I read this a long time ago, and honestly all I can remember is that I cried like a baby when I finished it. ( )

I have always loved historical fiction and Ann Rinaldi writes great YA level books in this genre. I find that she writes books that pretty accurate factually and that also have great characters who I am interested in learning how they live in the time period they exist in. ( )

Harriet Hemings loves her life at Monticello, where the former president Thomas Jefferson is head of the plantation. Although Harriet calls Jefferson "Master," she's never felt the reality of her enslavement, and rumor has it that she and her siblings are the master's mulatto children. Now the impending choice of whether or not to leave her home forever to live life as a free woman is breaking Harriet's heart in Wolf by the Ears by author Ann Rinaldi.

I was thirteen or so the first time I read this YA novel. It was quite the experience for me, getting me to chew on layered concepts that were still new to me at the time, such as the practice of some light-skinned people of color passing for white.

I'll admit my youth and the newness of it all for me back then had me more entranced (so to speak) than I was this time. While I still think it's a fairly rich work of historical fiction, I now recognize that I don't have much reason to like the heroine. She can be pretty childish and melodramatic, with tears coming to her eyes so frequently that it becomes tiring.

While the story sometimes feels like a drawn-out walk to the inevitable, with characters repeating the same sentiments over again, the ironies make the read worth it. The pain comes across well, but the tough, complex ironies of it all are where the story still gets me.

And it ultimately gives me hope. Indeed, the ironic "wolf" situation seemed so impossible to people back then. But time has shown us we didn't need that unjust wolf after all.

Can't let today's wolves stop us from envisioning a better future and fighting for it in whatever ways we can. ( )

A window of the other side of things. I chose this because Monticello is a favorite place of mine. Anything written about a place I've been ups it for me. I have walked those lawns and thought of the others who have done the same throughout time. Beautiful. ( )

Written before the conclusive DNA testing that proved Thomas Jefferson did have children with his slave Sally Hemings, Rinaldi's book explores the struggle of Sally's daughter Harriet to understand who she is. She is a light-skinned slave. There are rumors that the master is her father. Her freedom is guaranteed at age 21, but does she dare to take it? Her options are to stay on the plantation where she surely will be married to another slave, to leave the plantation as a free nigra, or to leave the plantation and pass as white.

If you're interested in the controversy over Jefferson and Sally Hemings, this is a riveting read. ( )