Central Kansas Library System

An account of the lives of the author's parents.

Shortly after the Civil War, a black family travels to Kansas to take advantage of the free land offered through the Homestead Act.

When the magic tree house whisks Jack and Annie back to the 1870's, the land on a prairie near a one-room schoolhouse. They meet a teenage schoolteacher, some cool kids, and one big, scary bully. But just when they think their mission is over, a twister sweeps across the prairie! Can Jack and Annie help their new friends? Or will the twister blow them all away?

"Regional history at its best ... Many of the traditional tales of early hardships- grasshopper plagues, Indian attacks, the stress of loneliness and isolation, drought, blizzards, prairie fires, and the unaccostomed hazards of nature- are retold with vigor and a sense of immediacy. These gritty tales of pioneer persistence and stubbornness are used to illustrate the region's cyclical history of hope and despair ... Not the least is Miner's talents...

Laura and her pioneer family struggle against hardships on the Kansas frontier, including a prairie fire, a grasshopper invasion, and a blizzard.

Charlie Keller has trouble feeling at home after his abolitionist father, wanting to cast a vote for freedom, moves his family from Massachusetts to the Kansas Territory which is on the verge of deciding whether to enter the Union as a free or a slave state.