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Sunfire #31
Jennie
Number 31 in the currently out of print Sunfire series by Scholastic books. Jennie fights to save her life in the great Johnstown Flood of 1889 and survives to become a telegraph reporter covering the disaster but must choose between two men vying for her affection.
219 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 13, 2013
Oh, Sunfire. Your simple formulas always ring so true! Big historic events. Plucky heroines. Non-threatening love interests. I love this Nostalgia Stew so much. It makes me feel like a kid again, before I started reading "adult" books and subsequently lost my faith in humanity. Sunfires have the privilege of being both entertaining and educational. I spent a majority of my Jennie reading time poised next to the computer, ready to Google search the hell out of the rich history. So much fun, even though I was researching a tragedy.
When Karla informed me that a Sunfire based on the Johnstown Flood exists, I got ridiculously excited. I lived in Johnstown for 4 years, half of that time probably covered in a foot of snow. The City of Johnstown is a proud little bowl of a town at the bottom of a gorge. It's an old steel town, and the people reflect those blue collar roots. Proud, hard-working, and self-sufficient, the modern people of Johnstown are remarkably similar to the ones described in Jennie. For an economically depressed, thrice devastated area (calamitous floods in 1889, 1936, and 1977), Johnstown continues to stand, perhaps weaker than before but still an example of the grit that makes up a majority of Southwestern Pennsylvania.
While the 1936 and 1977 Johnstown Floods can be blamed on what I like to call the region's "temperamental" weather, the 1889 flood is notable for its human folly. Jennie begins one day before the flood. It's been raining heavily for days, and the title character is fully aware of Johnstown's tendency to flood and of the dangers of South Fork Dam. The dam was designed poorly to begin with, and the rich people running the South Fork Hunting & Fishing Club didn't maintain the dam well. It's a ticking time bomb, and Miner's pacing of the moments leading up to the disaster emphasize that.
Telegraph operator Jennie is a great heroine. She's outspoken about class tensions of the time and doesn't back down from a challenge. When she meets old childhood playmate Jim, a practical guy who takes the advantages offered to him by the rich men at the Club, Jennie doesn't hold back her ball-buster ways. At one point during their first conversation, Jim mentions that they were friends as children, and Jennie rapidly replies, "We were never really friends." So, yes, this Sunfire heroine has spunk. It's really no surprise that she managed to ride out the flood for 14 miles from South Fork into Johnstown, clinging to various bits of debris. She probably could have made it for days, just cruising down the makeshift river, nodding like a badass at all the astounded people on the banks.
The two Sunfire-mandatory suitors are Jim, the boy-next-door who always manages to raise Jennie's hackles, and David, a Philadelphia reporter who considers the Johnstown Flood to be a prime career opportunity. Jim gets a Big Damn Hero moment when, realizing the dam is going to break, he flees the club and tries to warn the people of South Fork and get a message to Johnstown. David offers Jennie a job as a telegraph operator in the aftermath of the flood to assist the deluge of reporters from all over the country. I liked both guys, even if I though David's enthusiasm about his BIG STORY was insensitive in the environment of such carnage.
Miner does a fine job of capturing the events of the flood and the recovery process. Even though I knew Jennie would survive, I couldn't help but get nervous as Miner throws obstacle after obstacle at the poor girl on that harrowing trip from South Fork to Johnstown. Later, she spares us an eye-witness account of the fire that consumed the massive amount of debris that got stuck under and around the Johnstown Bridge, opting instead to describe the screams of the people trapped in the fire and rubble. Later, she describes the destroyed property and the smell of decomposing bodies. The survivors start a recovery plan very fast, assisting their neighbors, caring for the hurt and the homeless. Their endurance is still present in the modern people of Johnstown, I think. Nothing really keeps them down. They'll fight and rebuild and move on with minimal drama. Miner captures that down-to-earth, no-nonsense perseverance very well in her characters.
2,209 people perished in the Johnstown Flood. No other US disaster touched that death toll until 9/11. 99 entire families were wiped out in the blink of an eye. Men and women helplessly watched their children and spouses die. Over 750 of the deceased were never identified. Just ... wow. One of the facts I found that does a great job of emphasizing the scope of the flood is that bodies were found as far away as Cincinnati in 1911. HUGE flood. The dam let loose 20 million tons of water, and the resulting wave grew as high as 35-40 feet and hit Johnstown at 40 MPH. Holy crap.
Well done, Jennie, for thoroughly entertaining me and inspiring my Google research spree that I eagerly used to spout Flood Facts at my disinterested husband. :D
To find out more about the Johnstown Flood and to see pictures (oh, there are so many pictures), go here.
When Karla informed me that a Sunfire based on the Johnstown Flood exists, I got ridiculously excited. I lived in Johnstown for 4 years, half of that time probably covered in a foot of snow. The City of Johnstown is a proud little bowl of a town at the bottom of a gorge. It's an old steel town, and the people reflect those blue collar roots. Proud, hard-working, and self-sufficient, the modern people of Johnstown are remarkably similar to the ones described in Jennie. For an economically depressed, thrice devastated area (calamitous floods in 1889, 1936, and 1977), Johnstown continues to stand, perhaps weaker than before but still an example of the grit that makes up a majority of Southwestern Pennsylvania.
While the 1936 and 1977 Johnstown Floods can be blamed on what I like to call the region's "temperamental" weather, the 1889 flood is notable for its human folly. Jennie begins one day before the flood. It's been raining heavily for days, and the title character is fully aware of Johnstown's tendency to flood and of the dangers of South Fork Dam. The dam was designed poorly to begin with, and the rich people running the South Fork Hunting & Fishing Club didn't maintain the dam well. It's a ticking time bomb, and Miner's pacing of the moments leading up to the disaster emphasize that.
Telegraph operator Jennie is a great heroine. She's outspoken about class tensions of the time and doesn't back down from a challenge. When she meets old childhood playmate Jim, a practical guy who takes the advantages offered to him by the rich men at the Club, Jennie doesn't hold back her ball-buster ways. At one point during their first conversation, Jim mentions that they were friends as children, and Jennie rapidly replies, "We were never really friends." So, yes, this Sunfire heroine has spunk. It's really no surprise that she managed to ride out the flood for 14 miles from South Fork into Johnstown, clinging to various bits of debris. She probably could have made it for days, just cruising down the makeshift river, nodding like a badass at all the astounded people on the banks.
The two Sunfire-mandatory suitors are Jim, the boy-next-door who always manages to raise Jennie's hackles, and David, a Philadelphia reporter who considers the Johnstown Flood to be a prime career opportunity. Jim gets a Big Damn Hero moment when, realizing the dam is going to break, he flees the club and tries to warn the people of South Fork and get a message to Johnstown. David offers Jennie a job as a telegraph operator in the aftermath of the flood to assist the deluge of reporters from all over the country. I liked both guys, even if I though David's enthusiasm about his BIG STORY was insensitive in the environment of such carnage.
Miner does a fine job of capturing the events of the flood and the recovery process. Even though I knew Jennie would survive, I couldn't help but get nervous as Miner throws obstacle after obstacle at the poor girl on that harrowing trip from South Fork to Johnstown. Later, she spares us an eye-witness account of the fire that consumed the massive amount of debris that got stuck under and around the Johnstown Bridge, opting instead to describe the screams of the people trapped in the fire and rubble. Later, she describes the destroyed property and the smell of decomposing bodies. The survivors start a recovery plan very fast, assisting their neighbors, caring for the hurt and the homeless. Their endurance is still present in the modern people of Johnstown, I think. Nothing really keeps them down. They'll fight and rebuild and move on with minimal drama. Miner captures that down-to-earth, no-nonsense perseverance very well in her characters.
2,209 people perished in the Johnstown Flood. No other US disaster touched that death toll until 9/11. 99 entire families were wiped out in the blink of an eye. Men and women helplessly watched their children and spouses die. Over 750 of the deceased were never identified. Just ... wow. One of the facts I found that does a great job of emphasizing the scope of the flood is that bodies were found as far away as Cincinnati in 1911. HUGE flood. The dam let loose 20 million tons of water, and the resulting wave grew as high as 35-40 feet and hit Johnstown at 40 MPH. Holy crap.
Well done, Jennie, for thoroughly entertaining me and inspiring my Google research spree that I eagerly used to spout Flood Facts at my disinterested husband. :D
To find out more about the Johnstown Flood and to see pictures (oh, there are so many pictures), go here.
July 30, 2007
*sigh* I loved the Sunfire series when I was a kid, and decided to re-read some of them. It's no wonder they're out of print. I realize that it's historical fiction, and therefore "the olden days," and I realize that they're romances, and therefore the point is that the leads fall in love, but still. One of the many nails-across-the-chalkboard quotes in the book reads thus: "How good it would be to let someone else take care of her, to have a strong man in charge of her life." Puh-lease. I know, it was "the time," but still. The books were written in the 80's (that's 1980's, not 1880's) so you'd think there'd be some more substantial conversation about gender roles, but not so much. There isn't even a good afterword about the cool history mentioned or the strides women have taken since the time period discussed. (This book was about the Johnstown Flood of 1889. Graphically detailed and achingly precise in smells.)
July 31, 2012
Reading/rereading the Sunfires this summer. I did not read this one when I was young. I found it very interesting, historically. I do not remember learning about this flood and it was protrayed well. The romance was secondary and really unnecessary, but I guess that was part of this series so it had to be done. It's so hard to find books (at least ones that aren't dry and boring) like this about American or colonial history that I'm whizzing through the Sunfire series this summer.
September 15, 2015
Waxing Nostalgic #8- Jennie is about a girl who lives through the Johnstown Flood of 1889. She has to exhibit bravery as she rides the wave down the hill and then has to be self sufficient as she works as a "boomer", telegraph operator, to help her family survive. She is able to heal her enmity with Jim, an old friend, and makes a new friend with brash David, a reporter.
June 24, 2013
Not one of the better Sunfires, which I read as a pre-teen/teenager. Somehow I missed this one and Darcy, probably because I was getting too old for them as the series was wrapping up. Abebooks came through with used copies, since the books are all now out of print. Anyway, Jennie was way too contrived and stilted; I remember the other, earlier Sunfires as being better written, and the pacing, characters, and dialogue a little more natural. Of course, I was 12 or 13. Anyway... now my series is complete.
July 3, 2017
I originally read this series back in the 80s, checking them out from my elementary school library. Having re-read them as an adult I think they stand the test of time and are still relevant as far as historical fiction is concerned.
August 7, 2017
Very light on the romance, heavy on the historical aspect. It's definitely targeting teens. I liked learning more about the Johnstown flood. I knew nothing before I read this, and of course, this book spurred me on to find out more. Love it when a book does that.
September 27, 2008
Not my favorite Sunfire book, but definitely worth the read. Johnstown Flood.
March 18, 2021
One of the first books that inspired my love of history!!
March 6, 2014
Not a lot of romance, which was different but not bad. So when the romance did happen quickly at the end, it felt forced. Interesting story, though.
November 29, 2014
Jennie has a bit of an anger management issue.
March 4, 2016
Only giving it two stars because there aren't alot of stories about Johnstown.
November 27, 2022
I bought, read and loved all the Sunfire books that I could find when I was a teenager. I specifically remember this one because I had never heard of the Johnstown Flood before. One of the great things about this wholesome series was that it explored so many different aspects of American history, some of them -- like this flood -- not very well known. I loved the combination of young romance and history told from a female perspective, and it was always fun to guess which suitor the protagonist would end up with. Today's teens would probably find these books simplistic or cheesy because they don't feature any sex or profanity, but I thought they were wonderful.
August 6, 2025
I think the author did a good job of establishing the characters and town before the disaster struck. She really made you care about the people who would be affected in a very short time. Jennie, a 16-year-old telegraph operator, is on the job when the Johnstown Flood of 1889 strikes. Ms. Miner was able to really convey the devastation and the impact of the flood for a middle grade audience in a way that was very readable. I like the fact that the book, for the most part, focused on Jennie and her experience, and the romance was more in the background. All in all, one of the better ones in this series.
August 7, 2024
Another one of my favorite books as a kid.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews