Customer Reviews

Cora Frear

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Part of SonLight homeschool curriculum. My son enjoyed this and recounted the plot several times with excitement. Asking the comprehension questions showed me this book is a good example how children should trust their parents. Cora's bravery is an inspiration and gave me the opportunity to explain what it really means.

Brave kids: Cora Frear is a true historical account of a young doctor's daughter out on the prairie at the turn of the century. Cora helps keep her doctor father company on long rides to outlying farms. In this stirring episode, she is able to help save her father, herself, and the horses from certain death by a prairie fire. An endnote explains that she also helped him with his surgeries a little later in life. This book is a nice bridge book to read before tackling the longer historical fiction of Laura Ingalls Wilder, etc.

Cora's story is fascinating. The book is difficult to put down. Very compelling and beautifully written. I couldn't recommend it more.

This is used in Sonlight curriculum. It is a great fit for any US history/pioneer period study. I typically use it with my 1st grade kids, but my older and younger are interested too. Cora is a little girl who helps her dad, a doctor. On the way to a patient in their buggy, they get caught in a prairie fire. Cora is key in saving them, but I'll leave the rest a surprise. What is especially nice is this is based on a true figure in history, and of course female heroines are great as there are not quite so many books written starring a female for kids to admire. It is good for probably 2-3rd grade and above to read alone, or as a read-aloud down to even pre-K age.

"Cora Frear: A True Story"

by Susan E. Goodman

(Aladdin Books, 2002)

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This is a great mid-level, historically-oriented chapter book based on the memoir of Cora Frear Hawkins, who lived as a young girl on the American prairie in the last decade of the 1800s... In this story, Cora accompanies her father, a frontier doctor, on a long-distance house call, and they are trapped along with their horse team in the middle of a fast-moving prairie fire. Father and daughter both use cool heads and quick wits to save themselves, and Cora emerges as an excellent role model of a capable, brave young woman. Well-written and suspenseful, a good book for kids who are interested in historical events and pioneer times. (Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain children's book reviews)