Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Under Copp's Hill by Katherine Ayres Books > UNDER Copp's Hill. It’s 1908. Eleven-year-old Innie Moretti loves the library club at the new settlement house for immigrant girls in Boston’s North End. She delights in borrowing books, listening to stories, dancing, and making friends. But soon strange things start to happen at the settlement house. Items go missing or turn up in odd places. Is it a thief—or could the house be haunted? There is a cemetery just across the street. As Innie tries to solve the mystery, she starts looking guilty herself! “Is anyone better than Katherine Ayres at turning history into engaging stories for young readers? I think not. Ayres weaves the city’s history into this suspenseful tale, beginning with the disastrous Chelsea fire of 1908 that left 17,000 people homeless. This is a masterful story that vividly captures Innie’s pain and confusion as she is wrongly accused. Any preteen—as well as any of us who used to be a preteen—will strongly identify with her plight and will sigh with relief when she uncovers the identity of the real thief.” —Ohioana Quarterly. First published by Pleasant Company, Under Copp’s Hill , is now available in the series, Mysteries Through Time, through Windmill Books. (Hardback: 978-1-60754-185-1; Paperback: 978-1-60754-186-8) For discounted quantity purchases, please call 1-866-478-0556. The Story Behind Under Copp's Hill. Do you ever get tired of getting advice? One of the hard things about being a kid is that grown people, especially parents, seem to think they need to make suggestions about everything, from how a person should dress to the best way to eat spaghetti. Most kids I know can’t wait to grow up so they don’t have to hear all that advice any more. Guess what? My fiftieth birthday has come and gone, I’m a grandmother, and my parents are still giving me advice about all sorts of things, including suggestions about what might make a good story to write next. Mostly, it’s my dad: “You really should write about . . .” or “I had a great idea . . .” Unfortunately, while his ideas might make good stories for him to write about, most of the time they don’t seem to fit my imagination. Under Copp’s Hill is an exception. He’d been watching the Antiques Road Show on TV and saw a story about the Saturday Evening Girls, a group of young women who lived in Boston’s North End in the early 1900s. They attended classes at a settlement house and worked in a pottery, producing beautiful, hand-painted plates and vases. That captured my imagination and I began to do some research. The more I learned about the house at 18 Hull Street and the girls and women who gathered there, the more I wanted to write about them. It helped that I’d lived in Boston for five years and loved the city. It also helped that we have family in Boston so I could combine a research trip with a fun visit. The biggest boost for me came when I made contact with a researcher who had studied the settlement house and pottery, also known as the Paul Revere Pottery because of its location, just down the street from the Old North Church. She kindly shared her research and the advance text of a book she was writing for adults. The city of Boston also helped me write the story. As I often do when planning a book, I explored the neighborhood with my camera slung about my neck, taking photos of the places that might appear in the story. As I walked up Salem Street, snapping pictures, the wonderful smells from the many Italian restaurants made my stomach growl. When I reached Hull Street and turned down, looking for number eighteen, I discovered a tall, four-story redbrick house. To fit more of the building in the photograph, I stepped backwards across the narrow street. Imagine my surprise when I looked over my shoulder and saw a graveyard. Here I was, writing a mystery, and the house where most of the action would take place sat across the street from a graveyard! And not just any graveyard, but the historic Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, where remains of many colonial settlers lie under old-fashioned tombstones. One of the stones (above) was used for target practice by British soldiers during the American Revolution. You can put your fingers into the bullet holes! Other true and interesting parts of the story came from the real history and people of Boston, including the nastiest and most creepy place in the book. I won’t tell you what that is, but when you get to that spot, you’ll know it’s a real place, now boarded up. And what the girls find there is a real object, found by some boys who lived in the neighborhood sixty years ago. What about Innie? Where did she come from? Because I’m not Italian, I had to do lots of research about Italian culture, food, family life and names. A friend shared names from her family and when she said Innocenza aloud I knew I’d found my main character. Imagine how hard it must be to have such name, which would translate into English as Innocent. Maybe I’m just a rebellious person, but if my family gave me a name like that, I’d feel obliged to act up and cause trouble. So Innie’s personality began to grow in my mind and the more she misbehaved, the more I liked her. Matla too got her name from a friend, whose Russian grandmother came to America at about the same time as Matla did in the story. I learned about Russian Jewish immigrants from speaking with their children and grand- children, now grown, including a Boston woman whose mother was a Saturday Evening Girl. As she spoke about her mother’s life and friendships she had made in the settlement house, I understood the heart of the book I hoped to write. These girls, newcomers, made friends in spite of differences in language and traditions and the objections of their strict fathers and older brothers. What spirit! And what a legacy they leave for all of us who follow. Under Copp's Hill — Katherine Ayres. Click on any of the links above to see more books like this one. EDITIONS. FictionDB is committed to providing the best possible fiction reference information. If you have any issues with the site, please don't hesitate to contact us. More about us. Popular Features. Contact & Support. Keep in Touch. Find us on social media. FictionDB © 2021. All Rights Reserved. This page may contain affiliate links and advertising. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. See the full disclosure. Under Copp’s Hill. This book is part of the American Girl History Mysteries series. The year is 1908, and eleven-year-old Innocenza Moretti lives with her relatives in Boston. They are immigrants from Italy. Innie, as her family calls her, is an orphan. According to the story that her grandmother told her, she was the only one of her parents’ children to survive infancy, her siblings being born prematurely and dying shortly after birth. Innie’s mother was so grateful that Innie survived that she promised her to the Holy Mother at her baptism. Then, Innie’s parents died in a fire in their tenement building when she was about two years old. Innie and her grandmother, Nonna, survived the fire only because little Innie had started crying in the night, and she took her outside to walk her around so that she wouldn’t wake her parents. Because of that experience, Nonna is deathly afraid of fire and also has become convinced that the Holy Mother must have spared Innie (as well as herself). She thinks that Innie is destined to become a nun and has continued to promise her to the Holy Mother in prayer, repeating the promise regularly. Although Nonna thinks that the miracles surrounding Innie’s life are signs of a future life in the Church for Innie, her grandmother’s promises in prayer terrify Innie. Innie feels trapped by her grandmother’s expectations for her, expectations that the rest of her family don’t even know about. She doesn’t want to be a nun, but her grandmother is sure that she will be. Because of her fears that her grandmother may force her to become a nun when she grows up, Innie is never on her best behavior. She thinks that if she gets a reputation as a trouble-maker, the Church will decide that she is unsuited for a religious life. Unfortunately, Innie’s long-practiced habit of ignoring rules and her problem child reputation lead her to be suspected of something worse than just minor misbehaving. Innie’s family owns a boardinghouse where they provide food and lodging for young immigrant men. Innie and Nonna live on the ground floor, and Innie’s aunt, uncle, and cousins live above them. Innie spends a lot of time with her cousins, especially Teresa, who is about her age. Her older cousin, Carmela, persuades both Teresa and Innie to join a library club at a new settlement house with her. The settlement house helps girls and young women from immigrant families by teaching them work skills and aspects of American culture that they can use as they become American citizens in exchange for some of the work that the girls do on behalf of the settlement house. Carmela has taken a new job as a pottery painter there and tells her parents that it will be good for Teresa and Innie to go there as well because they will receive help with their schoolwork and they will also have classes to teach them skills like sewing, knitting, and pottery, that they can use to make money later. However, the real attraction of the club for the girls is that they get to listen to music, have dancing lessons, read books, and socialize with other girls about their age. The prospect of sewing classes isn’t appealing for Innie, but she loves books and looks forward to borrowing some from the settlement house library. At the settlement house, Innie meets a variety of girls from other immigrant families, not just Italian ones. In particular, Innie makes friends with a girl named Matela, who is a Jewish girl from Russia. As the girls talk about a recent, large fire in town, Matela talks about the czar’s soldiers burning things back in Russia and how she misses her grandfather, who is still there. Innie understands Matela’s feelings because she knows what it’s like to miss someone. She doesn’t really remember her parents, but she feels the lack of them in her life. Teresa also becomes friends with Matela, but the three girls agree to keep their friendship secret because each of their families prefers them to associate with girls from backgrounds similar to their own. Innie’s uncle wants the girls to spend time with other Italians, and Matela admits that her father prefers her to spend time with other Jewish girls. The adults don’t really understand the cultural mix at the settlement house. However, from the very first day that the girls begin going to events at the house, strange things start happening. Things disappear or are oddly moved about. Food disappears. A silver teapot belonging to the ladies who run the settlement house is stolen. Then, someone steals some pottery and a shawl. To Innie’s horror, she ends up becoming the prime suspect for the thefts because she was caught snooping in an area of the house where she didn’t belong and because she accidentally broke one of the pieces of pottery that the others girls made and tried to sweep it up without telling anyone. When she and her friends snoop around and try to find the missing objects, Innie discovers one of the missing pottery pieces. However, instead of being happy for the clue, the ladies who run the house just think that Innie must have broken more of the pottery and tried to cover it up, like she did before, by hiding the rest of the set. After all, if she was doing some things she shouldn’t have been doing, it’s plausible that she could be a thief, too. If Innie is going to remain a member of the library club (and continue to have access to books that she can read), she’s going to have to prove her innocence. In fact, proving her innocence may also be important for Carmela, who is supposed to have a citizenship hearing soon. If Innie’s bad reputation causes problems for her at work, she may lose her job and be denied American citizenship! Matela thinks that the thief could be a ghost from the nearby Copp’s Hill graveyard, but Innie is sure that it must be a human being. There are secrets at the settlement house that even the ladies who run it are unaware of and someone who desperately needs help and can’t ask for it. Teresa and Matela continue to help Innie, and in the process, Innie confesses to Matela her fears about becoming a nun. It is Matela who helps Innie to find the solution to her problem, urging her to step outside of the small community of Italian immigrants that her family clings to and to seek advice from a priest in the Irish area of the city. As a priest, he has the knowledge that Innie needs to understand her faith, and because he doesn’t know Innie’s family personally, he has the objectivity to help Innie to see her grandmother’s promise in a new light and to understand that her future destiny is still in her own hands. No one can speak for another person or make important promises on their behalf. A religious vocation is a serious decision that only a mature adult can make for herself, or not make, as the case may be. The priest tells her that, as young as she is, Innie should focus on learning to be a good person, and then she will see what direction life leads her. With that knowledge, of course, Innie realizes that she will have to put more effort into behaving herself, but it’s a relief to her to realize that she doesn’t need to purposely misbehave in order to control her life. Eventually, Innie’s aunt also learns about the grandmother’s promise and Innie’s worries and reassures her that, although her grandmother can be an intimidating woman with what she wants, Innie’s family loves her and that she shouldn’t be afraid to come to them with her questions and concerns. Innie has thought of herself as parentless, at the mercy of her grandmother’s wishes and expectations, but her aunt says that she loves Innie like she does her own daughters and that Innie is as much a part of their family as they are. If Innie has problems, her aunt will be there for her, helping her find whatever answers she needs. There is also a subplot about how girls in immigrant families (at least, in ones like Innie’s family) aren’t as highly-regarded as boys. When the family is discussing important matters, Innie often tries to comment on what she thinks, but her grandmother keeps telling her to be quiet because it isn’t a girl’s place to comment on business that men should handle and her male cousins sneer at her because they don’t think she knows anything. However, when Innie’s uncle is worried about the legal papers he has to sign in order to open his new grocery business because his English still isn’t good enough to understand them, Innie points out that Carmela’s English is the best of the family because of all the books she had to read and the paperwork she had to complete when she was applying for citizenship and that she would be the best person to study the paperwork. At first, her grandmother makes her try to be quiet and her male cousins laugh, but Carmela speaks up and says that she can help her father, if he wants her to, and her father agrees, on the condition that she act as translator and adviser and let him make the final decisions about the business. Carmela is happy because the arrangement allows her to use her skills without taking her away from the pottery painting that she loves. The point of this part of the story is about acknowledging the talents that people possess and not disregarding them because they are outside of the usual roles and expectations. It fits in with the subplot about the grandmother’s expectations for Innie’s future, which are not really in keeping with either her talents or character. The young people in the story are growing up under different circumstances than their parents, and they will have to learn to find their own way in life, using the abilities they have and the education they can find. In the back of the book, there is a section with historical information about Boston in 1908. The fire that happens around the time that the story takes place was a real event. The settlement house with its library club was also real, and the ladies who run the settlement house, Miss Brown and Miss Guerrier, were also real people. The book explains more about what life was like for immigrant families like Innie’s and about what the future held for girls like her. Many of the girls who attended the library clubs later became librarians and teachers themselves, which may be Innie’s eventual destiny when she grows up. The book also mentions that the area of Boston where Innie’s family lived still has many Italian restaurants and groceries that were started by immigrant families like Innie’s, so we can imagine that the grocery store that Innie’s uncle wants to open will be successful. Ayres, Katherine 1947– Born October 15, 1947, in Columbus, OH; daughter of Ray and Betty Kent; married; children: one son, two daughters. Education: College of Wooster, B.A., 1969; Tufts University, M.A., 1974. Hobbies and other interests: Writing and literature, the outdoors, gardening. Addresses. Home— Pittsburgh, PA. Office— Graduate Writing Programs, Chatham University, Woodland Rd., Pittsburgh, PA 15232. E-mail— [email protected] Career. Author and educator. Chatham University, Pittsburgh, PA, lecturer in English and writing, 1997—, coordinator of Writing for Children and Adolescents Program, and children's editor of Fourth River. Worked as a teacher of emotionally disturbed children, of preschoolers, and an elementary school principal. Scholar-in-residence, John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, PA; writer-in-residence, lecturer, and presenter at writers' and teachers' conferences. Member. Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Writings. FOR CHILDREN. Family Tree, Delacorte Press (New York, NY), 1996. North by Night: A Story of the Underground Railroad, Delacorte Press (New York, NY), 1998. Voices at Whisper Bend, Pleasant Company Publications (Middleton, WI), 1999. Under Copp's Hill, Pleasant Company Publications (Middleton, WI), 1999. Silver Dollar Girl, Delacorte (New York, NY), 2000. Stealing South: A Story of the Underground Railroad, Delacorte Press (New York, NY), 2001. A Long Way, illustrated by Tricia Tusa, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 2003. Macaroni Boy, Delacorte Press (New York, NY), 2003. Matthew's Truck, illustrated by Hideko Takahashi, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 2005. Up, Down, and Around, illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 2007. Contributor of stories to Cricket, Spider, Ladybug, and Pockets. Contributor of essays to Children's Writer. Contributor of poetry to Pittsburgh Post Gazette and to anthology Along These Rivers. Adaptations. Macaroni Boy was adapted as a stage musical and produced by Stage Right in western PA in 2008. Sidelights. Katherine Ayres has published a number of highly regarded picture books for young readers, including Matthew's Truck and Up, Down, and Around, as well as works of historical fiction for middle graders such as Macaroni Boy. Several of Ayres' books are set in Ohio, her home state, as well as in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she now serves as a lecturer in English and writing at Chatham University. Ayres' picture book Up, Down, and Around was selected as the Pennsylvania One Book for 2008, allowing her to tour the state as a childhood literacy advocate. Many of her novels have been nominated for state readers' choice awards and are used extensively in elementary and middle-school classrooms. Ayres was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1947. As a youngster, she developed an active imagination, often staying up past her bedtime to create her own tales. "I kept myself awake by making up stories and TV shows in my mind," Ayres recalled on the Chatham University Web site. "So my imagination got a lot of practice and today, years later, I still find myself making up stories at night." As she grew older, Ayres became an avid reader and found herself drawn to the works of Laura Ingalls Wilder as well as the popular "Nancy Drew" novel series. "Maybe it's not a surprise that now I write mostly historical adventures and mysteries," she remarked. Ayres published her first title, Family Tree, in 1996. The novel concerns Tyler Stoudt, a sixth grader who is assigned to write an essay about her ancestors. During her research, Tyler learns that her widower father, Jakob, is Amish, and that he was shunned by his own people when he married Tyler's mother. According to a critic in Publishers Weekly, the author "delivers an intriguing plot and deftly paints a self-reliant heroine on a mission to find the truth." Set in 1851, North by Night: A Story of the Underground Railroad centers on Lucinda Spenser, a sixteen year old who gives shelter to escaped slaves crossing her family's Ohio farm. Booklist contributor GraceAnne A. DeCandido called North by Night "an absorbing tale," and a Publishers Weekly reviewer stated that Lucinda's "dramatic self-actualization is at least as important as the period setting." In a sequel, Stealing South: A Story of the Underground Railroad, Lucy's brother Will promises to help rescue two slaves from a Kentucky plantation. The work "combines historical research and moral reflection with action," Carolyn Phelan remarked in Booklist. A spunky twelve year old leaves the comforts of her Pittsburgh home to search for her father, a silver miner, in Silver Dollar Girl. Disguising herself as a boy, Valentine Harper heads west to Aspen, Colorado, where she works in a local café while avoiding a Pinkerton detective. The heroine's "courageous journey of self-awareness and self-reliance is one readers will enjoy sharing," Janet Gillen noted in a School Library Journal review of the historical novel. Set during the Great Depression, Macaroni Boy follows Mike Costa, a sixth grader who empties rat traps at Costa Brothers Fine Foods, his family's business in Pittsburgh's warehouse district. After two hoboes die and Mike's grandfather falls violently ill, the young man begins to investigate the cause of the health issues. According to School Library Journal contributor Steven Engelfried, Mike's "actions and his perceptions give readers an involving and informative kid's-eye look at several aspects of city life in the 1930s." In A Long Way, Ayres's first picture book, a young girl delivers a present to her grandmother, pretending to travel by car, boat, airplane, and subway to do so. The story was described as "a clever synergy of art and text, and an invigorating romp into the realm of childhood play" by a Publishers Weekly critic. Up, Down, and Around, a tale told in verse, concerns two children who plant and harvest a bountiful vegetable garden. The author's "rhyming text is simple, but the words are well chosen," wrote School Library Journal reviewer Mary Hazelton. As Phelan further noted, Ayres's "short verses create a quick pace and an upbeat tempo throughout." Biographical and Critical Sources. PERIODICALS. Booklist, November 15, 1996, Hazel Rochman, review of Family Tree, p. 585; October 1, 1998, GraceAnne A. DeCandido, review of North by Night: A Story of the Underground Railroad, p. 318; November 15, 2000, Kay Weisman, review of Silver Dollar Girl, p. 640; April 1, 2001, Carolyn Phelan, review of Stealing South: A Story of the Underground Railroad, p. 1482; January 1, 2003, Todd Morning, review of Macaroni Boy, p. 887; June 1, 2003, Ilene Cooper, review of A Long Way, p. 1782; March 1, 2005, Jennifer Mattson, review of Matthew's Truck, p. 1201; March 15, 2007, Carolyn Phelan, review of Up, Down, and Around, p. 50. Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2002, review of Macaroni Boy, p. 1845; April 15, 2003, review of A Long Way, p. 603; April 1, 2007, review of Up, Down, and Around. Kliatt, July, 1998, Sunnie Grant, review of North by Night; May, 2001, Claire Rosser, review of Stealing South. New York Times Book Review, December 20, 1998, Susan Bolotin, review of North by Night. Publishers Weekly, November 18, 1996, review of Family Tree, p. 76; October 19, 1998, review of North by Night, p. 81; January 20, 2003, review of Macaroni Boy, p. 82; March 17, 2003, review of A Long Way, p. 75. [Image not available for copyright reasons] School Library Journal, November, 2000, Janet Gillen, review of Silver Dollar Girl, p. 150; March, 2001, Kristen Oravec, review of Under Copp's Hill, p. 245; June, 2001, Lisa Prolman, review of Stealing South, p. 142; August, 2001, Diane Balodis, review of Family Tree, p. 88; February, 2003, Steven Engelfried, review of Macaroni Boy, p. 140; May, 2003, Dona Ratterree, review of A Long Way, p. 108; July, 2005, Bina Williams, review of Matthew's Truck, p. 64; Mary Hazelton, review of Up, Down, and Around, p. 84. Under Copp's Hill (American Girl History Mysteries) Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. 11-year-old Innie Moretti is thrilled when she finds out from her older cousin, Carmela, about the girls' library club at the new settlement house in Boston's North End. Innie and her cousin, Teresa, volunteer to help unpack the books, clean, and do other tasks to get the house ready for business. Smoke from the recent Chelsea fire left lots of soot to be removed. Innie can't resist the temptation to explore as she works. She thinks she hasn't been observed, but when food and other items keep disappearing from the house, Innie's snooping makes her the prime suspect. With the help of her cousin, Teresa, and their new friend, Matela, Innie conducts her own investigation to find the guilty party. This is just the type of mystery I loved when I was in elementary school. In books, old houses always seem to hide secrets, and I used to dream about exploring old houses with secret passages and hidden rooms. The mystery and its solution are believable, although older readers will probably guess the solution long before it is revealed. Readers of any age will enjoy the friendship between immigrant girls of different ethnic backgrounds (Italian Catholic and Russian Jewish). Readers familiar with Boston will enjoy reading about places and events in the city's past. ( ) Innie Moretti loves books and has an opportunity to be part of a library club at a new settlement house in Boston's North End. As things begin to disappear around the settlement house, suspicion falls to Innie, her cousin, and a Russian immigrant who recently joined, but Innie gets the lion's share of the blame. She feels that she must find the real thief. As with most books in this series, this is centered around a historical event. In this case, it is the Chelsea fire of 1908. I personally enjoyed reading the notes at the end regarding the real event more than I enjoyed the mystery itself. The mystery itself will likely appeal to middle school girls. I love things with a Boston setting and had been looking forward to this mystery set in the North End. I feel that the novel needed a stronger sense of place than it had. Even though the author incorporated locations in the Boston area, she did not make the most of these in the plot. ( )