Prairie Songs (A Harper Trophy Book) - Softcover

Conrad, Pam; Zudeck, Darryl S.

3.62

331 ratings by Goodreads

9780064402064: Prairie Songs (A Harper Trophy Book)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0064402061 ISBN 13: 9780064402064

Publisher: Trophy Pr, 1987

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The prairie was like a giant plate, stretching all the way to the sky at the edges. And we were like two tiny peas left over from dinner, Lester and me.

Louisa loves the Nebraska prairie, the only home she's ever known. It's a lonely place, surrounded by miles of wild, flat grasslands, but it's the wonderful kind of loneliness that comes of stillness and open sky and oneness with the land. A different kind of beauty enters Louisa's world when the new doctor and his wife, Emmeline, move to the prairie from New York City. Emmeline is the most beautiful person Louisa has ever seen, and she teaches Louisa to love poetry. But she is also frail and unsuited to pioneer life. Louisa wonders whether Emmeline will ever come to love the prairie as she herself does.

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About the Author:

Pam Conrad wrote many award-winning books for children, including the immensely popular The Tub People and The Tub Grandfather, both illustrated by Richard Egielski. She is also the author of a number of critically acclaimed novels, including Prairie Songs, a 1986 ALA Best Children's Book of the Year and a 1985 ALA Golden Kite Honor Book, and Stonewords, winner of the 1991 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Juvenile Mystery.

From School Library Journal:

Gr 5-8 The Nebraska prairie was a barren place that offered beauty and peace to some, loneliness and madness to others. Prairie Songs provides a beautifully written insight into this contrast. Louisa and her shy brother Lester live quite contentedly with their parents when the new doctor arrives with his beautiful and fragile pregnant wife, Emmeline. All work to help the new couple adjust to harsh weather, buffalo chips, soddies and Indians; Emmeline agrees to teach the children some reading. After a terrible fright, she goes into premature labor; her baby is stillborn, and Emmeline is reduced to madness. The children notice Emmeline's loneliness and growing madness with sadness, but they accept prairie life for what it is. Conrad artfully deals with all the harsh facts in this fast-paced novel which leaves readers with a real feeling for the difficulties of pioneer life. Children may well appreciate modern medicine and communication, not to mention suburbia, after reading this poignant story. Dorcas Hand, Episcopal High School, Bellaire, Tex.

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