A sometimes-engaging tale that’s loaded with trivia for students of the great Western expansion.
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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