THE LONG WAY TO A NEW LAND

The experience of a Swedish family coming to America around 1869 is projected here more-or-less as seen by the older child, Carl Erik; but this is essentially an impersonal description, with no special encounters or occurrences worked in to make a story, of how it was for such immigrants in general. So the family, hungry during a drought, receives a letter from Uncle Axel in America and decides to sell the farm and follow. They start their trip by cart, spend three nights on a ship to England, take a train to a Liverpool immigrant hotel, endure a bad storm and bad smells during the crossing, meet on board a ""Swedish Yankee"" who has written a Handbook for the Emigrant, and finally land--equipped, thanks to the handbook, with such phrases as ""What country are you of?"" and ""Now we are arrived."" If the personal angle is not played up, this does deal with the human side of history, and could suit as a classroom supplement to ""roots"" units.