Customer Reviews

Crossing the Colorado Rockies 1864 (American Sisters)

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Because of her father's debts, thirteen-year-old Eda Hitchcock and her family are on their way west to Pike's Peak, hoping to strike it rich. After a long and difficult journey, they're finally almost there. But living in a tumbledown cabin in the wilderness and losing everything they own to thieves isn't what they expected. Nothing seems to go right. Eda sometimes wonders, will they ever get back home? This was a great book. It was interesting, and exciting, and had a likeable main character.

Having been first introduced to Laurie Lawlor through the "Addie" books and being a great fan of historical fiction, I figured to start reading her "American Sisters" series. This is the first I've read of the series. The first third of the book seems to focus more on the extremely dysfunctional Hitchcock family and the tense family dynamics than their plight in the Rockies. I think even my fourth and fifth grade students would consider it a stretch to believe that even greenhorns could be so extremely "green". Really, four women who know absolutely nothing about cooking and laundry? How in the world did they ever make it from Erie County, Pennsylvania to the Colorado Rockies intact? Eda's meeting and subsequent friendship with Edith, Usylsses, and their state-named children is a little far-fetched but adds humor to the story and makes for an interesting read. The Hitchcock's situation in Denver becomes more believeable, and the account of Sand Creek massacre is accurate. Through the epilogue, we learn about the rest of Eda's life, but we are left wondering what happened to the rest of the family. All in all, it's a pretty good read for kiddie lit.