When John Hale's parents moved from Chicago to a farm in the Dakota Territory in the late 1880s, he was not happy (too hot in summer, too cold in winter, and that is just the beginning); but after a year, and now eleven, he has settled in and made some friends at school--but when a sunny day in January 1888 turns abruptly into a deadly blizzard he will need all his strength and courage to survive what became known to history as The Children's Blizzard....

Prairie Lotus is a powerful, touching, multilayered book about a girl determined to fit in and realize her dreams: getting an education, becoming a dressmaker in her father's shop, and making at least one friend. Acclaimed, award-winning author Linda Sue Park has placed a young half-Asian girl, Hanna, in a small town in America's heartland, in 1880. Hanna's adjustment to her new surroundings, which primarily means negotiating the townspeople's almost...