The Practice House

Written by Laura McNeal

Narrated by Angela Dawe

Nineteen-year-old Aldine McKenna is stuck at home with her sister and aunt in a Scottish village in 1929 when two Mormon missionaries ring the doorbell. Aldine’s sister converts and moves to America to marry, and Aldine follows, hoping to find the life she’s meant to lead and the person she’s meant to love.

In New York, Aldine answers an ad soliciting a teacher for a one-room schoolhouse in a place she can’t possibly imagine: drought-stricken Kansas. She arrives as farms on the Great Plains have begun to fail and schools are going bankrupt, unable to pay or house new teachers. With no money and too much pride to turn back, she lives uneasily with the family of Ansel Price—the charming, optimistic man who placed the ad—and his family responds to her with kind curiosity, suspicion, and, most dangerously, love. Just as she’s settling into her strange new life, a storm forces unspoken thoughts to the surface that will forever alter the course of their lives.

Laura McNeal’s novel is a sweeping and timeless love story about leaving—and finding—home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Apr 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781531835316

Laura McNeal

Laura Rhoton McNeal holds an MA in fiction writing from Syracuse University and is the author, with her husband, Tom, of four critically acclaimed young adult novels, including Crooked (winner of the California Book Award in Juvenile Literature) and Zipped (winner of the Pen Center USA Literary Award in Children’s and Young Adult Literature). Laura’s solo debut novel, Dark Water, was a finalist for the National Book Award. She lives with her family in Coronado, California.

Reviews for The Practice House

[sandra_wagner8wright · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a story about a dysfunctional household during the Great Depression - the home that was Ellie Price’s “practice house” as she transitioned from a stubborn romantic girl to a determined successful woman.Ellie fights for what she wants. She wanted freedom, so she took a job as a waitress at Harvey House. She wanted romance and a home, and married Ansel Price - a good choice until the Depression hit. She wanted better health for her youngest daughter and fought until the family relocated to California. She wanted independence and a decent life - and opened a successful diner. Ellie is the true heroine in this story. Her marriage to Ansel was an on-the-job “practice house.”Ellie’s story is superseded by those of Ansel and Aldine. While Ellie cooks, cleans, and mothers her children, Ansel and Aldine wallow in an emotional desert. Ansel Price dreams of a reality he cannot have — a successful farm instead of one being swept away by Dust Bowl winds, a town with time for culture and poetry, a wife who still loves him. He advertises for a cultured school teacher when there are no funds to pay her.Aldine McKenna, already an immigrant from Scotland, leaves her sister’s home for the Kansas plains to live among strangers. What did she seek? A question unanswered. What did she find? A home where no one welcomed her company, a classroom she couldn’t manage, and a man whose longings were as desperate as her own.Practice Houses, also known as Home Management Houses, were common in pre-World War II America. The new science of Home Economics condemned traditional housekeeping. Household Management became an academic subject. High school and college girls learned how to cook, sew, and clean before participating in a “practice house” with hands-on training that included childcare. Ellie’s daughter Charlotte, despite her lack of formal training, presides over such a house in the family’s new California community. I received Practice House as part of my Amazon Prime membership.

[cariola_6 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's the 1930s, and orphaned sisters Leenie and Aldine McKenna live unhappily with their maiden aunt in a small Scottish town, longing for adventure. It comes their way in the form of two American Mormon missionaries. Leenie falls in love with one, marries, and moves to New York, and Aldine soon follows. But ultimately she wants more than a life dependent on her sister. She answers an ad in the paper for a teaching position in Kansas. But all is not as it seems. When she arrives, Aldine discovers that Ansel Price, who posted the ad, had not yet secured a salary for her nor a place to stay. She ends up moving in with Price, his wife, and their three children and assumes her role in the classroom.And thus begins the novel's main conflict. It's the Great Depression, and Price is a farmer in the Dust Bowl: they are having trouble making ends meet, and the last thing Ellie Price wants is another mouth to feed--especially a pretty, cultured one with a charming accent. Ellie wants to move the family to her sister's home in California where life seems to be better. As to the Price children, the youngest, Neva, who suffers from a chronic respiratory condition caused by the dust, adores Aldine--as does their son, Clare (Clarence, or as Aldine pronounces it, to his ear, "Clay-dance"). Charlotte, the oldest, shares her mother's resentment. When Ansel himself becomes totally captivated by Aldine, you just know that hardship and tragedy will follow, and they do.While the story was somewhat cliché, I did enjoy the depiction of farm life in Dust Bowl Kansas and the details on the Harvey Houses, a chain of hotels/restaurants established near train depots in the West. Ellie and Ansel both worked at the Emporia Harvey House when they first me, and Aldine takes a job there when the Prices leave Kansas. In California, an influential older man falls for Charlotte and creates a job for her as teacher in a "practice house"--i.e., an expanded home economics classroom--where high school girls can learn to cook, sew, and keep house. So overall, an OK story with some interesting background information.

[dianekeenoy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My dad was kind enough to buy me the new Nook and gave it to me while I was in NC to drive him to Florida for my brother's birthday. I was checking it out and while downloading my android apps and this book popped up as a deal. When I started to just check it out, I read it all the way through. Aldine McKenna is stuck in a Scottish village in 1929 with her sister and elderly aunt when two Morman missionaries ring their bell. Aldine's sister falls for one of the young men, marries him and moves to America. Aldine follows her sister to America and answers an ad for a teacher needed in Kansas. The time period is very much a main character here, Kansas being in the middle of a drought with farms failing and schools closing for lack of money. She teaches for no money and lives with the Price family where the family members responds to her with kindness, curiosity and suspicion. It was very easy to caught up in the action of this story so that I had to finish it. It was a very good first ebook on my new Nook.

[written-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I wasn't very happy with this story. A family man places an ad in the paper looking for a school teacher for their small Kansas town. She arrives by way of Scotland, then New York on to Kansas.The town can't afford to pay her, she moves in with a family barely making ends meet. The wife isn't happy that her husband brought this woman into their home. Everyone is dirt poor and she has no money to leave. It just goes downhill for the family as a unit from there.