Narrating with her customary unschooled spellin’ and grammar, young Elvira (“Elvirey”) Freshwater, introduced in Log Cabin Quilt (1996), chronicles further changes in her pioneer family. With both Granny and brother Bub laid up just as the harvest is ready, Elvirey proposes calling on Widow Aiken and her sons for help. To her distress, however, she sees the temporary alliance between her widower father and their neighbor firm up into something closer. Reflecting the tale’s understated tone, Himler illustrates this small-format chapter book with soft-lined monochrome close-ups of rural folk with rolled-up sleeves and quiet faces. In the end, Hannah melts Elvirey’s stubborn resistance to the upcoming wedding with the enticing promise to teach her to read, and all ends happily. Like its three predecessors, this will have strong appeal to fledgling readers reared on the Little House tales and the like. (Fiction. 7-9)
