TO THE FRONTIER

Newcomer Kimmel stays close to the historical record, but leaves the adventure out of this fictionalized account of the Cody family’s 1854 move from Iowa to the then-turbulent Kansas Territory. Bill, at eight the eldest surviving son, spends the episode wavering between the urge to play “Lewis & Clark” or some other game with his lively sister Julia, and a desire to be given adult responsibilities. As for Julia, after a younger sister in her charge nearly drowns—the only danger anyone here faces, except for a brief incident near the end—she stops resisting her mother’s and older sister’s pressure to act like a lady is supposed to. Though she drops the terms “jayhawker” and “bushwhacker” into the mix without defining them clearly, Kimmel lays out the simmering controversy between pro- and anti-slavery factions at length. Other issues, such as Indian removal—or, for that matter, even the hardships of travel and of building a new home in strange country—are largely glossed over. Already-scheduled sequels may compensate for this series opener’s slow pace and blind spots, but fans of such action-oriented western tales as Brian Burk’s Wrango (1999) or Gary Paulsen’s Tucket tales may not wait around. (Fiction. 10-12)