When a fierce blizzard suddenly kicks up on a mild winter day, a young Nebraska girl must find the courage and strength to lead others to safety.
It is 1888. Twelve-year-old Anna loves life on the Nebraska prairie where she lives with her parents and four-year-old brother in a simple sod house. She doesn’t mind helping out with chores, especially when she is herding sheep with her beloved pony, Top Hat. On the open prairie, Anna feels at home. But at school she feels hopelessly out of place. Arithmetic is too hard, her penmanship is abysmal, and stuck-up Eloise Baxter always laughs at her mistakes.
When an intense Nebraska blizzard traps Anna, her schoolmates, and young teacher in the one-room schoolhouse, Anna knows they must escape before it is too late. Does she have the courage and strength to lead her school through the whiteout to safety?
Alison Hart offers young readers a dramatic story of rescue and survival featuring a plucky, determined protagonist. An author’s note provides more information about prairie life in the late nineteenth century and about the great storm that hit Nebraska in 1888, now known as “The School Children’s Blizzard.”