Nory Ryan's Song | 
| Author: Patricia Reilly Giff
Publisher: Yearling
Category: Book
List Price: $6.50
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Avg. Customer Rating:  62 reviews
Sales Rank: 116677
Media: Paperback
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.2 x 0.5
ISBN: 0440418291
EAN: 9780440418290
ASIN: 0440418291
Publication Date: September 10, 2002
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Amazon.com Review
Life is hard for poor Irish potato farmers, but 12-year-old Nory Ryan and her family have always scraped by... until one morning, Nory wakes to the foul, rotting smell of diseased potatoes dying in the fields. And just like that, all their hopes for the harvest--for this year and next--are dashed. Hunger sets in quickly. The beaches are stripped of edible seaweed, the shore is emptied of fish, desperate souls even chew on grass for the nourishment. As her community falls apart, Nory scrambles to find food for her family. Meanwhile, the specter of America lurks, where, the word is, no one is ever hungry, and horses carry milk in huge cans down cobblestone streets. As Patricia Reilly Giff writes in her note to the reader, the Great Hunger of 1845 to 1852 was a tragic time for the Irish. Enough food to feed double the population was sent out across the sea, while an indifferent government ignored the starving masses. More than one million of the eight million people in Ireland died. Nory Ryan's Song, a fictionalized account based on this terrible era in history, describes the heroic struggles of one girl who refuses to give in to hunger, exhaustion, and hopeless circumstances. Young readers may have heard of the Irish Potato Famine, but they won't truly understand it until they meet Nory. Giff is the author of many beloved books for children, including the Newbery Honor Book Lily's Crossing and the Polk Street School series. (Ages 9 to 12) --Emilie Coulter
Product Description
Nory Ryan's family has lived on Maidin Bay on the west coast of Ireland for generations, raising a pig and a few chickens, planting potatoes, getting by. Every year Nory's father goes away on a fishing boat and returns with the rent money for the English lord who owns their cottage and fields, the English lord bent upon forcing the Irish from their land so he can tumble the cottages and clear the fields for grazing. Times are never easy on Maidin Bay, but this year, a terrible blight attacks the potatoes. No crop means starvation. Twelve-year-old Nory must summon the courage and ingenuity to find food, to find hope, to find a way to help her family survive.
From the Hardcover edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 57 more reviews...
 Excellent June 25, 2008
I am taking my children to my Grandfather's home town in Ireland and to visit distant cousins. I bought the book to give them an idea of my great grandparents struggles. We read the book in a day and moved to Maggie's Door the next day. We all fell in love with Nory Ryan.
Wonderful February 22, 2008
I could feel the hunger in my stomach! Once again, Patricia Reilly Giff (did i spell it right?) gives us a unique book. With a strong, very believable main character and an interesting plot and setting, I was interested in every page. I couldn't put it down, and i read it all night. And since historical fiction is my favorite genre, this was especially a pleasure for me. Definitely a must buy, great book!
Irish need not apply November 2, 2007
8 out of 13 found this review helpful
"Irish need not apply." This was a common placard hanging in store windows in New York neighborhoods after the immigration of the Irish, following the Great Potato Blight and resulting famine in Ireland, 1845-1852. They arrived dirty, hungry, dressed in rags, carrying no possessions, and speaking a strange Celtic language. Too different from the American Dream to be part of it.
Nory Ryan's Song is a narrative explanation of how and why those Irish left their beloved land, starving and in rags, to claim the largesse America offered. Giff strikes exactly the right chord in balancing sickening details of the famine with respect for the sensibilities of a 9-12 audience.
This is the time of the great English take-over and their relentless effort to drive out the Irish from their own tiny plots of land. Not only did they take the land, they took animals, work tools, everything that gave the slightest hope of survival. No wonder the Irish have no fondness for the English. The expected Irish characters are present: the large Mallon family with an abundance of boys, the Ryans with an abundance of girls and one tiny boy, the feared local herbalist, the horrid English landlord and his henchman. Other books have portrayed famine and starvation with great conviction, but Giff makes us feel Nory's personal hunger and her powerful need to provide for others, like Queen Maeve of Irish legend.
But, oh, the desperation from a total lack of food and the human drive to live, thus the eternal ember of the hearth that Nory learns to tend after her last older sister leaves for New York. Nory Ryan is just a snippet of a twelve-year-old with a lyrical voice that stirs the most surprising people. After members one by one leave, Nory and Patch, her skin-and-bones brother, are left. Anna, the local herbalist, takes them in and teaches Nory healing skills, and wrings out one of the most touching instances of deep love in 9-12 literature.
The landscape, including animals, is just as much a character as the people. Giff's writing is so painterly that the reader is carried away with the saltiness of the winds, the putrid, rotting smell of the blighted potatoes, the wretched taste of the limpets taken from the sea, and the visual imagery of feet caked in dirt, ragged wisps of Patch's nightshirt that he wears 24/7, the razor sharp blades of grass that line the path to the ocean, the claws of the seabirds Nory tries to take from their nests.
Reviewers make much of the last part of the book when Nory finds a way to feed her remaining brood over the weeks they await either return of or word from her father. Her last efforts are no more heroic than the others. Each does what is required. Finally, word comes and she begins her journey to New York and the placards in the windows. She plans to meet milk wagons filled with cans of milk and streets filled with jewels. There is a sequel: Maggie's Door.
The book provides enough detail of the potato blight, the famine, the cruelty of the English for the impetus to read further. An author's delight. Giff's book is highly recommended.
Potato Famine June 13, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Nory is a typical twelve-year-old girl living in Ireland in the mid-1800s. Her mother died giving birth to her little brother, so she and her two older sisters and grandfather take care of each other while her father leaves on long fishing trips to earn their rent money. The English lord who owns their land, though, would rather they couldn't pay their rent. Then he would be free to destroy their home and use that land for his sheep to graze.
Things have gone reasonably well for awhile, though, and Nory's family has been able to pay their rent and live mostly off of the potatoes that are planted in their yard. Nory's oldest sister is saving up money to marry a neighbor. Then one of their other neighbors falls too far behind on rent and can't stop the lord from destroying her home. Nory's sister is worried, and she and her fiance use their money to take a ship to the United States, to try to find a better life there.
After Nory's sister leaves, things get even worse. Her father is taking much longer to return from fishing than he usually does, and the lord has come to their home to warn them about not paying their rent. Then all of the potatoes in their yard and the yards of their neighbors turn black and give off a horrible smell. There is no way they can be eaten, but the people have no other food. Will Nory and her family be able to survive?
I liked the history behind this book. It was interesting to read what life was like in Ireland, and to see what people may have been thinking when the potato famine hit. I liked the character of Anna. She was strong and sympathetic although she must have been suffering herself.
I didn't like the idea that everyone thought life in America would be so much better than life in Ireland. I know my history, and know that things weren't much better for the Irish immigrants in America.
 Nory Ryan's Song April 19, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Nory Ryan's Song is about a girl who lives on the west coast of Ireland in Maidin Bay with her family in 1845. It's very beautiful there. But life there isn't easy. Nory's family plants potatoes there for a living. Nory's dad sailed away on a boat to go fishing to earn rent money for Lord Cunningham. The English lord forced the Irish to leave their land, so he can tear down their cottages and clear fields for sheep. Many people left Maidin Bay, and never returned. Nory's sister Maggie set off for Brooklyn. Nory dreams where all the Ryan's would live together as a family. A blight attacks the potatoes, which means everybody will go into starvation. And Nory's dad doesn't return when he usually does. Nory has to use courage and ingenuity to find food, find hope, and a way for her family to survive.
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