Review by Booklist Review
Their land sold, livestock traded, and belongings bundled into groaning wagons, the Graves family has 1,900 miles to go. It's spring 1846, and Franklin and Elizabeth Graves along with their nine children are headed west, trekking from their home in Lacon, Illinois, to Sutter's Fort, California. Months into the expedition, the family merges with the Donner and Reed parties; there's strength in numbers, and the Hastings Cutoff, a route south of the Great Salt Lake, is rumored to chop weeks from the increasingly backbreaking journey. That is, until winter falls early, notoriously trapping the families less than one hundred miles from their intended destination. In this concise collection of narrative poetry, Brown assumes the voice of 19-year-old Mary Ann Graves, nimbly straddling the unfathomably harsh realities of travel, starvation, and bloodshed through the imagined musings of a headstrong girl entranced by quilts, birds, and the beauty of the moon. With her refreshingly varied form and ever-earnest tone, Brown weaves a compelling story of suffering, sacrifice, and survival.--Shemroske, Briana Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Writing in verse from the fictionalized perspective of Donner Party survivor Mary Ann Graves, Brown (Caminar) chronicles the group's ill-fated 1,900-mile westward journey to California that began in 1846. Bright-eyed innocence is quickly tempered by hardships on the trek from Illinois-a snake bite, death, and mounting worries-as the trip becomes interminable ("There is no wagon train,/ only families moving together, passing each other by,/ there is no help to be given/ there is only forward"). The cadence of the poems slows, becoming deliberate and labored, as Mary Ann is overcome by exhaustion, dehydration, and starvation, then picks up with ghastly speed as she gorges on raw deer meat in the wilderness. A wayward traveler stumbling through the brush is nearly mistaken for food, foreshadowing the party's desperate means of survival while stranded in the mountains during a snowstorm. The gravity of the cannibalism, now synonymous with the Donner Party, is treated deftly, conveying Mary Ann's visceral reactions without becoming steeped in grisly detail. As loss compounds loss, brevity and repetition ("I stitch... I stitch") intensify key moments in a harrowing, exhausting trek. Ages 10-14. Agent: Tina Wexler, ICM. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up-For 19-year-old Mary Ann Graves, and her family, the journey from Illinois to California in 1846 meant an arduous walk through mountains and deserts, alongside livestock and wagons. Following Graves's actual reports, the chapters of this novel, which is based on actual events, relate the party's day-to-day struggles with nature, one another, and their own doubts and fears. Facing snakebites, harsh weather, and even murder, the members of the Donner party persevere. Just as they are ready to cross the mountains, winter falls on the Sierra Nevada, and each day becomes a battle for survival against snow, cold, and starvation-until they must resort to horrific means to survive. Although the layout of the trek lines upon each page is obviously lost in an audiobook, Lauren Ezzo beautifully communicates the cadence of the verse, varying her pace and tone, aptly conveying Mary Ann's reactions and emotions, and modifying her pitch just enough during conversations so that it is easy to identify each character. This is an emotionally taxing story to listen to, yet Ezzo's voice and Mary Ann's words resonate long after the book ends. VERDICT This deeply moving fictionalized account of the hardships that were endured by those who settled out West humanizes a disturbing event in American history and is sure to spark lively discussion. ["Strong...well-crafted.... [This] novel in verse uses beautiful, descriptive words to depict the vastness of the landscape and the emotional and mental toll of perpetual suffering": SLJ 9/16 review of the Candlewick book.]-MaryAnn Karre, formerly at West Middle School, Binghamton, NY © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
In this compelling verse novel, Brown (Caminar, rev. 3/14) imagines the Donner Partys harrowing survival tale as experienced by nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Graves, a real-life member of the expedition. Browns depiction of Mary Ann is drawn from historical accounts; she comes across as pragmatic, unsentimental, and ready for adventure. When her family begins its journey from Illinois to California in April 1846, Mary Ann is energized by her fathers visions of Californias fertility of soil, infinity of spring. Effectively varying meter, rhythm, and form, the poems offer a vivid and gritty portrait of life on the trailthe dust, temperature extremes, dangers, challengesand, for Mary Ann, a liberating sense of freedom and possibility within the periods gender confines. Brown includes a couple of intriguing if short-lived romantic threads; Mary Anns plainspoken awkwardness adds another facet to her character. Readers unfamiliar with the Donner Partys doomed outcome will be on equal footing with the protagonist; for those with a sense of what lies ahead, subtle foreshadowing contributes a dark undercurrent to the narrative. The poems concerning starvation and cannibalism deliver the basic information with somber precision, providing just enough detail to evoke the horror before moving on to other ordeals still to beset the survivors. A helpful map precedes the tale, and fascinating back matter (including a photograph of Mary Ann taken thirty years after the books events) fills in historical details and separates fact from fiction. A nuanced and haunting portrayal of the indomitable human spirit. kitty flynn (c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A fictional account of the Donner Partys ill-fated attempt to cross the Sierra Nevada in 1846.Looking for a better life in California, Franklin Graves decides to take his large family west from Illinois. Nineteen-year-old Mary Ann relates in verse their experiences on the wagon trail as they meet up with other families, including the Donners, and are eventually trapped in the mountains during a brutal winter. The historical Mary Ann Graves survived the ordeal, and her letters to a newspaper editor form the basis for the novels details. Across four seasons, Brown uses words and form effectively to evoke the hopeful idealism, love, joy, and life-or-death terror they feel along the way. Words scatter and shake across the page Inside the Wagon. As Franklin looks upon the Great Salt Lake, a gloom of sour surrounds him. Short verses over several pages depict the drawn-out anguish of the starving, desperate travelers. The trips horrific end is foreshadowed in The Sound of Meat when the last of the beef is gone and one man responds to a snapping branch: He almost shot Charles / thinking he was food. An authors note puts the story in historical context, including the difference in the points of view of the white pioneers and the Native Americans whose land they were trespassing on. A solid introduction to a somber episode in American history. (dramatis personae) (Historical verse/fiction. 11-15) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
