The Secret Sisters

Ida Bid­son attend­ed a one-room school­house, but in Sep­tem­ber 1925, she says good­bye to her fam­i­ly. She won’t be home for two months. Ida dreams of being a teacher, so she must go 20 miles away to high school. Kind coun­ty school inspec­tor Miss Sedgewick lets Ida board with her for free, and every­thing feels so mod­ern: indoor plumb­ing, elec­tric­i­ty, and a tele­phone! Ida’s anx­ious to please but wres­tles with what’s con­sid­ered prop­er and what oth­er peo­ple think of her. When she makes some friends, they form the Secret Sis­ters club to try new things and help each oth­er in school. But the girls end up on the bad side of the prin­ci­pal, who has firm atti­tudes about lady­like behav­ior, women vot­ers, and the capa­bil­i­ty of rur­al stu­dents and threat­ens to expel them. Get­ting good grades on the upcom­ing midterm exams is crit­i­cal. While main­tain­ing a sol­id ground­ing in the 1920s, the nov­el tack­les self-dis­cov­ery amid chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions, includ­ing deal­ing with peer pres­sure, misog­y­ny, clas­sism, and gen­er­al unfair­ness, in ways con­tem­po­rary read­ers will find acces­si­ble and relat­able. His­tor­i­cal facts are mem­o­rably and organ­i­cal­ly con­veyed through Ida’s innate curios­i­ty. Char­ac­ters read White; one of Ida’s friends is from an immi­grant min­ing com­mu­ni­ty, and her name cues as hav­ing East Euro­pean her­itage. One for smart, out­spo­ken kids look­ing for their places in the world. (Kirkus Reviews)