Ticket to Curlew

Dave Jenkinson is Associate Dean of the Faculty of Education at the
University of Manitoba.

Through her narrator, Sam Ferrier, 11, Lottridge provides readers in
grades 3 to 6 with a vivid picture of early 20th-century pioneer life on
the Canadian Prairies. In the summer of 1915, an excited Sam travels by
train with his father, James, from Jericho, Iowa, to the two
quarter-sections of virgin Prairie land the Ferrier family had purchased
five miles outside eastern Alberta’s emerging village of Curlew. Some
two months later, “when everything was ready for them,” the pair are
joined by the remaining family members, mother Clara, Josie, 8, and
Matt, 6, plus their “Settler’s Effects” and farm animals. In that
interim period, father and son had to create the “everything,”
including a house, barn and well, which they did with the help of their
fellow immigrant neighbors. The remainder of the episodic plot follows
the family through its first harsh Prairie winter, and the book
concludes with spring’s arrival.

Lottridge successfully uses a variety of methods to create a picture of
“historical” Alberta. One way is to have a geographically estranged
Sam repeatedly compare his new surroundings of “endless rippling
prairie grass” with his memories of the family’s fully developed
Iowa farm. As well, Lottridge incorporates numerous details about
pioneer life, which should interest her readership, especially facts
such as Sam’s one-roomed school being closed from mid-December until
April because of the dangerously cold Prairie winters.

But this winner of the 1993 CLA Book of the Year for Children Award is
more than just social history, for imbedded in the various incidents are
two continuing stories. One involves Sam’s developing friendship with
a neighboring boy, Gregor Chomyk, a Ukrainian immigrant who, like the
rest of his family, speaks no English; yet Gregor’s father prohibits
him from attending school because his labor is required at home. The
second story follows Sam’s growing affection for his horse, Prince,
and how that sentiment clashes with Prairie pragmatism.

A recommended purchase for school and public libraries.