Bauer, Marion Dane. Land of the Buffalo Bones; the diary of Mary Ann Elizabeth Rodgers, an English girl in Minnesota.

(Dear America series). Scholastic. 221p. illus. c2003.0-439-22027-0. $12.95. J

The Dear America series is generally based on fictional characters; in this case. Bauer is writing about her great-grandmother and her own ancestors' experiences coming from England to Minnesota in the 1870s. Much of the story is based on historical records. This might not be so interesting to YA readers, but it does add something special to the story. I think. As a story in itself, there is plenty of drama and trauma, enough to keep any YA reader turning the pages, especially girls who are familiar with Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series, Here are some of the elements of the story: a difficult ocean passage, with the death of a beloved little boy and his burial at sea; horrible weather conditions in Minnesota that the English immigrants are not prepared for; the narrator's difficulties adjusting to her stepmother and young siblings; the narrator's best friend Jane's abuse by her father and her subsequent marriage to an Ojibwa youth; the failure of the group in their first settlement. As is true of all the novels in this series, an afterword explains the historical facts of the story, and a selection of photographs helps make the story even more vividly real.