Book description
The state of Iowa was still young and wild when Wayne Lockwood came to it from New England in 1851. He claimed a quarter-section about a hundred miles west of Dubuque and quickly came to appreciate widely scattered neighbors like Jeremiah Martin, whose seven daughters would have chased the gloom…
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Why read it?
2 authors picked A Song of Years as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I loved and identified with Suzanne, an imaginative dreamer in a practical family and greedy for learning.
1850s and ‘60s Iowa history is viewed through a family chronicle and a satisfying slow-burn romance. Song of Years was part of the inspiration for my first (practically unreadable) novel, written in high school with an antagonist named after one of Aldrich’s characters.
The poetic descriptions of nature and the details of food and clothing helped immerse me in that world.
From Linda's list on The best unforgettable American historical novels featuring young heroines.
A Song of Years captures all of the struggle and angst of carving out a home from pure, unspoiled Iowa prairie by those bold pioneers who risked everything to do so. While reading, I became the heroine, Abby Deal, as she sacrificed and struggled to wrest a life and create a home from the frontier that challenged her and her family at every turn. Realistic, even epic, this 1939 novel is on my keeper shelf.
From Laura's list on The best novels about home.
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