I read Miss Emily by Burleigh Muten. It is about Emily Dickinson, who was a real person but the book is historical fiction. The characters in the book call her Miss Emily (or just Emily). Emily is the aunt of two children: Mattie,and Ned. Across the street are their friends, Mac and Sally. Even though Emily is a grown-up, she likes to play with children. One day, she announces that the circus is going to come to town and she wants to sneak out at night and see the circus train arriving, so they can be the first to see the circus. The book takes place in Amherst, in Massachusetts.

Two parts I liked about the book were first, when Emily assigned characters to each child. Ned was “Senor Ranchero,” the ringmaster, Sally was “Sal the Gal”, Mattie was “Miss Swiftly”, half girl half bird, and Mac was King Boaz the Brave. I think this idea connects to our immigrant personas because it is a character we are pretending to be. My second favorite part was when the kids put on a show for Miss Emily and their other aunt, Vinnie, in the barn. I think this is interesting because it is the children’s way of making their own version of the circus. Three words to describe Emily are courageous, respectful and creative. Courageous because she is sneaking out at night and if she got caught the whole town would know and they would be in trouble. Respectful because she is always thinking about including all ages and people. Creative because she makes up stories and characters to go with them, like the circus characters she made for the kids.

I enjoyed this book because it is about an adventure – the adventure is that they are running through the woods to see the circus. It is pretty short, so if you like short books I would recommend it. I learned Emily Dickinson was a very interesting person, she wrote nearly 1,800 poems even though only ten were published. I would give this book four stars.

I also went to the Emily Dickinson museum in Amherst and I learned a lot of facts about her, like some of the poems she wrote. The museum is in the house she lived in. That’s where I got this book!