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Yesterday's Daughter
Raised by a loving grandfather and strict grandmother after being abandoned by her mother, illegitimate sixteen-year-old Leenie O'Brien is resentful and resistant when her mother, Mary Alice, returns and tries to get to know her daughter
Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
10 people want to read
About the author
Patricia Calvert
31 books7 followers"We are all emigrants from the same country — the land of childhood. What I want to do is write about the journey all of us have taken — or are in the process of taking — from that special place."
Patricia Calvert celebrates her birthday on July 22nd. She grew up in the mountains of Montana, in what was "a magic world for any child, one in which lodgepole pines grew like arrows toward a sky that seemed always blue." Even though Ms. Calvert knew she wanted to be a writer when she was ten, it wasn't until her daughters were grown and had moved away from home and she and her husband moved to Minnesota that she concentrated on her writing.
Among her books, The Snowbird and Yesterday's Daughter have both been named to ALA's Best Books for Young Adults list. Glennis, Before and After received a Christopher Award. Betrayed! (Atheneum) appeared in 2002 and Robert E. Peary: To the Top of the World (Benchmark) in 2001. Most recently, Ms. Calvert has been focusing on nonfiction writing, bringing us biographies of Zebulon Pike and Kit Carson, as well as The Ancient Celts.
Patricia Calvert celebrates her birthday on July 22nd. She grew up in the mountains of Montana, in what was "a magic world for any child, one in which lodgepole pines grew like arrows toward a sky that seemed always blue." Even though Ms. Calvert knew she wanted to be a writer when she was ten, it wasn't until her daughters were grown and had moved away from home and she and her husband moved to Minnesota that she concentrated on her writing.
Among her books, The Snowbird and Yesterday's Daughter have both been named to ALA's Best Books for Young Adults list. Glennis, Before and After received a Christopher Award. Betrayed! (Atheneum) appeared in 2002 and Robert E. Peary: To the Top of the World (Benchmark) in 2001. Most recently, Ms. Calvert has been focusing on nonfiction writing, bringing us biographies of Zebulon Pike and Kit Carson, as well as The Ancient Celts.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 18, 2019
Synopsis:
Leenie was abandoned by her mother as a baby and she has been raised by loving grandparents. Now, as a teenager, Leenie's mother wants to come back into her life and Leenie doesn't want anything to do with her.
She runs away to a small island where she helps an injured man. In turn, that man helps her to see that her mother's situation may not be as cut and dry as Leenie wants to imagine.
My rating:
3/5
I enjoyed the premise of the book. We so often see the story of the adopted child desperate to know who their birth parent was. It was interesting to see Leenie instead having no interest in her mother despite gestures of love (mostly in the form of gifts and letters) over the years.
This book had places with poignant and beautiful prose. "Life isn't pasteurized and homogenized. Sometimes it doesn't have vitamin D added and won't meet all daily minimum requirements. So what, we'll get along with what we've got" (127).
Along with beautiful prose the imagery related to the setting is deep and engaging.
Leenie was a character with lots of angst and anger and I thought her emotions were shown well and genuinely.
There is also lots of information given on the subject of photography which was interesting and informative.
However, despite the things I enjoyed about the book it was more of a miss than a hit for me.
This story had a literary feel to the storytelling which made it feel like work to read. The pacing was slow which made the book drag despite it's short length.
I also was not comfortable with her relationship with the injured man.
If you enjoy literary young adult fiction this might be a book that works for you. Otherwise, I would advise skipping it.
Leenie was abandoned by her mother as a baby and she has been raised by loving grandparents. Now, as a teenager, Leenie's mother wants to come back into her life and Leenie doesn't want anything to do with her.
She runs away to a small island where she helps an injured man. In turn, that man helps her to see that her mother's situation may not be as cut and dry as Leenie wants to imagine.
My rating:
3/5
I enjoyed the premise of the book. We so often see the story of the adopted child desperate to know who their birth parent was. It was interesting to see Leenie instead having no interest in her mother despite gestures of love (mostly in the form of gifts and letters) over the years.
This book had places with poignant and beautiful prose. "Life isn't pasteurized and homogenized. Sometimes it doesn't have vitamin D added and won't meet all daily minimum requirements. So what, we'll get along with what we've got" (127).
Along with beautiful prose the imagery related to the setting is deep and engaging.
Leenie was a character with lots of angst and anger and I thought her emotions were shown well and genuinely.
There is also lots of information given on the subject of photography which was interesting and informative.
However, despite the things I enjoyed about the book it was more of a miss than a hit for me.
This story had a literary feel to the storytelling which made it feel like work to read. The pacing was slow which made the book drag despite it's short length.
I also was not comfortable with her relationship with the injured man.
If you enjoy literary young adult fiction this might be a book that works for you. Otherwise, I would advise skipping it.
January 10, 2026
I first read this when I was eleven and have always wanted to read it again, but it took a kind person from the What's that Book? sub to help me find it. It was worth hunting down. Gorgeous descriptions of the swamp coupled with a very realistic first person account of family and finding yourself changing. I do think some of this 80s/90s paperbacks deserve a wider audience than nostalgic Gen Xers.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews