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Swift Rivers

10 best books like Swift Rivers (Cornelia Meigs): Downright Dencey, All Sail Set: A Romance of the Flying Cloud, Calico Bush, The Journeyman, The Perilous Road, The Jumping-Off Place, The Great Wheel, When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw and Other Stories, Frontier Living: An Illustrated Guide to Pioneer Life in America, All Alone

Downright Dencey
AuthorCaroline Dale Snedeker
ISBN1883937795
This treasure of a novel, a Newbery Honor Book, is set on the island of Nantucket just before the War of 1812. Much more than a tale of whaling ships and gentle Quaker eccentricities, it is a tale of friendship-the kind most truly espoused by these 'plain' folk, with all the struggle and complexity one should...
All Sail Set: A Romance of the Flying Cloud
AuthorArmstrong Sperry
ISBN0879235233
I found this title in an used bookstore in the little town of Columbia Falls, Montana, and paid $10 for it thinking it was a non-fiction account of the legendary sailing ship Flying Cloud. My copy is a 1935 edition and includes a very large number of superb woodcut illustrations. Instead of the factual...
Calico Bush
AuthorRachel Field
ISBN0689822855
Left orphaned and alone in a strange country, thirteen-year-old Marguerite Ledoux has no choice but to become a servant girl. She promises her services to the Sargent family for six long years in return for food and shelter. But life as a "bound-out girl" is full of more hardship than Maggie ever could...
The Journeyman
AuthorElizabeth Yates
ISBN0890845352
The boy isn't much to look at: thin, pale, and undersized for his age. Neighbors shake their heads over Jared Austin's odd ways. His father doesn't think he's good for anything much. Even his friend Jennet wonders what will become of him.

But Jared isn't concerned; he has his own ideas about what...
The Perilous Road
AuthorWilliam O. Steele
ISBN0152052046
Talk about a reading experience of the way things used to be. The writing, the spelling...all from the older days.

Chris Brabson and his family are Southerners during the Civil War. They live in TN, close to Chattanooga, and just like any good little hard working family, they mind their own business...
The Jumping-Off Place
AuthorMarian Hurd McNeely
ISBN0979894042
This book follows the story of Becky (17), Dick (15), Phil (10) and Joan (8) Linville as they leave behind their home in Platteville, Wisconsin to homestead out in South Dakota in 1910. Their beloved Uncle Jim squatted the claim last fall, before his untimely death, and the children are determined to...
The Great Wheel
AuthorRobert Lawson
ISBN0802777058
"Your fortune lies to the west. Keep your face to the sunset . . . and one day you'll ride the greatest wheel in all the world." When Aunt Honora reads this fortune in his tea leaves, Conn Kilroy knows he is destined for greater things than his small Irish village can offer. A letter from his uncle Michael in...
When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw and Other Stories
AuthorIsaac Bashevis Singer
ISBN0374383162
"In our time, when literature is losing its address and the telling of stories is becoming a forgotten art, children are the best readers."

—When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw & Other Stories, from the Foreward

I have to admit, Isaac Bashevis Singer really has a way with folk tale humor....
Frontier Living: An Illustrated Guide to Pioneer Life in America
AuthorEdwin Tunis
I did not read every word. It is very readable, but there was too much history (compared to the Guide as promised in the title) in it for me. The illustrations were great, esp. of the actually tools and gear. Now, I wouldn't necessarily object to all that text of Westward Ho, but too much of it was written in...
All Alone
AuthorClaire Huchet Bishop
ISBN0590457071
Oloo!-Oo-oo-oop!-ooooo! All alone, high on the slope of the Little Giant in the French Alps of Saucie, ten-year-old Marcel yodeled to keep himself company. Like other boys in his village, Marcel would have to look over the family's cows during the summer; and the flexible, age-old rule was, "Don't...
Black Fox of Lorne
AuthorMarguerite de Angeli
ISBN0856860824
Vikings & Scotland in the 10th century.

"Now we shall go a-Viking," Harald Redbeard announced, and so it was that Kan and Brus, Harald's twin sons, found themselves on the dragon-prowed Raven of the Wind, its striped sails set for England. But storms, ancient enemies of the sea-faring...
The Winged Girl of Knossos
AuthorErick Berry
ISBN1589881206
Inas leaps at adventure. She dives to the bottom of the Aegean Sea to harvest sponges and somersaults over charging bulls in front of thousands of people. Best of all, she soars from cliffs wearing the glider-wings her father builds in secret, safe from the prying eyes of their neighbors, who think flying...
The Horsecatcher
AuthorMari Sandoz
ISBN0803291604
Praised for swift action and beauty of language, The Horsecatcher is Mari Sandoz's first novel about the Indians she knew so well. Without ever leaving the world of a Cheyenne tribe in the 1830s, she creates a youthful protagonist many readers will recognize in themselves. Young Elk is expected to be...
The Avion My Uncle Flew
AuthorCyrus Fisher
ISBN0802776930
As read from OpenLibrary, I found this surprisingly charming.

It's mostly about the boy, John (Jean when he's in France) as he faces the challenges of growing from a pampered boy to a stronger and wiser young man. He's sort of forced to 'man up' in just a few weeks, as he's left to live with his 'oncle'...
Bright Island
AuthorMabel Louise Robinson
ISBN0394909860
Born and raised on Bright Island off the Maine coast, Thankful Curtis is more like her sea captain grandfather than any of her older brothers are. Nothing suits her better than sailing and helping her father with the farm. But when her dreaded sisters-in-law suggest that Thankful get some proper schooling...
The Cow-Tail Switch: And Other West African Stories
AuthorHarold Courlander
ISBN0805002987
Read for Newbery, would not have picked it up otherwise, would have missed a fun & enlightening read.

Concise, a fast and enjoyable read, with lovely pictures. The notes and the vibe make it feel authentic and respectful, and I have seen some of the stories in more modern books, so I trust...
Sugaring Time
AuthorKathryn Lasky
Prolific children's author Kathryn Lasky tells the story of sugaring season - that "time between the seasons... when winter seems tired and spring is only a hoped for thing" - in this beautifully-written work of picture-book non-fiction. Her lyrical but informative text is paired with her husband...
Tree of Freedom
AuthorRebecca Caudill
I guess I'm not a Caudill fan across the board. It wasn't like this was terrible; it just wasn't terribly good either. The family relationships weren't sweet like I assumed they would be since several of her other books score nicely on that point. And it was just kind of boring ...

In 1780, Stephanie...
Pecos Bill: The Greatest Cowboy of All Time
AuthorJames Cloyd Bowman
ISBN1590172248
“Pecos Bill had the strangest and most exciting experience any boy ever had. He became a member of a pack of wild Coyotes, and until he was a grown man, believed that his name was Cropear, and that he was a full-blooded Coyote. Later he discovered that he was a human being and very shortly thereafter became...
The Noonday Friends
AuthorMary Stolz
ISBN0064400093
A poor family finds that yet again their Dad has lost his job. Dad dreams of being an artist and borrows a corner of his friends studio, where he can be a Sunday painter and paint a portrait of his employer. Mr Davis finds it hard to keep a job he hates, Mrs Davis works and has to leave the youngest with someone...
The Old Tobacco Shop: A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure
AuthorWilliam Bowen
ISBN9997488679
The Old Tobacco Shop: A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure is a children's fantasy novel by William Bowen that was named a Newbery Honor book.

Five-year-old Freddie meets the owner of a nearby tobacco shop, Mr. Toby Littleback; his old-maid aunt, Aunt Amanda; and...
The Corn Grows Ripe
AuthorDorothy Rhoads
ISBN0140363130
A Newbery Honor Book

Can Tigre find the strength and courage to support his family?

When Tigre's father is badly injured in an accident, the family is thrown into turmoil. Who will plant and harvest the corn that they need to survive--and to please the Mayan gods? The neighbors have...
Om-Kas-Toe Blackfoot Twin Captures Elkdog
AuthorKenneth Thomasma
ISBN0801088844
Ok, please, ignore the cover art on this book- the other illustrations are great, and I'm sure the cover illustrator was trying their best :)

Om-Kas-Toe is the retelling of stories passed down for generations through the Blackfeet tribe about the lives of Blackfeet children in the early 1700's....
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