Buffalo Flats

Gr 6 Up–Seventeen-year-old Rebecca wants to own her own land. The problem is that she is a woman in the 1890s in the Northwest Territories of Canada and isn’t allowed to purchase property. Rebecca is determined to work around that by earning enough money to pay her father who can then buy the land and put her name on it. This certainly comes with challenges, ones she could have never imagined. This novel gives readers a good picture of what life was like in the west for a young woman of the Latter-Day Saints faith at the end of the 19th century, the types of chores she was responsible for every day, and how she socialized. Rebecca is a strong and confident character who works hard to get what she wants and isn’t intimidated by the fact that women are seen as “a person in matters of pains and penalties, but not in matters of rights and privileges.” The author uses language and certain terminology that will make readers feel as if they have been transported to the 1800s.