{"id":15305,"date":"2026-05-13T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=15305"},"modified":"2026-05-13T06:56:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T11:56:53","slug":"quit-school-oh-no-no-unexpected-lives-of-ordinary-girls-by-j-anderson-coats-mg-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=15305","title":{"rendered":"Quit school? Oh, no, no! UNEXPECTED LIVES OF ORDINARY GIRLS, by J. Anderson Coats (MG book review)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"A<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

School is a haven,
reading takes her everywhere\u2026
someday she’ll really go!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their Colorado mining town, girls from Slovene families grow up and have families – no other options even in 1910. Stanislava escapes by reading from the tiny “penny library” near their Bohunk Town neighborhood. Oh, this story of an immigrant girl who changes her name and is sponsored at a lovely college is the best book ever!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Older sister Stina had to quit school early to take care of newborn Stanislava and the babies who came after. When she leaves to marry (not another Catholic – scandalous), Stanislava is expected to do the same!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Papa come all this way to America for freedom 20 years ago, and now he won’t allow her the opportunity to keep going to school – no!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tween sneaks aboard a boxcar and heads to Denver to find Stina and her new husband. But they’ve already left town, and a priest wants to send her home – can she find a school to help her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead she encounters a magnificent library that welcomes all and decides to stay there in its warmth and security. In the newspaper room looking at help wanted ads, she sees that the library has a training course test very soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visiting different parts of the library every day, introducing herself as Sylvia when a young Slovene mother needs help, hiding at closing time, waiting for the test day\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can she stay hidden and safe?
What if she doesn’t pass the test?
Where else can she go? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another strong young heroine from the author of
The Loss of the Burning Ground<\/em> (recommended at https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=14937<\/a>)
A Season Most Unfair<\/em> – https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=14170<\/a>
The Night Ride<\/em> – https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=13684<\/a>
R for Rebel<\/em> – https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=9958<\/a>
The Wicked and the Just <\/em>– https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=91<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which library is your favorite?
**kmm<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Book info<\/strong>: The Unexpected Lives of Ordinary Girls \/ J. Anderson Coats. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2025. [author site https:\/\/www.jandersoncoats.com\/the-unexpected-lives-of-ordinary-girls<\/a>] [publisher site https:\/\/www.simonandschuster.com\/books\/The-Unexpected-Lives-of-Ordinary-Girls\/J-Anderson-Coats\/9781665968614<\/a>] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the author and publisher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

School is a haven,reading takes her everywhere\u2026someday she’ll really go! In their Colorado mining town, girls from Slovene families grow up and have families – no other options even in 1910. Stanislava escapes by reading from the tiny “penny library” near their Bohunk Town neighborhood. Oh, this story of an immigrant girl who changes her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19,50],"tags":[22,55,230,11,20,5,16,18,40,43,522,228,49,184,132,193,56,15,206,9,21,57,521,35,33,6,8],"class_list":["post-15305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-historical","tag-behavior","tag-books","tag-colorado","tag-communication","tag-conflict","tag-coping","tag-determination","tag-family","tag-fathers","tag-growing-up","tag-immigration","tag-library","tag-memories","tag-mothers","tag-personal-finance","tag-prejudice","tag-reading","tag-relationships","tag-religion","tag-school","tag-self-image","tag-sisters","tag-slovenia","tag-surprises","tag-survival","tag-travel","tag-us-author"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15305"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15309,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15305\/revisions\/15309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}