Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie: The Oregon Trail Diary of Hattie Campbell, 1847 (Dear America)

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Summary: Travel the Oregon Trail
Review: ''Across the Wide and Lonesome Praire'' is a great book. This book has a ton of adventure and it tells what it's like to live in a covered wagon on the Oregon trail for 6 straight months during the 1840's. I have many favorite parts, but one of the funniest parts is at the beginning of the book when Hattie's grandpa falls out of his coffin into the river. They end up getting to go to Oregon in a covered wagon as a result of this accident. The main characters in this book are Ben, Jake, Gideon, Wade, Pepper, Tall Joe, Mrs. Kinker, Mr. and Mrs. Bigg, Hattie, her aunt and uncle Campell, and her Mom and Dad. I recommend this book because it is sad, funny, and exciting. I think boys and girls from ages 8 to 13 would like this cool and adventurous book.

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Summary: Through Hattie's Eyes
Review: Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie: The Oregon Trail
Diary of Hattie Campbell by Kristiana Gregory

This book is one of many in the Dear America series which chronicles American life at different periods in history. It is written in the form of the reflective journal of thirteen year old Hattie Campbell as she and her family set out in search of a better life on the Oregon Trail. Hattie's father is committed to fulfilling his dream of moving west and owning land, but her mother is unsure about risking so much for something she's not sure even exists. However, she consents to go, so they say goodbye to Missoura and head out for Oregon. On this eight month long wagon trip, they encounter many hardships including lack of food, sickness, harsh weather, rushing rivers, poisonous plants, and even a thief living among them. However, they also create many extremely close friendships and bonds with other members of the wagon train as a result of enduring these hardships together. Even though life on the trail is hard, tiring, and dirty, life goes on as they travel. People get married, babies are born, and people dye. One of the newlyweds is Hattie's newfound best friend, fourteen year old Pepper. Although Hattie is happy for her friend, she secretly wishes she could find the happiness Pepper has found.
This story presents history to the reader in a very interesting way (through Hattie's eyes), and is very enjoyable to read. Students in 5th and 6th grades would enjoy this book and find it easy to read and understand. It would be perfect to use in an integrated unit study on the Oregon Trail, the westward movement, or this period in history. Overall, I really liked this book, as did my two daughters ages 11 and 14, and I recommend it highly.

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Summary: Oregon Here We Come!
Review: Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie: The Oregon Trail Diary of Hattie Campbell by Kristiana Gregory, is a novel about a 14 year old girl and her family traveling west to Oregon. Hattie goes through everything you can think of. She goes through the emotion of love, hate, anger, and sadness. Of course she has a good time sometimes, but it was a hard struggel moving west. Some turned back and some went on. Did they go all the way? You will have to read it yourself and find out. The setting is all the way from Missouri all the way up the Oregon Trail. Tootles from Mayflower.

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Summary: It remains one of my favorite books ever.
Review: I first read this book in March 1997 when it first came out. Even after three and a half years, and the reading of many more books, this remains of my favorite books ever. It brings the Oregon Trail to life and puts faces on the countless brave pioneers who braved the hardships of the trail to make new lives in the west. The narrator is a fictional thirteen-year-old farm girl from Missouri, Hattie Campbell. Through her diary, written in a voice that truly sounds as if it belongs to a young girl from that time, the reader experiances the events of Hattie's journey west - her friendship with Pepper, a fourteen-year-old girl from the wagon train, the beginnings of a romance with Pepper's brother Wade, and many others. Hattie was a character that I really came to care about, and I was sad to put the book down when it was finished, but since then, I have read it several more times. Kristiana Gregory is an amazing author that has given a distinct voice to each of her narrators in this book and her two other Dear America books. I hope she writes another Dear America book soon; she's one of my favorite authors from the series. I highly reccomend this book to historical fiction fans.

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Summary: sad but good
Review: It seems the more Dear America books I read, the better they get! Okay...Hattie's diary is the fourth Dear America I've read, and it's about as good as Lucinda Lawrence's diary. The Oregon Trail itself does not sound so interesting---just, in summary, pioneers traveling from the east of the United States to Oregon, in the west. But the way Kristiana Gregory/Hattie wrote it was interesting enough to make me hardly put the book down. I enjoyed the detailed way Hattie wrote about going across the Oregon Trail, and although the deaths of the pioneers were sad, they were told well enough that it didn't seem like, "Oh, big deal, just some other pioneer died," like how it was in Remember Patience Whipple's diary. I also liked the way the epilogue went, but if I say it here I might ruin it for people who haven't read the book yet, so I won't. Anyway this is simply a must-read for all Dear America fans, and for other readers too.

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Summary: On The Oregon Trail...~Reveiw By Lisa~
Review: This adventureous and exciting story is about a young girl named Hattie Campbell, growing up in Missoura in 1847. This story is about the exciting sensation she gets when her father anounces they are traveling west to Oregon. This story is about her triumphs and losses along the Oregon Trail. After she meets a 14 year-old girl named Pepper Lewis, they plan everything about their 'soon-to-be' life in the west. Everything changes when Pepper gets married...Will all of their plans change? Soon, Hattie longs for someone to love, just as Pepper has. Will she survive the long and harsh journey west?

I loved this book! I deffinetly am glad I gave it 5 stars, because it's true! This is a very adventureous book and it makes me wish I lived in that time, for everything is so fun...But it turns out life is harsh on the trail. I recommend this book for 10-14 year-olds. When I bought this book I also bought "My Heart Is On The Ground" and "Voyage On The Great Titanic", all great stories of girls and their changing lives. Once again, I couldn't put it down! I loved it! :)

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Summary: A Must Read Story on ONe Family Trying to Find a Better Life
Review: This Book is about a 13 year old girl named Hattie Campbell and her family riding on the Oregon Trail from Missouri (back in 1847) to try and find a better life. If I were to recomend this book to anyone it would be to someone who enjoys reading books in diary form or that are considered adventurous stories that take place in the past. Although I am not sure if the author has written any other books, I know that this brand,which has a series, called "Dear America" is also very popular. I so far have really enjoyed reading this book because it is very exciting and something new happens in each journal entry. This book also has a lot of detail, which is why I enjoyed reading it.

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Summary: This is a excellent way to learn about the past and have fun
Review: This was the first book that i had read in the "Dear America" series, and i had chosen it because it was what i was learning in my history class. I really found this book a good source of information from the past and found it fun at the same time-which usually doesnt happen for me! The Campell family seemed like a "normal" family and they wanted to start a new life out west.- My hisroty teacher found this book so full of information that he read passages from her diary to my class. I felt that i had taken a step back in time and taken the journey with Hattie down the oregon trail. This book was so good that I read the rest of the series including the "My Name Is America" series books too!- Now I wait for the new ones to come out to learn more and have fun.