Based on the diary of a very young orphaned girl, this is a bit of a haunting book, but the illustrations add some beauty to Opal's harsh world.

Wow! This book is so depressing, made somewhat less depressing by Opal’s connections to various animals and plants, the fact that she was writing, the fact that she seemed to feel some comfort in the presence of her dead parents.

Orphaned, living with a family that makes her work hard and seems to show her no affection, this is presented as a portion of her diary covering her 5th-6th year, a time when she was supposedly just learning to write, and missing many days of school due to her servitude.

Opal’s reaction to the death of “Michael Raphael” was so painful.

I almost laughed at the end when the author’s note painted an even grimmer picture of Opal’s life than did Opal’s own words, and how it ended with “And now you might want to start a diary of your own.” It struck me as funny because hopefully most child readers, after being saddened (devastated?) by Opal’s diary, hopefully their lives are better and their diary contents are less disturbing. However, this would make a good book to read with orphans, foster kids, kids who have to move, kids with otherwise difficult lives, and anyone who loves nature and its animals and plants.

The illustrations are charming!

Not for preschoolers.

A terribly sad book. My mother used to use it for her 2nd graders when they started journal writing...

Pretty illustrations, but it was sad.

This book is actually excerpts from a controversial diary of a young girl in the early 1900's. Controversial because there are questions about the truth...I almost hope this isn't true...a five-year-old is orphaned and taken in by completely unsympathetic folks whom she calls 'the father' and 'the mother.' The mother keeps Opal home on laundry days and makes the little girl do way more than a child's share of the chores. One wonders, but Opal never realizes, whether they adopted the girl as a servant.

Opal's birth parents were readers and writers -- they kept journals, and according to the story, so does she. She is extremely close to the animals and plants in her world, naming them all wonderfully classic names: the calf Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the tree, Michael Raphael, and the mouse, Felix Mendelssohn.

Opal does make human friends too, Dear Love and the blind girl give her a feel for human love until she's moved away by the father and the mother.

The illustrations in this edition are beautiful companions to the lyricism of the words...Sharing this will open lots of conversations with students.