Bound for Oregon - Hardcover

Van Leeuwen, Jean

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803715277 ISBN 13: 9780803715271

Publisher: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1994

Synopsis

Recreating a nine-year-old girl's journey over the Oregon Trail in 1852, the story of Mary Ellen Todd and her family tells how they traveled two thousand miles by covered wagon and endured raging storms, hunger, illness, and injury.

About this title

About the Author

Jean Van Leeuwen is the author of more than fifty children's books, including picture books, Easy-to-Read books, and middle-grade fiction. She has won numerous awards, among them the William Allen White Award, the South Carolina Children's Book Award, the Massachusetts Honor Book Award, and the Washington Irving Children's Choice Award, as well as many ALA Notable Book citations.

Her own two children were the inspiration for the Oliver and Amanda Pig stories, as well as several others, including Dear Mom, You're Ruining My Life. Many of her other books have grown out of her long-time interest in American history. Her historical picture books include Going West, which was cited as an IRA Teachers' Choice and Across the Wide Dark Sea, selected by the New York Public Library as one of the "100 Titles for Reading and Sharing." She has written historical fiction for older readers as well. Her Bound for Oregon was a Child Study Association Book of the Year, and Cabin on Trouble Creek was nominated for children's Choice awards in eight states. 

Ms. Van Leeuwen now lives in another small town north of New York City with her husband, Bruce Gavril. She has two grown children, David and Elizabeth, and a young grandchild, who will surely inspire more stories.

From Publishers Weekly

Basing her story on the published accounts of her true-life heroine, Mary Ellen Todd, Van Leeuwen (Going West; the Oliver and Amanda Pig series) describes a family's tumultuous journey along the Oregon Trail in 1852. En route to a "beautiful land of promise," nine-year-old Mary Ellen, her two sisters and her father and stepmother find themselves beset by all manner of dramas, from the dog being allowed an unprecedented ride in the wagon when his paws are sore to a near-fatal brush with cholera and an attack by Indians. Mary Ellen's first-person narration is innocent, fresh and heartfelt ("Never, I thought, had I seen a world so large," she says of the plains of Nebraska), and capable of conveying darker feelings as well. She is "furious" with her father for imperiling his family; when her stepmother frowns at her for dirtying her dress, she thinks, "My real mother wouldn't care about a few grass stains." The novel ends on a sweet note, however, with the birth of a baby and the celebration of Christmas, when each family member thanks God for the family's safe arrival in Oregon ("I am thankful that Blackie gave us milk all the way through"). The contrast between the tenderness of Mary Ellen's perceptions and the hardships of the frontier is deeply moving. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dial Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0803715277
• ISBN 13: 9780803715271
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176