We all know the story: orphan Dorothy Gale lives with her Auntie Em and Uncle Henry on their farm in Kansas, and her life is briefly interrupted when a tornado comes through. Well, that’s Dorothy’s version of the story, according to Frank L Baum. But what would it look like from another perspective? That is Read More
Tag: Kansas
Sod Busting by David B Danbom
The subtitle of this slim book is “How Families Made Farms on the Nineteenth-Century Plains”, and is part of a series of books called “How Things Worked”. The focus of this book is mainly Kansas, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota, between about 1862 and 1900. And the author does not describe just how farms Read More
The Chaperone, by Laura Moriarty
At the beginning of this book, we learn that Cora was transported by the Orphan Train in the late 1800’s to Kansas, where she is one of the lucky ones, chosen by a family that actually want a daughter, not just a servant. She thinks she is lucky again, when she meets and marries Alan Read More
The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan
You might think a book about the people who lived through the 1930’s in the Dust Bowl would be rather, well, dry (sorry, couldn’t help myself), but Timothy Egan manages to bring the era to life. He tells the story not just through research at local museums and contemporary newspaper articles, but through interviewing people Read More