Imperfections by Lynda Durrant

In 1862 Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, a teenager names Rosemary Elizabeth is left along with her brother and baby sister at a Shaker village. “Heaven on Earth.” While Rosemary Elizabeth (who comes to be renamed by the Shakers as Sister Bess) loves the beautiful clean surroundings, the delicious abundant food, the spotless white garments and the kindly companions, she finds daily difficulties with the Shaker three Cs — confession, communality, and celibacy — as well as so many additional non-sensical rules. Rosemary struggles to be good according to the ways of the Shakers, but can't help but see the hypocrisy in their lives. Slowly, she begins to rebel in small and large ways to define her own self and comes through her Shaker experience with wonderful balance. She is grateful to all that she has learned while living with the Shakers, but she feels that once the war is over, she will leave. She worries though as to if her mother will come back to get them, and if her siblings, who seem to be acclimating to Shaker life, will want to leave.

I enjoyed the main character of this book because of her thougthfulness and intelligence. I was also amazed at how much the can be learned about the Shakers from reading this book. Clearly this is a subject of interest tot he author and much more interesting to read than a textbook.

The reading level makes is fairly easy. Late elementary and up will enough this piece of historical fiction.