Children's Blizzard

<b>From the <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author of <i>The Aviator's Wife</i> comes a story of courage on the prairie inspired by the devastating storm that struck the Great Plains in 1888 threatening the lives of hundreds of immigrant homesteaders especially schoolchildren.</b> <p/><b>A nail-biter . . . poignant powerful perfect. --Kate Quinn author of <i><i>The Alice Network</i><br></i></b><br>The morning of January 12 1888 was unusually mild following a punishing cold spell. It was warm enough for the homesteaders of the Dakota Territory to venture out again and for their children to return to school without their heavy coats--leaving them unprepared when disaster struck. At the hour when most prairie schools were letting out for the day a terrifying fast-moving blizzard blew in without warning. Schoolteachers as young as sixteen were suddenly faced with life and death decisions: Keep the children inside to risk freezing to death when fuel ran out or send them home praying they wouldn't get lost in the storm? <p/>Based on actual oral histories of survivors this gripping novel follows the stories of Raina and Gerda Olsen two sisters both schoolteachers--one becomes a hero of the storm and the other finds herself ostracized in the aftermath. It's also the story of Anette Pedersen a servant girl whose miraculous survival serves as a turning point in her life and touches the heart of Gavin Woodson a newspaperman seeking redemption. It was Woodson and others like him who wrote the embellished news stories that lured northern European immigrants across the sea to settle a pitiless land. Boosters needed them to settle territories into states and they didn't care what lies they told these families to get them there--or whose land it originally was. <p/>At its heart this is a story of courage of children forced to grow up too soon tied to the land because of their parents' choices. It is a story of love taking root in the hard prairie ground and of families being torn asunder by a ferocious storm that is little remembered today--because so many of its victims were immigrants to this country.