Exploring the Literary Frontier
I taught Secondary English in Utah for 25 years. Every summer after the Fourth of July festivities, the state’s residences get another chance to shoot off firecrackers as they celebrate Pioneer Day, July 24th. The Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on that date in 1847. After they were forced out of Nauvoo, Illinois they went west looking for new opportunities as did so many Americans. As I begin my vacation this summer, I am reminded that my wife and I will be visiting family in Utah this year over Pioneer day. I am wondering what pioneer books I should offer my grandchildren who are also visiting Utah from Scotland with their American mother and their Scottish father.
Many young readers cut their reading teeth on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s collection of frontier stories based on her life and family. They begin with Little House in the Big Woods and continue into Little House on the Prairie and beyond. I found Caddie Woodlawn as a graduate student and enjoyed this story as well. I am thinking about other favorites that I read as a child or was introduced to as a scholar of young adult literature.
I am reminded that Gary Paulsen wrote quite a few more books than the perennial favorite Hatchet. Many of his books are set in the wild, but at least one series, The Tucket Saga is set in the old American West of the 1840s. Scott O’Dell, who most readers will recognize as the author of Island of the Blue Dolphins, also wrote several novels set in 19th century America. These books include: Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain, Sing Down the Moon and Streams to the River, Rivers to the Sea – a story of Sacajawea.
The book on the top of my list, however, is a novel by one of my college classmates, A. E. Cannon (I like it when I can connect myself with people who impressed me when we shared a class and have continued to do so with all of their life’s accomplishments—wife, mother, newspaper columnist, and young adult novelist.). Cannon’s Charlotte’s Rose is a novel that captures twelve-year-old Charlotte’s journey from Iowa to Utah with a handcart company along the Mormon trail. Cannon’s novel is a captivating tale of a young girl’s challenges as she helps push and pull her way across the prairie. In addition, readers get a glimpse of the Mormon migration, especially a sampling of what the 3,000 Mormon pioneers who used handcarts instead of wagons between 1856 and 1860 experienced. This will be the book I offer my granddaughters as they explore they Utah pioneer heritage. Thanks Ann, in time I will offer up, Amazing Gracie, Cal Cameron by Day, Spider-Man by Night, and The Shadow Brothers.
Steven T. Bickmore
Many young readers cut their reading teeth on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s collection of frontier stories based on her life and family. They begin with Little House in the Big Woods and continue into Little House on the Prairie and beyond. I found Caddie Woodlawn as a graduate student and enjoyed this story as well. I am thinking about other favorites that I read as a child or was introduced to as a scholar of young adult literature.
I am reminded that Gary Paulsen wrote quite a few more books than the perennial favorite Hatchet. Many of his books are set in the wild, but at least one series, The Tucket Saga is set in the old American West of the 1840s. Scott O’Dell, who most readers will recognize as the author of Island of the Blue Dolphins, also wrote several novels set in 19th century America. These books include: Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain, Sing Down the Moon and Streams to the River, Rivers to the Sea – a story of Sacajawea.
The book on the top of my list, however, is a novel by one of my college classmates, A. E. Cannon (I like it when I can connect myself with people who impressed me when we shared a class and have continued to do so with all of their life’s accomplishments—wife, mother, newspaper columnist, and young adult novelist.). Cannon’s Charlotte’s Rose is a novel that captures twelve-year-old Charlotte’s journey from Iowa to Utah with a handcart company along the Mormon trail. Cannon’s novel is a captivating tale of a young girl’s challenges as she helps push and pull her way across the prairie. In addition, readers get a glimpse of the Mormon migration, especially a sampling of what the 3,000 Mormon pioneers who used handcarts instead of wagons between 1856 and 1860 experienced. This will be the book I offer my granddaughters as they explore they Utah pioneer heritage. Thanks Ann, in time I will offer up, Amazing Gracie, Cal Cameron by Day, Spider-Man by Night, and The Shadow Brothers.
Steven T. Bickmore
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