Books like Listen, my heart by Ellen Turngren

About the Book This book is about a young teacher Elizabeth Thatcher who heads out into the world looking for excitement and accepts a teaching job in a small town called Coal Valley. She befriends many people one of which is a Canadian Mountie. The book is pretty much about Elizabeth's experiences and her growing relationship with Mountie Jake Thornton! When Calls the Heart is being made into a television series roughly based off the books! The first season was out in 2014 and the fourth is coming out this year! Also for those interested there will be a fifth season starting in February 2018 on the Hallmark channel! It is an awesome series and is definitely worth watching! 😊

Kirsten and her family celebrate their first Christmas in their new home on Uncle Olav's farm in mid-nineteenth-century Minnesota.

After immigrating from Sweden to join relatives in an American prairie community, Kirsten endures the ordeal of a strange school through a secret friendship with an Indian girl. Kirsten has a hard time in her new American school because she doesn't speak English very well. Miss Winston, her new teacher, is strict and not very understanding. Things get worse when Miss Winston comes to live with the Larson family. Kirsten's only escape is playing with her secret friend Singing Bird, the Indian girl. When Singing Bird suggests running away forever, Kirsten must decide where she belongs. Kirsten does learn some important lessons in school, but she learns something even more important about herself. - Back cover.

Ten-year-old Kirsten is proud and excited when she finds a bee tree full of honey, one of the natural treasures of her Minnesota frontier world, but she exposes herself to great danger by trying to harvest the honey by herself.

A tough Minnesota winter brings many changes to Kirsten's frontier life, including the new responsibility of helping her brother Lars set his traps and a move into a new house for her family.

It's July 4, 1876, and Walter Fisk is celebrating America's one hundredth birthday in his new home of Minneapolis. These are exciting times, but they also have their difficulties for Walter. When Walter's cousin Polly Stevenson introduces him to Grant LaPierre, Walter Finally finds a friend in Minneapolis. They share an interest in the game of baseball, but Grant has a secret he doesn't want to share with Walter. Will Walter ever learn Grant's secret?

While nine-year-old Nancy is staying with her adopted Swedish grandparents for a year, everyone tries to figure out how she can celebrate a name day since her name isn't Swedish.

In 1854, ten-year-old Kirsten, living with her family in Minnesota, meets a raiding party of Ojibway Indians and finds unexpected help when her dog is in danger.

As a teenager, Norah Williamson believed she had a calling from God, but she had put everything on hold for the sake of her family. Now her obligations were over, and she was finally ready to pursue her own dreams. Widower Mason King had lost all hope of ever seeing his dreams come true–dreams of a Christian wife, and of children growing up to inherit his family's ranch. The emotions his new cook, Norah, stirred in him were the last thing he'd ever expected to feel again. But whatever Norah and Mason had planned, it looked as though both their futures were in the capable hands of a higher power.

4 Teachers Find More Than They Bargained for in Their Contracts Something Old, Something New by Kathleen L. Maher New York, 1840s Her father’s sudden death makes Gilda Jacobs the new schoolmaster, but to teach Christian curriculum she partners with fire-and-brimstone revivalist Joshua Blake, who learns a lesson in love. Love in Any Language by Susanne Dietze Kansas, 1870 Mary Clarence teaches English to the children of Swedish immigrants, but when her favorite students’ widowed father, Kristofer Nilsson, is accused of robbery, she’s determined to clear his name. In Desperate Straits by Carrie Fancett Pagels Mackinac Island, Michigan, 1894 Desperate for work, Margaret Hadley dresses as a young man to secure a dray driver’s position. When soldiers at the fort threaten her, Mackinac Island’s newest teacher, Jesse Huntington, intervenes. A Song in the Night by Rita Gerlach Virginia, 1904 Karin Wiles longs to share the uplifting power of music with children. But when she seeks to improve a poorly run school and include orphans, Nathaniel Archer delivers harsh words of opposition from the school board.

**"...Day In and Day Out his whispered prayers and skilled, surgeon's hands managed to save many a life from the ravages of dreaded cancer..."**

Nine-year-old Kirsten keeps her friendship with a Sioux Indian girl a secret until Kirsten's little brother becomes lost in the woods. Includes a section on Sioux Indians and a project related to the story.

Editor: I have read all of this 4 book series, except one, Dear Daughter, and only because it hasn't yet shown up in our local Community Thrift Store. **Historically speaking, the telling of this families move to America and their lives thereafter, all four books in this series must be not only protected, but read, shared and discussed. Some of it is heartbreaking; all of it is heartwarming.** I'm sure you too will be captivated as you read the retelling of each of the stories of this immigrant family. **The Amazon customer below, says it all:** **amazon.com customer: July 12, 2014, Wayne S. Walker, 5 of 5 stars, sad at the end, yet triumphant** Three books by **Thyra Ferré Björn** were recommended to us by several people: **Papa’s Wife, Papa’s Daughter, and Mama’s Way.** **- Papa’s Wife** is the story of a young woman named **Maria Skogberg** who comes to work at a small-town parsonage in Lapland, Sweden, and marries an older Swedish minister, **Pontus Franzon**; they have eight children and eventually emigrate to the United States. The plot is loosely based on the experiences of the author’s own parents and family. **- Papa’s Daughter** continues with the life of their oldest daughter, Charlotta, known as Button, who marries, has a family, and becomes a noted speaker and author. It appears that the novel is semi-autobiographical. **- Mama’s Way** is a collection of incidents that occurred during Mrs. Bjorn’s experiences of speaking and writing in which she applied the philosophy that she learned from Mama to help others with their problems. **The three books have been published together as a Trilogy.** However, we recently learned that **there was a fourth book in the series** which we found at a used book sale. - In **Dear Papa**, the children are all grown up with families of their own, and Mama is now a widow living in Miami, FL. Recovering from a heart attack, she decides to write Papa a letter, describing all that has happened to the family since his death and reminiscing about various humorous events from the days that are past. The Prologue brings the reader up to date by reviewing Mama’s proposal to Papa, the births of the children, and their life in America. The author says, **“Although my stories are always based on fact, I don’t want my readers to take them too literally …. I take so much fact and so much fiction and mix them long and carefully together in imagination’s big mixing bowl, until I myself cannot tell one from the other.”** Delightful reading, it is sad at the end, yet there is a triumphant feeling.

Laurel Cooper was too busy planning her only daughter's wedding to make time for romance. But the forty-something widow couldn't ignore the rugged photojournalist who'd appeared on her doorstep to photograph her antebellum home-turned-boardinghouse. Especially not when they spent so much time together as she gave him tours of other local historic homes. Micah Davidson made himself indispensable, even covering the wedding as a favor for his lovely new landlady. Yet just as Micah was about to propose, a shocking photo surfaced, turning Laurel's world upside down. Could their love outlast the long-buried secrets from Laurel's past?