Aggie isn’t expecting visitors at the Sleepy Time Motel in the Great Smoky Mountains. Since her husband died, she is all alone with her c... read full description
reviews
Jan 08, 2009
Wendy
rated it: 
A sweet, occasionally funny, and honest book. I think the audience might be a little younger than some reviewers are thinking--hence the lack of complexity. I wouldn't mind seeing this get a Newbery Honor.
Apr 21, 2011
Rebecca
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This is my kind of book. No sex, swearing, or violence. Greetings is a gentle story that follows four characters who come together at a run-down motel aptly named Sleepytime. Aggie, the aging motel owner, is bereft after the death of her spouse and has no friends save for a cat named Ugly. With no customers for three months, Aggie can no longer pay bills or make repairs and reluctantly places the motel for sale.
Enter Willow Dover and her father, Clyde. The broken family of two buy the More...
Enter Willow Dover and her father, Clyde. The broken family of two buy the More...
Aug 18, 2009
Kim
rated it:
Gr 5-8-Aggie Duncan cannot muster the energy to fix up the Sleepy Time Motel since her husband died, and with no visitors stopping by on North Carolina's Smoky Mountains back roads, she reluctantly concludes that it's time to sell. Within days of placing an ad, she has an offer from Clyde Dover, who is eager to make a new life for himself and his daughter, Willow, after his wife's desertion. They are soon joined by Loretta and her parents, who are on a journey to learn more about Loretta's birth
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Jul 13, 2011
Jessica
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Greetings from Nowhere is told from the following four different, interwoven perspectives: Aggie, Willow, Kirby, and Loretta. Aggie is an older woman who owns the Sleepy Time Motel, which is the setting for the story. Readers learn that her husband has recently died, the same man who pretty much ran the motel. Aggie is drowning in bills and doesn’t really know how to run the motel, whether from lack of experience or just from the grief she is feeling with the loss of her husband. Because of this
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Jan 12, 2009
Jeanette
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The setting of the Great Smoky Mountains is what led me to pick up this book. I love the Smoky Mountains and have been trying to get my hands on as many books, fiction and non-fiction, about the area that I can. O'Connor did a fabulous job of making me wish I was back amongst the mountains again as I read Greetings from Nowhere.
The Sleepy Time Motel in North Carolina's Great Smokey Mountains has been Aggie's home for decades. After the death of her beloved husband, Harold, Aggie is unable More...
The Sleepy Time Motel in North Carolina's Great Smokey Mountains has been Aggie's home for decades. After the death of her beloved husband, Harold, Aggie is unable More...
Jan 16, 2012
Nora
rated it:
I didn't enjoy the writing style of this book, but I enjoyed the characters and have found it's really easy to recommend to a large group of elementary students (boys and girls, 3rd to 6th grade). It is an easy read for students and a good balance of 'innocent' but still interesting. Each chapter is told by a different character. My personal annoyance was that each character had the same writing style. As in, unfinished, very short sentences. That weren't sentences. Clearly a style choice. That
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Jan 06, 2011
Stevecrandell
rated it:
This book is good vegetable soup. I love good vegetable soup, and at the same time I can’t escape the fact that the soup is good for me too. In the best vegetable soup, the veggies are obvious – not yet overcooked into mush. With books, it’s easy to overcook the obvious “good for me” parts, and that happens a bit here.
There are too many repeated phrases. Too many three and four line poetic prose phrases. Too many literary reminders of the wholesome seriousness of all the good thoughts More...
There are too many repeated phrases. Too many three and four line poetic prose phrases. Too many literary reminders of the wholesome seriousness of all the good thoughts More...
Dec 31, 2008
Laura
rated it:
Five characters in search of... something. Friends? Love? Both? Anyway, The Sleepy Time Motel, owned by Aggie, is the setting for the coming together and "healing" of Aggie, Willow, Loretta, Kirby and Clyde.
The main plot device seemed to move too quickly: could one really buy a motel in a matter of days? With all that seemed wrong with it, I just doubt that could happen. However, I didn't doubt Aggie's loneliness, or her attachment to Ugly and Howard, or her newfoun More...
The main plot device seemed to move too quickly: could one really buy a motel in a matter of days? With all that seemed wrong with it, I just doubt that could happen. However, I didn't doubt Aggie's loneliness, or her attachment to Ugly and Howard, or her newfoun More...
Feb 16, 2011
Andy
rated it:
Aggie, the elderly owner of The Sleepy Time Motel in North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains has recently lost her husband Harold. She finds it difficult to continue operations without Harold’s help and reluctantly decides to sell their beloved home. Newly single Clyde Dover decides to answer Aggies for sale ad. He purchases the deteriorating motel, and uproots his daughter Willow without much discussion. Willow is struggling to cope with her mother’s recent abandonment. Surprisingly she finds som
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Jan 29, 2012
Shelley
rated it:
Caudill Award Nominee.
This story takes place at a roadside hotel which is being sold by an older woman, Aggie, who just lost her husband. When she puts the place up for sale, many new people suddenly come and stay at the hotel which hasn't seen a visitor in months. Included are three pre-teen children who have little to nothing in common. At least that's the way it appears in the beginning. But once their paths are crossed, they soon become entwined together in something that just More...
This story takes place at a roadside hotel which is being sold by an older woman, Aggie, who just lost her husband. When she puts the place up for sale, many new people suddenly come and stay at the hotel which hasn't seen a visitor in months. Included are three pre-teen children who have little to nothing in common. At least that's the way it appears in the beginning. But once their paths are crossed, they soon become entwined together in something that just More...
May 10, 2011
Tiffany
rated it:
This book started tugging at my heart and it never let go! The kind old motel owner has lost her husband and she is about to lose her motel too. The young girl who will be moving into the hotel with her father lost her mother, but in a different way. An adopted girl found terrific parents, but just learned that the mother that gave her up is now gone, and a troubled boy left his neighbor, the only person to ever see the good in him. I do not do well with books about losing a spouse and the p
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Aug 08, 2011
Nancy
rated it: 
Greetings from Nowhere is the story of Aggie Duncan who owns a hotel in North Carolina. The highway no longer runs right by the hotel, so Aggie has seen the number of guest falling. Having decided that she can no longer take care of the hotel, she sells it to a Clyde Dover (who has a young daughter, Willow) who is looking to start over after his wife has left him. Meanwhile, 2 other families arrive to stay at the hotel. Loretta and her parents, on a scavenger hunt to find landmarks from the tr
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Sep 07, 2011
Kerry
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While I enjoyed the story, I felt the author had to really contrive some of the storylines so these characters could converge on one, isolated, location. I really questioned Willow's dad and his very sudden, rash decision to buy a motel without (to the reader's knowledge) any experience in business - not to mention having the money (no bank loan) to sink into a motel so off the beaten track.
I also questioned if starting the novel with the old widow would really pull in the casual read More...
I also questioned if starting the novel with the old widow would really pull in the casual read More...
Aug 03, 2008
Elizabeth
rated it:
One Sentence Review: O'Connor knocks another one clean out of the park with a really wonderful tale of several very different kids and one old, run-down, defunct motel.
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Sep 27, 2010
Amy
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Feb 02, 2009
Wrigley
rated it:
This is a book about a long journey. It was a lot different from some other books. I liked that the chapters were about different characters. I think other people would like this story because it is the kind of style other people would like.
[c review - I was surprised to hear W give this 5 stars. I did not realize she like it so much. I liked this book because I the characters are incredibly complex. Also the book hits upon some rich and important themes. Where I think the book might More...
[c review - I was surprised to hear W give this 5 stars. I did not realize she like it so much. I liked this book because I the characters are incredibly complex. Also the book hits upon some rich and important themes. Where I think the book might More...
Mar 20, 2011
Michele
rated it:
Great book! I started this late at night and was sure it was going to be boring....but it wasn't at all! I stayed up until I finished it and was really thrilled with it. It has a story that flows around you like summer sunset in a cornfield: rosy and delightful and soothing. The disconnected characters all come together at a shabby little hotel in what seems like a lost cause, but in the end the hotel turns out to be a wonderful matrix of friendship and positive change. Best of all, when I
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Dec 18, 2010
Anne
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I love how O'Connor shows emotions in very few words in this beautiful story with four characters of various ages who are thrown together at a dilapidated motel in the Smoky Mountains. My favorite character was the adoptive mother of fifth-grader Loretta, who is perpetually positive and often says things like, "Aren't we lucky?" By the end of the book, all four people have grown and changed, several problems have been ironed out, and each person carries a new sense of hope for the fut
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Oct 26, 2008
Eva
rated it:
Sometimes a book comes along that hits you in just the right way. It doesn’t klonk you over the head with its fabulousness, but rather it quietly sinks into your mind and heart as you read it, creating a mood that lingers.
Greeting from Nowhere by Barbara O’Connor (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008) is such a book. O’Connor’s previous book Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia was a highly pleasant read, but I must confess that I didn’t finish How to Steal a Dog – the conjunction of my m More...
Greeting from Nowhere by Barbara O’Connor (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008) is such a book. O’Connor’s previous book Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia was a highly pleasant read, but I must confess that I didn’t finish How to Steal a Dog – the conjunction of my m More...
Feb 18, 2011
MrsB
rated it:
RC 2012 I know it's not fair to just give this book a 2. It's a 2 from an adult perspective, but probably a 3 from 4th-6th grade perspective. This is the story of an elderly woman forced to sell her hotel and three young children who come to stay with their parents during the sale. The chapters alternate between the 4 main characters who are all looking for something, who of course find those elusive feelings during their stay at the hotel. It's a nice old-fashioned story about people carin
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Sep 26, 2009
Linda
rated it:
I like this author's gentle voice. She is almost sleepy, and there is a happy ending to all the troubles. Yet, her setting (backwoods Smokey Mountains) sort of requires that flavor in the telling of tales. This story features the odd mix of characters that come together at an old motel in North Carolina. The widowed owner is selling to a single dad with an unhappy daughter. But friendships form, kindness wins, and that is not a bad thing...if slightly idealized.
Feb 04, 2011
katsok
rated it:
I love Barbara O'Connor's books and this one is no different. The story opens with Aggie who has a motel she owned with her late husband for years. No one visits anymore and Aggie hasn't been able to pay the bills, so she lists it for sale. Enter three different families to stay at the hotel - one is purchasing it, one on vacation, and one family is there by chance. The book follows the story of Aggie and the children from the families as they sort out their lives. Great book.
Sep 18, 2011
Kitty
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Jun 21, 2011
Laura
rated it:
Funny, sad, hopeful. Not a story packed with action and adventure, but a sweet story filled with quirky, misguided, characters everyone can relate to. Willow and her dad by a small rundown motel in the Smokey Mountains and try to make a new life for themselves, but what about the life they take away from Aggie, the former motel owner? Hotel guests provide friendships and help each other figure out their lives.
May 27, 2008
Mary
rated it:
Four people's lives come together in a broken down motel in the Smokey Mountains of North Carolina. Told in chapters depicting one of the four major character's point of view, "Greetings" tells the stories of Aggie, a woman whose husband has died and who must sell the motel they've owned together since they were first married after World War II; Willow, whose father is buying the motel to begin a new life after Willow's mother abandoned them; Loretta, who is touring the Smokey Mountain
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Mar 11, 2010
Anne
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Aggie owns the Sleepytime Motel which hasn't had a visitor in months. Kirby is being sent to a special school for hard-to-handle children. Loretta receives a mysterious package from her "other mother." Willow's parents are divorced and her father is seeking a new life. Their lives converge at the Sleepytime Motel. The results are a heart-warming affirmation of how to live with our own imperfections.
Jun 01, 2009
Paula
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What a sweet book about self-discovery and acceptance: who you are and where you belong. This is another book that will be included in my school district's reading bowl competition next school year. I think it's message can find a home in the hearts of an awful lot of adolescents today. Your family is the group of people who accept you as you are, who care about you, and who help you in times of need.
Mar 23, 2009
Daria
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I liked this book a lot. It's just a quiet little story told from the points of view of: Loretta, a girl who is on a quest to visit the places her recently deceased birthmother (aka her other mother) visited; Willow, whose mom left and whose dad decides to buy a motel; Kirby, a boy who is on his way to a school for "bad boys"; and Aggie, the proprietress of Sleepy Time motel, whose husband has recently died. These 4 main characters and their families help one another to cope with the
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Mar 26, 2010
Jackie
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After the death of her husband, Harold, Aggie decides that she needs to sell the motel that has been her life. In making that decision, her life changes, as she meets Kirby and his mother, Loretta and her parents, and Clyde and his daughter, Willow, who have bought the motel. Each family comes to the motel with a set of problem and leaves with a change in their hearts.
Mar 29, 2008
Mary Lee
rated it:
This is my favorite 2008 so far! In my *other* book log, the one with pages and a cover decorated with Laurel Burch's art, I am collecting the first lines of every book I read this year. Greetings From Nowhere also has the best first line of the year!
I love that this book made me think of other favorites. A death in the tomato patch occurs in Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles. Both books let me live in the south without the humidity. The miniature horses and the pesk More...
I love that this book made me think of other favorites. A death in the tomato patch occurs in Each Little Bird That Sings by Deborah Wiles. Both books let me live in the south without the humidity. The miniature horses and the pesk More...
