The Journal of Otto Peltonen: A Finnish Immigrant, Hibbing, Minnesota, 1905

My Name Is America

by William Durbin

In 1905 fifteen-year-old Otto describes in his journal how he travels from Finland to America, joining his father in a dreary iron mining community in Minnesota and becoming involved in a union fight for better working conditions.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Young Adult, Middle Grade, Historical, Childrens, American History

171 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2000

About the author

William Durbin lives on Lake Vermilion at the edge of Minnesota's Boundary Waters Wilderness. A winner of the Great Lakes Book Award and a two-time winner of the Minnesota Book award, he has published short stories, essays, and poetry, as well as fourteen novels for young readers, including The Broken Blade, Wintering, Blackwater Ben, The Darkest Evening, The Journal of Otto Peltonen, and El Lector, which has been optioned for film by Jane Starz Productions. His latest novel, co-authored with his wife, Barbara is The Hidden Room. For more information visit his website at williamdurbin.com.
Durbin's honors include a Junior Library Guild Selection, Bank Street College Children’s Book of Year list, the ALA’s Amelia Bloomer list, New York Library Books for the Teen Age list, Maud Hart Lovelace nomination, Jefferson Cup Series of Note Award, Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Award, America’s Award commended title, Book Sense Summer Pick, Boy’s Life magazine serialization, St. Petersburg Times serialization, nominations for numerous state awards lists, and starred reviews in the major journals.
“William Durbin’s attention to detail—both historical and fictional—make him one of today’s masters of historical YA fiction.” -- David Gill of the NCTE

Reviews

[Sheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first read in the My Name is America series and I thought it was an excellent story. The journal entries capture the stark realities of the hardships of travel in steerage class, the living and working conditions for miners and their families, and the abject poverty and lack of other opportunities for gainful employment. The characters and story felt real, like it was based on actual events and not a completely fictional work. The epilogue really added to the sense of a real story and the historical note offers more factual details and backstory. A good read touching on many important issues of the time.

[Laila Collman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fictionalized retelling of the experiences of a young immigrant living in Minnesota, this short and simple read conveys the difficult situation of new Finnish-Americans at the beginning of the 20th century, and the harsh realities of a time before labor unions protected workers' rights or women held the right to vote. This is an engaging & important story for readers of any age!

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a title in a Scholastic series focusing on various groups of people immigrating to the United States. This title focuses on an extremely hard working Finnish family in Minnesota who live with very little for the goal of eventually purchasing a farm. The father and eventually the son, Otto, work in an iron mine and this theme also tells about worker’s rights and strikes. Although this was a fiction title, it did an excellent job of weaving historical fact into the diary entries. A particular type of a rye Finnish bread was mentioned in the text and I plan to make this bread.

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a great beginning and a tragic ending. I'm surprised I didn't cry. The book inspired me to read more Dear America books about immigrants though.

[Kate last name (optional) · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a good book but a little boring. Very interesting to learn how life was in the mines.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good book detailing the lives of Finnish immigrants in America. Along with fight against the monopolies of the day as well as fighting for the right unionize.

[Glen Stott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book from the Dear America series. It is the journal of Otto Peltonen. In May of 1905 Otto and his family leave Finland to immigrate to the United States, hoping to save enough to buy land and farm. His father left over a year ago and got job working in the iron mines in Minnesota. He has finally sent for the family, which includes Otto, his mother and two younger sisters, Helena (11) and Lisa (9). The America they find is not what they expected. The miners in Minnesota live in squalor. The miners work hard in a dangerous job for very low pay. They are paid by the ton of material they mine. In order to get assignments where the material is easy to dig they have to bribe the foremen. Otto’s father will not pay a bribe, so he is always assigned to hard rock and his earnings are even less than the average, which is poor. The job is dangerous, but if a miner is killed or injured, the companies pay only a pittance. Otto gets a job in the mines, though he is just a teenager.

It is a time when unions are trying to organize and companies are working to prevent it. This results in punitive measures for anyone talking favorably about unions. Often times the disagreements lead to violence on both sides. Some of the workers are paid extra money to spy on their fellow workers and report those who are favorable to union organization. This story is about the point of view of the laborers during this time of confrontation. It was a good story, well told.

[Alicia Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember reading a Dear America book when I was younger and getting angry when I discovered it wasn't a real diary. Thus, I never read these books either until now. I think I definitely missed out. There's so much going on in this book that is heavily researched and documented that it's a very strong work of historical fiction. I wish I wouldn't have dismissed these books so easily when I was younger. I highly recommend these books, and I look forward to reading more later on. My only issue was that it ends a little abruptly and I wanted a greater sense of conclusion past what the epilogue gave me, but maybe that's just the nature of the diary/journal format.

For: fans of diary/journal formats; readers wanting to know about the life of an immigrant or life during 1905-1907; readers wanting an honest look at moments in our country's past.

Possible red flags: death and dismemberment; mild swearing; discussions of horrible working conditions and living conditions; bribery and betrayal.

[Autumn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very well-written account of a Finnish immigrant's experiences in an iron mining town in Minnesota through 1905-1907. The author does a fair job of portraying the working environment and how a workers' union is created to make things fair and stable for the workers. The emotions and thoughts of the teenage boy are well done and genuine, including his experiences with the mine, his concerns about the working conditions, and his frustrations at having to choose between supporting his family and attending school. Helps the reader appreciate the experiences and hard work of these ancestors. I wanted it to be longer, hence the three stars.

[Justin M · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ok i had two major issue with this book. The first was they didnt talk much about the boat trip at all. The other thing was it was there was nothing gained from reading this book, for me it i already knew that immigrants didnt have very good living conditions and had to have pretty dangerous jobs.

[Meghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I’d say that it’s an average story. Not spectacular but not bad. My only real complaint is that the epilogue begins 10 years after the story ends.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another historical story, and the author lives in the town he is writing about. I like the follow up at the end of what happened to the characters.

[TinySalutations · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was incredibly grim. This book could be summed up as a diary of gruesome deaths. There is a storyline here, but it’s pretty weak and doesn’t make up for all of the depressing material, particularly the barrage of graphic deaths. In the style of these series, this book is intended to be for younger readers (preteen) as well as interesting to adults. This is a little too graphic for younger readers, especially since it isn’t balanced out with much, or any, lightness (Mining accidents described like decapitations, other dismemberments, body parts being mutilated- I skipped the descriptions when reading to my son some were pretty horrifying). The storyline isn’t complex enough to be that interesting to adults. Or kids to be honest. My son picked this book out after loving the Royal Diaries series (that I also loved as a kid and we read together) since this series is related and picked this one first simply because he is a Finnish immigrant like Papa was. I hope they don’t think the rest of the boys’ historical fiction series means violence and death.

[Soobie is expired · Rating 3 out of 5]

No idea this series even existed. They translated tons of crappy novel, why didn't they try to translate some of these books?!

Short but very informative, it tells the story of a Finnish fiften-year-old boy, Otto, who migrates to Minnesota with his mother and sisters to live with his father. The father works in an iron mine in the summer and Otto is a witness of the toll it took on people to live in such bad conditions. His dad would like to form an union but the owner of the mine are never happy when this happen and sometimes they would just bring more unskilled labor willing to work for an ever lower wage.

Otto's diary is interesting because it interweaves Otto's life with world events like earthquakes, natural catastrophe and Finland women getting the right to vote in 1906. Not to mention that back then many Finns left their country because, among poverty, the Russian Czar was trying to conscript them into the empire army...

I bought a couple more books of this series and I'll read those too.

[Zixuan Xu · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book talks about a little boy going through a really hard time to move from Finland and live in America. This connects to a long walk to water because, Salva in the story also had to go through a devastating process to finally reach his goal which is to be free from the war and to reunite with his family again. The boy and his families goal is to get enough money to buy a farm so that they can live far away from the mine and live a peaceful life. Another reason why they are connected is that they are both going through big changes. The Finnish boy is going through the industrial revolution. Salva was going through the Sudanese civil war. These are two reasons representing why they are connected.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars
This YA book was about a 15 year old boy who was given a journal to write about his experiences going to America (with streets of gold) from Finland in 1905. His trip to Hibbing with his mother and sisters was quite uneventful. They were met by his father who was working in the mines on the Mesabi Range. Otto does not go immediately into to the mines but gets to explore the town and go to school. Finally he goes into the mines so that the family can save money to buy a farm. He describes the logged off northern Minnesota, the work in the mines, the organization of the union, and of course the breaking of the 1907 strike. I enjoyed the read as a third generation descendant of Finnish immigrants.

[Jennifer (JenIsNotaBookSnob) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a lot of the Dear American series when I was a kid, I just loved those books and read every one the library had available.

Anyhow, stumbled upon this one at a thrift store and picked it up because one side of my family is Finnish. None of them were at the Hibbing mine where this is set, but, some were in the Northern Michigan mines.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read if you like the diary format. I always like the factual bit at the end of the book, this one has photos from the mine and social club and so on.

It gets a little repetitive in places, but, that's unavoidable with the subject matter.

Overall, I enjoyed it enough to coerce my 10 year old into reading it.

[Meagan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Journal of Otto Peltonen served as a great introduction to mining in the Midwest in the early part of the 1900s. I am an East Coast girlie, so while I am familiar with the coal mines of West Virginia, I was not at all familiar with the ore mining in Minnesota.

I would have been interested to learn a little more about the journey from Finland to Minnesota, especially the journey they made from Canada to Minnesota. I can appreciate that the heart of the story was Otto and his father's experience in the mines, but this is not an emigration journey that I am familiar with so I would like to have heard more about the journey.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

This read was interesting, but it was pretty superficial - even for this series. I'm pretty unfamiliar with this niche of American History, so it was definitely fascinating to me in that regard. Otto was an interesting character, if he wasn't all that exciting. He's a good boy and family man, I was just hoping for more - this was a sparse 146 pages, a theme I feel is more prevalent in the "My Name is America" series.

It's slightly disappointing that the story is so light, but what was there was good. I would recommend to fans of the series, young readers interested in American History, or even really young readers that aren't quite ready for a chapter book.

[Alyssa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this as a child since not only Hibbing is my hometown, but the authors wife was my third grade teacher in the 2003-2004 school year! I have very fond memories of that class and the "soup party" we had after reading The Tale of Despereaux where Mr. Durbin came in to help with as well. Glad to have found this on goodreads so I could put a rating out. This book has always stuck to my historical book loving heart after all of these years. I thank my love of reading to this couple a lot. My childhood imagining the lives of the immigrants in my hometown was ever curious and full of wonder and this book gave fantastic insight into their lives.

[Jenny Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty interesting look into the corrupt mining practices in the early 1900s, but I feel like more of it could have been devoted to that instead of the settling in part, but that was also a big issue back then, with all the immigrants. I love that Minnie was a suffragette and so strong. This had so much going for it, and would be absolutely great for middle grade readers. I've been a fan of this series and the rest of Dear America since it started, as well as the Royal Diaries.
Great nostalgia read.

[Kayla Sullinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved reading about this boys life.I grew up in a primarily Finnish community.My dad's side of the family is orginially from Finland.I was happy to see names that are still around today in this book.It was exciting for me to learn about the struggle they had when they came to America.It saddens me that they struggled.
I hate how some of the reviews that have been written state they hated the ending.You can't change the past.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Journal Of Otto Peltonen, A Finnish Immigrant," by William Durbin is about a boy named Otto and he immigrated from Finland to Minnesota. Otto Peltonen and his father work in the dangerous iron ore mines of the Mesabi Range. Otto and his father are in the face of discrimination from the foremen, who accept bribes for the prime mining spots, Otto and his father take part in the beginnings of the labor unionization.

[Sparrow · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was hard to read - the recountings of the horrible working conditions in the mines were not minced at all. I didn't know so many Finns has immigrated to America, so this volume was very informative. It is rather disheartening, however, to read of so many people coming to America expecting something so much better than what they have at home, and then finding what America was/is REALLY like.

[Debra Golden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this years ago intending to read it an pass it on to my nieces, who are now a bit old for this.
It's a Scholastic book and still tells some hard truths abut immigrant life and working in the mines. I learned a bit more about why my ancestors may have left, and didn't realize they could be 'drafted' into the Russian army.
It's fiction, but feels real enough.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and well told, though I think it could have taken a deeper dive into the parts about the labour movement. It's there, but it is very tamed down compared to history. This only catches me off guard because this series is always fine with getting dark to some degree.

That said, it was a great introduction to the topic and an engaging story.

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emotional journal book about a young boy who choses to leave schooling behind after coming to America, because his family needs financial reassurance,because his dad alone working is simply not enough

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well researched. Good story. Not for young children.

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this series. Loved this book. A great find at the local library sale. I cried a little.

[Willow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tragic. So much mistreatment, horrible working conditions, and grisly deaths.

Some swearing. For mature students. I'm definitely waiting years to have my kids read this.