Where the Heart Should Be by Carnegie Medal winning author Sarah Crossan, is an historical fiction novel written in verse. Set in 1840s Ireland during the events of the Irish Potato Famine, the novel follows Nell, a teenaged girl who works as a scullery maid to help support her impoverished family. Despite her poverty, Nell is intelligent and loves to read poetry. When Johnny, the nephew of the evil English lord, arrives as heir apparent at the ‘Big House,’ he and Nell fall in love despite the cultural and class divisions that separate them. The novel includes romance between Nell and Johnny, elements of Irish folklore such as magpies and banshees, historical realities such as the fraught relationship between the Irish and the English, and thriller elements as Nell and her father attempt to save themselves and others from starvation.
The tone of the novel is tense and introspective as we follow stoic Nell during the Irish Potato Famine. The plot begins slowly, introducing the historical realities that divide the lives of the rich and privileged English versus the poor and downtrodden Irish symbolized by the foods that they eat, "meat for dogs / and spuds for the servants." Vivid sensory imagery invites the reader into the wet, cold Irish landscape, difficult even with a good harvest. The poems are written in free verse, and don’t follow a strict rhyme scheme or meter. Crossan uses the poetic elements of repetition, parallelism, and enjambment to create movement and melody to her poems, "the two of them are always, / heating up, / cooling down, / breaking up, / breaking down." Her poetry is also filled with historical references that help teens to organically learn about the culture of Victorian Ireland, "their romance is as / repetitive as Sunday Mass." Allusions to Irish folklore add to the movement of Crossan’s poems. Banshees and a violent storm foreshadow the impending blight that will end millions of lives, "it's the banshee! / I'd know that wailing anywhere. / My granny died on a night like this. / Can you hear her keening?" The marriage of the supernatural and the historical serve to emotionally impact the reader as they are organically introduced to cultural and historical realities of the Irish in 1840. The poem “The Devil” encapsulates the strengths of Where the Heart Should Be as Nell's brother, Owen, is dying of typhoid. Crossan creates a tense, ominous tone that blends historical and cultural realities through the Irish practice of seaweed offerings, religious practice of praying the rosary, and supernatural omen of the magpie as Owen dies from a disease that claimed hundreds of thousands during the blight.
The Devil
Mammy sits
In the corner, rocking Owen.
She kisses his forehead and says,
“He won’t take water today.”
I look up from my reading.
“Why isn’t he hungry?” Mammy wonders.
“Did you give him the tea?” I ask.
“You mean he hasn’t had anything
To drink at all?”
Daddy wants to know.
“He’s having a little nosebleed.
Get me a cloth to clean it, Nell,” Mammy says
Owen is not a whiner.
When he’s hurt he’d rather
box you in the face
than show you he feels sore.
But he begins to moan.
A low sound fills the room.
“Make him take more of that tea,” I tell Daddy,
pushing open the door.
On the threshold I place another little
mound of seaweed for the good people
but as I am about to begin the rosary again
a magpie shoots by me and into the cottage.
“Get that devil out!” Mammy screams.
“GET IT OUT!”
We cannot.
And Daddy ends up killing the bird
with a pan to stop Mam’s screams.
I would introduce “The Devil” to high school students with a discussion-based hook about superstition. We would begin by discussing superstitions they already know about and what they symbolize. I would then read the poem aloud to exemplify the ominous tone and then ask the students from what they know about superstition what they believe is going to happen to Owen. I would also ask these questions to get the discussion going: What is wrong with Owen? Why is Nell offering seaweed? Why does the mom call a magpie the devil?
Where the Heart Should Be is extremely relevant to teen readers as it centers on themes such as love, identity and moral choices. Crossan includes something for everyone as she weaves together elements of forbidden romance, history, folklore, and thriller to engage teen readers. I would recommend this novel for students who enjoyed The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins as Nell’s challenges mirror Katniss Everdeen's in many ways. Both heroines are forced to question authority and fight injustice to protect their families from extreme hardship and the threat of death. This novel in verse would also pair well with a social studies unit on the Irish Potato Famine as Nell’s story brings this historical atrocity to life in an engaging way for teens.
Crossan, S. (2025). Where the heart should be. Greenwillow Books. 978-0063384910
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