Land of the Buffalo Bones

A diary-novel from the Dear America series, written by Marion Dane Bauer, this is subtitled "the diary of Mary Ann Elizabeth Rodgers, an English girl in Minnesota". I read this when it first came out in 2003, but had kind of forgotten why it was special. On rereading it, I discovered that the protagonist is an ancestor of the author, so this is a personal story in many ways. This book tells the story of Dr. George Rodgers, an English Baptist minister who led a group of people from England to settle in the Hawley, Minnesota area in 1873. Life on the prairie was difficult, and the settlers had to overcome numerous setbacks, but this book has a ring of truth about it that will make it special for Minnesota readers. Although fiction, it could supplement Minnesota history units.