Horn Book Review
Fifteen-year-old Otto describes his family's immigration to Minnesota in 1905. Otto, his parents, and sisters all find life in the iron mining community difficult and vastly different from their comfortable home in Finland. Historical facts are neatly woven into the story, which gains suspense with union struggles and a miners' strike. Historical notes, photos, and maps are appended. From HORN BOOK Fall 2001, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
The latest in this series of historical diaries recounts the story of Otto Peltonen, a Finnish boy who travels with his mother and two sisters to America in 1905 to join his father, who is already working in the iron mines of Minnesota. Unfortunately, Ottos expectations of America have far exceeded the gritty reality. We pulled into the train station late in the afternoon. Not only are the streets in Hibbing not paved with gold, but they are rutted with dusty wagon tracks. Otto and his family are dismayed when they see that their new home is little more than a shack in a squatters camp nicknamed Finn Town. Even more unsettling, Otto barely recognizes his father in the unkempt, angry man who cant stop talking about the need to organize the miners into a union. Despite his disappointment, Otto soon adapts to life in Hibbing, a town he describes as a dull collection of telegraph poles and plain-looking buildings, with 40 to 50 saloons catering to the miners who come from at least 35 different countries. Ottos father works ten-hour shifts at the mine, six days a week, under extremely dangerous conditions. Mine accidents are all-too-common and are an ever-present worry for the families of miners. After a year in school, Otto joins his father in the mines, where he sees the dismal working conditions first-hand. After two years in America, Ottos family has finally saved enough money to buy a farm, on which Ottos father can fulfill his dream of being his own boss. While the reader learns about the harsh working conditions of the early part of the 20th century and about the difficulties workers had in ameliorating those conditions, the diary reveals much more than Ottos worries and his sense of disappointment in America. He is playful, intrepid, appealing, and full of life. Because it is replete with gory descriptions of mining accidents, complaints about his annoying younger sister, and accounts of hijinks with his best friend Nikko, readers will vastly enjoy following Ottos life for the two years the diary covers. A good choice for reluctant readers and an interesting counterpart to Our Only May Amelia (1999), which gives a girls perspective of the Finnish immigrant experience. (historical note, photos) (Fiction. 9-14)
Booklist Review
Gr. 6^-12. In this entertaining entry in the My Name Is America series, teenager Otto Peltonen uses his journal to describe life in a Minnesota mining town at the start of the last century. Accompanied by his mother and two sisters, Otto survives a horrendous journey across the Atlantic to join his father in America, where he anticipates idyllic opulence. Instead he is faced with life in a shantytown where the division by wealth looms ominously before him. As Otto changes from a dedicated student to a labor-worn miner, his parents go through their own fascinating battles, which add dimension to the plot: Otto's father joins a miners' strike against United States Steel, the first billion-dollar industry in U.S. history; Otto's mother becomes a vigilant suffragette. As in his earlier series book Journal of Sean Sullivan (1999), about the Transcontinental Railroad, Durbin enriches his historic backdrop with references to Twain, Carnegie, and Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Historical notes and authentic photos round out this captivating, dramatic view of the past. --Roger Leslie