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roseleaf24's review against another edition
4.0
This is a lovely sorry of homesteading life, for four children trying to keep a claim on their own. If you enjoy the Little House books, you will likely enjoy this one.
And though I enjoyed it, I do want to note that very little mention is made of the native inhabitants of the land who have been removed. It is fortunate that little mention is made, at it does not drop to the negative stereotypes and slurs found in the Little House books, but it does shore up the glorification of Western expansion.
And though I enjoyed it, I do want to note that very little mention is made of the native inhabitants of the land who have been removed. It is fortunate that little mention is made, at it does not drop to the negative stereotypes and slurs found in the Little House books, but it does shore up the glorification of Western expansion.
sonshinelibrarian's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
5.0
I picked up this book because it was a Newbery Honor book and I'm so glad I did. I honestly liked this better than any of the Newbery winners I've read so far. This had a similar feel to the Little House books, but I think I might have liked it more. Granted it's been many a year since I read any of the Little House books. But this was filled with realistic depictions of the sibling relationships and the struggles and challenges of settling on a claim in the Dakotas. It also handles the issue of grief in a really touching and realistic way. I laughed, I cried. I will definitely be recommending this book to others.
indianajane's review against another edition
5.0
I began to read The Jumping-Off Place by book light in a camp bunk with barely a glance at the cover. There was a lovely old-fashioned quality to the writing and the characters that surprised me until I looked more closely the next day and realized that the book was written in 1929.
This is a wonderful story, set in one of the last bits of the frontier after the turn of the twentieth century. Four orphans, having just lost their beloved uncle, travel to South Dakota to "prove up" his claim. They face hardships--drought, blizzard, wind, and an adversarial neighbor--with maturity, hard work, generosity, and an unquenchable spirit. In the process they fell in love with the prairie and the community and it with them.
This is an excellent book for all ages. It would make a very nice family read aloud, particularly because there is some lovely prose. The original illustrations have been retained and enhance the historical feel of the book. The South Dakota State Historical Society has added an afterword with historical background and author information and a word list, adding to the educational value of the book.
This 1930 Newbery Honor Book was a joy, and I am very glad that the SDSHS Press has decided to return it to print.
This is a wonderful story, set in one of the last bits of the frontier after the turn of the twentieth century. Four orphans, having just lost their beloved uncle, travel to South Dakota to "prove up" his claim. They face hardships--drought, blizzard, wind, and an adversarial neighbor--with maturity, hard work, generosity, and an unquenchable spirit. In the process they fell in love with the prairie and the community and it with them.
This is an excellent book for all ages. It would make a very nice family read aloud, particularly because there is some lovely prose. The original illustrations have been retained and enhance the historical feel of the book. The South Dakota State Historical Society has added an afterword with historical background and author information and a word list, adding to the educational value of the book.
This 1930 Newbery Honor Book was a joy, and I am very glad that the SDSHS Press has decided to return it to print.
yarnylibrarian's review against another edition
5.0
I discovered this book when it was advertised on a flyer sent to my library promoting Pioneer Girl, Laura Ingalls Wilder's first autobiographical manuscript that was recently edited and released to great excitement and acclaim. The South Dakota State Historical Society Press published both books. The Jumping-Off Place is a young adult novel originally published in 1929 (when it won the Newbery Honor); it was republished by the Press in 2008. As it covers the pioneer/homesteader territory I love so well, you can understand that I immediately got my hands on the book.
The basic story is that four orphaned siblings move to South Dakota in the early twentieth century to "claim up" a piece of land filed on by their uncle, who unfortunately dies at the outset of the novel. Dear Uncle Jim left detailed instructions about what needed to happen during a 14-month period for them to successfully claim the land. Since Jim had spent the summer before his illness on the claim setting things up and making contacts, this scheme was actually doable. The older children, Dick and Becky Linville, are only 15 and 17 years old.
The bulk of the narrative takes us through the months of the year. The family arrives in May and settles in. They aim to grow enough food to carry them over in the garden but not to actually farm a crop. They obtain a cow and chickens, establish a garden, plant enough corn for the animals to eat, and work hard to make a go of the homestead. Of course, challenges appear around every corner. Some are predictable - the summer brings a bad drought that kills all the corn and most of the garden. Others are a little surprising - one neighbor family is competing with the Linvilles for the same claim and the unruly Welp boys vandalize the Linville homestead at every turn. The reader is reminded how much "law and order" depended on neighbors policing each other. Some of the Welps' crimes are just expensive (like stealing the well pump or the cow - the cow, fortunately, was returned) and some are truly dangerous (the "hanging" of the boys over the cliff). This little storyline has a very satisfying ending which you must read!
The Linvilles have a lot going against them, but they also have a lot of things working for them. Becky ends up getting a teaching job over the winter (despite not having a teaching certificate) which brings in money that saves them. Also, they seem to be able to get their hands on enough canned goods to keep them alive through the winter (not quite sure how). They have great friends in the Cleavers, who offer the love and support of a larger family to the plucky children.
Sure, there are some Pollyanna moments in the book. Becky is truly the heroine of the novel, seemingly able to solve any problem, including evading assault by some of her very large male pupils. But there are also plenty of dark moments which are no doubt true for some settler. Some I've already mentioned - there is also the death of a baby by snakebite, families who are truly unequipped to handle the rigors of the prairie, and a bright girl who is physically handicapped by her drunken father.
If you read this, don't skip the Afterword, which explains the curious situation of part of the Rosebud Reservation being opened for settlement in the early 1900s. The editor also points out that many readers assumed that McNeely copied the successful Laura Ingalls Wilder in putting out a homesteading narrative for young adults, but that McNeely published her book three years before the first Wilder title appeared.
All in all, this was a very satisfying and informative read, even though I aged out of the target audience decades ago. I'm glad this book has a shot at rediscovery. May McNeely ride the Wilder wave. There's always room for more good stories in this genre!
The basic story is that four orphaned siblings move to South Dakota in the early twentieth century to "claim up" a piece of land filed on by their uncle, who unfortunately dies at the outset of the novel. Dear Uncle Jim left detailed instructions about what needed to happen during a 14-month period for them to successfully claim the land. Since Jim had spent the summer before his illness on the claim setting things up and making contacts, this scheme was actually doable. The older children, Dick and Becky Linville, are only 15 and 17 years old.
The bulk of the narrative takes us through the months of the year. The family arrives in May and settles in. They aim to grow enough food to carry them over in the garden but not to actually farm a crop. They obtain a cow and chickens, establish a garden, plant enough corn for the animals to eat, and work hard to make a go of the homestead. Of course, challenges appear around every corner. Some are predictable - the summer brings a bad drought that kills all the corn and most of the garden. Others are a little surprising - one neighbor family is competing with the Linvilles for the same claim and the unruly Welp boys vandalize the Linville homestead at every turn. The reader is reminded how much "law and order" depended on neighbors policing each other. Some of the Welps' crimes are just expensive (like stealing the well pump or the cow - the cow, fortunately, was returned) and some are truly dangerous (the "hanging" of the boys over the cliff). This little storyline has a very satisfying ending which you must read!
The Linvilles have a lot going against them, but they also have a lot of things working for them. Becky ends up getting a teaching job over the winter (despite not having a teaching certificate) which brings in money that saves them. Also, they seem to be able to get their hands on enough canned goods to keep them alive through the winter (not quite sure how). They have great friends in the Cleavers, who offer the love and support of a larger family to the plucky children.
Sure, there are some Pollyanna moments in the book. Becky is truly the heroine of the novel, seemingly able to solve any problem, including evading assault by some of her very large male pupils. But there are also plenty of dark moments which are no doubt true for some settler. Some I've already mentioned - there is also the death of a baby by snakebite, families who are truly unequipped to handle the rigors of the prairie, and a bright girl who is physically handicapped by her drunken father.
If you read this, don't skip the Afterword, which explains the curious situation of part of the Rosebud Reservation being opened for settlement in the early 1900s. The editor also points out that many readers assumed that McNeely copied the successful Laura Ingalls Wilder in putting out a homesteading narrative for young adults, but that McNeely published her book three years before the first Wilder title appeared.
All in all, this was a very satisfying and informative read, even though I aged out of the target audience decades ago. I'm glad this book has a shot at rediscovery. May McNeely ride the Wilder wave. There's always room for more good stories in this genre!
triscuit807's review against another edition
5.0
I confess that based on the description that this was the 1930 book I was most interested in reading, and I'm pleased that it didn't disappoint. Set in the 1900s four young orphans move from a small town in Wisconsin to the Dakota prairie to "prove" a land claim established by their uncle the previous year. The uncle had taken them (and mother) in on the death of their father, kept them when the mother died, and dies himself of complications of a stroke before the book's story begins. The "children" (18, 15, 10, and 8) decide to honor his memory by continuing his dream of the prairie; luckily he has left them a notebook with the info they'll need. He also did a lot of prep work the previous year or they would never have been able to do it. As it is they almost don't succeed. They face the hardships of trying to be adults, the hostility of one set of neighbors, heat and drought, having their crops fail, and then winter and a late blizzard. Without help from a townsman and the salary from a teaching job they wouldn't have made it and "proved up". For all their travails they never go hungry, able to rely on the tinned food that their uncle had purchased. There is no doubt that they are in all ways exceptional compared to the normal squatters. descriptions of their neighbors' claims leave no doubt to that. They have a middle class life back in Wisconsin and don't have to be in Dakota, the other families have nowhere else to go. So far I've only read one "Little House" book, but it seems to me that this book is less idealized, Does the book have issues?
Yes, it's written in 1929; issues are going to be there. In no way could 4 orphans go off on their own today. It wouldn't be allowed, the uncle may not even had custody of them. Yet they do and they hold down jobs much as youngsters their age did in the early 1900s-40s. The main issue is the concept of Manifest Destiny. The "jumping-off place" is the end of the railroad line in a small town in Tripp county. The claim is on recently opened land which had been part of the Rosebud Indian Reservation (Sioux), a part of US history that happened and can't be avoided. There are no Native Americans in the book and very few references to them: a comment that the Sioux were "the worst" and that there were lots of arrowheads to be found. As far as cultural insensitivity, I'm not condoning it, but I've seen worse in some of these early Newberys. I read this for my Newbery Challenge and for my 2018 Reading Challenge.
Yes, it's written in 1929; issues are going to be there. In no way could 4 orphans go off on their own today. It wouldn't be allowed, the uncle may not even had custody of them. Yet they do and they hold down jobs much as youngsters their age did in the early 1900s-40s. The main issue is the concept of Manifest Destiny. The "jumping-off place" is the end of the railroad line in a small town in Tripp county. The claim is on recently opened land which had been part of the Rosebud Indian Reservation (Sioux), a part of US history that happened and can't be avoided. There are no Native Americans in the book and very few references to them: a comment that the Sioux were "the worst" and that there were lots of arrowheads to be found. As far as cultural insensitivity, I'm not condoning it, but I've seen worse in some of these early Newberys. I read this for my Newbery Challenge and for my 2018 Reading Challenge.
angielisle's review
2.0
I've wavered over my star-rating for this 1930s Newbery Honor Book. I lean to three-stars for the modern writing style, which will appeal to today's children, especially if read following the vintage writing style of the Newbery predecessors. This book is easy to read and is oft compared to Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series. I do recommend reading this book following that series because this story attempts to fill in some of the gaps in Wilder's tales, helping to round out the hardships of frontier life. For example, Wilder frequently mentioned hunger and going without food in her stories; McNeely's Linville children rarely go hungry -and we see the work that goes into them having food - but the Linvilles are exposed to death, a concept that Wilder glossed over in her series.
But, this is a fantasy novel. This is one of those books promoting false notions about the history of our country, treating Manifest Destiny as a natural right and not a colonization attempt driven by religion. This leans me toward a one-star review and, when I average my opinions, I come up with a two-stars rating.
The negative portrayals of Native Americans and the casual way in which the author never refers to homesteading as theft of native lands bothers me. Anecdotes blur lines; we can't find viable solutions if we're trying to solve falsehoods. You don't get to the root of the problem that way; thus, any attempt at change is just an illusion that keeps feeding the beast of social injustice.
I first read this book as a child and this was an issue I had with the book back then and my response hasn't changed over the years. The problem with thinking about those larger issues outside of the book trivializes what actually happens inside the book. I stop caring about the story because it never actually addresses the issues that it makes me think about. This isn't the real prairie, this isn't real homesteading. It might as well be set on Mars - and that setting would help me stay inside the story instead of popping out into my own fantasy, wondering what it would've been like to come back 200-hundred years before Europe invaded North America and walk along the prairie, maybe meet a Hidatsa kid (when I was a kid) without having the burden of violence squatting on our shoulders. I keep wanting to read that story, which makes The Jumping Off Place pale in comparison.
But, this is a fantasy novel. This is one of those books promoting false notions about the history of our country, treating Manifest Destiny as a natural right and not a colonization attempt driven by religion. This leans me toward a one-star review and, when I average my opinions, I come up with a two-stars rating.
The negative portrayals of Native Americans and the casual way in which the author never refers to homesteading as theft of native lands bothers me. Anecdotes blur lines; we can't find viable solutions if we're trying to solve falsehoods. You don't get to the root of the problem that way; thus, any attempt at change is just an illusion that keeps feeding the beast of social injustice.
I first read this book as a child and this was an issue I had with the book back then and my response hasn't changed over the years. The problem with thinking about those larger issues outside of the book trivializes what actually happens inside the book. I stop caring about the story because it never actually addresses the issues that it makes me think about. This isn't the real prairie, this isn't real homesteading. It might as well be set on Mars - and that setting would help me stay inside the story instead of popping out into my own fantasy, wondering what it would've been like to come back 200-hundred years before Europe invaded North America and walk along the prairie, maybe meet a Hidatsa kid (when I was a kid) without having the burden of violence squatting on our shoulders. I keep wanting to read that story, which makes The Jumping Off Place pale in comparison.
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