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Welcome to a new season of The Ribbon Book Club! We're starting off on this journey with the fifth book in the Dear America series, Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie: The Oregon Trail Diary of Hattie Campbell. This book features our first returning author, Kristiana Gregory who also wrote The Winter of Red Snow. Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie was published in March of 1997 and the story takes place during the year 1847. Hattie and her family: Ma, Pa, and two younger brothers, Ben and Jake are setting off on the Oregon Trail in search of better farmland and to get away from the growing population of their hometown in Missoura. Hattie is sad to say goobye to her best friend. But she soon makes new friends: Pepper and her twin brother, Wade, on the trail. We are also introduced to Tall Joe, the wagon train leader, Mrs. Bigg, a fellow traveller who is large of body and of heart, and Mrs. Kenker, an older traveller with a secret. Throughout the journey Hattie must face her fears and her prejudices as she learns what it means to live in community. Listen to Part 1 of our discussion below: In Part 2, we follow Hattie and the rest of the wagon train through the final part of their journey to Oregon. Along the way they experience some serious ups and downs (both literally and emotionally). Tune in for some drama and rants about how adults should act. For our historical note, we sat down with our guest, Chris Carey, a ranger for the National Parks Service who served recently at the Whitman Mission National Historic Site. If that name sounds familiar, it might be because it is mentioned in our book! In the story, Hattie's Aunt June is hoping to reconnect with her friend, Narcissa Whitman who had gone west with her husband Marcus to serve as Christian Missionaries. Ranger Chris Carey tells us the story of what happened at the mission, filling in some of the gaps left by our book. It's not a happy story, but it is an important piece of American history. Tune in to our conversation below:

The fourth book in our series is A Picture of Freedom: The Diary of Clotee, a Slave Girl. It was written by Patricia McKissack and it was published in March, 1997. The story takes place in 1859 on the fictional Belmont Plantation in Virginia. We meet Clotee, a clever and empathetic girl who works in the "big house" on the plantation. As she explains, there are definite pros and cons to working so closely to the family that enslaves her and her fellow comrades. On the plus side, she gets to be in close proximity to William, the son of the house as he learns his lessons. This enables Clotee to eaves-drop on his tutoring sessions, which allows her to teach herself to read and write. On the other hand, Clotee's closeness to the family also allows the mistress to keep a close eye on her and the other enslaved staff--which she uses to pit them against eachother for information. But despite everything, Clotee remains loyal to her friends, Spicy, Aunt Tee, and Uncle Heb. She also meets new people like the mysterious tutor, Ely Harms. Tune in to our episodes to learn more about Clotee's story and hear our thoughts on how this time period and subject matter is portrayed: We wrapped up our discussion on the past two books about race and the Civil War with a discussion with special guest, Paul Ringel: a professor of American History and the author of books such as Commercializing Childhood: Children’s Magazines, Urban Gentility, and the Ideal of the American Child and the upcoming, Kid History, Inc: Selling Children the American Past. Paul had a lot of great insights into the challenges and responsibilities of writing historical fiction for a young audience. Tune in below to hear his insights:

For the third book in our series, we covered: When Will This Cruel War be Over?: The Civil War Diary of Emma Simpson. The book takes place in 1864 in Gordonsville, Virginia, and the book was written by Barry Denenberg and published in 1997. Emma is the oldest protagonist so far at 14. She is an affluent white girl living on her family's plantation. Through her, we get the southern perspective on the Civil War where the Union soldiers are the bad guys and her father, brother, and sweetheart have enlisted in the Confederate cause to protect their land from the northern invaders. Oh, and they have a bunch of "servants" ...that are forced to work for free because of the color of their skin. In Part 1 of our discussion of this book you can hear our thoughts on choosing to write this perspective as well as some recommendations for a more thorough understanding of the Civil War. In Part 2 we finish up our recap of Emma's story. Listen, this was a hard one to get through. We had a lot of thoughts about how this kind of story should be written and even whether it should be told in the first place. It is definitely an ambitious project to try to get into the perspective of what we would consider the "wrong side" of history. And this book does present a great opportunity to teach children about critical analysis and recognizing bias. But those lessons will only be learned with a guiding hand from parents or teachers. Tune in to hear more: And if you want to learn even more about the Civil War, there are a ton of great resources. Below are a few of the resources we mentioned in the show:

The second book we are covering for the RBC is The Winter of Red Snow: The Revolutionary War Diary of Abigail Jane Stewart, written by Kristiana Gregory and published in 1996. The book opens with an eleven-year-old Abigail living with her parents, two sisters and their brand new baby brother in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. As the winter of 1777 sets in, the small farming community learns that the Continental Army has chosen Valley Forge as the location for their winter encampment. Abigail sees the army march in and witnesses first-hand the hardships faced by the ill-equipped and poorly trained army. In Part 1 we recap the first half of Abigail's story and talk about the real history of Valley Forge, including myth-busting some tales that are as tall as George Washington himself! In Part 2, we finish our recap of Abigail's story. We learn more about Baron Von Steuben, we see the Continental Army train, get smallpox inoculations, and learn about a crucial ally joining the war. Meanwhile, Elizabeth learns what happened to her bounty coats and Abigail reveals where Lucy went. Tune in for lots of discussion and a dramatic reading of a very special, very real diary! For our Historical Note, we spoke with Ranger Beth Dhunjisha from Valley Forge National Historical Park! She shared stories from her time at the park and gave some interesting historical insight into the story of the 1777-1778 winter encampment. Tune in below! Further Reading Looking for more information on Valley Forge, George Washington, and the Revolutionary War? Here are some recommendations for further reading:

What is a book club without a reading list? Our goal is to read through the Dear America book series in order of publication. We strive to make our recaps accessible to those who don't have the books in front of them--but we would also love to read along with you! To that end, we have compiled a list of the books we will cover in the order we will read them. Important to note, these books are no longer being actively printed. However, there are still some new copies that can be special ordered by book stores (support local!), and there are a bunch of copies available on the electronic bay. There are also eBooks, if you prefer that format. You can find the full list in Google sheet form here. You can also preview the next 5 books on our list below: Those who clicked through to see the full list may notice that we are also planning to cover the Royal Diaries series! This series was published along side the Dear America series and focused on the lives of real life royal women throughout world history. Some of Jen's very favorite books are from that series, (hello hyper-fixation on Tudor England!) so we had to add it. What books are you looking forward to reading?

Greetings, Pilgrims! The first book we discussed in the Ribbon Book Club was A Journey to the New World: The Diary of Remember Patience Whipple written by Katherine Lasky, and published in 1996 by Scholastic books. Part 1 of our series focuses on the first half of the book which takes place onboard the Mayflower in 1620. We meet Remember Patience Whipple (Mem), a 12-year-old pilgrim who is traveling with her parents and baby sister, Blessing. She tells the story of how their group of separatists, or "saints," traveled to the Netherlands to escape persecution by the Church of England. Not satisfied with life in the Netherlands, the pilgrims worked out a business arrangement with England to travel to North America and colonize the "New World." On board, we meet Mem's friend, Humility (Hummy), and a young servant named Will. We learn about life on board the Mayflower: the seasickness, tedium, and storms. There is new life and tragic death. Tune in to part 1 to hear more about Mem's journey aboard the Mayflower: In Part 2, we learn what happened to the pilgrims when they reached land. The first winter was very hard on the pilgrims, including Mem's family. Tune in to hear about the joys and struggles Mem faced in her new life in North America, including her interactions with indigenous characters, Samoset and Squanto: In Part 3 we talked to Tom Begley, from Plimoth Patuxet Museums! He had a ton of great insight into the real history of the pilgrims in Plimoth, their first winter in the settlement, and their interactions with the local indigenous tribes. Tom also shared his thoughts on writing historical fiction for young readers and gave us some great reading recommendations! Tune in below and read on to see his book recommendations. Reading Recommendations Here are some recommendations for further reading! Click on an image to find out where you can get your own copy.

We throw out a lot of information and recommendations as we talk about the topics in the Dear America series. This page is intended to compile and save all those recommendations in one place for your reference. Check in after we cover each book for recommendations from us and our guests, and feel free to comment with some of your own! Yours Truly, Cate and Jen