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MOLLIE SEES THE ELEPHANT

Name: MOLLIE SEES THE ELEPHANT
ISBN: 978-1-70407-000-1

A NOVEL OF THE OREGON TRAIL

‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 3, 2019

A sometimes-engaging tale that’s loaded with trivia for students of the great Western expansion.

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Miller’s debut historical novel follows a girl’s 2,000-mile journey from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City.

Nine-year-old Margaret “Mollie” Ann Reynolds and her younger sister, Sarah, were raised on their parents’ 160-acre farm outside the small town of Mexico, Missouri. It was a generally happy life until September 1853, when their father, Ransom Arnold Reynolds, fell off a barn roof and succumbed to his injuries. Without him, the farm is more than his widow and two young daughters can effectively manage. Several months after Ransom’s death, Col. William C. Masters holds a meeting in Mexico, recruiting families for an Oregon-bound wagon train that he’s organizing. Much to Mollie’s delight, her mother agrees to sell the farm and ready her small family for the arduous journey west, accompanied by Mollie’s 16-year-old friend Billy Jacobs. After months of preparation, the 40-wagon caravan heads out on the Oregon Trail on May 1, 1854. Miller has Mollie narrate this adventurous tale in two alternating voices—as an adult in 1883 and as a child in daily diary entries that she kept while on the trail. Overall, the novel focuses more on hard facts than it does on emotion, although Mollie certainly displays the exuberance of an optimistic child who’s having a life-changing experience. As such, the author offers an abundance of intriguing historical information. Col. Masters, for instance, is presented as an experienced wagon master with exacting standards; among his requirements is that wagons must be pulled by oxen, not horses: “The reason is that horses cannot flourish on the poor grass over the trail nor can they provide enough strength for the mountains we need to cross.” Miller excels at getting across this sort of detail—although it isn’t all equally riveting. Uncredited, full-color photos of campsites and landmarks are interspersed throughout the narrative.

A sometimes-engaging tale that’s loaded with trivia for students of the great Western expansion.

Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-70407-000-1

Page Count: 188

Publisher: Self

Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2020

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER
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by Harper Lee

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DISTANT SHORES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...

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Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.

After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).