Kirsten Learns a Lesson: A School Story

American Girl: Kirsten #2

by Janet Beeler Shaw

Kirsten has a hard time in her new American school because she doesn't speak English very well. Miss Winston, her new teacher, is strict & not very understanding. Things get worse when Miss Winston comes to live with the Larson family. Kirsten's only escape is playing with her secret friend Singing Bird, the Indian girl. When Singing Bird suggests running away forever, Kirsten must decide where she belongs. Kirsten does learn some important lessons in school, but she learns something even more important about herself.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Childrens, Fiction, Historical, Middle Grade, Juvenile, Young Adult

88 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Shannara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was just as cute as I remember it!! Beware of light spoilers in this review. We get to know Kirsten and her family a bit better in this book. We also get to know her teacher more, whose name escapes me now… but I thought it was fun to read about Kirsten’s school experiences!! I can’t imagine being in one classroom with all the grades at once. But that’s how it was in Kirsten’s time, which is just so interesting to me.

I was also glad that it took a good amount of effort on Kirsten’s part to begin learning English. I feel like many books gloss over it as though learning English is easy, which it most definitely is not. She also struggles with a few other things in this installment and I think it makes the story seem more real.

I recommend this to American Girl lovers who enjoy a good MG/elementary read. You learn some things and have fun at the same time!! Win win!!

[Olde American Spirit · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked all the new school vibes but the old teacher and the new one were absolutely scary. ekkk

Felt bad for Kirsten and related with her in her shyness and keeping things to herself. Her new friend, Singing Bird was sweet.

It was interesting!



✨📚☕💙☕📚✨More in-depth reviews on my Youtube Wrap Up videos.

[Morgan's Endless Bookshelf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miss Winston is terrifying, Kirsten needs a hug, and Singing Bird is precious.

[Shelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you read my reviews, you know I am a fan of the American Girls series for girls. I enjoyed this one but felt that it was two storylines when it should have been one. These are small-chapter books and dividing the narrative up this way means neither topic gets the attention that it deserves. Since this book is called Kirsten Learns A Lesson: A School Story, the book should have been just that, life for a young immigrant girl going to a rural school in 1854. School life at that time is so completely foreign to young readers now that more details about Kirsten's school life would have been interesting and educational. The second storyline was also good, though needed its own book in this American Girls Series. Kirsten befriends a Native American girl. Even though spoken communication was next to impossible, these two young girls from very different back grounds, became friends. Both story lines were good, just not enough "meat" for either of them in the one book.

[Laura Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading these books with my niece when she was little and it's fun to revisit Kirsten. Her series is one of my favorites in the American Girl canon.

I recently read "The Children's Blizzard" about the fatal storm in the Dakotas during the late 18th century. "Kirsten Learns a Lesson" does a good job of describing the life of a frontier schoolteacher, both in the story and in the endnotes. I also appreciated Kirsten's friendship with Singing Bird. Kirsten seems to realize that making Minnesota her home means Singing Bird is losing her home. I definitely think there is empathy and a dawning awareness on Kirsten's part. The author does not shy away from difficult subjects such as Singing Bird's displacement and, in the previous book, Marta's death. This series has plenty of teachable moments for children.

[Olivia's Bookish Places & Spaces · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is there really any greater feeling than picking up a childhood favorite and being reminded of why you fell in love with the book (and series) in the first place? Probably not!

I’ll admit that I picked this up because it came with Kirsten’s school outfit from American Girl (the re-released outfit is too cute by the way), but I’m so glad that I read this (well re-read for the millionth time). As a child, Kirsten was one of my favorite historical characters from American Girl, I thought her story of coming to America and surviving hardships was incredibly inspiring. As an adult, I still believe that but now have an even deeper appreciation for the historical accuracy and life lessons American Girl teaches.

In this book, Kirsten, who has the inability to speak English, is starting school in America. Kirsten is struggling to assimilate and learn English, so school is harder for her than her classmates. I really enjoyed seeing Kirsten evolve throughout the short book and watch her find the courage to speak up, learn poems, another language and embrace other cultures (not just American culture, but Native American culture as well).

Additionally, friendship is another important theme in this book. Kirsten befriends a Dakota Girl, Singing Bird. Although there is a bit of a language barrier, they quickly become friends, sharing parts of their lives together. I thought their friendship was beautiful and a great reminder that we are all more alike than we are different. Seeing people from two very different backgrounds coming together was wonderful to read about. Too often we hear more about what divides us than what unites us, so this was a welcome change.

I will be honest that this book does deal with some heavy topics, such as the US government’s treatment of Native Americans, but the topics are dealt with in an age-appropriate way. Without giving spoilers, the ending is on the sad side but is necessary in order for the story to be historically accurate.

I recommend this book to children and adults interested in history and people interested in the first-generation immigrant experience.

[Rachel Moyes]

This book is a joke! (THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Kirsten doesn't speak English, but then goes to school and doesn't seem to have any trouble understanding her teacher--who's speaking English?

THEN, Kirsten makes friends with a Native American girl by exchanging gifts with her. Cut to some time later, and THEY CAN COMMUNICATE. Even though they speak different languages. No difficulty for Kirsten, apparently. But we get NO information on how they learned to speak to one another.

Singing Bird, Kirsten's friend, takes Kirsten to her village to meet her father. Then HER FATHER SPEAKS TO KIRSTEN. Are they speaking English? What??

Finally, after all this, I thought, "Ok, they're going to tie it together by having Kirsten realize that learning English is important because it's worth it to learn to communicate with people you want to be friends with, even if it's difficult." NOPE. Kirsten learns English when her teacher gives her a poem to memorize about being on a boat! Because apparently, that's like her strongest memory, even though, by all accounts, the voyage to America was HORRIBLE, and also HER FRIEND MARTA DIES ON A BOAT!! Which also she apparently has no trauma from!!

In summary, ridiculous.

[Panda Incognito · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book attempts to deal with Kirsten's struggles in school because of her language barrier, but whenever it is plot-convenient, Kirsten can communicate perfectly well with both English-speaking Americans and Native Americans. I remember being confused by this as a child, and I thought I was missing something. Nope, it was just a plot hole.

Although the primary conflict in this book is about Kirsten's challenges adjusting to school in a new country, a subplot involves her developing friendship with a Native American. This aspect of the story, and part of the "peek into the past" section, address the impact that European immigration had on native populations. That is worthwhile, but the book as a whole is scattered and lackluster. Even though I remember enjoying it as a child, I'm not impressed now.

[Rebekah Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars
I enjoyed Kirsten's interactions with Singing Bird, and her cousins. I like that she realizes where she belongs.
She does lie in this story and it's never found out or dealt with, so I'm taking half a star off for it.

[Olivia · Rating 2 out of 5]

{March 2025 Reread}

miss winston does not pass the vibe check

[Chuzzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Personally, I think it would have been a lot better if Kirsten really did run away...

[Abigail McKenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Singing Bird is such a sweetheart

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rereading as an adult again.

I hadn't made this connection before, but like Molly's multiplication bee, Kirsten utterly dreads having to recite her poem. (I would have been totally game for both - Samantha energy?)

I love that Miss Winston switches poems after they bond over the ship in a bottle. Miss Winston feels like she owes a lot to both the later Little House books (These Happy Golden Years especially) and Sarah, Plain and Tall, but (plot twist!) the latter was published in 1985 and this in 1986, so likely that's a coincidence - they would have been in production at the same time.

Anyway, here's Kirsten in her first days at an American school and learning English in earnest. We know she went to school in Sweden, so it's a little odd that she seems to struggle to form letters as Anna teaches her "dog." It's the same alphabet...

Math isn't really mentioned (fair, we only have 64 pages and a whole lot of story), but it would have been neat to see Kirsten really comfortable with arithmetic, which likely would come more easily than reading in a new language.

Like the first book, this one bites off a lot. From first meeting Singing Bird, we zip straight to "they were already the best of friends," with a lot of adventures only mentioned in passing. (That becomes VERY convenient later in the series when we need to explain why only Kirsten knows a place.) but it feels like we're missing out on a whole other book here. (I forget, maybe there are short stories that fill some of this in.) (LATER: There are not.) It's unclear exactly how many days or weeks have passed, as is how she gets the time to run off with Singing Bird, and where everyone else thinks she is.

Shaw's handling of all things Native American is a little uncomfortable, though I have to admit, I don't know what the right solution would be. She's clearly trying to first present the slurs and limited understanding that Kirsten hears from white people, then color in a fuller picture with actual Native characters. Miss Winston calls them savages, which you expect from the period. Lisbeth and Anna offer a slightly broader picture in the vein of "some people say X, some people say Y," and even note that new farms are affecting Native hunting lands. Presumably they don't have much direct experience, so I'm tempted to call this the best we could hope for?

Unfortunately, when we do meet Singing Bird properly, we hear a lot about the trinkets she and Kirsten exchange, and we get a good description of her appearance, her movement, her village - but we never get much of a feel for her personality. She's curious, generous and likes to explore, I guess? It doesn't feel like much. And the rest of her village - coming out to marvel at Kirsten while her father intones nobly about what a good friend Kirsten has been - feels cliche.

What I don't know is how this would have felt in 1986 - before Dances With Wolves and all of that - at the time, would this have felt like a subversion of 1960s Western tropes?

Anyway, it all makes me curious to see what Shaw did 15 years later in the Kaya books, which I've never read. (Added later: Now I have.)

Last note on the book at hand. The grown-up brain thinks that it's absolutely, utterly ridiculous to picture Kirsten actually leaving with Singing Bird, but as a daydream, it works - and anyway, the point is her realization that this place has actually started to feel like home.


More Kirsten babble

Meet Kirsten | Kirsten Learns a Lesson | Kirsten’s Surprise | Happy Birthday, Kirsten | Kirsten Saves the Day | Changes for Kirsten

Kirsten on the Trail | Kirsten and the New Girl | Kirsten Snowbound! | Kirsten and the Chippewa | Kirsten’s Promise | Kirsten’s Short Story Collection

The Runaway Friend

[RaspberryRoses · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book sets out to talk about two things. the process of learning a new language and the relationship between pioneers and Native Americans. it fails at doing both of them sadly.

[ten thousand bees]

i think about kirsten everyday she was My american girl

[Hannah]

I have no recollection of the happenings in this book, and that is a good thing because wowwwwwwww is this book fucked or what. First of all, Miss Winston's little grammar lesson is HILARIOUS but also HORRIFYING; well played, Janet Shaw. But really, this is a whole lot of nonsense. Why is this called Powderkeg School? Why is Kirsten alternately terrible and gifted and then terrible again at English, instead of a slow curve of learning like would actually be realistic? What the fuck is with "secret Indian friend" and that nonsense? I'm not going to even go into names like Singing Bird and Yellow Hair because it's so fucking pedestrian and basic that calling it problematic is giving it too much credit. White people are fucking obsessed with "Indian names" and I cannot. Singing Bird, by the way, also goes from knowing literally no English to being able to communicate in short sentences after interacting with a girl who doesn't speak English herself. A wha? The plotting in this story is so uneven that it's like Shaw and Pleasant Rowland were playing a game of Exquisite Corpse and they never bothered to go through and smooth out the disjointed bits after they got to the end.

So not even by American frontier romanticist nonsense standards is this good; it's bad because it's every bit as trite and problematic as you'd expect from the white capitalist institution that made it, but it's also just bad on all technical levels. Blehh. Now I see why I didn't like Kirsten growing up.

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the few books in the series where it's actually best to read the historical section first and then the story. The historical section does a good job in explaining how schools were run in Kirsten's time and it's extremely different from the way things are done now.

In this story Kirsten is going to start school but she speaks very, very little English and has a lot of trouble in class, especially when the teacher assigns her a poem to memorize and recite in front of the others.

Another plotline is when Kirsten makes friends with a young Indian girl who lives nearby. They get along very, very well and trade a number of different items with each other. Kirsten is even able to meet the girl's father in their teepee. (Which really goes to show that the hatred against the Native Americans was taught the young people; until they were taught that, they could regard each other as potential friends.)

This is a very good story in the series.

[Elise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love how this one continues to expand on the the theme of the challenges an immigrating family faces. Specifically the challenge of learning English and how intimidating it can be. For young readers, who only know their own experiences, this is going to teach real empathy. Hell, for an adult it does that. There's also some very interesting commentary the pioneers relationships with indigenous peoples and how their farming affected their food supply.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sweet story about Kirsten adjusting to school on the frontier without being proficient in English and also making friends with a local Native American girl, which shows her the impact settlers have on the lives of those on whose land they now live. The only thing that surprised/disappointed me about it was that the historical notes at the end only covered the school aspect of the plot.

[Kari Heggen (checkedoutbooks) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think Kirsten is the first white fictional character I read who actually saw Native Americans as people and chose to not fear them which is a much needed perspective. I liked this book a lot especially the fact that school didn't come easily to Kirsten (though also definitely didn't seem like an easy way to learn a new language!)

[Jaonna Caldwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think meet Kirsten was a good book because Kirsten learned to read in English. But she also lied to her parents by saying that she was going to practice her poem when acually she was just going to meet a friend.Plus she was leaving school to go meet the same friend Singing Bird.She had to sneak because her family did not like indians.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

why am I crying in the club rn

[Avery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rereading the American Girl books one series at a time. There were some interesting and troubling narratives in this one. Kirsten can’t speak English, is berated by her mean school teacher who then comes to live with them, and then dreams of running away and living with her Native American friend, Singing Bird. Somehow Singing Bird and Kirsten are able to speak to each other while they have no shared language. I love the depiction of Kirsten’s emotions and her anxieties about speaking in school, which I found relatable. I was never into this character much as a child so I am enjoying rereading it!

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ow, my nostalgia!

I had the Kirsten doll as a child, but don’t remember having any particular affinity for her as a character; I think my mom just got her for me because she is the character I most closely resembled. In my memory, Kirsten is the “sensitive” American Girl, which I don’t think was particularly true of me as a child or as an adult. But her stories are really hitting me right now, probably because of my history with her.

I definitely have not thought of the content of this book since last reading it probably 25 years ago, and it was unexpected that it brought back so many memories. Kirsten speaks little English and is sent to school where she struggles; I would expect that many other students in the class would be in a similar situation, including Kirsten’s own brothers who apparently have no problem fitting in and doing their class work. I don’t know how to feel about the new teacher, Miss Winston: She’s from Maine (+1000), she refers to indigenous people as “savages” (-10,000, but probably and unfortunately historically accurate that a teacher would say that?), she’s 19 (LOL imagining myself at 19), and she does eventually connect with Kirsten in a way that Kirsten can succeed in her studies. She 10000% marries Amos Anderson at some point in this series. I am convinced Janet Shaw modeled Miss Winston after Miss Rumphius.

The storyline with Singing Bird: I loved it. Two young girls create a friendship without a shared language but learn enough from each other and through drawings to communicate. It was heartbreaking for me for Kirsten to lose another friend, this time because of families like hers who have settled on stolen land and driven away the resources needed for Singing Bird’s community to survive. I hope that in an alternate universe Kirsten goes with Singing Bird and the rest of the series is about their adventures together. Also with the state of the United States I imagine the Larsons’ ancestors wish their forebears had stuck it out in Sweden.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't like this book nearly as much as the first one. I guess since I love languages and literature, it is tough for me to identify with a little girl who doesn't want to learn a poem in a foreign language (to be fair, though, nobody likes reciting something in front of a classroom). There wasn't the pioneer life-and-death struggle in this book that is so gripping in some of the others. I also wondered how likely Kirsten's friendship with Singing Bird was--did pioneer children really make friends with Native American children? It stretched my suspension of disbelief a bit, but I suppose it could happen. Also, the non-fiction section at the end... sheesh. Teachers have never been paid well, apparently.

[Emily Von pfahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the six original Kirsten books I think this is the strongest. I found the friction between Kirsten and her teacher as Kirsten struggles with a new language to be quite compelling, and one that many children can relate to. I also appreciated how the teacher and Kirsten found a solution together to overcome her challenges in school as it was realistic and showed that teachers are people with feelings and understanding too. I think that too often teachers are the antagonists in children's books. It makes sense, besides their parents that is who has the most authority over them that they interact with on a regular basis, but leaving them as the antagonist without allowing for the child's perception to change is too common. That is why I found this particular story to be refreshing.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know it's probably period accurate to call Native Americans the s-word, but it still left a weird feeling in my stomach.

Rereading this book reminded me of how much I loved the descriptions of Kirsten and Singing Bird's little gifts for each other - the beads, the feather, the doll cake, etc. It's a perfect portrayal of young, innocent friendship. I wanted more scenes of them actually doing stuff as friends, though. It felt like they'd barely gotten to know each other and then Singing Bird had to leave, and I didn't feel like Kirsten's sadness was warranted since most of the time they'd spent playing was off-page.

[Rubi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a precious story.
In this book, Kirsten is made to attend school where she must learn English. She has trouble and grows to dislike school, preferring to spend the day with her Native American friend Singing Bird. I loved their friendship and how the two girls were learning from each other, their culturs, language and toys.
Singing Bird grows so attached to her, she tries to convince her to live with her family in her village. But Kirsten learns that home is where her family is, even if life is different than in Sweden. She also figures the teacher is not out to get her, but to teach her.
This was the Kirsten book I remember as a child. Still love it haha

[Charlie - disableddaydreamer | itsbarbieparis (looking for mutuals) · Rating 4 out of 5]

another installment as i read as many of the american girl doll books as an adult, for the first time because i always wanted them and now i can.
this story is aged, i suppose, it is quite progressive for the time. the story is fine, miss winston was rude, and not a fan.
kirsten really puts up with the most.

update- the small updates to the book on rerelease were really good

[Hayley]

In school Kirsten leaned to do a poem she said thought she could not do but she did!!!