The Children’s Blizzard by Melanie Benjamin

 

Are you ready to read a riveting historical fiction novel about one of the most devastating natural disasters in our history? 

 In January 1888, schools across the great plains had a reason to celebrate.  The weather was abnormally warm and pleasant.  Pioneers run errands and tend to outdoor items, while the kids go to school lightly dressed.  By early afternoon, the weather has taken a turn for the worse with a devastating blizzard striking seemingly out of the blue.  Most schools had little coal or wood to keep them warm, and zero visibility conditions made it impossible to leave.  What will the young schoolteachers (some as young as fifteen or sixteen) do to keep their young charges safe?

 One of my favorite books of 2018 was the non-fiction book The Children’s Blizzard by David Laski which told the true accounts of the pioneers that lived through this terrible event.  I recognized many of these stories retold in a fictionalized version in this novel.  What I really loved is that author Melanie Benjamin primarily told the story through the perspective of two different sisters, Raina and Gerda Olsen, and how they handled the crisis in completely different ways.  It really made me ponder the hard decision that these young women had to make on their own and the terrible consequences of these actions.

 Other viewpoints include Gavin Woodson.  Woodson was a reporter who used advertisements to lure pioneers to the area often with false promises of a land of wonder rather than hardship.  After the blizzard, he seeks redemption through his writing of the event.  Anette Pederson is an unloved servant girl whose main worry is getting home on time to prevent herself getting in trouble. 

 I especially loved that an African American family was included in this story.  Ol’ Lieutenant is rumored to be a Buffalo soldier and runs a saloon in downtown Omaha.  He is being forced out by city leaders who want him to move to the north side of town with other African American families.  When the blizzard hits, Ol’ Lieutenant has to save his own daughters.  When Gavin Woodson leaves his saloon to start his trek across the prairie to find stories of the blizzard, Ol’ Lieutenant tells him, “While you’re out there hunting for stories, make sure you talk about colored folk, too.  You know there’s a settlement west of Yankton – in Sully County – that’s mainly colored.  Maybe you can get up that way?  There are people here in town would like to hear about them, see if they made it through.”  My only sadness with the book is that Woodson never talks about this settlement or visits Ol’ Lieutenant again.  I love seeing historical fiction being more inclusive and showing the people that were actually there. 

 Readers of my blog know that I am a lover of Laura Ingalls Wilder and the pioneer experience.  Poor Raina Olsen and her experience as a young teacher boarding out reminded me of Laura Ingalls as a young teacher awkward boarding with a family who did not want her there.  Raina Olsen’s experience also made me wonder how much inappropriate behavior happened when these young girls were boarded with unknown families.  It disturbs me to think about it.

 I enjoyed the note about the real history at the end of the novel.  This was a page turning book for me and I stayed up way too late last weekend reading it.  It was excellent.

 Favorite quotes:

“It’s still such a thin line, between good and bad here – success and failure, I mean.”

 “The blizzard that was, she realized, not merely a storm but also the physical manifestation of the torment of her own soul, the turbulent struggle for it bursting out and over the prairie.”

 “Like I said, this land chews people up and spits them out in pieces.  Even children.”

 Overall, The Children’s Blizzard is historical fiction at its best, a gripping account that explores the real terrors that were faced by the pioneers and the implications that trickled through time afterwards.

 Book Source:  Review Copy from NetGalley.  Thank-you!

 

The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin

An accomplished aviator, writer, and mother, Anne Lindbergh is forever remembered as the wife of the famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh.  The lives of the Lindberghs are dramatic in nature.  Anne is a young college girl that travels to Mexico during Christmas break as her father is the new ambassador to Mexico.  Also visiting the embassy is Charles Lindbergh not too long after his solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.  Both quiet in nature, the two connect and Anne is stunned to realize that Charles has picked her over her more beautiful and outgoing older sister.  She loves to fly as well as Charles and he realizes that she will make an excellent co-pilot and crew and is also level headed.  Anne knows that Charles is famous, but is overwhelmed by the constant scrutiny and lack of privacy that the wife of Charles Lindbergh engenders.

As time goes on, Anne starts to feel that her entire life is controlled by Charles and the media, especially after the events of the “trial of the century.”  As she gets older, Anne sheds this mentality and finds herself. She writes her books and also raises her five children basically on her own.  She discovers her own self-worth as well as love.  She tries to discover the enigma that is her husband; will she ever know the mystery that is Charles Lindbergh?

I was sent this book by Eydie, the leader of the Milwaukee book club I was a member of before moving to Kewaunee 10.5 years ago.  I knew it would be good since Eydie liked it, so I picked it for the June pick of the FLICKS Book and Movie Club (aka Rogue).  It did provide much discussion at our meeting.  The discussion centered on not only the amazing events of the Lindbergh’s lives, but also focused on Anne.  What it must have felt like to put all in as a wife and mother only to discover ultimate betrayal by her husband.  What the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby would have been like. How Anne may have seen herself as just the aviator’s wife, but that she was much more.  We all learned a lot about Anne that we never knew before and her many accomplishments.  We discussed the stoicism of Charles Lindbergh and what it was like for past generations of men and women.  Plus, did Charles Lindbergh really live with all three of his mistresses in Germany like I read online?  How the heck would that work?

My favorite quotes from this novel:

“And I understand that betrayal is more enormous than forgiveness.  One more thing Charles has taught me, in a lifetime of lessons and lectures.”

“Charles was the wind that blew me hither and yon, that lifted me off this earth, kept me aloft, pulled me along like a helpless kite, but also gave me wings with which I could touch the sun.”

“But before that, I had been a pilot.  An adventurer.  I had broken records – but I had forgotten about them.  I had steered aircraft – but I didn’t think I would know how to, anymore.  I had soared across the sky, every bit as daring as Lucky Lindy himself, the one person in the world who could keep up with him.

Yet motherhood had brought me down to earth with a thud and kept me there with tentacles made of diapers and tears and lullabies and phone calls and car pools and the sticky residue of hair spray and Barbasol all over the bathroom counter.  Would I ever be able to soar again?  Would I ever have the courage?

Did any woman?”

“I was Mom.  I was Wife.  I was Tragedy.  I was Pilot.  They all were me, and I, them.  That was a fate we could not escape, we women; we would always be called upon by others in a way men simply never were.  But weren’t we always, first and foremost – woman?  Wasn’t there strength in that, victory, clarity – in all of the stages of a woman’s life?”

I loved the author’s note at the end of the novel were she said that “It’s the emotional truths that I imagine” and the rest of the novel is history.

Overall, The Aviator’s Wife was a great look into the life of the often underestimated Anne Morrow Lindbergh and into the fraught marriage of the Lindberghs.  It was filled with high drama.  It was a good historical fiction novel and a great book to discuss at book club.

Book Source:  Copy given to me by my old Milwaukee Book Club Pal, Eydie.  I will be passing it along now!