Review: This Road We Traveled by Jane Kirkpatrick

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About the book:

Tabitha Brown refuses to be left behind in Missouri when her son makes the decision to strike out for Oregon--even if she has to hire her own wagon to join the party. After all, family ties are stronger than fear.

Along with her reluctant daughter and her ever-hopeful granddaughter, the intrepid Tabitha has her misgivings. The trials they face along the way will severely test her faith, courage, and ability to hope. With her family's survival on the line, she must make the ultimate sacrifice, plunging deeper into the wilderness to seek aid. What she couldn't know was how this frightening journey would impact how she understood her own life--and the greater part she had to play in history.

With her signature attention to detail and epic style, New York Times bestselling author Jane Kirkpatrick invites you to travel the deadly and enticing Oregon Trail. Based on actual events, This Road We Traveled inspires the pioneer in all of us.

My Review:

I have always admired and have been awed by stories of our ancestors who left everything known and stable and set off for parts unknown in a wagon train following the Oregon Trail.  I certainly do not think I would have had the stamina and I am very thankful that I live in the time period I do.  In author Jane Kirkpatrick’s latest, This Road We Traveled, we are given a glimpse at what brave and adventurous pioneers those emigrates were.  Based on historical figures, the author gives us a story that will take us along with Tabitha Brown and her family down that road they traveled to help make this country great. 

We are treated to three viewpoints in this story, Tabitha (in her 60’s), her daughter, and her granddaughter.  We see through their eyes this often times harsh and dangerous trail and get to experience their hopes, fears, and feelings.  Tabitha was a strong woman, lame in one foot since childhood; she was a resilient character who did not think she was too old or too crippled to go along with her family when her children decided to emigrate to Oregon.  I cheered on her and John, her brother-in-law (in his seventies), as they faced that road fearlessly.

Her daughter Phernie, was not as adventurous as her mother as she liked where she and her husband and children lived.  She questioned and doubted and grieved over the decision to move to Oregon.  I felt for her as she had to decide what to keep and what to leave behind, thus showing her struggle with letting go of the comforts of her current life.  Again, I am not so sure I could be that brave.

This was a fascinating look of one family’s resilience and survival as they traveled that Oregon Trail.  I have not read anything by Jane Kirkpatrick before and her attention to detail and history had me feeling I was right there with that pioneer family.

I received a copy for an honest review from Revell Publishing and the opinions are my own.