreciate the hardships of those in Ireland who endured the potato famine, and ultimately made their way to America. Our children remarked that if it were not for that sad event in history, very few Irish families would have ever made the trip. And although prayers seem to go unanswered, in the end it is providential that so many families did imigrate. This book provides a valuable lesson in history and also a catalyst for interesting conversations.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 12 reviews  4.4 out of 5 stars