Monday, November 22, 2021

MMGM- Stay Alive

It's
Marvelous Middle Grade Monday
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and #IMWAYR day 
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Philbrick, Rodman. Stay Alive: The Journal of Douglas Allen Deeds, The Donner Party Expedition, 1846 
December 7th 2021 by Scholastic Inc.
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

In Missouri, young teenager Douglas Deeds has lost his father and mother, and all he has left in the world in some money and his horse. He decides to join a group of people heading to California, where life promises to be easier. The Breen family, who have a son Edward about Douglas' age, let Douglas accompany the family and share their supplies. The leader of the party, George Donner, has asked Douglas to keep a journal of the trip. The group heads out with lots of enthusiasm and well equipped wagons; the Reeds have one with a door, bed, and even bookshelves. Someone else has brought a piano. Since the rations needed for the months long trip include 150 pounds of flour per person and 75 pounds of meat, there are many animals pulling the wagons, and they need food as well. Things go fairly well, and the group crosses the South Platte river. As the journey continues, tempers begin to fray, bad decisions are made, and crises occur. The Great Salt Lake is long and arduous to cross, but it is the mountains that prove the group's undoing. Winter closes in early in the mountains, and after the group abandons their wagons and supplies to get through a pass, things deteriotate further. Will Douglas be one of the survivors lucky enough to reach California? 

One of the books I can remember reading in fourth grade (almost fifty years ago!) was Mary Jane Carr's 1934 Children of the Covered Wagon. Certainly, the view of Westward Expansion and pioneers has changed significantly in the intervening years, but the adventure and excitement is still part of US history and interesting to read about. There are several mentions of the Native Americans that are met during the journey. While there are some missed opportunities to insert modern sentiment about how wrong it was to encroach upon them, the exchanges are at least not problematically negative, and at least once there is an explanation that the warring behavior is a response to the atrocities visited upon the population by the settlers. To capture the experience of the Donner party, this is about the only reasonable way to go to tell the story, although some critics will still feel this is not enough. 

Details of traveling distances through a landscape with no modern amenities will be eye opening to young readers who can't get through the day without a drink of water or a wall outlet to charge their phone. Cooking over open fire, walking twenty miles a day, and suffering through extremes of weather will all be novel experiences for most readers. I did appreciate that the book just skimmed the surface of the most notable Donner party feature; the cannibalism. Deeds refuses to partake of his expedition mates, and the epilogue and notes at the end tell us more about what happened without getting into grisly details. 

I just had a student ask for books about "the wild west", and I had to tell him there wasn't much. Aside from a few bookslike Gemeinhart's Some Kind of Courage (2015) Rose's Jasper and the Riddle of Riley's Mine (2017) and Taylor's Billy the Kid (2005), I've gotten rid of most of the books about settling the west because of the problematic depictions of Native characters. Stay Alive is a much needed, exciting title covering an important, though difficult, period of US history. I'd love to see more books like this. 

Hopkinson, Deborah. The Deadliest Diseases Then and Now 
October 5th 2021 by Scholastic Focus
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

This is the first book in "The Deadlist" series. In a nicely formatted and illustrated book (available in hardcover and paperback, which will probably show up at book fairs), we see the evolving history of epidemics, starting with extensive coverage of the Great Mortality in the 1300s, with an overview of a few earlier incidents. It was interesting to hear that this was what the epidemic was referred to at the time; we tend to call it the Black Plague. I learned more about this event than I thought it possible to know, and the book continues with further information about other diseases and the people involved in dealing with them, like Dr. Wu Lien-teh, a Chinese doctor at the beginning of the 20th century whose work influenced how we dealt with Covid-19. The 1918 flu also gets good coverage, and there's an overview of other diseases like smallpox, polio, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. this is well-formatted for easy reading, and conversational in tone. Scholastic Focus has come out with some interesting nonfiction titles lately which I very much enjoyed.

8 comments:

  1. I guess we'll continue to have interest in the Donner Party history. That book sounds good, & certainly there is interest in epidemics now. If only it was past history of long ago! Thanks, Karen, & Happy Thanksgiving!

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  2. Stay Alive sounds like a fascinating story—I can imagine kids would be very intrigued by the grisliness of the Donner Party story (although leaving out the super-gory details is definitely a good thing). I appreciate your attempts to find books about settling the West that acknowledge the injustices against Native Americans from that era. And the book on deadly diseases also sounds like one kids will enjoy (although I'm a little too squeamish for that type of thing)—I've seen some other praise for it as well. Thanks so much for the great post, Karen!

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  3. These both sound fascinating. Whenever I read books like Stay Alive I am amazed at how those before us have endured such difficult times.

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  4. The time period is fascinating as is the story you described. I'm glad historical fiction like this is available. I will be looking for a copy to read. Thanks for featuring on MMGM.

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  5. Stay Alive sounds like an excellent story. I've always enjoyed stories during that time period and wondered just how people survived -- especially when they only traveled 10-15 miles a day and months at a time to reach a destination. Such a difficult trip.

    The Deadliest Diseases Then and Now sounds like a timely read. I enjoy NF books like this one. Thanks for sharing.

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  6. I appreciate that the cannibalism in the Donner expedition. I would probably purchase this book, but I'm still not going to read it. In the last while I've read some Indigenous Canadian books that talk about the Wendigo in the context of individuals who consumed human flesh. I just can't go there now.
    On the other hand, I wish I could find a copy of The Deadliest Diseases Then and Now.

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  7. These both look really interesting. I am particularly interested in stories of the Donner Party. One of my critique group wrote a wonderful MG book based on the diaries of Virginia Reed. It's is All We Left Behind: Virginia Reed and the Donner Party by Nancy Ashcroft Herman. You might like it. The Deadliest series sounds pretty interesting. I wonder what they will have after diseases. Thanks for telling me about these.

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  8. I know many kids who enjoy survival stories. Thanks for sharing these new titles!

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