The Prescott Girls: A Letter From Philadelphia

In 1834, nine-year-old Rebecca "Beckie" Prescott lives with her family in an abandoned courthouse in rural Maine, a grand but aging building that is part home, part post office, and filled with the everyday bustle of a large New England family. Beckie shares her unusual home with her younger sisters, six-year-old Louisa and five-year-old Sallie, their mother, Rebecca, and their uncles. Their world is one of wood fires and candlelight, handwritten letters and horse-drawn journeys, household chores, needlework, and the constant arrival of news through the post. It is a world very different from our own, yet the girls' curiosity, disagreements, hopes, and affection for one another remain wonderfully familiar. When a letter arrives from Philadelphia, it brings news that reaches far beyond their quiet Maine home. As the Prescott family follows events unfolding hundreds of miles away, Beckie begins to understand that the wider world is closer than she imagined, and that the choices people make can become part of history. Inspired by the lives of three real sisters and the remarkable needlework samplers they left behind, The Prescott Girls: A Letter from Philadelphia brings the 1830s to life through the experiences of children who actually lived there. Their surviving samplers, family records, letters, historic buildings, and other primary sources provide the foundation for a story woven around the known details of their lives. Written for readers ages 8–12, the novel introduces young readers to daily life in nineteenth-century New England while exploring family, education, communication, friendship, responsibility, and a young girl's growing awareness of the world beyond her home. The Prescott girls were real. Their samplers survived. Their story was waiting to be told.