A Pathfinder for Novels about Pioneers
   

For books in our library about Overland journeys to the Pacific, click here.

For books about Frontier and Pioneer Life, see below.
   
Silver Dollar Girl by Katherine Ayres (FIC AY). In 1885, unhappy living with her aunt and uncle in Pittsburgh, Valentine Harper disguises herself as a boy and runs away to Colorado determined to find her father who has gone there in search of gold.
   
Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Rylie Brink (FIC BR). The adventures of an eleven-year-old tomboy growing up on the Wisconsin frontier in the mid-1800's.
   
Magical Melons by Carol Rylie Brink (FIC BR). More stories about Caddie Woodlawn.
   
Bread and Butter Journey by Anne Colver (FIC COL).
   
The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz (FIC FR). Ten-year-old Ann overcomes loneliness and learns to appreciate the importance of her role in settling the wilderness of western Pennsylvania.
   
Old Yeller by Fred Gipson (FIC GIP).
   
Seeds of Hope: a Goldrush Diary by Kristiana Gregory (FIC GR). A Dear America offering.
   
A Perfect Place by Patricia Hermes (FIC HE). Shelved with the Dear America series, this is a sequel to Westward to Home (though can be read on its own).  This journal records events in the Willamette Valley, Oregon Territory, as Joshua's family and others they met on the trail begin to get settled.
   
Sarah, Plain and Tall,   Skylark,  and  Caleb by Patrica MacLachlan (FIC McC). These are each short books but are a series so your teacher might go for reading all three. Sarah, Plain and Tall is the first book. It is easy reading but a classic (winner of a Newbery). It is the story of a father and his two children (Caleb and Anna). Sarah is a mail-order bride. She comes from Maine to the Nebraska prairie and makes a life for them all.
 
Tucket's Home by Gary Paulsen (FIC PA). This is part of a series but can be read on its own. Francis Tucket, Lottie, and Billy survive a series of hair-raising adventures while on their way west to the Oregon Trail, where they hope to rejoin Francis' family.
 
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (FIC WI). There are other books in this series that might work as well, check with your teacher. This series is about a family that moves from the big woods of Wisconsin. Their first stop is the little house on the prairie and the other books proceed from there chronicling a fictionalized account of Laura Ingalls Wilder's life. In Little House they build a log cabin, meet neighboring Indians, dig a well, and fight a prairie fire.