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Synopsis
Living on a farm in southwestern Minnesota in the 1870's, a brother and sister try to help their family cope with plagues of locusts.
School Library Journal
Gr 2-4-Set in Minnesota in the 1870s, this story brings some of the hardships of pioneer life to the attention of newly independent readers. The dark, shiny clouds racing across the prairie don't bring the rain that nine-year-old Helga and her seven-year-old brother, Erik, expect-instead, hordes of grasshoppers descend upon them, heralding the family's fight for survival. The action-packed beginning, in which the insects devastate the crops, changes to a conversation-driven text describing how the family makes plans and endures through the winter. Although the characters' faces are not well executed, the watercolor illustrations enhance the mood of the story and provide visual breaks in the text, which does not have chapter divisions. A two-page author's note is included. This is far from Patricia MacLachlan's Sarah, Plain and Tall (HarperCollins, 1985), but it is an adequate story.-Gale W. Sherman, Pocatello Public Library, ID