A Voice of Her Own: Becoming Emily Dickinson - Hardcover

Dana, Barbara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060287047 ISBN 13: 9780060287047

Publisher: HarperTeen, 2009

Synopsis

When something is most important to me and I do not want to lose it, I gather it into a poem. It is said that women must employ the needle and not the pen. But I will be a Poet! That's who I am!

Before she was an iconic American poet, Emily Dickinson was a spirited girl eager to find her place in the world. Expected by family and friends to mold to the prescribed role for women in mid-1800s New England, Emily was challenged to define herself on her own terms.

Award-winning author Barbara Dana brilliantly imagines the girlhood of this extraordinary young woman, capturing the cadences of her unique voice and bringing her to radiant life.

About this title

About the Author:

Author, playwright, and actor Barbara Dana spent over a decade researching Emily Dickinson for this book. Her award-winning books for children include Zucchini and Young Joan, a novel based on the girlhood of Joan of Arc. She is also the coeditor of Wider Than the Sky: Essays and Meditations on the Healing Power of Emily Dickinson for adults. Ms. Dana has three grown sons. She lives in South Salem, New York, with her yellow lab, Riley.

From Booklist:

Dana’s novel Young Joan (1991) envisioned Joan of Arc’s youth. This title imagines the life of another famous woman, Emily Dickinson, moving from the poet’s girlhood into her young-adult life. Dana spent 10 years researching this title, and the novel’s historical and domestic details sometimes threaten to overwhelm the story; indeed, finding drama in such a quiet life is certainly challenging. Dana succeeds by creating a memorable, often vibrant voice in Emily’s  first-person narration, which incorporates archaic language and lines from Dickinson’s poems and journals. Readers may recognize themselves in Emily’s initial terror over puberty, her intense friendships, and her curiosity about young men (“the Whisker Set”), while her ambivalence about marriage (“We give our lives to this man, but what of ours?”) and her literary aspirations form a strong feminist thread that will also draw YAs. An obvious choice for curriculum support, this heartfelt, exhaustively detailed portrait humanizes the reclusive literary figure and offers an intimate sense of how a poet draws from small moments, “gathered on scraps,” to create great works. Grades 8-12. --Gillian Engberg

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperTeen
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0060287047
• ISBN 13: 9780060287047
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368