Frozen Summer

This continuation of the Nye family chronicles can be read independently, although "the reader will have a richer experience by meeting the family first in Journey to Nowhere, " as Auch observes in an informative author's note. "Frozen Summer" -which like its predecessor is set in the early nineteenth century just after the War of 1812-predates the era of the Little House books and presents a much darker portrait of pioneer life. In fact, Frozen Summer is a tragedy brightened only by the resiliency of the narrator, twelve-year-old Remembrance Nye. As Mem and her family struggle to build a home in the Genesee Country of New York State after an arduous journey from Connecticut, they are besieged with difficulties: first, unusual weather patterns bring snow and frost well into the summer months, killing crops and hopes of a better life; then, Mem's mother, homesick and suffering from postpartum depression, retreats from reality, neglecting her newborn daughter; finally, Mem's father, headstrong, inept at coping with the demands of wilderness life, and ashamed of his wife's condition, refuses to seek help from his neighbors. The burden of maintaining the family is shifted to Mem, who tries desperately to help but is, after all, only a child. The inevitable, devastating outcome leaves her determined to raise her sister "to be strong so that no matter what happened, she'd always know how to take care of herself." Not a bad philosophy, that, and a hopeful note to sound at the end of a well-paced, bracingly realistic novel.