Courting Miss Amsel

Courting Miss Amsel by Kim Vogel Sawyer is a love story set in 1882-1883 school year in the small town of Walnut Hill Nebraska. After having cared for her younger siblings after the death of her mother, Edythe Amsel is finally leaving her father's depressing home to move to Nebraska to teach in a one room schoolhouse. She is independent and has teaching methods that are shocking to the town. She is dealing with an unruly child and fending off advances from the town's bachelors.  Miss Amsel is reading the Bible for the first time, and there are many references to her conversion in this book.

Joel Townsend is a farmer who is raising his orphaned nephews, and could use a wife. He also has outlandish, more modern farming methods.

The story was a lovely read, and it was a nice change to read fiction for a change.

This book, like the Union Quilters talks about the beginning of the womens' suffrage movement.  I don't know enough about history to know if the methods are accurate for the time period. For example, I am not sure a teacher of that time would think to teach her students how to cook, since that would be something that would naturally be taught at home. It is pretty far from reading, writing and arithmetic. It is possible that the "outlandish" teaching methods are just our modern methods taken back in time. Whether it is true or not, I don't think it matters.  It makes for a good story anyway.

I received this book from Bethany House Publishers in exchange for an unbiased review.