Pioneer Girl: Growing Up on the Prairie - Softcover

Andrea Warren says, "I'm always looking behind facts and dates in search of how extraordinary times impact ordinary people. I think the most engaging way to study history is by seeing it through the eyes of participants. Each of us wants to know, If that had been me at that time, in that place, what would I have done? What would have happened to me?"

Among Warren's honors are the prestigious Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Orphan Train Rider: One Boy's True Story, which was also selected as an ALA Notable Book. She won the Midland Authors Award for Pioneer Girl. Growing Up on the Prairie. A former teacher and journalist, Warren writes from her home in the Kansas City suburb of Prairie Village, Kansas.

Grade 4-7-Grace McCance's family settled a homestead in Nebraska in 1885, when Grace was three. Her funny, exciting, poignant, and romantic life story, as presented by Warren, is based on McCance's own memoir, No Time on My Hands (Univ. of Nebraska Pr., 1986), and other sources, including family interviews. Reminiscent of Laura Ingalls Wilder's tales of life on the prairie, Grace's story relates hardships and hilarity in a compelling mix. How is a body supposed to relieve the call of nature when privies have yet to be built and there's not so much as a bush or clump of tall grass in sight? The girl survives fire, blizzards, and an attack by an enraged heifer. These close calls as well as the daily trials of bedbugs, dust, and a scarcity of water illustrate the challenges of homesteading. Indians are mentioned only in passing. This is a fine personal portrait of one woman's life and a good read. Excellent-quality archival photos, many of Grace's own family, enhance the well-documented text.
Rebecca O'Connell, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, PA
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