Bird Girl and One Big Open Sky

Esbaum, Jill and Gibbon, Rebecca (illus.)

Bird Girl: Gene Stratton-Porter Shares Her Love of Nature with the World

March 12, 2024 by Calkins Creek

Copy provided by the publisher

While I have yet to read Stratton-Porter's 1909 Girl of the Limberlost, I have several older friends for whom this book was a favorite, and after reading Bird Girl, I might have to read this classic, along with her 1904 Freckles. Considering how much building is going on in Ohio due to the Intel factory, the message about saving natural environments is more timely than ever!

Born in 1864, young Geneva loved being outdoors, and had a special love for birds. When her family had to move to the city, she brought along several as pets, but missed being able to go into the wilderness. As an adult, she was able to return to living in the country, and wrote stories for magazines about her adventures, but was appalled that they would be illustrated with pictures of stuffed birds. Once she got a camera, she went to great lengths to capture birds in their native element, no matter how muddy she got, and earned great acclaim for her photography as well as her writing. 

An afterword tells more about Stratton-Porter's life, as well as the fate of the Limberlost, which was damaged by development, but in recent years has seen successful reclamation efforts. This was new information to me, since I had only been familiar with her novels that were roughly contemporary to Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. 

Gibbons, who also illustrated  Marjory Saves the Everglades: The Story of Marjory Stoneman Douglas by Sandra Neil Wallace, soe a great job at capturing the flora and fauna of Stratton-Porter's world and making it a setting into which the reader would love to travel, with it's colorful plant life and vibrant birds. 

While it would be great to include this book in a display for Women's History Month, I'd also love to see it showcased for Earth Day in April along with The Leaf Detective: How Margaret Lowman Uncovered Secrets in the Rainforest by Lang and Christy, Rachel Carson and Her Book that Changed the World by Lawlor, Seeds of Change: Wangari's Gift to the World by Johnson and Sadler, and Cactus Queen: Minerva Hoyt Establishes Joshua Tree National Park by Alexander and Ely.

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Cline-Ransom, Lesa. One Big Open Sky

March 5, 2024 by Holiday House

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

In this novel in verse, Lettie thinks that her family is doing fairly well in 1879 Mississippi, even though her father struggles a bit with the land that they farm. Her father, however, struggles with the fact that his family were sold away from him when they were enslaved, and isn't happy to have to work land that doesn't belong to him. When he decides to head west to Nebraska to stake his claim there, Lettie, her brothers Elijah and Silas, and her mother, Sylvia are uprooted. The family prepares a wagon with all of their supplies, and makes arrangements to get out west. Sylvia is dismayed to leave her family, especially since she is pregnant. The journey doesn't go well, starting with the fact that the ship on which they are supposed to sail up the Mississippi river won't let their family on because they are Black. They also underestimate the supplies that they will need, and end up having to restock in Independence, Missouri where things are very expensive. They are lucky to have a teacher, Philomena, agree to pay them in exchange for riding in their wagon with them. She is leaving a difficult home life for a teaching job and ends up being a very helpful member of the group, helping out with cooking and various tasks. Lettie adopts the dog of one settler who perishes, and Sutter never leaves her side. The trail west was fraught with all sorts of dangers, and Lettie's family experiences many of them, including a tragedy that puts the family's future in jeopardy. I would love to see a second book that details Lettie's new life in Nebraska. 

Strengths: It is always interesting to see different perspective for historical events, like Schwabach's Starting from Seneca Falls, and Cline-Ransom does a great job of weaving in details about the prejudice and racism Black people faced in the post Civil War South with an exploration of the difficulties of traveling west. The vast amount of walking, the limited food supplies, the dangerous river crossings, and the various other threats to survival are all fascinating; I loved this type a book when I was in elementary school because I liked to think how I would fare under similar circumstances. Lettie is keeping notes about the journey and logging costs, and I love how interested she is in the one newspaper that her father buys for her. Philomena is a fantastic character who is taking control of her own life, and even finding romance with another traveler who accepts her as an equal. The challenges of the journey are not sugar coated at all, and young readers who perhaps have never played the Oregon Trail computer game will be shocked at the lack of amenities. Survival stories are always popular with middle grade readers, and I think that Lettie's experiences will appeal to many of them. 
Weaknesses: While there was some mention of the Native American population with modern sensitivities in mind, I was expecting a lot more. The verse format doesn't allow as much background history to be included, and I wonder if younger readers who aren't as familiar with westward migration will need some nonfiction support for this title. 
What I really think: Carr's 1934 Children of the Covered Wagon was one of my favorite books in the 4th grade, so this was quite a treat for me. Hand this to readers who enjoyed Park's Prairie Lotus , Philbrick's Stay Alive, or Nolen's Hope's Path to Glory: The Story of a Family's Journey on the Overland Trail.