Aurora Means Dawn

Title: Aurora Means Dawn
Author: Scott Russel Sanders
Historical Fiction, Primary Grade Level

     Scott Russel Sanders was interested in how civilization came to his hometown in Ohio.  With some research he started to write a series of books for children of stories surrounding these matters.  This story, Aurora Means Dawn, is how he believes the real Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon came to occupy one of the first houses in Aurora, Ohio with their seven children.  I really like how the author leaves a note at the back explaining his interest in the subject, how he generally gathered research, and some of the specifics he knew to be true in order to write this particular tale.  The short story involves this large family heading West to the town of Aurora from Connecticut.  They had heard of the development of this town and decided to take up the idea of cheap land.  However, they encounter a terrible storm when they are just so close to Aurora.  The family suffers through the long night and works hard to be able to move forward.  The father eventually decides to go get help from people ahead, when he finds nothing but a stake to mark the "developed" town of Aurora and so he goes further to Hudson.  With help from Hudson men, he goes back and they all work to get the wagon through the forest to Aurora, where the Sheldons are the first to settle in town.
     This was a very quick read, but would be very helpful to young students in aiding understanding of life in this time period.  All nine Sheldons traveled in the small wagon with what turns out to be false hope.  It is hard to imagine of a time where there was just open land that no one had been to yet, so this story really helps children to see and understand what that might be like, and the difficulties of traveling this way to unfamiliar land.  I hope I can sometime read other stories from Sanders' series about these matters and get a more overall understanding and use for comparison.