White Peak Farm

by Berlie Doherty

Living on an isolated Derbyshire sheep farm, Jeannie is faced with grief over her grandmother's death, her sister's marriage, her brother's leaving, and a choice between a college education and the boy she loves

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Berlie Doherty née Hollingsworth is an English novelist, poet, playwright and screenwriter. She is best known for children's books, for which she has twice won the Carnegie Medal.She has also written novels for adults, plays for theatre and radio, television series and libretti for children's opera.

Reviews

[Galowa · Rating 4 out of 5]

It would be wonderful if this bittersweet coming-of-age story actually resonated with its target audience, but I suspect it is too subtle for the age group. Bittersweet throughout, this is a novella for an adult female audience, I think.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short, sweet book about a dysfunctional family living on a farm near Sheffield. It’s lovely tale with Doherty’s beautiful prose which only took me moments to read.

[Rosalind Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful novel for teenage girls, very finely and sparingly written, wonderfully evoking the landscape surrounding the hill farm where Jeannie lives with her family. Berlie Doherty has skilfully packed so much into this slim little book, almost the whole history of this family through three generations tumbles out from the pages. The tensions between the different generations are nicely portrayed, and the struggles of Jeannie and her siblings to express their own individualities and needs feelingly and realistically depicted. A really lovely book. It will stay with me for a long time.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautifully written series of vignettes about a family on a farm in Derbyshire. More bittersweet than I was expecting but I enjoyed it from the beginning.

Wish I had read it when I was younger.

[Hannah Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really sweet book about a girl named Jeannie and her family near Sheffield, England. In this book Jeannie has to watch as her family slowly falls apart after her grandma goes to a sick home and dies, her older sister marries the son of her father's sworn enemy, and her brother leaves the farm and goes off to art college. Trying to make sense of her changing life, Jeannie has to rely on her strength as an individual.

Through out this book I kept asking myself if this family can ever come back together. The setting is different, because it's on a farm in England, two totally different words for many young readers. I recommend this book. No questionable content, just shows a dysfunctional family and that there is hope for change. Full of hope at the end.

[Stacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very sweet little story. It's amazing how connected I became to the characters in such a short amount of pages. Even though this was basically a novella it still seemed like a complete story and took the time to develop each character. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was great the author added some good things in it. It was quite sad but it got happier. The reason I rated it 4 stars is because It had too many sad moments. Other wise I would rate it full stars.

[Candy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emotionally honest - believable and sad novel, narrated by a teen girl whose family farm is set in the hills of the English countryside near the city of Sheffield.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

nice atmosphere

[Aringo Jay]

wu

[Harry Allan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was ok but it was still very boring

[Noah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this book was terrible.