After my daughter gave me this book, I plowed through the first few pages and decided this was going to be a hard book to plow through. However, it quickly evolved into a facinating picture of the country, the people. Especially interesting was the Indian story, both past and present she was so skillful in portraying. Her presentation of environmental concerns and solutions should be read by everyone. Long and short of my experience with this book, was I loved it.

Carlene Cross is an extremely gracefull writer. The way she juxtaposed her "coming of age" with a short course in Reservation history was most interesting. As a long time resident of the Flathead Indian Reservation and a local history buff, The Unique West brought many new facts to my attention and the excellent bibliography made it quite convenient to investigate them further.

The Historical Society of the Flathead Indian Reservation and the Montana Heritage Project are seriously considering using Carlene's book as the primary resource for for developing a local history course for use in Reservation high schools.

We want to encourage our kids', both Indian and white, interest in their heritage and this is the most engaging expostion of local history we have found.

If you want an interesting introduction to the history of the Flathead Reservation, including what it was like to grow up here in the last 30 years, there is no better book than this.

This unpretentious work comes loaded with surprises as the author evokes the fascinating Camas Prairie of her childhood. This poetic book is as Montana as bear grass and marmots. What is it about the Big Sky country that produces so many fine authors -- Richard Ford, Ivan Doig, Jim Harrison, Thomas McGuane, and now, Carlene Cross? I also appreciated the pictures and line sketches. For anyone with a feel for the great open spaces of the west, this book has it all.

This book has been my son's favorite for the past year. It lets you child's (and yours) imagination fly, and leaves you with the "open ending": Was it a dream?

As a writer, I found this book to be a great source of new words. While I don't always agree with some of the definitions provided, I do use this book on a regular basis as a thesaurus of sorts. Here are a couple examples I couldn't resist:

Saturnalia: a period of wild, unrestrained feasting and merriment.
Jimjams: The jitters; a fit of nervousness

Who can resist words like those? I found myself reading the book, word for word. If you love etymology, you'll love this book.

The recent surge in popularity of on-line genealogical searches shows that as we move into the 21st century we are still looking backward at our family roots. How fortunate for history that author Kristi M. Youngdahl has taken the time to help an Idaho family chronicle its past in a remarkable book called The Arams of Idaho: Pioneers of Camas Prairie and Joseph Plains. I was impressed with how the author used family interviews and records, newspaper accounts and the like and wove them seamlessly into the narrative. This wealth of detail draws the reader into the story, making it come alive, and what a story it is! The Arams trace their lineage back to England (and to a notorious criminal and folk hero, Eugene Aram). The Arams became part of the westward migration after immigration to the U.S. in 1806. After stops in the Midwest, California and Oregon, members of this pioneer family helped settle one of our last wildernesses, central Idaho, starting in 1864. Ms. Youngdahl ably portrays the challenges of living in this rugged territory, as the family works to build shelter and plant crops, faces the Nez Perce Indian War of 1877 and establishes a cattle ranch. When James Aram loses this ranch in 1930 to foreclosure, this sad event feels to the reader as if it were a setback to one's own family because the author has shown the years of toil and tears leading up to this day. Son Jim (with one arm amputated due to an accident) helps his father rebuild through the Depression years, but finally the time comes when the Arams all have "scattered like so many seeds in the wind" to the world outside their remote ancestral home. This brought a real sense of loss to me. But fortunately memories of this period of history have been preserved in this book: memories of everyday ranch life, of cowboys and cattle rustlers, of Saturday night dances and basket socials, of surreptitious sampling of "moonshine" whiskey on holidays, of a family's love and loyalty to each other and to their home through generations. And at the end of this story the author says that the Arams still have the strength "inherited from their pioneer parents and grandparents--a strength tested daily in their youth by a wild and beautiful land." And we --and succeeding eras--have this wonderful book. I recommend it highly.

As a gringo residing in Mexico and travelling often to other parts of Latin America I find myself reading lots of newspapers and magazines in Spanish, but novels can prove a bit challenging. This book, however, is an easy read for anyone with a basic understanding of Spanish. The author is a Spaniard and it is set in Madrid, but even if you have never been there, the language and references to places are no barrier to following the story-- or stories.

The book follows its main theme throughout, although there are at least three stories presented. All the stories coincide and inter-relate and all have to do with the idea of compatability, mutual attraction, relationships between people-- and, in the most fanciful section-- the relationship between shoes.

The language is rich, but the structure is simple and straightforward. It is easy to read and a lot of fun.