Virginia Sorensen

Marly and her family share many adventures when they move from the city to Grandma's old farmhouse on Maple Hill. A Newbery Medal book. Simultaneous.

Miracles on Maple Hill

Despite her father's objections, a young Amish girl secretly looks forward to attending public school where she makes a best friend and gains a new perspective on her family's way of life, in a story first published in 1955. Simultaneous.

Plain Girl

After her father returns from the war moody and tired, Marly's family decides to move from the city to Maple Hill Farm in the Pennsylvania countryside where they share many adventures which help restore their spirits and their bond with each other.

Marly and her family move to a farm in Pennsylvania in the hope that country life will restore her father's health.

A Novel by Virginia Sorensen

The Neighbors

A celebration of Sorensen's Mormon childhood in Utah, the narrator of each story is an adult remembering her experiences as a child and narrating events from the child's perspective. The stories are often about the child's attempt to understand the values of her community.

Memories of a Mormon Childhood

Where Nothing is Long Ago

Contains 38 pieces of correspondence written to Wanda Snow Peterson.

Virginia Sorensen Correspondence with Wanda Snow Peterson

Depicts the deep love of a Mormon married couple.

A Little Lower Than the Angels

Summary: A black boy's mother forbids him to associate with the neighbors whom she considers "poor white squatters," but when she unexpectedly begins labor, a number of misunderstandings are righted.

Around the Corner

The Man with the Key

The narrator of these stories is an adult remembering her experiences as a child and telling them from a child's perspective. The stories often attempt to understand the values of the writer's community and depend on the reader's ability to recognize the ironic distance between the child's perception and the meaning of the incidents to the narrator. Two of these stories were originally published in The New Yorker.

Where Nothing Is Long Ago

After a family moves to Vermont, their luck begins to change. A young girl discovers the miracle of maple syrup time, and something miraculous happens to her family as well.

The Evening and the Morning

Where polite society weighs heavily against extramarital dalliances, why do some people insist on acting against their own best interests? Ah, the complexity of the human heart! Virginia Sorensen seems to be saying in this dark novel about a 1940s Utah housewife, Kate, and a young violin maker, Peter, a man who elicits from her the first shock of overpowering attractions. Considering the circumstances of Kate's rural life, her marriage to an older man, and the trouble she has raising two stepchildren, readers may forgive her errant desires. Yet her husband has been good to her, and the new object of her eye has a devoted wife and a handicapped son. So, why should these two decent, if all-too-human, people be struck by this other side of human passion? Ultimately, Kate decides to abandon her Utah home and her adopted family rather than risk disruption to Peter's household. However, decades later she realizes her error and embarks on a pilgrimage back home to see her Peter once more, to determine finally what meaning this romantic interlude held for her.Virginia Sorensen was born in Provo, Utah, and lived much of her adult life in Morocco and Florida with her husband, British novelist Alec Waugh. She is the distinguished author of eight novels (see, for instance, A Little Lower than the Angels), a collection of short stories (Where Nothing Is Long Ago: Memories of a Mormon Childhood), and as many children's books; and winner of the Newberry Medal, an O. Henry award, and two Guggenheim fellowships. She spent a lifetime telling stories, many of which she offered to her Mormon community as their own. Literary critics have hailed her as “Utah's First Lady of Letters.” She died in 1991.

Virginia Sorensen

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