Buffalo Before Breakfast (Magic Tree House #18) by Mary Pope Osborne

Buffalo Before Breakfast (Magic Tree House #18) by Mary Pope Osborne-72 pages

I read this last year and enjoyed, so I wanted to read it again this year. Jack and Annie are taken back in time to the Great Plains and meet a Lakota boy named Black Hawk. He is a young warrior living with his grandmother. Black Hawk takes them to see a buffalo herd and tries to hunt buffalo on his own. It quickly turns into a stampede that they must escape from. I like that the reader learns about Native American, specifically Lakota, history and culture. One learns that the Lakota used the entire buffalo and didn't kill more than necessary. Unfortunately, white settlers and the U.S. Army overhunted for sport and spite and the buffalo nearly went extinct. I really like that these books take kids on an adventure while also learning "real" history.

Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser

Prairie Fires: the American dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser
640 pages

"Millions of readers of Little House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls--the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains, and the woman who wrote the famous autobiographical books. But the true saga of her life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser--the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series--masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder's biography. Revealing the grown-up story behind the most influential childhood epic of pioneer life, she also chronicles Wilder's tumultuous relationship with her journalist daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, setting the record straight regarding charges of ghostwriting that have swirled around the books."  --from the publisher

I finished the day before Ms. Fraser's arrival. The book is full of facts, yet also very readable.  I enjoyed the way Laura Ingalls Wilder's life was put in context with concurrent events in the U.S.

Buffaloes before Breakfast by Mary Pope Osborne

Buffaloes before Breakfast by Mary Pope Osborne (Kindle Edition)-87 pages

In this adventure, Jack and Annie are sent to the Great Plains in the early 1800s. They are tasked with finding a gift from the prairie blue. Jack and Annie meet a Lakota boy and his grandmother and the boy shows them buffalo. The boy's grandmother gives Jack and Annie a gift of an eagle feather which is what they need. I enjoyed reading this book just as I have all of the Magic Tree House books I have read so far this month.