My Prairie Year: Based on the Diary of Elenore Plaisted

Elenore Plaisted was nine in 1889, when her family moved from Maine to the Dakotas. Later on, she wrote a retrospective diary of those years, which her granddaughter has now shaped into a story about a family's first year on the prairie. The first night in their new home they had to put blankets on the walls to block the wind. Storms came up quickly. Even a child used to Maine winters found the prairie blizzards intolerable. Spring finally came, seemingly hurried along by the arrival of a surprise package from Aunt Addie back home. Ray's black-and-white pencil illustrations would be almost too somber for the vivid text, were it not for the realistic, snug detailsa wooden bucket for washing floors, a child's blanket, the cylindrical stove in the center of their home. Young readers may whet their appetites here and go on to the Laura Ingalls Wilder series. (8-12)