Book Review Archive

21 May 2009

Greener Grass by Caroline Pignat. Red Deer Press, 2009. Ages 10-14.

At 14, Kathleen Mary Margaret Byrne (Kit) has hopes and dreams that lift her above the poverty and toil of her life as daughter of a tenant farmer in nineteenth century Ireland. She yearns for “Greener Grass.”

Kit and her family rely on the potato crop, as do almost all families in Ireland, for their own food as well as for a meagre income to pay their rent and taxes. Every year during the “summer hunger,” the time when the previous year’s crop has been eaten but the new crop is not yet ready for harvest, Kit’s father goes to England to work, sending back his modest earnings so that his wife and children can buy food.

Because Kit tells her own story in a picture-frame format, remembering a time when her family was together and happy, the reader knows from the first page that things will not go well for the Byrnes. Indeed, during the Great Irish Famine--which is the historical setting of the book--Ireland lost a quarter of its population: One million men, women, and children died of starvation, and another million left the country.

Throughout the narrative, Kit’s voice is simple and direct, relating her story without drama or self-pity. Her straightforward, sincere account allows readers to experience her fears--for her absent father, for her family, for her future--and also her courage, built upon family ties, firm faith, and her own strength of character. 

Many of Kit’s memories are painful, but others provide pleasure: a village dance where she partners with handsome Tom Lynch; finding a handmade love token at her special rock; her first kiss. 

Carefully researched and historically accurate, this story provides an engrossing plot with engaging characters. The facts provide a framework for the fiction. Families really did go to sleep one night with their crops healthy in the field, then wake the next morning to find the plants dead, the potatoes rotten in the ground. The chasm between rich and poor really was so vast that two families could make a meal of the leftover roast meat intended for one pet dog in the land owner's great house. Landlords really did burn down the homes of families unable to pay their rent.

Greener Grass is not a story with a happily-ever-after ending. Instead it is a tribute to the persistence of hope and the indomitable human spirit.