The works listed will allow your students to further explore the theme of The Pioneer Life and Spirit and other themes related to Trouble River:


Fiction
Conrad, Pam. Prairie Songs. New York: Harper, 1985. Louisa Downing and her family live in a sod house on the Nebraska prairie. They experience and survive the hardships of frontier life. (average)

Lasky, Kathryn. The Bone Wars. New York: Morrow, 1988. The story of two teenagers on the Western frontier, the book is fiction but includes many historic figures, including George Custer, Crazy Horse, and 13-year-old Black Elk. (average)

Leland, Dorothy K. Sallie Fox: The Story of a Pioneer Girl. Davis, CA: Tomato Enterprises, 1995. The story of Sallie Fox, her family, and the people of a wagon train who must endure the dangers and hardships of the Santa Fe Trail. (average)

Turner, Ann. Grasshopper Summer. New York: Macmillan, 1989. Sam and his family journey from Kentucky to the Dakota Territory to start a new life on the frontier. (easy)


Nonfiction
Conrad, Pam. Prairie Visions: The Life and Times of Solomon Butcher. New York: HarperCollins, 1994. A biography of Solomon Butcher, who migrated to Nebraska in 1880 and built a sod house. He documented the history of the county through photographs and by collecting anecdotes and stories. The history rather than Butcher's own life is the focus of the story. (average)

Greenberg, Judith E., and Helen Carey McKeever, eds. A Pioneer Woman's Memoir. New York: Franklin Watts, 1995. This is a firsthand account of a pioneer woman's experience crossing the continent by wagon train in 1864 and settling in the West. It was carefully edited into a very readable form and is illustrated with photographs and other historical materials. (challenge)

Sandler, Martin W. Pioneers: A Library of Congress Book. New York: HarperCollins, 1994. An overview of the settling of the West from the early 1800s to 1890. It is richly illustrated with photographs, engravings, and other materials from the Library of Congress collection. (average)