This is such a heartwarming story of Phyllis and her family's struggle against hunger. It makes this kind of historical reading very relevant to today's front page news. The New World prejudices against Irish people (they are lazy and will happily take handouts rather than work) stem from this period when they were starving and had no choice but to take help.Ī keen reader will note that some of these themes are being played out in other countries into our own time.different famines, same old cruelties. The English Parliament delayed the release of the corn despite mass starvation. The food that was produced in Ireland was exported for a higher price to other countries. Irish 'peasants' who were unable to pay their rent were evicted, and their houses burned. The treatment that the Irish suffered at the hands of the English landlords is appalling, and tragic it seems pretty obvious in retrospect that the trauma that was endured fueled the Irish rebellion for generations.

But if you get over that bit of imagination, (and I had no problem doing so), the book is quite a good overall read, and eye-opening. Her brother, Pat, is a radical on the run from the police. She meets people who write for the newspaper that is agitating to free Ireland from England's control. Phyllis is literate, for example, which would not have been common for girls. Obviously, since the point of this series of 'first person' books is to educate young people, Phyllis knows far more about what is happening than the average 14 year old of the time would have known. The Hunger tells the story from the perspective of Phyllis who is 14 in 1845 when the first potato blight appeared.

More than one million people died between 18, some from starvation, and some from the diseases that preyed on the weakened people. I picked up Carol Drinkwater's book about the Irish potato famine because my mother's family came from Ireland and I was interested to know what my ancestors experienced in this terrible crisis.

The hunger carol drinkwater