Brave Emily

American Girl: Molly #7

by Valerie Tripp

Spring 1944: Emily Bennett, a young English girl, has come to stay with Molly McIntire's family to escape the bombing of London. Emily's parents sent her off with the reminder to be "a brave soldier for England," but Emily doesn't see how she can do that. Molly tries hard to make sweet, shy Emily feel at home, and Emily is grateful for Molly's friendship. Emily is delighted that she can help Molly with math and is pleased and proud when she impresses Molly. But it is not until Emily makes a big mistake and has to ask Molly for help that Emily shows how truly brave she is--and both girls learn what friendship really means.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Childrens, Historical, Fiction, Middle Grade, Chapter Books, World War II

76 pages, Paperback

First published August 21, 2006

About the author

Valerie Tripp is a children's book author, best known for her work with the American Girl series.

She grew up in Mount Kisco, New York with three sisters and one brother. A member of the first co-educated class at Yale University, Tripp also has a M.Ed. from Harvard. Since 1985 she has lived in Silver Spring, Maryland. Her husband teaches history at Montgomery College.

Right out of college, Tripp started writing songs, stories, and nonfiction for The Superkids Reading Program, working with Pleasant Rowland, the founder of American Girl. For that series, Tripp wrote all the books about Felicity, Josefina, Kit, Molly, and Maryellen and many of the books about Samantha. She also wrote the "Best Friends" character stories to date, plays, mysteries, and short stories about all her characters.. Film dramatizations of the lives of Samantha, Felicity, Molly, and Kit have been based on her stories. Currently, Tripp is writing a STEM series for National Geographic and adapting Greek Myths for Starry Forest Publishing. A frequent speaker at schools and libraries, Tripp has also spoken at the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, The New York Historical Society, and Williamsburg.

Reviews

[Miranda Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emily knew the note by heart, but she cleared her throat and read, "'Emily, darling girl, Be good. Be tidy. Be obedient. Be honest. And most of all, be polite and grateful. Unrationed love, Mum.'"

Emily has just arrived from London to America to escape the bombings from WWII. However, when she arrives, Emily learns that her Aunt Primrose is sick, so she has to stay with Molly and her family until her aunt recovers.

Emily's grandfather told her to find a way to be brave and help England while in America. She wants to make him proud but it's oh so very difficult..

"Emily knew the truth about herself. She was not brave. She only pretended to be brave and that was hard for her to do."

Additionally, Emily desperately wants to be liked by Molly and Molly's friends (Linda and Susan) but it's hard to relate to them. The Americanisms are strange and the culture shock is real.

"You know, when you first got here...You acted sort of cold, too, and standoffish."
"Not standoffish, just standbackish!"

Everyone in the third grade class is given flutophones. Through chance, Emily is able to play Hot Cross Buns quite well and now everyone expects her to be a musical genius.

Emily frets about what to do - should she correct them? Would Molly still want to be her friend even if Emily isn't good at the flutophone?

Dare I finally say it? A 5 start Molly book! Only took until book 7 to get there :p

For context, there's the six main Molly books and the seventh one (this book) is told from the perspective of one of Molly's friends (Emily) who stayed with the family for a bit of time when she first arrived from England.

I was a bit confused trying to figure out where this one fit in the Molly-verse. We get references in the beginning that Emily had just discovered that Molly liked the English princesses (Elizabeth and Margaret Rose) the night before, but no references to Molly's birthday and no puppies, so I think this book takes place within the Happy Birthday Molly book from the main series.

I liked getting Emily's perspective during Happy Birthday Molly because HBM was my least favorite Molly book. I thought Molly and her friends were incredibly insensitive and outright rude to Emily. (Granted, a lot of it was age-appropriate curiosity but I maintain that common sense indicates that you don't invite the war refugee to play bombs-in-the-basement on her first night there).

When we see the events from Emily's perspective - all of Molly & her friends' probing feels much more smoothed over. I think I like this version of events, where the girls are curious but still sensitive to Emily's feelings.

I also really liked Molly in this book - Molly felt like a mean-girl at times in the first few Molly books. It felt like the author was still figuring out what kind of personality to give Molly and finally settled on it by books 5 & 6. So, by book 7 (this book, told from Emily's perspective).

I really, really liked Emily's growth in this story - you can see that she's inside her head a lot and worrying about helping England, wondering how her parents are, fitting in, and how she can form friendships.

I like that we get letters from her parents so we know that her family is alive though, I really wish there was some reunion or other indication that Emily's family was okay. I haven't read all of the companion books yet, so I'm hoping we get an update there.

[Sesana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tacked onto the Molly series, Brave Emily is from the perspective of Molly's English friend Emily Bennett, early in her stay in America. If you're familiar with the American Girl books, you know what to expect. It seemed to fit in with the rest of the books in Molly's series quite well, even with an entirely different narrator.

Re-read: I think I liked this a bit more having read it the same day that I re-read Molly's birthday book, the only other place Emily shows up. This book fleshes out Emily's personality and backstory a lot. Molly is a much better friend in this book than she can be in her own series, and Emily and Ben, Molly's little brother, have a very cute relationship.

[Whitney · Rating 3 out of 5]

You're a 9 year-old London girl whose parents are sending you away to safety during the Second World War. You have an aunt in America. However, when you arrive, you discover she is in hospital with pneumonia, and a local family is inviting you to stay with them instead. You enroll in school, where the family's 9 year-old daughter Molly helps you navigate the difficulties of slang and honesty; she encourages you to come out of your shyness. She has nice friends who also befriend you. But unfortunately comes the big challenge: how to play a Flutophone. (Imagine ominous, squeaky honking musical crescendo here.)

[Eva B. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm always surprised by how little Emily actually has to do with the Molly books. While Ruthie is in all of Kit's, Elizabeth is in most of Felicity's, and Nellie is in most of Samantha's and a ton of her mysteries, Emily is only in Happy Birthday, Molly! and in one of her mysteries. As a character, Emily is...fine. She's a bit boring, though, and her book suffers for it.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the third AG best friend book by Val Tripp that I've read, and I'm not impressed by any of them. "Very Funny Elizabeth" is mean. "Nellie's Promise" is frustrating. This one is... kind of boring.

Emily is anxious to be liked by her new friends and fearful of seeming ungrateful, to the point of feeling unable to correct misunderstandings like "Emily is accustomed to oatmeal, therefore Emily likes oatmeal." She also struggles to interpret Americans' tendency to exaggerate for effect. (As I was reading, I felt this was itself exaggerated, but then I found myself saying things like "a gazillion times better" and "I agree 200%" and more, sooo...)

What I do think are exaggerated are Emily's British turns of phrase: It becomes the book equivalent of an actor who can't quite pull off the accent they're attempting. I wonder if an editor reeled her in back when she wrote Happy Birthday, Molly, or if writing from the perspective of the English character led her to go overboard. It's... too much.

And what do we do with this set-up? We play Flutophones and angst over practicing. Relatable content, but in the AG balance of "some things never change" and "here's what her world was like," this one leans too far toward the former.

I wonder if there was an editorial directive to keep the main character offstage as much as possible to keep her from upstaging the best friend. Like Samantha in "Nellie's Promise," Molly spends a lot of time elsewhere. That feels like the easy way out when it comes to helping the best friend (or "English friend") keep the spotlight, but it minimizes the amount of time you see the friends actually being friends. Which... wasn't that the whole point of this line?

[Charlotte🫶 · Rating 3 out of 5]

In school recently, I’ve been learning a lot about World War II and found that I had this American girl book on my shelf that took place during that time! It honestly wasn’t my favorite but it only took me 30 minutes to read, so it was a fun short story to help me wind down before bed😁

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 3 out of 5]

Emily is relatable in the best way, and so is the lesson she learns--don't struggle in private, but open yourself to community.

[RaspberryRoses · Rating 3 out of 5]

i don't think valerie tripp knows how to write a british person. this was a bit atrocious at times.

i loved the character of emily, though - american girl rarely gives us quiet, introverted types. i really adored this fresh perspective. but also... the emily portrayed in this book just doesn't feel like the emily we saw in happy birthday, molly? and i dont just mean the atrocious haircut retcon.

also its a crime to waste a character as unique as her on a fucking flautaphone plot.

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

Somehow, this book has stuck with me for years and years and years. One specific line I still remembered even before my reread.

Emily is so precious!

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally reading the AG books to my last ten year old son. They are still great for humanizing, realistic, history from a kid-friendly and kid-focused perspective. Much prefer these for homeschool history than just an endless list of wars and battles, which is how many history classes are presented.

[Panda Incognito · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book came out after the movie did, and I remember speed-reading it at my best friends' house before my sister and I worked with them on The Testing of a Thousand Batteries for part of our church's 2007 summer musical. That was a really fun day, but since I didn't really care for this book at the time, the association makes this only mildly nostalgic.

Last fall, I found got a like-new copy of this at the dollar bookstore, and I got it for free, since I was using trade-in credits. I wouldn't have pursued my own copy of the book under other conditions, but I'm glad to have this nonessential extra with my complete set.

I still don't really like it. It's nice to have Emily's perspective, and the book incorporates lots of British cultural and historical details from the era, but Emily makes some foolish and out-of-character choices. Even though she receives consequences for them, I would have preferred a different plot entirely. The story is a 2.5 star one for me, but since I deeply relate to Molly's struggles with math and music, and appreciate the ways that "the peek into the past" section in the back addresses the experiences of European child refugees and Japanese American children in internment camps, I'm rounding up to three.

[Sadie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cute story! It was helpful to have Emily’s perspective in this book because she is quiet in Molly’s stories.
Some advice I have for Emily is- pretending to be brave is being brave! She has been brave for a long time.

I was happy that they finally included a discussion of the Holocaust and Japanese internment at the end of Emily’s book- key things to consider in WWII if you ask me.

I have a bone to pick with AG- Emily has a tap costume but refuses to tap in this book- what gives?

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have the Emily American Girl doll but never read her book. I always like the ends where they talk about the historical context of the story.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sweet book <3 Well-written, loved getting to see everything from Emily’s point of view. The Looking Back section was probably the most impactful one yet; informative, respectful, honest but appropriate for its audience. Five stars!

[Mallory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awww, Emily! What a cute character! Read this book!

[René · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!

[Shazzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

For Book Club meeting.

[Ellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh American Girl books, you're so cheesy... :)

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book!

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great book for girls looking for a way
to use their talents when it comes to bravery,
and friendship.

[Kristen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry to say it but this one is kind of dumb. Emily is a top tier doll though.

[Calli Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brave Emily is the story of a nine-year-old girl who is displaced from her London home during World War II and sent to live in the United States, in the home of a middle-class American family. The book is one of the American Girl series that centers on Molly McIntire.
In Brave Emily, Emily is trying to adapt and assimilate to the American way of life she has found herself thrust into. She struggles with homesickness and understanding American slang, teasing, and sarcasm. Emily searches for ways to “be brave and help England” but is discouraged when instead she finds herself in the center of a big misunderstanding at school. She learns valuable lessons about friendship, bravery, and truthfulness as she navigates her way through her new life.

One of the most obvious ways this book could be used in the classroom is as a supplement to a social studies unit on World War II. The benefit of using this book over one of the others in the Molly series is that it is told from the lens of a young British girl. So, this book is a good way to introduce students to a non-American perspective on the events of the war. Additionally, Emily and Molly are opposites in many ways that are made clear through the text. Teachers can use this book, and even others in the series, to compare and contrast character traits and experiences. Furthermore, one of the recurring issues in the book is that Emily has a hard time judging when her new American friends are being serious or sarcastic. Reading a passage where Emily tries to sort through this issue would be a great supplement to a lesson about irony, sarcasm, and hyperbole in speech and text.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

These best friend books are so strange. I feel like they don't really add much to the world of the main characters. I did enjoy being able to revisit Molly, Linda and Susan in a story that is new to me, but this story was kind of dull. I will say to credit this book, Emily's personality didn't seem wildly out of pocket like Elizabeth's did in "Very Funny Elizabeth" or Nellie in "Nellie's Promise". She seemed to be pretty similar to the character she was in Molly's birthday book.

Unfortunately, we didn't get much of the history surrounding that time period. I wanted to know more about her like in England before she came to America, or about her journey to America. Instead, I got a lot of Flutophone anxiety. Is it reminiscent of my days toodling around with a recorder? Absolutely. Would I have liked seeing that reflected in a book as kid? Maybe. I do remember really liking how Molly's school life was so similar to mine. But, I don't think it would be a story that I would go back to with nostalgia in years to come.

Also, I feel like Val just took any generic 'British' phrase and threw it into Emily's mouth. Just oof.

[Allie · Rating 5 out of 5]

things i have learned:
- emily is so much cooler than molly omg
- also her problems are so much more engaging
- emily DOES NOT describe miss campbell in nearly as much detail as molly (…🌈👀?)
- emily’s pov retcons all the retraumatizing molly & her friends did to emily, instead adding a plot that apparently fits within molly’s book 4 tho is never referenced to, which is about jolly ol recorders (called flutophones) instead of, you know, pLAYING ABOUT WAR w someone who genuinely escaped a major city in war ???…. anyway uh
- also this book made me realize that molly is described as 9 in the entire series despite her having a birthday in book 4???? ????what is this???

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of the “newer” American Girl books written, this is by far the best one. The characters were kept true to who they were in the original Molly books and while Emily was telling lies, she saw the error of her ways and learned a lesson. The Peek Into the Past was also informative while more focused on the side of children in London rather than the other Peeks into the Pasts in Molly’s books which shared mostly from the perspective of how American children experienced the war.

[Aimee · Rating 3 out of 5]

It wasn’t a bad book but I was a little disappointed by it. Emily didn’t have much of a personality and seemed more of a caricature of an English person. I know they were trying to show all the differences in speech between America and England but it seemed a little forced. I liked Molly in this story because I feel like it gave her more time to shine instead of be whiney like in the rest of her books. Also, I learned some pretty nifty math tricks!

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

All of the American Girl books are meant to be educational but in addition to the regular historical lessons I think this one succeeded in being educational about something I don’t even think they intended—this book would actually be a really good jumping off point to talk to kids about imposter syndrome

[Jessica Nicole Abercrombie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was fine, but I definitely didn't love it as much as the rest of Molly's collection. I don't see these "Best Friend" books being as popular as the normal American Girl collections. I feel like she wasn't involved enough in Molly's story to really warrant her getting her own spin-off book. She's only featured in one (maybe two) of Molly's books.

[Madeleine Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although i believe that Molly Mcintire is a vexatious and irredeemable character this book was actually quite pleasant. Emily Bennett is a well rounded character with a captivating story, Emily is sent from London to live in America to avoid the horrors of World War ii. While in America Emily makes it her mission to be brave for everyone back in England.
Minus one star for Molly.

[Danielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I've said before on some reviews of middle grade books that there are times where like, as an adult you know what's going to happen even though the characters are kids and don't have that foresight. I still get secondhand anxiety knowing what the miscommunication is and knowing exactly how it's going to play out.