This book was a O.K. book. It was about a little girl named Addie and her family. They moved a very long way leaving behind family and friends. The place they moved to is a vast, open place in Dakota. While they were getting settled,they stayed with the Fencys. The Fencys helped them and they got settled. I liked this book.
by:Amanda McCoy

Addie across the Prairie is an excellent book for children interested in their heritage or wanting to learn more about the lives of pioneers. It gives accurate descriptions of plants found on the tall grass prairie and the characteristics of a sod house. It includes the emotional element that all pioneer families must have felt when they left family and friends behind but yet emphasized why settlers moved to these remote places - for opportunities to improve the standard of living for their families. It also showed the work and responsibility that was required of young people during that era. I highly recommend it as out-of-classroom reading for students studying American History.

I thought this book was great! Of course it was kinda boring in the beginning, but later on in the story it turned out to be great! My favorite part was at the end when Addie and her little brother had to escape a prairie fire! Then she had to risk her life and her brother's life to save their lives. I know, weird! They had to hide in the unfinished well where the water was kept. I reccomend all of you who is reading this review to read the book Addie Across the Prairie. You won't regret it! :o)

Four short stories and four different authors gave this book fast read quality but less than complete satisfaction for me with any of the four stories.

Since I must rate the entire book at once, I have to average the "stars." There are four stories of romance in strange circumstances. First is Bride's Song in which Dora Grant, a nurse and city girl has to decide whether to keep her good job in the little town or follow her heart and become what she has vowed she never will - a homesteader's wife. This one would get 3 stars.

Second, The Barefoot Bride is a touching, moving short story about a widow, Emma, whose odd mannerisms and talking out loud to animals and nature have caused the townsfolk to believe she is insane. She is shunned and feared and terribly alone, unable to keep her large farm going. She advertises locally and unsuccessfully for a husband of any kind just to keep her farm. Finally, Matt Tolivar, a widowed doctor, comes through town and is looking for a place to hide and start his life over. A very interesting relationship occurs and this is my favorite of the four novellas. I give it 4 stars.

Third, A Homesteader, a Bride, and a Baby concerns a city gal, Lorette coming to take over the raising of a baby orphaned by diphtheria and realizing she knows nothing about operating a farm turns to a male helper with resulting ugly gossip from the townspeople. IF I could vote on Chase Lankford alone this one would get 5 stars because of his strength, wisdom, patience and his faith in God. Since I have to consider the whole story, this one gets 1-2 stars from me.

The last, A Vow Unbroken, is a story of deceit and mystery, unusual deaths and a mail-order-bride story gone wrong. Very wrong. Pregnant, widowed Abby finds herself being exchanged from her expected housekeeper job to that of mail order bride, with horrible consequences and suspense. I give this one 2 stars.

These four short stories have a decided Christian theme with all decisions coming about only after those involved spend considerable time in prayer and Bible reading. All the stories take place in the 1800's and obviously from the title, on the prairie - just as it was being settled.

I think this book would make excellent required reading for female homeschoolers or church groups perhaps for ages 13 - 18.

This is a must read for any Christian romance lover! This book includes four short stories about four different women who are planning on getting married. My favorite is the third story in which a pregnant widow goes out west thinking she is going to be a housekeeper. WRONG! Her aunt actually set her up with a man to be married to. Excellant. It's really nice to be able to be exposed to four authors. Great novel!

If you're a mystery fan but looking for a change of pace from the standard big-city LA/NY fare, you may want to give "Prairie Gothic", by J.M. Hayes, a try. The story takes place over a 24-hour span in rural Buffalo Springs, Kansas. The body of an infant has been discovered at the local nursing home, setting the stage for some darkly humorous crime fiction that if not exactly a page-turner is at least unique. Hayes' laconic and droll style fits neatly with the prairie and small towns of which he writes. The main characters - part Cheyenne Harvey Edward Maddox, or more popularly "Mad Dog" and his half brother, the County Sheriff English, or of course "Englishman" - plow through a 100-year blizzard as the mystery unravels.

This is nothing if not a quirky novel - a unique change of pace that will stay lodged in your memory longer than the average crime story. One gets the feeling that Hayes really enjoys his writing, and as a Kansas native, he certainly seems to know of the people and places around which the tale is spun. If you're in the mood for some off-beat fiction on a lazy summer afternoon, "Prairie Gothic" is worth the time.

Mad Dog, a half Cheyenne self-appointed shaman is only following the wishes of his recently deceased fellow Native American to give him an authentic burial. That's when someone starts taking shots at him. In the meantime, his brother, Sheriff (Englishman) English is called to a nursing home with a report of a kidnapped baby. While a blizzard rages, Englishman needs to find his brother, discover how the baby was killed, and head off an increasingly crazy group of locals.

Author J. M. Hayes delivers an often funny story that mixes reality and fantasy seamlessly. Mad Dog may really have shaman powers--or maybe he is just disturbed. Dorothy from the nursing home swears by her ruby sneakers--and calls Mad Dog 'the wizard.' Dorothy may know what happened to the body, and even where the baby came from, but does she also know more. Because there are deep secrets in this rural Kansas towns--secrets that go back to nazi Germany and before.

I suspect that Hayes had a good time writing this book. I certainly had a good time reading it.

It may be that the best thing about this book is Gilmore's folksy style of writing. He brings alive and makes more readable Native American myths of the Plains' tribes. My chief complaint is that he credits no one for his quotes. He includes a bibliography but no footnotes. It's not a huge omission in a work like this but it means you end of taking a lot of what he says on faith alone.

This book contains short accounts of actual myths and folklores of Native American tribes from the Missouri River Region. Excellent for discovering the stories surrounding some geological features around the Missouri River valley. A good read.

Although containing good general information, this book is not very detailed. For the most part, I needed more specific information for prairie restorations. However, I did enjoy the discussion on the history of tallgrass prairie restoration in Iowa. Additionally, the species-specific information with additional comments on the native prairie wildflowers and grasses is quite useful and much appreciated. It is the first species list I have found that provides information regarding what wildlife would be attracted to each plant.

Restoring the Tallgrass Prairie is a great "first" book for a person interested in praire management/restoration. The book is split into two parts. The first part is a guide to restoration. The second part is a field guide for the identification of prairie grasses, plants etc. I recommend this book because of its content and superior value for this type of book.

This book was written more in the form of a textbook than a novel. It contains factual information but is neither suspenseful nor very interesting. It may have been good for its time but is now dull

Herbert Asbury, by default, was the most important crime historian of the first half of the twentieth century. He produced a series of books published before 1950 surveying the red light districts, criminal haunts, and notorious incidents occurring in Chicago, San Francisco, New Orleans and elsewhere. In those days, before the public fascination with true-crime resulted in a flood of new books rushed into print, Asbury had the field pretty much to himself. Gem of the Prairie remained out of print for many years, but it inspired generations of Chicago writers to produce more of the same; Herman Kogan, Finis Farr, Lloyd Wendt, Bill Helmer, Henry Justin Smith, Emmett Dedmon, Curt Johnson, (and myself, I must confess), to name but a few. Asbury blazed new trails for all of us, but his research is largely based on newspaper accounts and poorly documented second-hand sources. Many of the anecdotes, though engrossing, cannot be verified upon further research. Mr. Asbury colors the text with florid prose,unintentional wit, and a withering cynicism common to the Chicago school of writing, but he fails to provide the reader with synthesis of his subject matter. Stories are evenly told, but we are left to ponder the obvious question. Did the same economic and social forces that fueled Chicago's phenomonal growth in the late 19th Century also contribute to the reputation the Windy City is still enjoys as a wide-open, corrupt town where anything goes? The answers are to be found elsewhere.

Excellent book describing the Chicago underworld from post civil-war to the 1920's. I have an original copy from my great aunt who was a flapper in the 1920's. Born and bred in Chicago--I loved this book.

....and don't judge the author by this book. Maggie Osborne is one of the best writers I've ever read, but this is definitely not her best. It's pretty slow and had such potential for a great story, but she never hit her mark. Ms. Osborne just went off in too many directions and never really hit home with a story line. I gave it 2 stars because I was able to finish the book, but I really regretted the purchase. I know I won't pick it up a second time. Try her early stuff, like The Best Man, The Bride of Willow Creek and The Stranger's Wife. Her newer work just isn't cutting it for me.

I'm new to Maggie Osborne, having read (and loved!) two other novels of hers last week, but I expected "Prairie Moon" to get better, and it never did. After reading about 1/3 of it, I remembered my tried and true rule: give the book a good chance and if it doesn't get better, don't assume it will. I just read the end to satisfy my curiosity (Yes, I know this is forbidden by the "rules," but get real! Reading is supposed to be fun and there are too many great books to wade through a dud). Bottom line: if you MUST read it, get it from the library!

This book lost me right at the beginning on page 31 when she put a roast in the oven for dinner with plans to make a pecan cake with vanilla frosting for desert. When it was time for dinner, what she pulled out of the oven (page 35) was a sheperd's pie and baked apples, with turtle soup for starters. Where she came up with a turtle for soup out there in the middle of the prairie is anybody's guess.

And, as the other reviewer pointed out, the trip to Atlanta via Santa Fee kind of left me shaking my head too. I have read Maggie Osborn before. She is not usually this bad. What a shame.

The book was dedicated to John Wayne. Most historians dedicate their first book to their parents, but Michael Coyne takes another path.

Is this suggestive, (I think we should be told)

Continued on page 94

The author examines the Hollywood Western in its heyday, from Stage Coach (1939) to The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), to view the genre in its social, political, and cultural dimensions.
His approach is annoyingly Politically Correct (he finds objectionable the depiction of the West as having been conquered largely by white males, which of course it was), and the intrusion of conventional British class-consciousness may leave some readers cold, but his connection ,for instance, of Josey Wales to Vietnam is interesting, if unpersuasive.
The plots of the films are deftly summarized, but the reader is encouraged to view the films in conjuction with this text.
With filmography, bibliography, good index, and some of the poorest photo-reproduction this reviewer has seen.
(The numerical rating above is a default setting within Amazon's format. This reviewer does not employ numerical retings.)

(0 star review)

Happened across this book in the library, and I thought I'd put in a few words against it, since it's doubtless highly recommended among books to help kids "cope" with alcoholism in the family; that is, if your idea of teaching children to cope is training them to accept their fate, bury it in euphemism, and move on from one depressing day of abuse to another in the shadow of what this book seeks to excuse as a sickness.

The father in this book is typically horrendous, lying and near-abusing his daughter, yet the non-alcoholic mother insists on keeping her child in this situation, breaking down in tears rather than offering a beacon of safety in what must be the poor child's hopeless world.

True, this book is realistic. Yet I cannot imagine any parent or counsellor offering it to a child, since it doesn't offer any real advice besides
a) alcoholism is something to be ashamed of (the girl says she used to not have anyone she could talk to about her father, but now her mother has one friend she CAN confide in)
b) feel free to get out for an evening of fun before returning to the same bad situation.

Yuck, yuck and double-yuck. I'm all for building a body of fiction to help kids cope with issues, but this is a nasty addition to the bunch and could destroy more than a few already-fragile kids...

A girl and her mother deal with the father's drinking during Christmas. The father builds his daughter a beautiful handmade sled, but is then too drunk to keep his promise to go sledding with her. Mother and daughter take theri Christmas turkey to the home of an older woman who is a recovering alcoholic. This woman provides them with a safe haven of understanding and acceptance. She acknowleges the hurt, but encourages the child to find ways to be happy even while her father continues to drink.

The story could help the child of an alcoholic understand that it is not the child's fault.

At the back of the book is information and a phone number for Alanon.

Carol E. Watkins, M.D.

This book is not my usual genre, but thought I'd stretch a bit. A few chapters in, I felt that I should not be reading Barbara's private diary. Several chapters later I was wondering WHY I was reading Barbara's private diary. Several more chapters in, I was wondering why Barbara felt we all should be reading her private diary. I am confident that Barbara got more out of writing this book than I got out of reading it.

While I was aware that this was a memoir, my assumption was that something interesting must have happened to the author, or her immediate family, or her friends, or her neighbors, or her not so immediate family, or ANYONE! But that was not the case. While Barbara does a very good job of recalling various parts of her childhood, the reader is not really provided any reason to care about any of the characters. Unless you grew up in the Midwest, or were divorced once or twice, or had a parent die young or commit or attempt suicide, there was no real "hook," no connection to the author or her life. We don't really learn anything or take anything away from this book, nor do we learn that the author learned anything but a few missing facts about her past. We don't get any inkling of how that information and/or revelations will benefit her or the reader.

Despite her inclusion of geographic maps and genealogical family trees I had no idea who was related to whom, nor which generation was involved with which other generation. I'm sure it all made sense to her extended families, but to the moderately engaged reader it was very disjointed.

Though this volume was self-absorbed and narrow, Barbara's other volumes may be worth a read assuming that she has an actual story to tell in them.

i thoroughly enjoyed this book. i am not an expert critic, but i found myself wanting to go"home" again after reading her book. very nostalgic and bittersweet.