In subsequent weeks, I’ll review juvenile books and post reviews by my students of two picture books.

Both of these books are labelled as young adult, making them suitable for me to review here at Allison’s Book Bag. Here, I also discovered a few examples of authors who wrote about the Midwest that they directly knew, whether about pioneers of old, natives in transition, or even today’s at-risk kids.įor my reviews of Nebraska fiction, I discovered to start with the classics: A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich and My Antonia by Willa Cather. For my own reading of Nebraska fiction, I turned to young adult novels.Two of the authors wrote about frontier life or farms and about storms.

I found three juvenile authors for a total of five books.

Later this month, my students will review C is for Cornhusker and Nebraska Numbers and interview the author Rajean Shepherd.

Two picture books by a modern author depicted various other aspects of Midwest life.

Outsiders who write about the Midwest tend to set their stories in the past when prairie grass stretched as far as eye could see, while those from Nebraska don’t seem to write much about their state–not even to promote football. When it comes to what’s available in my local library, I could find only a handful of books. My search was eye-opening to me.

This month, my students and I are reading fiction set in Nebraska. It’s all just football.” My students protested, when I informed them of my decision for us to read Nebraska fiction. “No! I don’t want to study about Nebraska. “Are the prairies all that people think of?” A local librarian and I wondered this, as we searched for picture books about the Midwest.

Marnie by Marion Marsh Brown