Amazon.com: Rachel's Journal: The Story of a Pioneer Girl: Marissa Moss: Books

Amazon.com
Marissa Moss, author of the popular Amelia's Notebook series, moves into new territory with Rachel's Journal, the story of a spirited 10-year-old pioneer girl who must leave her childhood home in Illinois and travel by covered wagon to the wilds of California. Rachel is entrusted by her grandfather to chronicle the long journey in the form of a handwritten journal. Through her journal entries, we are transported into a world of new adventures and fearsome challenges as Rachel's family and the others in their wagon train make their way along the Oregon Trail in search of a homestead in the Sacramento Valley.

Rachel is refreshingly unconventional: she dons her brother's shirt and britches when one of the oxen makes "a nice meal" of her only wool dress, learns to crack a whip, and makes friends with a young American Indian brave. Children will delight in the day-to-day accounts of life on the trail, enhanced by the notes and colorful drawings Rachel has added to the journal's margins. Based on real diaries kept by courageous pioneers between 1846 and 1868, Rachel's Journal is an excellent choice for third graders and older, and can also be successfully read aloud to younger children, who will enjoy imagining themselves as pioneering adventurers. An intimate look at a momentous journey, this book will not fail to move and inspire readers of all ages. --Aimée Damman

From Publishers Weekly
Moss extends the format she perfected in Amelia's Notebook and Amelia Writes Again to cover historical fiction in this solidly researched and wholly captivating illustrated diary "by" a 10-year-old girl who travels with her family along the Oregon Trail in 1850. The excitements and hardships of the seven-month journey spring vividly to life, whether Rachel is crossing the eerie, skeleton-strewn Nevada desert by moonlight, trading her long red braids for an Indian pony, eating flour soup when provisions get low, or awakening one morning to greet a new baby sister. Character sketches?of the shiftless Mr. Bridger; the oh-so-perfect Prudence Elias, bane of tomboy Rachel's days; sourpuss Mr. Henry Sunshine, whose wife, Louisa, providentially drops her dentures during a tense encounter with the Pawnee, frightening them away?are a sheer delight, adding depth, texture and, of course, humor. The language is equally colorful. One of the smaller children in Rachel's wagon party, for example, is "no bigger than a bar of soap after a week's wash." Moss shoehorns in an amazing amount of information, giving readers an excellent understanding of life on the trail. Lined sepia-toned pages give the book the look of an antique diary; and, in the style of the Amelia books, hand-lettered text and cleverly captioned thumbnail illustrations with a childlike sensibility add to the authentic feel. This engrossing glimpse of the westward movement is as good a choice for pleasure reading as it is a valuable classroom resource. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Rachel's Journal: The Story of a Pioneer Girl (Hardcover)

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