  | Full Text Reviews: Bulletin for the Center... - 02/01/2012 When May’s parents send her off to help out on a homestead fifteen miles west of their own Kansas “soddy,” she is overcome with grief; she wants desperately to continue going to school, despite her struggles with reading, and to remain with her mother, father, and brother. Things get even worse when twelve-year-old May is suddenly and unexpectedly left alone and must use all of her resources to survive on her own for four months before her father comes to claim her at Christmas. The free-verse poems in May’s voice, numbered rather than titled, are eloquently composed; short phrases and abundant repetition create drama and convey May’s youthful determination. The survival story is riveting, particularly when May is snowed in and unable to dig her way out, and the backstory of her struggle with reading (readers may recognize her difficulty as dyslexia) adds additional interest. Some poems reflect back, providing context, others offer details of the present, while others are speculative, wherein May tries to figure out who she is and just what she is capable of accomplishing. Fans of frontier females will readily dive into May’s thoughts; the novel would also work well as a class readaloud during a frontier living unit. Isolation and determination work in perfect harmony in this thrilling tale of one girl’s survival under dire circumstances. An author’s note giving more factual detail and discussing her inspiration is included. HM - Copyright 2012 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Booklist - 01/01/2012 Furious that Ma and Pa have sent her out to work for the money they need, May Betts, 11, finds herself in a small, sod homestead on the western Kansas prairie in the late 1870s, 15 miles away from home, caring for a new, unsettled young bride, who is just a few years older than May. When the bride takes off, her husband leaves to find her, and May is all alone—frightened, furious, abandoned. Can she survive the five months until her parents come to collect her at Christmas? Told in very short lines, the spare free verse in spacious type is a fast read, poetic and immediate. The daily physical details are the heart of the survival story of finding food and keeping warm and safe as the snow comes, all against the dramatic backdrop of the prairie. The vast landscape is home to May, but to the new bride, the quiet is “thunderous as a storm, the way / it hounds you / inside / outside / nighttime / day.” Of course, Little House fans will grab this. - Copyright 2012 Booklist. Loading...
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