Last fall when I was doing my Christmas shopping (on-line, of course), I found a sale on a set of 4 historical fiction books. Although I was not familiar with the author, I decided to purchase them for my almost 10 year old daughter because she is crazy about historical fiction, especially books about girls and American history. Those books were the first 4 books in the Andrea Carter series by Susan K. Marlow.
You can imagine my delight when I discovered that Kregel Publications was sending me the 5th book in the series to review. My daughter really likes the books, but she didn’t want to read this one yet because she hasn’t finished the first 4 books. (She tends to read several different books at once, making it take her a while to finish any of them.) So I was introduced to Andrea in The Trouble with Treasure.
Andi is an almost 13 year old tomboy. She lives on a large cattle ranch near Fresno, California in the 1880’s. It’s an exciting time to live in California, and Andrea likes nothing more than being outdoors and riding her horse Taffy. Andrea’s friend Jenny is visiting for several weeks, and they are both excited about their upcoming trip to a logging camp with her older brother Mitch.
Unfortunately they ran into trouble on the trail. First a rattlesnake delayed their progress, and later they met up with some very frightening men. Andi is required to use strength and determination that she didn’t know she had.
I found Andi to be a likable girl. She honored her mother and sought to do what was right. But she did that without the book seeming preachy. The story was an exciting adventure with a little bit of mystery thrown in. The book wasn’t overwhelmingly Christian, but there were instances of prayer. Although not overly graphic, there were some tense portions of the book involving guns in which people were fatally wounded. I didn’t find the content objectionable, but some families might.
Disclosure: This product was provided to our family for free as members of the 2009-2010 Old Schoolhouse Magazine Homeschool Crew. Reviews and opinions expressed in this blog are our own.
By Kristen H.
hey, Kristen! I finally am getting my act together regarding this blogging thing 🙂 I am glad I came across this blog of yours on the American History books, Johnna will love them.
Johnna would because she loves horses! They’re heavier on the story than on history. But they are set in an historical time.
Hey, this is strange. Somehow I accidentally put my comment up at the top (a FB-looking thing). Oops. Deleted it and pasted it down here instead). I guess it’s just part of the HSB upgrade, which has been confusing me for some time now, since I don’t blog all that much these days. Sorry I’m logged in as my character. It’s too much trouble to log in as Suzy Scribbles. LOL
OK, sorry about the distraction. Anyway, I’m just popping over to say thank you for your nice review for TWT. (And Book 4 is the book that is more historical fiction rather than historical adventure like the other books, BTW). Even a real, live “historical note” at the end. LOL
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts!
Blessings,
Susan (AKA the author)
I’m going to take the FB plugin thing off. At least until I have time to play with it. It’s confusing. I did enjoy the book and I know my daughter is enjoying the series. Thank you for visiting and commenting 🙂