I'm trying to remember if I read any other pioneer-type books, and nothing is coming to mind. If you're looking for surviving-in-harsh-isolation stuff, there's Island of the Blue Dolphins and My Side of the Mountain.
The thing about the past that confuses me is that it seems from boooks and such that there was no gradual change from being a child to being an adult. Just Boom! You are a lady!
One thing I love about Little Town on the Prairie is that it does a good job of showing how teen fads were rampant even in isolated frontier towns in the 19th century. Autograph books, name cards, "fringe" bangs, hoopskirts--it was all about keeping up with fashion and not being out of style, even if your town hadn't seen a copy of the latest ladies magazine from New York City in several months.
My Antonia? I'm not sure it's in the age range you're looking for, though. Or what the age range for that book would be.
There are Bess Streeter Aldrich's books about Nebraska pioneers. I loved them in high school.
A Lantern in Her Hand
is classified as young adult, but I'm not sure about the others.
more info about the latest survey on reading with a poke at steve jobs
[link]
I liked the books at first mostly because of the show(even though the show got kind of soap-opera. Some of the early episodes kind of had the same feel, I thought. But then people kinda started flipping out.)
I used to reread them, but the last time I did, my parents were getting divorced.
I think that would be the memory now, not Christmas oranges.
Not sure if you want to go this route but the American Girl Kirsten is a pioneer.
I liked Understood Betsy a lot as a kid, too. But I think Betsy was just sent to live on a farm - not a pioneer story.
A farm in Vermont. It's a GREAT book.
Oh, I loved Understood Betsy! And I read Caddie Woodlawn (which I didn't love as much as the Little House books) and Strawberry Girl. God, I want to get out *all* my childhood books now.
In non-Little House news (though now I want to re-read them, dang it!), I'm about a chapter away from the end of The Subtle Knife, and:
(1) I can see the whole Dust premise starting to unravel;
(2) Lee Scoresby! Noooooo!; and
(3) Seriously, Pullman couldn't come up with a better name for the knife (not to mention the book title) than the "subtle knife"? Lame.
And although I can see the Dust premise unraveling, I'm going to read The Amber Spyglass just so I can see how it all turns out.
