The Children's Blizzard

The Children's Blizzard
By David Laskin (288 pages)
Published by Harper Perrenial
Bookish rating: 4.25

I think it's safe to say that David Laskin loves weather nearly as much as my darling husband does. In this account of the 1888 blizzard on the Northern Plains, Laskin ingeniously meshes meteorological detail with high, high drama.

Often referred to as "the school children's blizzard" (or schoolhouse blizzard or children's blizzard) because of the number of children and teachers killed when walking home from school across the prairie, this blizzard is a fascinating piece of American history and a central part of history for Nebraska through the Dakotas.

Laskin writes with journalistic flair that makes the story utterly absorbing, but his writing does not exploit the tragedy. Brilliantly, Laskin sets the stage by describing the type of people living on this country's most unforgiving land. (Chris and I argued about this. "More unforgiving than Alaska?" he had asked. Yes. Because they had no timber or fish and wild life--except for pest and bugs--was far more scarce. Oh, and lack of water.)

Accurately, Laskin describes the (poor)  immigrants setting up homesteads and soddies, and gets at the core of who these people were and the kinds of lives they were leaving behind and pursuing. My people (the Germans from Russia)--their mentality, faith, habits, and lives--were very accurately depicted (I write this having done a large amount of research on these folks--plus I descend from the cranky lot of them), so I'm guessing the Swedes and others are also truthfully portrayed.

Laskin does so much right--describing in GREAT detail the meteorological forces, the people, the land, the types of lives homesteaders led, the role of children, being at the mercy--always--of weather and pests and fire and water (all of which are related, of course).

I'm glad this book was published by a big publisher, because it needs to be in the hands of millions. My Dakota peeps still talk about the schoolchildren's blizzard to this day. It really  made an imprint on and was a defining event for the people of the Northern Plains. I'm just so pleased it was covered so incredibly well by Laskin. Definitely recommended.

Up High in the Trees

Up High in the Trees
By Kiara Brinkman (326 pages)
Published by Grove Press
Bookish rating: 4

Lordy. You'll need to emotionally steel yourself for this one. Told from the voice of Sebby Lane, an 8-year-old boy with autism, this novel explores breaks your heart without being sappy, overwritten, or even remotely cheesy.

Poor Sebby's mother dies, so he must negotiate through his grief with a father who becomes increasingly distant. Sebby's voice is PITCH PERFECT, capturing the logic of children and articulating the way in which a child on the spectrum copes with sensory issues. It also defies the way we think of children with autism and their attachment to others---because Sebby is mighty attached to his mommy, and his struggle to hold onto her in his mind is just plain painful to read. And kind of remarkable.

Set in 1992, I particularly liked the kiddo point of view on this era, since I also was a kid then, and I remember some of the details Sebby picks up on.

As a mom, I just wanted to crawl under the bed or table or wherever Sebby is hiding and hug him.

Contented Among Strangers

Contented Among Strangers: Rural German-Speaking Women and Their Families in the Nineteenth-Century Midwest
By Linda Schelbitzki Pickle (230 pages)
Published by University of Illinois Press
Bookish rating: 4

The fact that this book--nearly 20 years old--is still in print speaks to relevance in immigration history and women's studies. Probably based on Pickle's dissertation, this study explores rural 19th-century German immigrant women before leaving Germany (or Russia, in the case of the Germans from Russia), their process over, and the ways in which they made new lives, bearing and burying countless children, setting up homes often made of sod, and protecting their native culture and language.

I found the book fascinating, particularly when the women spoke for themselves (though they often did so while aware of an audience, either via letters or memoirs meant for posterity--and these voices are only from those educated to read and write, unless stories were later transcribed). I also loved Pickle's wise and sensible wariness of making broad generalizations about an entire group of people. She carefully dodged stereotypes of the homesick frontier foreigner; the "meek, self-effacing" minister's wife; the "ignorant and browbeaten peasant woman (who serves her husband only as a fertile beast of burden"; and the "exemplary farmer's wife (who sacrifices all for her family)" (p. 182). These women, says Pickle, "were much too complex to conform cop0letely to any of these immigrant types" (p. 182).

A very important contribution to immigrant studies, agricultural history, German studies, and women's studies. Recommended.