May B by Caroline Starr Rose

Ma and Pa want me to go

and live with strangers.

I won't go.

There are so many reasons why I was attracted to this book. It is a verse novel and I adore this genre. The setting is the prairie which is a place that fascinates me. I think this fasciation goes back to my childhood reading and enjoyment of the Little House on the Prairie. Finally this is an emotional story where the main character shows enormous resilience.

May B is sent away to live with Oblingers. Her family are so desperately poor that they accept money for her services. Mr Oblinger has a new wife.  "The brides not settled ... she's missing home." The new home is a soddy or sod house with dirt floors, thick walls and often only one window.

You can read more about the construction of a sod house here.

May B packs her few clothes, her only book and her slate. May B is desperate to learn to read. May B and her father travel the fifteen miles to the isolated home. Mrs Oblinger is not welcoming. It is clear she is desperately unhappy. Her treatment of May B seems almost cruel at times.  Then one day her demeanour changes. She asks for some biscuits and says she will take a walk. Later in the day May B finds a note:

Mr Oblinger,
You've been so kind,
but I can't stay.
I'm taking the train
back to Ohio.
Please understand.
Louise.

Mr Oblinger leaves immediately to retrieve his young wife. May B waits and waits but the pair never return.  What will May B do? She is supposed to stay here until Christmas. It is late August. In every direction the prairie looks the same. If she tries to walk home she is sure to become lost. Winter is approaching and supplies are running out.

Here are a set of teaching notes. These would be useful if you wanted to read May B with a Book Discussion group. I especially appreciated finding a comprehensive list of all the vocabulary used in this book and some background reading about life on the frontier.

I would pair this book with Sarah, Plain and Tall and Black-eyed Susan by Jennifer Armstrong. If you want to explore the topic of dyslexia you might like to read The wild book by Margarita Engle.

Kirkus use the word "extraordinary" in their star review:

As unforgiving as the western Kansas prairies, this extraordinary verse novel—Rose’s debut—paints a gritty picture of late-19th-century frontier life from the perspective of a 12-year-old dyslexic girl named Mavis Elizabeth Betterly… May B. for short. Kirkus

May B. can and will succeed. If she fails, she knows that she'll get up, shake off her disappointment and move forward until she finds her own place where earth meets the sky. Clear Eyes Full Shelves