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America 1
Slavery
Jessie Bollier is growing up in New Orleans. He likes to play the fife. One day he is kidnapped by some slavers and taken aboard their ship. They want him to 'dance' the slaves. He is to play his fife and the slaves are to be forced to dance to keep them in some semblance of fitness.
Jessie is taken across the Atlantic to the west coast of Africa where a cargo of slaves is taken on board and he plays his fife for them on the return journey.
Jessie survives the horrors of the voyage and eventual shipwreck but for the rest of his life he is haunted by the memories of that nightmare voyage.
11+
Twelve-year-old Gilly's mother is dead and when her father goes
to look for gold in the Rocky Mountains she is sent to live with
her aunt and uncle in Virginia. Gilly misses her father and her
home in Missouri. Her father has brought her up to believe that
slavery is wrong and she is shocked to discover that not only
does her Uncle Henry keep slaves but his friend and neighbour,
Mr Craikey, keeps bloodhounds to hunt down escaped slaves.
Gilly's aunt is strict with her and makes her work hard. There
is much detail about how to churn butter and make soap -- both
soft soap and hard soap. But despite her work Gilly starts to
notice several strange things. Food keeps disappearing. And the
doctor leaves notes for Aunt Laura about herbs and remedies. This
is something about which young Gilly knows a great deal and she
knows that the doctor's messages do not make sense.
Then Gilly finds out the truth. The farm is a station on the underground
railroad and in a thrilling climax Gilly finds herself guiding
two escaped slaves to the river to a rendezvous with a boat while
being pursued by men with guns and bloodhounds.
This book has a good fast paced story with enough authentic detail
to give a realistic impression of America in 1859. But it is also
a rites of passage story. At the beginning Gilly is full of childish
plans to run away and walk to the Rockies. She also tells her
young cousin Neddy tall stories about wrestling bears and Indians.
When her uncle sells her friend to his cruel neighbour Gilly throws
a tantrum and swears at him. But later, when Mr Craikey tries
to bribe her to tell where the slave is, she answers him with
dignity. Then at the end she finally confesses to Neddy that all
her stories have been fibs. Above all she comes to realise that
she has much to learn about people. She had thought she knew who
was behind the station on the underground railroad but she had
been quite wrong. She had also been wrong about her father --
twice. She had closed her eyes to his gambling and had also been
mistaken when she believed he had abandoned her. At the end of
the book she has learnt to that people are not always what they
seem and that she should try to look beyond the front they present
to the world.
This book gives a vivid picture of pre Civil War America. The
complex ideas of the time are set against a background of domestic
detail with a hint of mystery leading up to a thrilling climax.
And not to forget the story of a young girl growing up.
A worthy read indeed.
11+
"Right up there, plain as the toes on my feet, are some stars that makes a drinking gourd...The front end of that drinking gourd points straight up to the North Star. You follow that and you get to Canada and you are free."
These words are spoken by Liza, a young slave girl on a brutal plantation in the Deep South. Half starved and beaten so badly that she is crippled Liza has still not lost her spirit. She is determined to escape to Canada and freedom. One day she too, will "Follow the drinking gourd," as it says in the negro spiritual.
One day an ornithologist visits the plantation. He is an abolitionist and he uses his interest in birds to cover up the help he gives to the slaves. He picks out some of the slaves and gives them instructions how to get to Canada. He tells them how to contact people who will help them.
Liza makes her way northward with her friend Julilly, who was taken away from her mother when she was sold south. Together they make their way along the "underground railway."
This book brings in real people - the abolitionist Alexander Milton Ross, and Levi Coffin, the "president" of the Underground Railroad.
There is an introduction by Martin Luther King Junior.
10+
This is part storybook, part fact book. It is set at the present time but the main part of the story concerns the Underground Railroad.
Ginger Wanamaker is spending part of the summer holidays with her grandparents and her best friend Irene Fong while the parents of both girls are in Europe. Ginger’s grandparents live in the country in southern Indiana and the first few chapters set the scene. Grandfather – or George – has been retired for three years and his hobbies are old cars, the study of coins and genealogy. Her grandmother – or Abby – is a good cook who enjoys listening to her oldies-but-goodies radio station -- as well as surfing the internet. The last member of the family is the irrepressible Laird, a wire-haired fox terrier who entertains the residents of a local nursing home with his tricks.
The girls go for trips in George’s old car and go swimming in the open-air pool at the nearest town but they soon begin to find country life boring. Then events take a sudden turn and life becomes really exciting.
One afternoon Laird is digging, terrier-style, behind the house. He falls down a hole and has to be rescued. George digs him out and an old cellar is revealed. George says that he thinks it is dangerous and that he will fill it in. But later the girls discuss it. A neighbour’s house had once been a station on the underground railroad and the girls had recently been shown the secret hiding place. What if the cellar which Laird has discovered is another underground railroad hiding place? The girls sneak out at night and search the cellar. They find an old coin which turns out to be an anti-slavery token. The cellar is searched again and a tunnel found.
So now there is no more talk of filling in the cellar. Abby does more research on the internet and contacts the National Park Service. The local press hear of it and Ginger is thrilled to be front page news. George and Abby celebrate with a rock-and-roll dance while Laird watches solemnly.
That is the end of the story but it is followed by a large ‘Learning More’ section with detailed note on wire-haired fox terriers, Suriname (which is where Irene’s parents come from), genealogy, old coins and – most important of all – slavery and the underground railroad. Particularly useful is a list of underground railroad web sites.
This book is an excellent introduction to the study of slavery and the underground railroad for young children. Regarding the actual story, I have a few minor niggles. The introductory setting of the scene is rather long before the reader is plunged into the important part of the story with the finding of the cellar. A slightly faster pace would also have been desirable. But these reservations apart the story/fact format forms an easy way of getting the essential facts across to children.
Illustrated in black and white throughout with an attractive colour cover.
Invaluable to teachers and home schooling parents.
7-11
This book is about nine months in the life of Annie Duncan, a twelve-year-old girl growing up in Virginia in 1850. Through Annie’s eyes we see ordinary everyday things like Annie going to school with her best friend, hearing that the teacher is leaving to get married and wondering if there will be a replacement teacher or if the school will have to be closed. In the spring there is the gathering of the syrup from the maple trees. There are also sad times as when her young brother is very ill and they all fear he will die. Other sad times are when the old dog dies and, later, his replacement is killed by snakes.
But these are no ordinary times for young Annie. The year before her father left to go to California to make his fortune in the gold mines. For a long time there is no news of him and then a letter arrives from one of the men who had left with him. They had all been sick but were getting better. But they needed meat and Annie’s father had ridden into the hills to shoot some. He never came back and he was feared dead.
Annie is devastated by the news but her problems are only beginning. Her Ma is distraught but eventually she pulls herself together. She then begins to worry how she will provide for her family now she is on her own. A widower –– a Mr Snell –– comes to live with his daughter near by. He starts to pay court to Annie’s mother. He is pompous and obnoxious and Annie hates him. Surely her mother will not marry him –– even if such a marriage will allow her older brother to leave the farm and go to study law?
Then this courtship results in danger for the Duncan family. The Duncans are all firmly opposed to slavery but Mr Snell supports it. Annie finds a runaway slave and the family hide him and try to help him. But it is not just the slave hunters and the forces of the law that they have to hide him from. It is also Mr Snell.
Do the Duncans manage to get the slave to freedom? Does Annie’s mother marry Mr Snell? And is Annie’s father really dead or does he survive to come back to his family?
Despite its relative brevity this book gives a good picture of life in rural Virginia in the years before the Civil War. There is also much information about the fugitive slave laws just trickled into the story.
Above all the position of women is made abundantly clear. Mrs Duncan does not even like Mr Snell let alone love him and yet she is prepared to sacrifice herself so that her son can become a lawyer. Mr Snell tells her quite bluntly that when they are married he will say how the farm is to be run –– and he will make sure they have slaves, despite his prospective wife’s objections. Another time Ma says she wishes women could have the vote. This is greeted by laughs and sneers.
"Women voting? Why the coloreds will be voting sooner than women. And that means never."
And that is the man Ma is thinking of marrying just so that she can provide for her family.
Recommended for girls of eleven plus.
New England
Kit Tyler has been brought up in Barbados but when her grandfather dies she goes to stay with her only relatives in a village in Connecticut. She has trouble adjusting to the harsh climate, the stern and austere Puritans, and the drudgery of housework.
She does, however, make one friend - Hannah, an old woman who lives in a hovel outside the village. But this is a dangerous friendship because there are those who claim that Hannah is a witch. Kit helps Hannah to escape a witch-hunt, but later she herself is accused of witchcraft. But, rather to her surprise, her uncle supports her. Then, when all seems lost, Nat, the son of the captain of the ship which brought her to Connecticut, turns up with a vital witness.
Kit is cleared and is now accepted by her family. But is she going to stay and make her life in New England or does her future lie elsewhere?
Domestic life in New England, a touch of teenage romance, politics and a witch hunt.
Teenage
This is a sequel to Witch Child.
In Witch Child Mary told how she wrote a diary and then, to hide it from the Puritans, she hid it by sewing it into a quilt. When Mary finally fled into the forest she had to leave the quilt behind and so we hear no more of her story.
The quilt was handed down through the generations until the twentieth century when it was acquired by a museum and Mary’s diary was found inside. The diary was transcribed by Alison Ellman, a research worker at the Institute, Boston. Alison is eager to follow up the story and find out what happened to Mary afterwards but although she found out about the other people in the diary she drew a blank with Mary herself. Eventually she puts a message on the internet asking for help. This message is read by Agnes Herne, a Native American girl who is studying anthropology in Boston. Agnes replies to the message. Her aunt has a box which contains many artefacts just like the ones in Mary’s diary. Moreover she has heard stories about a white woman who joined her people.
Alison drives Agnes up to the reservation to her aunt. Medicine power runs through her family. Her aunt has it and now it looks as if Agnes has it too. Her Aunt Miriam tells Agnes that perhaps Mary wants to tell her story through Agnes and she prepares Agnes for a vision quest. Agnes goes into a trance and she sees what happened to Mary.
After fleeing into the forest Mary is found by Jaybird and some others from the tribe. They look after her and take her to their winter cave. Mary eventually joins the tribe and marries Jaybird and most of the rest of the book is taken up with describing her life with the tribe. She has many happy times but sad ones too when Jaybird and her son go off to fight the white man. Mary becomes a healer and this time her talents are prized and welcomed instead of being feared as they were by the Puritans.
This book is the perfect complement to Witch Child. Witch Child showed the lifestyle of the white settlers whereas Sorceress shows how the Native Americans lived. And the modern section also shows how they adapt to the modern age. They have their history but it is recorded by mouth in stories and not in written records. And on a more mundane level there are the tax free shops and casinos on the reservations.
There are also interesting details about modern historical research as we follow Alison in her attempts to uncover the past.
A fascinating and worthy successor to Witch Child.
Twelve-year-old Daniel used to live in Kent. Then his parents were transported to Australia and Daniel found himself all alone in the world. He decided to try to follow them and sneaked aboard a ship but found himself in America, not Australia. In Galveston, Texas. He stole a burro –– or mule –– and rode off into the desert until exhausted he found himself at Dark Creek ranch where he collapsed.
The family take him in and let him stay with them. Daniel helps with the chores and the ranch owner, Matt Gravitt, teaches him how to ride as well as all about roping, cutting out and branding. In other words Daniel is being taught how to be a vaquero.
Then the American Civil War breaks out and Matt feels obliged to go and join the Confederate Army. But soldiers need meat and the War pushed up the price of beef so Matt decides on a cattle drive. Fifty head of cattle are to be driven 680 miles to Kansas. And Daniel, Trinity (Matt’s daughter) a cow hand and a cook are to go on the drive which is under the charge of No-Head Nolan, so called because he has survived being scalped.
So begins a long and dangerous journey. As well as the dangers of nature –– of flash floods and poisonous snakes –– they have also to deal with hide rustlers and outlaws.
This is a riveting story but what makes it special is all the detail –– detail about the American countryside and detail about the actual cattle driving.
Highly recommended.
12+
The Oregon Trail
These are two different fictionalised accounts of one of the most amazing and incredible events in the history of the American west.
In 1844 the Sager family are with a wagon train bound for Oregon. The parents both die. The children face being split up or sent back east. The elder son, thirteen-year-old John, is determined to fulfil his father's dream and go to Oregon. He loads what he can onto the cow and the ox, and, with his eleven-year-old-brother and five young sisters - aged 12, 9, 5 and 3 and a tiny baby - sneaks away from the wagon train. They travel along the Oregon Trail on foot. It is over one thousand miles of danger, hardship and deprivation but John bullies his little family until they reach the safety of Dr Whitman's mission station.
Both books are well worth reading, but, from a historical point of view, it is The Splendid Journey which makes the most reference to the historical documentation and sources: - the account written by Catherine Sager years after the event, also various letters and the journal of Mrs Whitman.
For anyone wanting to follow this up Amazon has a list of useful books.
10+
This book is from Hodder's teenage imprint - their Signature imprint. It was first published in the USA in 1994.
This book is a traditional western.
Francis Alphonse Tucket is with a wagon train on the Oregon Trail. For his fourteenth birthday he is given a rifle. Eager to learn how to use it he falls behind the wagons while practising and is captured by a band of Pawnees and taken to their camp. He is rescued by Jason Grimes, a mountain man and trapper. The mountain man does not like the names "Francis" and "Alphonse" so he decides to call Francis "Mr Tucket" and Francis is to call him "Mr Grimes." Hence the title of the book.
Francis lives with Mr Grimes for several months. He is given valuable lessons in shooting and hunting. Just before winter sets in they go and trap beaver.
Mr Grimes has learnt how to live alongside the Indians and trade with them. But there is one Indian, a Pawnee called Braid, who is stirring up trouble. There are raids on wagon trains and a family of trading friends of Mr Grimes are killed and their cabin destroyed. Eventually Mr Grimes catches up with Braid, fights him and kills him. This is something Francis can understand and accept. But what he cannot accept is when Mr Grimes then prepares to scalp Braid - even although Francis knows it is what the Indians expect of Grimes.
At that moment Francis realises that he himself can never live the life of a trapper and mountain man. Francis now knows that he will have to find his way to the Willamette Valley and carve out for himself the life of a farmer and he so leaves Mr Grimes. There are more adventures when two men try to rob him. Then Francis rescues two small children who have been left behind in a deserted wagon when their father died of cholera. Francis now has a new family and he knows how to take care both of himself and of the children.
I would have liked to have known whether Francis ever finds his family again but we are not told that. All we hear is that Francis' mother has been asking if there is any news of him.
This is a well-written story with an authentic background. There is much historical detail but it is introduced only when it is relevant to the story - as in the descriptions of the gun and Francis' shooting lessons, how to hunt and shoot deer and how to trap beaver. I was fascinated to learn that the Oregon Trail was a wide, bare, well-beaten track. Violence is kept to a necessary minimum - showing that a good story does not need gratuitous violence.
I really enjoyed this book. I found it such a relief to get a straightforward story at last. Personally I am rather tired of the plethora of books dealing with the problems of teenage girls. Whatever the genre, all too often the story gets the agony-aunt treatment. I would be the first to admit that there is a place for these books - but not to the exclusion of aught else. If I feel like this then how must boys feel? To-day there is much concern that boys do not read enough. To those looking for an answer I suggest they look at the teenage shelves in any bookshop.
With so many books being used as a vehicle to teach young people how to confront their own problems I feel that we are losing sight of one very important thing. Reading for pleasure and enjoyment as well as for information. Mr Tucket is primarily a book to be ENJOYED.
Gary Paulsen is a three times Newbery Honor winner.
Teenage
This is a sequel to Mr Tucket and
it follows on from it.
Francis has delayed their journey along the Oregon Trail and has
been caught by an early autumn. Snow has already filled all the
mountain passes. Then someone tells him there is another trail
in Mexico -- a trail which passes through Santa Fe and stays open
all year round. So Francis takes Lottie and Billy and heads south
to more adventures.
But what he has not been told is that Mexico and the United States
are at war. Francis becomes involved with the US Army. Then he
is captured by the dreaded Comancheros, groups of men who trade
with the Comanches. Finally,as if all that is not bad enough,
Francis gets bitten by a rattlesnake.
As well as the exciting story Tucket's Ride also includes
details of what has become something of Gary Paulsen's trademark
-- survival. We are shown Francis and the children making camp,
killing a deer, skinning it and making mocassins from the hide.
We also meet again some of the characters of Mr Tucket.
Notably Mr Grimes and the evil Dubs and Courtweiler. Francis'
attitude to Mr Grimes begins to change and he becomes more tolerant
of him.
Taken together, these two books -- Mr Tucket and Tucket's
Ride give a comprehensive picture of the varied life of the
American West in the nineteenth century. In Mr Tucket we
saw something of the cruelty of the Pawnees while in Tucket's
Ride we are shown an almost idyllic picture of the pueblo
dwellers with their adobe huts and farms.
It is quite obvious that there is going to be at least one other
book about Francis Tucket. For one thing he is still looking for
his family. For another, near the end of this book he finds a
skeleton together with a cache of gold and silver. Francis and
the children are rich, but are they ever going to get to a place
where their new found riches will be of any use to them?
In fact this book reads like part of a longer book. The middle
part. Mr Tucket is the first part and the third part is
not yet written. This seems to be something of a modern trend.
If a book seems too long for the reading stamina of modern children
then editors appear to be adopting the solution of splitting it
into sections. But this is quite different from a consciously
planned series.
But despite the above I really enjoyed Tucket's Ride. It is a
thrilling story with a detailed and authentic background. And
how refreshing to get a straight forward story again.
10+
This is a fictionalised version of a true story. It has been lightly fictionalised to make it more accessible to young readers but it closely follows the several remaining memoirs and journals. The author has even used the memoirs of a young girl who travelled the Santa Fe Trail at the same time to get the feel of a child's impressions. There are historical notes and contemporary photographs.
In some ways this book is vaguely reminiscent of Children on the Oregon Trail.
Sallie Fox is twelve and with a wagon train travelling to California. The story actually starts five weeks into their journey when they are crossing the prairies of Kansas but, by means of flashbacks, we learn something of Sallie's life in Iowa and the preparations for their momentous journey.
They make steady progress. There is the routine of the wagon train with the daily stops at midday -- or nooning. There is the beauty of the prairies, Sallie's first sight of buffalo. the dangerous crossings of the Arkansas River and the Cimmaron Desert.
Eventually they reach Albuquerque in New Mexico where they stay for a week while they rest and gather more provisions. They also make friends with the Owens family.
At Albuquerque there is much discussion and dissension among the leaders of the wagon train. Should they take the much travelled and well known Gila Trail? Or should they take the shorter, northern Beale Wagon Road. The latter would cut two hundred miles off their journey but it had been travelled only once before by Lieutenant Beale, an explorer for the United States government. Beale had actually used camels. The decision is finally taken. They will follow the Beale Wagon Road. And they have Lieutenant Beale's guide to lead them.
This turns out to be the wrong decision. They find that the springs and water holes have dried up and it is difficult keeping their mules and cattle alive. But they are saved by a rain storm and they press on. Then they have some encounters with Indians and some of their animals are stolen and a young cattle hand wounded. Despite all these setbacks they reach the Colorado River and are preparing to cross it when they are attacked by Indians. Sallie's father is killed and Sallie herself wounded. The Indians drive off most of the animals and there are are only enough oxen and mules left to draw two wagons.
They decide to go back to Albuquerque -- a distance of five hundred miles. But this means that most of them now have to walk. There will be the problem of finding water again, and also the danger of another Indian attack.
Throughout this book Sallie has a watchword, Patience and Perseverance. She is constantly being told this -- in the early stages of the journey when she is bored and fretting and later when they are in danger from the Indians or from dying of thirst.
Sallie Fox is a well documented account of the struggles of the early pioneers. It is partly aimed at Californian school children but the underlining themes of courage in adversity and the way in which the human spirit can overcome the most appalling dangers are both timeless and universal.
Patience and Perseverance. We can all do to remember those words.
Very highly recommended.
9+
This book is set on an island in Lake Superior in 1847. It describes the lives of a few members of the Ojibwa tribe throughout a whole year as seen through the eyes of a little girl. But this is no ordinary year and in the middle of it something happens, something so terrible that although only seven Omakayas has to grow up fast.
The story starts at the beginning of summer. She has to help her family build the birchbark house on the shores of the lake. During the winter they all live in a cedar cabin in the village but in the summer they move to a simple birchbark house. Nokomis, or Grandmother, strips the bark from a birch tree and, with the help of her little granddaughter, sews the strips together. While they are doing this Omakayas' mother and older sister are preparing the framework of willow poles. The simple house is soon ready.
Then we are shown the daily life of the family -- which is described in such detail that the reader can easily visualise these routine tasks.
For example Omakayas hates scraping the flesh off the moose skin but she knows it is very important as the treated skin will be needed for their makazins or footwear. So the little girl tries to conquer her dislike of this duty and becomes very good at it. In the middle of the summer her father comes home for a short while. (He is often away trading). He orders Omakayas and her sister to scare the crows which are eating the corn. The girls do so and even trap many of them -- although Omakayas does manage to save one for a pet. Later they sail to another island for the rice harvest. Come the autumn there is berry picking, followed by the drying of the berries, and also of fish, for the winter.
Something which Omakayas really likes doing is helping to look after her baby brother Neewo and once she even frees him from his tikinagun, or cradle, for a while.
Then winter comes and they move back to the cedar cabin in the village. Winter, the time for the gathering in the dance hall, of sewing and bead work, of lessons in the mission school, of story telling in the evening -- and of hunger and the constant danger of starvation.
But the winter of 1847 brings an even greater danger to the people of the island. A white fur trader visits and dies of the dreaded smallpox, which spreads to the tribespeople.
Young as she is, it is little Omakayas
who has it in her power to save her family. And her irritating
young brother Pinch, has a surprising part to play too.
But Omakayas has still to find her role in life. This does not
happen until the spring when she receives help from an unexpected
source -- from the two bear cubs she befriended a year ago. Then
the old woman Old Tallow tells Omakayas a secret and all becomes
clear to the little girl.
Throughout the whole book the reader is shown the great respect the Ojibwas have for nature -- both animals and plants. Right at the beginning when Nokomis strips the bark from the birch tree she addresses it and says,
"Old sister, we need your skin for our shelter."
Then she leaves a tribute of tobacco at its foot.
The tribe are also very conscious of the spirit world with its manitous and windigos and a few traditional stories are included.
Comes with a glossary of Ojibwa words.
The author has Ojibwa ancestors and is herself a member of the
tribe. Here she is writing about her family history.
A delightful book.
10+
The California Gold Rush and San Francisco
California Whipple never wanted to go California - to exchange the civilisation of Massachusetts for the mud, tents and cabins of a mining settlement in California. A place which "looked to me like the wilderness where Jesus was tempted by the Devil." She changes her name to Lucy and finds refuge in planning how to return back east. This helps her to endure the harsh living conditions and the climatic extremes of searing heat and drought in summer, and frost, ice and floods in winter. There is tragedy with the death of her younger brother. Finally there is a fire and the settlement is reduced to ashes.
At last Lucy gets the chance to return east to "indoor privies and horse drawn carriages and big hats with flowers." But by this time she has begun to appreciate "the flowers, pines, mountain peaks and blue, blue skies" of California. She has also come to value the friendship of the people of the community of which she is now part. Eventually she learns that "home is where I am loved and safe and needed." She decides to stay in Lucky Diggins and see it grow into a real town. She starts a library and changes her name back to California Morning Whipple.
Told in the form of a diary over a period of three years. Vivid descriptions which really bring the California of the gold rush to life. Should appeal to teenage girls.
This book is written around a true incident. In 1853 a newsboy Ready Gates, went up in a hot air balloon. He was shown the valve cord and told to pull it when he wanted to come down. But when he pulled it the cord broke off in his hand and Ready was left floating through the air with no way of controlling the balloon.
This particular incident is well documented as it was fully reported in newspapers throughout the United States. It is also mentioned in books on ballooning. However despite this not much is known about Ready Gates himself. But Dorothy Kupcha Leland has provided her own background for him.
Ready has recently arrived in San Francisco with his parents and two younger brothers. His mother takes in boarders and sews pew cushions while his father works in the brick factory. He intends leaving for the gold fields taking Ready with him but a broken leg puts and end to that plan. Ready's contribution to the family finances is to sell newspapers. He also does any other work he can find such as delivering packages.
It is the theme of newspapers which holds this book together. As Ready sells more papers when there is something newsworthy we hear all about various shipwrecks such as the sinking of the Independence and of other disasters like the Rassette House Hotel fire. The newspaper owner Pat Hull is also introduced. On a lighter note there is the arrival of the famous dancer and actress Lola Montez
As well as following the fortunes of Ready, there is another story in the book. While going to buy the eastern newspapers from a ship Ready meets Lydia, a teenage girl who has rescued from the Independence. Lydia has come to San Francisco to try to find her brother who had left for the goldfields and has not been heard of for some time. Ready determines to help her track down her brother. This search also illuminates another facet of Californian life at the time -- namely the work of early photographers, the travelling daguerreotypists.
This book has very thoroughly researched and gives a comprehensive picture of nineteenth century California. Lydia and her brother are fictional but the Ladies' Relief and Protection Society who helped her really existed. The plight of her brother snowbound in a cabin is based on a true incident. Likewise with the sinking of the Independence and the fire at the Rassette House Hotel. Also many more of the characters who flit through the pages are also real. The newspaper owner Pat Hull, the actress Lola Montez and the preacher William Taylor.
Comes with a sketch map of Ready's balloon flight and a historical note.
A fascinating book which really brings the California of the 1850s to life.
9-13
In 1860 the steamship the Lady Elgin sank during a storm in Lake Michigan after being rammed by another ship. Over three hundred people lost their lives and one thousand children were orphaned. This tragedy is described from the viewpoints of two seventeen-year-old girls from Milwaukee –– Maggie at the present day and Fiona in 1860.
Maggie chooses the sinking of the Lady Elgin for her history project. We follow her as, together with the other student working with her, she researches the project in the local library, the library of the Historical Association, and the Emigration Library at the Irish Cultural Centre. Books apart she also looks at the graves of the victims in the local cemetery, visits the beach where many of the bodies were washed up and finally interviews the one of the of a family who were on the trip.
Back in 1860 Fiona stays at home to look after the family shop while others in her family go on the excursion. The preparations for the trip are described. It was to be partly a pleasure outing with music and dancing but in Chicago most of the passengers were going to a political rally held by the presidential candidate Stephen Douglas. As word of the disaster leaks out we share the desperation of the families of those aboard as the search for survivors gets underway. Later there is the poignant description of the funerals.
But there is more to the book than just the sinking of the Lady Elgin. The politics of the time comes into the story. Was it an accident or was it caused deliberately? And is there going to be a war. Fiona is also worried by rumours that the young man who has asked her to marry him may be a slave catcher.
This book also gives a very clear picture of the Irish-American community. Fiona’s family came from Ireland at the time of the potato famine and they lived in desperate poverty before they established themselves. At the present time the lives of Maggie and her family revolve round the Irish Cultural Centre. Maggie plays the violin and her younger sister, Rose, is a step dancer.
The story is also humanised by showing the everyday problems of the two girls and how they come to terms with them. Fiona has to take responsibility for her younger brother and sister. Maggie has family responsibilities of her own. Maggie has to help her mother care for her grandmother who is failing. Maggie also suffers from dreadful nerves when she plays the violin in public, to say nothing of the usual boy problems of a teenage girl.
Comes with a historical note.Web site under construction. This book is sold in Irish Fest bookstores.
A deeply researched account of the second greatest tragedy on the Great Lakes with believable characters who bring the suffering home to the reader, as well as giving an insight into the lives of the Irish-American community.
Young adult
This ten volume series follows the fortunes of one family at the time of the American Civil War. Although the books are exciting adventure stories in their own right, the main aim of the series is to explain and illuminate the events and ideas of the American Civil War for young readers. The series is written by an award winning American teacher who has also produced his own web site with extensive lesson plans including background information and ideas for discussion. This series is very school and education orientated. The books are illustrated with contemporary prints.
Send 'em South. This is the first book in the series. It starts with a slave auction in Georgia. Lisa's mother is sold but nobody wants Lisa and her mother is taken away to the sound of Lisa's screams. Although only ten years old, Lisa understands something of the lecherous desires of the man who has bought her mother. Lisa is taken back to the plantation where she stays for a few more years until her father thinks she is old enough. Then he makes a bid for freedom and takes her with him.
In the second chapter the scene changes to Boston and we are introduced to the Irish family around which the series centres -- the Adams family. George and David are playing baseball with some boys when they are attacked by a group of other boys. In this way we are introduced to the second theme of the book -- the contempt and the hostility of the wealthier inhabitants of Boston for the Irish.
The book continues like this for a while -- a chapter about Lisa and her father's escape and the underground railway alternating with Boston and George and David. Until, after being separated from her father, Lisa arrives in Boston and is found, running from the slave catchers. David's parents are committed Abolitionists and he is determined to help Lisa evade capture. George is doubtful about getting involved but he goes along with his cousin.
After a poignant and heart-rending beginning, this is an exciting story of escape and the Underground Railway. But it also brings in a lot of history: the horrors of slavery: Abolitionists (many of the people who help Lisa are real life historical characters): descriptions of Boston and the Irish: the Fugitive Slave Act.
Education made easy by being combined
with a good story.
On the Trail of John
Brown's Body. This is the second
book in the series and it follows on very closely from the first
Send em South. It begins with an attempt by David and George
to steal money from their grandfather -- so that David can help
the slave Lisa who has now been sent back to the South. The boys
are surprised by their Grandfather but David manages to escape
leaving George to take the blame. Grandfather sends George and
his father after David, to recover the money, and even more important,
the piece of paper in which it was wrapped, paper which has a
list of names on it.
George and Sean set off for Lawrence
in the Kansas Territory where David's parents live. The journey
along the National Road and across the prairies is described in
fascinating detail. Once arrived in Lawrence, they find David
and his parents and decide to stay with them a while.
But this is the Kansas where the battle over the conflicting views
on slavery is being fought. Abolitionists and free staters versus
raiders from Missouri -- something which is brought home very
forcibly to George when a friend of his has his cabin raided and
burnt. Then there is a mystery. David's father keeps going away.
Where does he go and what does he do?
Finally all is explained. David's father is working with John Brown and he leaves to join him at Harper's Ferry. George and Sean chase after him. Can they get to him in time? Can they get him to change his mind? Can they warn the people of Harper's Ferry?
All through the book the reader is presented with deep questions. Example, slavery is wrong but should innocent people have to die to end it?
David is the committed abolitionist and George the questioning moderate. Personally I found George a more sympathetic character.
As well as the historical angle this book also shows George working out his relationship with his father, Sean.
The book comes with an extensive bibliography, but I feel that it should also contain short notes on the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dredd Scott case. I know that these are given on the web site but I think that a short note should have been included in the book as well.
And I do have one niggle. I am a bit doubtful about some of the terminology. "Sounds neat" for example. To me that seems suspiciously modern. And Sean calls his father "Dad." Would "Pa" not have been more likely?
But this quibble apart, this is a worthy
and unique teaching medium for the American Civil War.
11--15
Set in 1888, this novel is about two young girls coming to terms with their cultural and racial differences.
Maggie Rose has been brought up in Georgia by her grandmother, a hard, embittered old woman who despises all black people. When she is twelve years old her grandmother dies and Maggie Rose goes to live with her uncle and aunt and young cousins in Kansas. Maggie Rose receives a dreadful shock when she arrives in Solomon Town where the vast majority of its citizens are black. At first she is even frightened.
Things start off badly when two girls make a tentative friendly approach. Maggie Rose rejects this out of shyness and one of the girls, Sass, misinterprets this and forever afterwards refers to her as Miss Uppity White Girl. It takes a tragedy before Maggie Rose and Sass reach an understanding and Maggie Rose comes to realise that black girls are just the same as white girls.
In some ways this is more of an information story than a straight novel. Solomon Town is based on Nicodemus, Kansas, an all-black town settled by ex-slaves in 1877. And there really were towns which prohibited black people from staying overnight.
Black history is woven skilfully into the story –– in two ways in particular. The first is by a detailed description of the Celebration which is a two-day gathering held out in the open on the prairie. This is a kind of picnic with feasting and dancing but there is a serious side to it too when there is a play and songs which tell the story both of the settling of Solomon Town and of the Emancipation of the slaves. The other historical part is the description of the commencement – when the senior school pupils receive their certificates. This also includes a talk and songs of the days of slavery. And then the women of the town show their quilts –– quilts which are stories of their heritage and history.
This is all worked out against the background of ordinary life in a Kansas small town in the 1880s with the dugout houses on the prairies, talk of whether the railroad was going to come to Solomon Town and the hardships of a long winter.
Comes with a historical note.
Well researched and handled very sensitively. Very highly recommended.
11+
This book is about family relationships and poses the question just how much responsibility and sacrifice can reasonably be expected from any one person.
The story starts in 1880 when Edwina Booth is eighteen and has newly left school. It charts her life for the next five years. Her father is an actor and Edwina devotes herself to looking after him. She supports him by attending his performances in the theatre, she sits beside him at press conferences and she travels with him on tour and helps with all the arrangements. The most onerous is their German tour because she is the only one in their party who speaks German.
Edwina is concerned about her father as he frequently has fits of depression. This is partly because the whole family bears the burden of Edwina’s uncle, John Wilkes Booth who shot Lincoln.
As Edwina grows up she begins to see her father in a different light. She suddenly realises that her father uses people –– or, as she puts it, crushes people. Then she overhears part of a conversation and discovers that her father hopes that she will continue looking after him all his life. In other words she will not be able to marry and have a family of her own. Is this really what Edwina wants out of life? She thinks of her aunt who has done just that and spent her whole life looking after her mother.
Then Edwina gets the chance to marry a man who is independent enough to stand up to her father. Should she seize this opportunity? True she has a responsibility to her father but does she not also have a responsibility to herself?
Told in the first person by Edwina.
Comes with a note on the sources and a bibliography.
Thought provoking.
Young adult
This is a fictionalised account of the Fox sisters and the beginnings of the spiritualist movement. It is told in the first person by the middle sister, Maggie, with the occasional contribution from her younger sister Kate.
This is a story of trickery and deception. It all started as a simple prank. Maggie and Kate were living in a small town in Pennsylvania when a cousin was sent to stay with their family. Maggie and Kate did not like sharing a room with her and they determined to frighten her so that she would leave. Kate knew how to crack her joints and Lizzie, the cousin was terrified by the strange noises in the middle of the night. Maggie and Kate’s parents searched the house but could find nothing. Then Kate tried something more advanced. She started to communicate with the spirit. She would ask it questions and it would answer. One rap for Yes and two for No. At this point Mrs Fox brought in some of the neighbours to hear it. From then on things just escalated.
The townspeople flocked to see the Fox sisters. There was talk of a murdered man lying buried in the cellar, something which added to the interest. Then Maggie and Kate’s elder sister, Leah, arrived. Leah was in a difficult position. She was divorced at a time when this put her outside respectable society. She saw a chance to mend her fortunes and she seized it. Maggie and Kate were taken to live with her in Rochester where Leah organised paid spirit circles. Leah's finances were soon on a sound footing.
But soon there is danger as well as success. The Fox sisters are accused of being frauds or worse, witches. A public exhibition is arranged in a hall in New York. There is a near riot and the sisters are lucky to escape serious injury. After this Leah confines her activities to private spirit circles.
Then there is a change in the narrative. The second half of the book charts Maggie’s ill fated romance with the Arctic explorer Elisha Kent Kane.
A lot of research has gone into this book and it gives a detailed account of the early days of spiritualism. It also gives a good picture of the attitudes of the times. For example, no matter what one thought about communicating with the spirits, it was not considered proper for men and women to be together in a darkened room. Also the voluminous clothes of the time helped to hide the artifices which were used –– such as wood sewn into the hems of dresses. Again, nineteenth century propriety made it more difficult to examine the sisters. And it was her treatment by society which gave Leah the impetus to set up the whole operation.
The narrative ends with Maggie in her early twenties but there is a short note at the end telling of the future lives of the three sisters. There is also a reference list of books. And an aid for teachers in the form of questions for discussion by a class.
But there is far more historical information on the accompanying web site. http://www.highspiritsbook.com/ This is a massive web site with mini biographies of all the main characters. There is also a section for teachers with full lesson notes. This site complements the book and both book and web site should be used together.
A well researched book which throws light on some aspects of the nineteenth century which are not usually highlighted.
Young adult
1893 in the Territory of Oklahoma. A
group of settlers get off the train at Florence and prepare to
stake their claims -- which the railroad promptly tries to buy
up. When the settlers refuse to sell the head of the railroad
announces that the trains will not stop at Florence -- ever.
This spells disaster for the settlers. It was intended that Florence
should be a railroad town -- a place for ranchers to load their
cattle, farmers their grain, poultrymen their eggs. Without the
train all Florence is left with is the stage coach.
There is only one thing for it. The citizens of Florence determine
to make the head of the railroad company change his mind. They
will force the trains to stop -- somehow. From then on the story
details their many efforts. The early ones are futile and rather
pathetic. The townspeople try to make a kind of level crossing
with two carts -- which the train just crashes through and smashes.
Then, during the winter, the children try to block it with a snowdrift.
The later attempts are more serious as when some of the townspeople
ride to the nearest station, board the train and try to steal
it.
As well as the story of the train stopping this story also introduces
all the leading citizens of Florence, a band of fiercely independent
and original characters. To mention only two. There is Frank Tate
who was apprenticed as a carpenter. His uncle was an undertaker
and when he died he left all his coffins to Frank. Frank intends
to become a cabinet maker and he means to put his legacy to good
use. He takes one side off the coffins and converts them into
pews for the church and seats for the school. Then another of
the town's characters is Loucien Shades. She answers an advertisement
for a mail order bride but when she is unsuccessful she promptly
accepts the position of schoolmistress, regardless of the fact
that she can neither read nor write. Instead she teaches the children
how to saddle horses, light wet kindling and spice rope, recognize
warble-fly on a horse, find North with the help of a pocket watch
-- and much more.
The story is told mainly from the viewpoint of eleven-year-old
Cissy Sissney, the grocer's daughter.
But despite all this 'Stop the Train' leaves a lot unsaid and
gives rise to many questions. At the beginning Florence is just
a patch of bare prairie. The settlers live in tents and make rough
dug out dwellings. Later on more substantial dwellings are built.
But this is just glossed over and the reader is not told how this
happens. Also at the beginning it is made clear that the settlers
do not have any money so how do they manage? Later there is a
hint, just a hint, that they have been using their savings. Yet
the whole point of the story is that Florence could not survive
without the railroad. But the townspeople DO survive for a whole
year. The reader should have been told how.
At the front the is a brief note saying ' For the people of Enid
Oklahoma, who did stop the train.'
This suggests that the story may be based on a true event. In
that case I would have welcomed a historical note giving details.
This is a highly readable, and often amusing, story of pioneering
times with a wealth of highly original characters. But it does
give rise to a number of unanswered questions.
12+
This book was first published in 1939. It is the fourth in a series of autobiographical novels about a pioneering family in the mid-west in America in the second half of the nineteenth century. Told from the viewpoint of the second daughter Laura.
When the story starts the Ingalls family are still living in the house on the banks of Plum Creek. With the exception of Pa and Laura the whole family have had scarlet fever. Mary, the eldest daughter is now blind, Ma is still very weak and Pa does not know how he is going to pay the doctor's bills.
The country is old and worn out and the hunting is poor. Pa wants to go West and take a homestead but Ma does not want to leave the settled country and Pa has no money. Then Aunt Docia arrives. She is married to a contractor working on a new railroad in the West. Her husband wants a good man to be storekeeper, bookeeper and time-keeper. The job pays fifty dollars a month. It is agreed that Pa should go to the railroad camp in the Dakota Territory, take the job and look for a homestead at the same time.
Pa goes on ahead and the rest wait behind until Mary is strong enough to travel. Then they set off to join him. The first part of the journey is by rail. It is the first time any of them have been on a train. The journey is described by Laura as she "sees out loud" for Mary. (When Mary became blind Pa told Laura that she would have to be Mary's eyes.) They have lunch in a hotel and in the afternoon Pa comes for them in the wagon. They go first to a railroad camp and then on to the bigger and newer camp on the shores of Silver Lake.
They spend the summer and autumn there in a small shanty. With the coming of winter everyone moves out of the camp but the Ingalls are able to move into the surveyors' house - the biggest house in which the family has ever lived. Pa finds the ideal place for his homestead and he files the claim in the spring. He builds a claim shanty, the family move in and Ma unpacks her shepherdess because this is going to be their permanent home. Nearby there is a building boom on the site of the old railroad camp and a new town is already taking shape. It even has a name - De Smet. It is named after a French priest who came out there in the pioneering days.
Like the others in the series, what makes this book so interesting is the wealth of detail. Everything is described so that the reader can see it. Detail about the shanties, even detail about all the family meals. There is even a full account of how the railway was built because Pap takes Laura to see it.
It is also a very happy book. Pioneering life may be hard but the Ingalls are a warm, closely-knit sympathetic family. They work hard but they also have fun. During the winter Laura and her younger sister Carrie slide across the frozen waters of Silver Lake in the moonlight. Pa always plays his fiddle in the evenings and the rest of the family sing and dance. At Christmas there are home-made presents for everyone and a dinner of roasted rabbit with bread-and-onion stuffing and mashed potatoes and a dried apple pie to follow. As Pa says, "It's the first Christmas dinner anyone ever ate in this part of the country."
A thoroughly enjoyable read which really brings the America of the pioneers to life.
10+
This book was first published in 1940. It is one of an autobiographical series of novels about a pioneering family in the American mid west in the second half of the nineteenth century. The books are told from the viewpoint of the second daughter, Laura.
When he was taking in the harvest Laura's Pa notices signs that it is going to be a hard winter. The first indication is when the muskrats build their house much thicker than usual. Further portents follow. Pa goes hunting but there is not a duck or goose to be seen. There is an early blizzard - in October. Finally, in town, there is a warning from an old Indian. Every seventh winter is a hard winter and at the end of three times seven years comes the hardest of all. This coming winter is a twentieth first winter and there will be seven months of blizzards.
Pa decides to move his family from the frail claim shanty on the prairie to his more substantial store in the town. They settle in and Laura and her younger sister, Carrie, go to school. Then the winter sets in and there is a series of blizzards. During the whirling white blizzard Laura cannot even see the lights of the houses across the road. It is so cold that the family have to nerve themselves to go to bed in the freezing upstairs rooms and, in the morning, Laura dresses downstairs in front of the stove. Then the railway is blocked and trains cannot get through with supplies and food and fuel run out. The Ingalls use a coffee mill to grind wheat into flour and twist hay into sticks to burn in the stove. There is danger when a blizzard blows up suddenly and the children have to be shepherded home from school and nearly miss the town. Also, when in a desperate attempt to save his precious seed corn, Alanzo Wilder drives twenty miles onto the prairie to buy corn from a homesteader who still has some. But despite all this privation, the family still keep their spirits up. In the evenings Pa plays his fiddle and the rest of the family dance and sing. Despite their poverty they have a great respect for education and are saving up to send Mary, the eldest daughter to a college for the blind - something which we, with greater opportunities which we do not always appreciate, should find very humbling.
Finally the warm Chinook blows across the prairie and melts the snow. The railway is cleared at last and the Ingalls are able to have their Christmas dinner - in May. The book ends with them all singing a song which encapsulates the pioneering spirit of the American west and has a message for all of us.
Then what is the use of repining,
For where's there a will, there's a way,
And tomorrow the sun may be shining,
Although it is cloudy today.
I found this book absolutely fascinating. The descriptions are so realistic that the reader almost shivers with the family. This book lets us know just what conditions were like in America one hundred and fifty years ago. The efforts the family made to overcome their difficulties should both humble and inspire us.
Although written for children I think that this book has a lot to say to anyone - whatever their age.
10+
- Little House in the Big Woods
- Little House on the Prairie
- By the Banks of Plum Creek
- By the Shores of Silver Lake
- The Long Winter
- Little Town on the Prairie
There are two more books. The First Four Years tells of the first years of Laura's marriage and Farmer Boy tells of the childhood of Laura's husband.
This book was first published in America in 1996.
It is a riveting novel written round the subject of the beginning of modern medicine when the old ideas were beginning to be challenged.
In the middle of the nineteenth century whole communities were ravaged by the deadly disease of consumption –– a disease which doctors were unable to cure. So the simple country people turned to an earlier "cure." This was based on the much older belief in vampirism.
It was believed that very the first in the family to die is actually undead and they come back to do mischief to the other members of the family. Therefore, to protect the living, the mischievous one must be dug up and put to rest.
Towards the end of the book there is an incredible and memorable description of how faith in this ancient superstition was put into practice. A huge fire is built up in the centre of the town and then all those who have the heart of one of the "mischievous" ones come and place it on the fire. Then present sufferers are carried up to the fire so that they can breathe in the smoke of the burning hearts.
Events like this did actually happen. The book has been well researched. But a doctor, Uriah M Beecher is questioning these ideas and trying to find his own answers, when into his life comes twelve-year-old Lucas Whitaker. Lucas has been wandering about the countryside, distraught, after all his family have died of consumption. He becomes apprenticed to Dr Beecher. But will he throw off his belief in the old ways and embrace the doctor's new approach?
It is difficult for him. In some ways Dr Beecher's own ideas are just as strange as the old superstitions. Dr Beecher gets a microscope and makes Lucas look down it and he sees –– tiny animals. Was the idea of vampirism really any more extraordinary than the idea that tiny animals invisible to the eye, are the cause of sickness and death?
These are the ideas at the centre of the story, but apart from this the book also gives a rounded picture of a nineteenth doctor who has to pull teeth and do amputations as well as acting as town barber. It also brings in a third approach to medicine, shown through the character of an old, half Indian woman who knows about herbs.
This book paints a fascinating picture of a time when a new scientific approach was struggling against the old superstitions. And all set against the loneliness and hardships of rural America in the mid nineteenth century, as brought out by the poignant passages showing the desperation and desolation of Lucas.
The book moves at a fast pace and holds the reader's attention. It is a remarkable story with in depth treatment of a little known subject.
12+
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