Central Kansas Library System

Texas. 1921: A time of abundance. Elsa Wolcott meets Rafe Martinelli and changes the direction of her life. Her only choice: marriage to a man she barely knows. 1934: Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. Elsa Martinelli, like so many of her neighbors, must make an agonizing...

In 1935, dust storms are sweeping across the southern plains of the United States, including Oklahoma. Twelve-year-old Millie is worried about her family's survival. The Dust Bowl is getting worse, and they're running out of food and money. Despite the hardships, Pa doesn't want to abandon the farm, which has been in the family for generations. But when the worst "black blizzard" yet hits, they have no choice. The family decides to make the journey...

Discusses the reasons people migrated West, the routes they took, some of the difficulties faced by pioneers, the different ethnic and cultural backgrounds of the settlers, and the building of homes and towns.

Uses the experiences of two individuals, Ada "Bricktop" Smith and Joe Jones, to present the story of the Great Migration of Southern Blacks to northern cities from the late 1800s to the years after World War I.

"In the 1870s, a Black family undertakes a perilous wagon journey westward for a tenuous shot at freedom in Nebraska"--