Book Review: Black-Eyed Susan by Jennifer Armstrong

Ten-year-old Susie lives with her family on the Dakota prairie in a sod house. Her mother is very unhappy with life on the frontier and quite obviously misses her family and a more affluent life-style back East. Susie wants to find something to cheer up her mom when she and her dad go to town to purchase another quarter section of land. An encounter with a family moving further west proves to be the prescription for her mother's misery. This is a well-written children's novel that does a good job of describing the hardships faced by the pioneer settlers of the Dakota Territory. The author has done a good job with historical research to make the novel accurate in regards to homesteading and other period details. I do question if the target audience would appreciate this work as much as adults. It probably lacks the action younger readers require to hold interest.