When Mickey Blanchette saw my copy of The Hunger, he misread the title as “I’m Hungry”—an understandable error for a feline with an ample waistline. And while the book features no cats, it does feature Mutt, a family dog. Mickey approved of that.
The Hunger, a fictionalized first-person account of the 14-year-old Philly McCormack, details the horrendous conditions of Ireland’s Great Famine. Better known within Ireland as an Gorta Mór (the Great Hunger), it was a seven-year period of starvation and disease that began in 1845 and ended with more than a million people dead and another million fleeing the country.
Yes, millions!
The story opens in the first year of the blight that destroyed not only the potato crop but ultimately the people who lived in West and Southwest Ireland. Written as a diary, in language that middle-grade students can understand, Philly lays out the political, economic, and social factors that caused and exacerbated the famine.
The McCormacks, a family of eight, are a little better off than many of their neighbors. They grow potatoes and raise chickens and a pig on 16 acres of rented land. An occasional salmon or a generous dollop of buttermilk supplements the family’s diet of potatoes.
To her father’s chagrin and her mother’s anguish, Philly’s older brother Pat has become involved in the outlawed Young Ireland movement and ultimately leaves home. In relating his suspected political activities, the narrator discusses many of the legislative and bureaucratic figures of the day. For example, she delights in calling Sir Robert Peel, the Prime Minister of England and Ireland, “Orange Peel,” a name bestowed on him by Daniel O’Connell, the national hero and acknowledged political leader of Ireland’s Roman Catholic majority at the start of the famine.
Philly writes in her diary that “tons of food are being exported from Ireland for sale abroad…. Ships are leaving from every Irish port laden with food: butter, eggs, oats, wheat, sheep, pigs. All of it for sale abroad.”
As the potato blight destroys the crop, secondary problems set in. Philly’s youngest sister dies of starvation and her mother suffers from Famine Fever, a colloquial name for typhus. Philly is grateful to get a job as a scullerymaid for fourpence a day at Errill Manor, the landlord’s house. There she meets Edward, who provides a delightful romantic thread in what could otherwise be deemed a dreary tale.
The manor also provides a means for Philly to feed and care for Mutt. Mickey really liked that!
When her dying mother asks to see Pat one last time, Philly sets out to find him. In her search, she describes the starving people who scratch an escape through the bleak landscape toward Dublin, where they hope to find work or passage to America, Canada, or other faraway places.
At the Tipperary goal, which she describes as a “moving mass” of horror, Philly finds not Pat, but a friend who will be deported for stealing a candlestick. She also learns Pat’s whereabouts. Wanted for treason, he has made his way, also, to Dublin.
She returns without him to find her home burned to the ground and her family gone. A gardener at the estate tells the devastated girl that the landlord discovered that her father had squirreled away money to feed his family—an offense punishable by eviction.
“A party, including the rent collector, came on horseback soon after dawn,” he tells her. “Your family were told to take any belongings they wished to save, vacate within the hour … never to return.”
Written by English actress and author Carol Drinkwater, who named her protagonist after her Irish mother, The Hunger is a book in the My Story series of historical novels for children published by Scholastic UK. Similar to the Dear America series, each book was written as the diary of a fictional young woman or man living during an important event in history.
Drinkwater’s contributions to the My Story Series include:
- Suffragette: The Diary of Dollie Baxter, London 1909–1913
- Twentieth Century Girl: Diary of Flora Bonnington, London 1899–1900
- Nowhere to Run (The story of a World War II Jewish refugee)
- Cadogan Square (Compilation of Suffragette and Twentieth-Century Girl)
I picked up this jewel in a tiny bookstore in Limerick. No longer distributed by Scholastic, it is nonetheless available on Amazon.
Although it deals with a tragic chapter in history, The Hunger unfolds with compassion appropriate to readers aged 8 to 12. Well-documented with notes, a timeline, and illustrations, it is also suitable for older readers. The various plots are well integrated with writing that is clear, descriptive, and even witty.
While Mickey was disappointed that The Hunger didn’t sate his appetite, he appreciated that the beloved Mutt was treated—and fed—well, despite harrowing circumstances.
What the Cats Are Reading 