Saturday, May 21, 2011

MAY BOOK CLUB SELECTIONS

At our May meeting we discussed two books, both about life on the Great Plains of the midwest in the late 1880's. The building of railroads and the offer of free land to farmers, brought immigrants and others to settle in this part of the country, in the face of enormous hardships.

"The Children's Blizzard", by David Laskin, is an historical account of an immense blizzard that caught the settlers entirely by surprise. On an unusually balmy day in January 1888, the weather changed in minutes to one of the fierest storms ever described. Anyone caught outdoors in the wind and blinding snow was in danger on death-----which included many school children on their way from school or home.

The author begins with brief descriptions of individual families: a couple from Norway who had come to escape poverty; a family with two children from the Ukraine, part of a group of 53 Mennonite families who came for religious freedom; a family wih seven children in which the mother had died during the first winter.

As the book proceeds,the author carefully descibes the meteorology and path of the storm, and inter weaves the stories of the individuals who survived--or did not --on that day. Especially touching were the young teachers in their one-room school houses trying to find safety for their charges. The stories are heart wrenching but also inspiring.

Our second book, The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder, is a novel about a family living on the plains in the 1880"s. The author was born in1867, and while this is fiction, it may reflect her own life.Everyone seemed to enjoy this book, which was full of details of the daily life of that time and place .

For our next meeting (June 7) three books are recommended, all about food and farming. The Dirty Life,by C Kimball, The Last Farmer,byHoward Cohn, or Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by B Kingsolver. Read one or all three!!