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Walker's American History Series for Young People
Straight Along a Crooked Road
Fourteen-year-old Luanna Hamilton is heartbroken when her father announces they are heading for California as soon as spring arrives. It is 1850 and, for Luanna, Midford Falls, Vermont has everything she could ever want. She loves the covered bridge on the quarry road, the waterfall at the mill pond, the old schoolhouse, the taste of the cold cider. How can she leave all these things behind? Even more, how can she leave when it means not being able to enter the Essex Female Academy in the fall? Or, when it means leaving her best friend behind?
Over the next two and one-half years, Luanna’s views on life change dramatically. Personal hardship, and the sheer magnitude of the journey west teach her to live each moment to the fullest. She learns that her life will only be as good as she makes it, regardless of where she might be.
Over the next two and one-half years, Luanna’s views on life change dramatically. Personal hardship, and the sheer magnitude of the journey west teach her to live each moment to the fullest. She learns that her life will only be as good as she makes it, regardless of where she might be.
188 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 1985
32 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 11, 2014
Imagine traveling cross country, a two-and-a half year long journey, having to pack your personal belongings, including furniture, for the trip in covered wagons, and taking along some of the livestock …and your great-aunt who likes to stick her nose into your business. And don’t forget your shoes, the uncomfortable ones with the wooden pegs on the soles, because it’s a long walk from Vermont to Southern California. Oh, and you'll be traveling with other families, many of them strangers. And not all of them are easy to get along with.
This unforgettable story is told from the eyes of a 14-year-old girl, Luanna Hamilton, who leaves everything she’d ever known behind, in Vermont, including her best friend who gives her a very special gift before they part ways.
Rivers to cross, quick sand, cholera, hail storms, and unbearable desert heat are just some of the calamities these travelers must endure.
Reading this book, “Straight Along a Crooked Road,” gave me a whole new respect for people like the Hamilton’s who kept believing that through all of the hardships and loss they’d have to endure, there was a future, for many one worth dying for.
Superb writing. Incredible details and descriptions. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about the early American pioneers who risked it all to have the dream at the end of the crooked road.
Thank you, Marilyn Cram Donahue, for taking us along on this incredible journey!
This unforgettable story is told from the eyes of a 14-year-old girl, Luanna Hamilton, who leaves everything she’d ever known behind, in Vermont, including her best friend who gives her a very special gift before they part ways.
Rivers to cross, quick sand, cholera, hail storms, and unbearable desert heat are just some of the calamities these travelers must endure.
Reading this book, “Straight Along a Crooked Road,” gave me a whole new respect for people like the Hamilton’s who kept believing that through all of the hardships and loss they’d have to endure, there was a future, for many one worth dying for.
Superb writing. Incredible details and descriptions. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about the early American pioneers who risked it all to have the dream at the end of the crooked road.
Thank you, Marilyn Cram Donahue, for taking us along on this incredible journey!
March 17, 2013
I got this book because Marilyn Cram Donahue is the leader of my local writing group, but it didn't have to depend on my knowing the author to enjoy it thoroughly. I can't consider it a complaint to say that it will strongly bring to mind the "Little House on the Prairie". You get a lot of realistic history with engaging characters struggling to move across the country from Vermont to California with the wagon trains of the late 1850's. Not an easy book to find, but worth seeking out, especially if you have youngsters who didn't get to grow up with the Ingalls' family on television.
August 30, 2014
This is the first time I've read this author and she did a terrific job of accurately depicting a move west in a wagon train. This was refreshingly different as it was told through the eyes of a 14 y/o who had absolutely no desire to leave all she's known. We don't often get to read about the feelings and thoughts of someone so young. What she went through, losing friends, family members, the works. If you're looking for heavy romance, mystery or that sort of thing, you won't find it here. Just honest-to-goodness tales of what happened back then.
January 10, 2024
I really enjoyed this book. A different take on moving westward since they start in Vermont and end in California and most books like this are primarily Independence MO west on the Oregon trail to Washington/Oregon. It seemed very realistic. There were enjoyable characters, some bad some good. Some mild sweet romance. There are several deaths so be prepared if you’re reading it to young kids. Very good read!
February 22, 2014
Marilyn Cram Donahue grew up in a family that cherished its history and storytelling. At gatherings she’d soak up tales of bear fights and Indian encounters, of flooding rivers and parched land, of deadly fevers and homemade remedies, of love found and loved ones lost, of painted ladies and gunslingers, of fields of wildflowers and snakes in the grass.
From this childhood Marilyn discovered that real history isn’t dates and facts. It’s people and how they face life and each other, and that’s how she writes historical fiction by creating characters real as a neighbor.
Many of her family’s stories would later inspire her novels, including Straight Along a Crooked Road and The Valley In Between that have been out of print for years and have just been released as e-books. These are what I might call quiet novels in today’s market of action-action-action, but these are characters to care about. I actually woke up dreaming about one of them and the predicament she was in.
I’m going to mini-review (both of) them here, so I will also give a disclaimer. Marilyn is a friend. I was in her critique group for several years in California before I moved to Seattle. I miss her warm heart and each new and wonderful story she imagines.
In the 1850s Marilyn’s ancestors made the arduous trip by wagon across the sprawling lands of North America to be among early settlers of farm country in Southern California. Her family planted the first orange groves in Highland nestled in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains.
Marilyn stayed close to those roots, graduating from Pomona College and becoming a teacher and writer who has published more than thirty books and taught more than four hundred workshops and seminars.
Straight Along a Crooked Road, which was originally published in 1985 and is now released as an e-book, is the tale of a family leaving their Vermont home and driving a covered wagon past the Great Lakes, across the plains and its restless tribes, and over a scorching trail south through the Mojave Desert.
While there have been many westward-ho stories what makes Marilyn’s special is her ability to bring characters alive, to show their faults and strengths, their pettiness and their nobility. It’s told through the perspective of fourteen-year-old Luanna Hamilton who loves Vermont so much she swears to never leave. Her father has other ideas, which not only tear her away from her best friend but from her dream of continuing her education.
When a wagon train of people leave their homes for the unknown, there’s going to be friction. People argue. They make bad decisions. Some people aren’t just irritating they’re dangerous. One in particular makes Luanna’s skin crawl. Mine, too.
Since Marilyn aims for a middle-grade to young-adult audience, the scenes, even of death, are not graphic. Some readers may want things a little grittier, but this story shouldn’t be too disturbing for even the youngest and most sensitive readers. They are certainly a great tool for teaching elementary and middle-grade students about migration, history, and changing societal customs and beliefs. Discussion should be held on the place of women in this society and attitudes about Indians and people of differing religious belief.
A good story needs humor, and this delivers, particularly through interaction between a lively bunch of characters.
The Valley In Between is a sequel to Straight Along a Crooked Road. Marilyn has used the tales handed down by her great-grandparents, as well as her own love of the land, to infuse the story of Emmie Hamilton, a headstrong thirteen-year-old and Luanna’s younger sister, discovering life in California where law and order is pretty much up for grabs.
I hadn’t realized how far West the Civil War reached until Marilyn’s words brought home the chasm that developed between these pioneers, who had worked shoulder-to-shoulder to get their wagons and families to the golden land of California. But as the election arrived that would make Abraham Lincoln the country’s President, the division caused some secessionists to steal horses from neighbors so they could ride to Texas and join the Confederacy while other settlers requested Union soldiers for protection.
Marilyn deftly gives Emmie two beaus, one from the South and one from the North.
To give you a sense of how Marilyn masterfully weaves character and plot development with a sense of place, here is a snippet from an always outspoken great-aunt commenting on the unexpected arrival of a young man kicked off the wagon train for stealing: “It does seem fitting,” Aunt Clara muttered, after Belvidry had gone home, “that Tawny is blowing in on a Santa Ana. I never did see anything like a north wind for picking up trash and dumping it on the valley.”
From this childhood Marilyn discovered that real history isn’t dates and facts. It’s people and how they face life and each other, and that’s how she writes historical fiction by creating characters real as a neighbor.
Many of her family’s stories would later inspire her novels, including Straight Along a Crooked Road and The Valley In Between that have been out of print for years and have just been released as e-books. These are what I might call quiet novels in today’s market of action-action-action, but these are characters to care about. I actually woke up dreaming about one of them and the predicament she was in.
I’m going to mini-review (both of) them here, so I will also give a disclaimer. Marilyn is a friend. I was in her critique group for several years in California before I moved to Seattle. I miss her warm heart and each new and wonderful story she imagines.
In the 1850s Marilyn’s ancestors made the arduous trip by wagon across the sprawling lands of North America to be among early settlers of farm country in Southern California. Her family planted the first orange groves in Highland nestled in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains.
Marilyn stayed close to those roots, graduating from Pomona College and becoming a teacher and writer who has published more than thirty books and taught more than four hundred workshops and seminars.
Straight Along a Crooked Road, which was originally published in 1985 and is now released as an e-book, is the tale of a family leaving their Vermont home and driving a covered wagon past the Great Lakes, across the plains and its restless tribes, and over a scorching trail south through the Mojave Desert.
While there have been many westward-ho stories what makes Marilyn’s special is her ability to bring characters alive, to show their faults and strengths, their pettiness and their nobility. It’s told through the perspective of fourteen-year-old Luanna Hamilton who loves Vermont so much she swears to never leave. Her father has other ideas, which not only tear her away from her best friend but from her dream of continuing her education.
When a wagon train of people leave their homes for the unknown, there’s going to be friction. People argue. They make bad decisions. Some people aren’t just irritating they’re dangerous. One in particular makes Luanna’s skin crawl. Mine, too.
Since Marilyn aims for a middle-grade to young-adult audience, the scenes, even of death, are not graphic. Some readers may want things a little grittier, but this story shouldn’t be too disturbing for even the youngest and most sensitive readers. They are certainly a great tool for teaching elementary and middle-grade students about migration, history, and changing societal customs and beliefs. Discussion should be held on the place of women in this society and attitudes about Indians and people of differing religious belief.
A good story needs humor, and this delivers, particularly through interaction between a lively bunch of characters.
The Valley In Between is a sequel to Straight Along a Crooked Road. Marilyn has used the tales handed down by her great-grandparents, as well as her own love of the land, to infuse the story of Emmie Hamilton, a headstrong thirteen-year-old and Luanna’s younger sister, discovering life in California where law and order is pretty much up for grabs.
I hadn’t realized how far West the Civil War reached until Marilyn’s words brought home the chasm that developed between these pioneers, who had worked shoulder-to-shoulder to get their wagons and families to the golden land of California. But as the election arrived that would make Abraham Lincoln the country’s President, the division caused some secessionists to steal horses from neighbors so they could ride to Texas and join the Confederacy while other settlers requested Union soldiers for protection.
Marilyn deftly gives Emmie two beaus, one from the South and one from the North.
To give you a sense of how Marilyn masterfully weaves character and plot development with a sense of place, here is a snippet from an always outspoken great-aunt commenting on the unexpected arrival of a young man kicked off the wagon train for stealing: “It does seem fitting,” Aunt Clara muttered, after Belvidry had gone home, “that Tawny is blowing in on a Santa Ana. I never did see anything like a north wind for picking up trash and dumping it on the valley.”
November 21, 2008
Probably a 3.5 book, but I had to pick one! This was a gift from a BT friend because of my whole history thing.
In some ways, this is a very typical westward journey story--covered wagons, Indians, leaving stuff behind, death. However, the characters rang true and I liked that it explored several characters that didn't really want to be on that journey at all. This one also did a good job of emphasizing just how long it took--two and a half years for this family to get from Vermont to California.
The ending was graceful, leaving lots of unanswered questions but it was still satisfying.
Definitely better than many of the books of this genre, but certainly not a hidden classic.
In some ways, this is a very typical westward journey story--covered wagons, Indians, leaving stuff behind, death. However, the characters rang true and I liked that it explored several characters that didn't really want to be on that journey at all. This one also did a good job of emphasizing just how long it took--two and a half years for this family to get from Vermont to California.
The ending was graceful, leaving lots of unanswered questions but it was still satisfying.
Definitely better than many of the books of this genre, but certainly not a hidden classic.
June 15, 2010
Pretty much standard writing as far as "Oregon Trail" tales go. The only thing I learned was that sometimes travelers from the far eastern part of the USA would stop for the winter part way along the route, sometimes even twice. They didn't let you do that on the computer game, so I guess I didn't know. ;)
March 3, 2011
Wonderful! The plot was Wonderful! The details were wonderful! Everything was wonderful!
January 14, 2015
I am a 14 year old girl and I loved the book Very good job!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews