Wildflower Girl is a follow-on sequel to Under the Hawthorn Tree and is set seven years after the Great Famine of Ireland which saw the O'Driscoll children travelling across the country to reach he safety of their great aunts. In Wildflower Girl, another part of Irish history is explore with Peggy travelling alone to America to find work and a better life than one she would lead in Ireland and the small town of Castlehaggart.

I listened to this on audiobook and can highly recommend the version narrated by Caroline Lennon. She does a fantastic job telling Peggy's story.

This book is set in the 1840/50s and shows some of the earlier emigration completed by Irish people to America and this book shows the horror and stress of the journey but again in a way that children can read it and understand. It's what I love about these books is that the story is told in a way that's accessible to children but at the same time the importance of the story and its place in Irish history can be understood by young readers.

I got oddly emotional with this book when Peggy was on the ship to America, surrounded by other people. She was 13 years old and knowing so many young girls and boys like her made this trip with some succeeding in America and others being exploited tugged at my heartstrings. It's such a poignant part of Irish history, and it's still something that's effecting the Irish economy today with the young generation uprooting to the US, Australia and Canada on the regular.

I do love stories with the upstairs/downstairs relations in a house such as we saw with Peggy's job as a housemaid. I think this one was done really well and didn't hide some of the hardships Peggy had to go through but the simple joys as well.