About the Book:
Gambling everything—including the family farm—Cullen McNamara travels to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair with his most recent invention. But the noise in the fair’s Machinery Hall makes it impossible to communicate with potential buyers. In an act of desperation, he hires Della Wentworth, a teacher of the deaf, to tutor him in the art of lip-reading.
The young teacher is reluctant to participate, and Cullen has trouble keeping his mind on his lessons while intently watching her lips. Like the newly invented Ferris wheel, he is caught in a whirl between his girl back home, his dreams as an inventor, and his unexpected attraction to his new tutor. Can he keep his feet on the ground, or will he be carried away?
My Comments:
I remember the 1984 World's Fair here in New Orleans. I was new to town so I was unfamiliar with what the area looked like "before" and didn't spend enough time at the fair to be able to remember where things used to be after it was over. Still, I do remember several days of wandering through interesting exhibits about other countries. Folks my age still tell stories of late nights at the German Beer Garden or about the food in the Italian Village. If a world's fair was that big a deal in the 1980's when TV was everywhere, when airfare to foreign countries and back was within the means of an average person, and when ethnic restaurants were common, how much bigger a deal must it have been when entertainment was generally homemade and travelling abroad either meant immigration or a months long tour by the wealthy.
It Happened at the Fair is set at the Chicago World's fair in 1893. Each chapter is illustrated with a photograph of the fair, which really helps take you back in time. The photographs also help convey the absolute massiveness of the fair.
Cullen and Della start off as "just friends" and end up as more than just friends. I enjoyed watching their relationship develop, and watching them grow as people.
The book is Christian fiction, but really had very little religion in it. It was about people who prayed periodically but not about people who shoved their faith in anyone's face and neither Cullen nor Della chose the other (or held the other off) due to faith. While it is almost 400 pages long, it reads quickly. It has interesting historical material on the education of deaf children as well as about the fair.
I'd like to thank the folks at Litfuse for providing a review copy. Grade: B+ Deeanne Gist is celebrating the release of It Happened at the Fair with an iPad Mini Giveaway and a Live Author Chat Webcast event {5/22}!
One "fair" winner will receive:
- An iPad Mini
- A $25 iTunes gift card
So grab your copy of It Happened at the Fair and join Deeanne and friends on the evening of May 22nd for a chance to connect and make some new friends. (If you haven't read the book, don't let that stop you from coming!)
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