Patricia Hermes

Traveling with his owners from Missouri to Oregon in 1848, Koda, an energetic two-year-old quarter horse, finds the long journey increasingly tedious and tiring until his young owner goes missing on the trail and he must use all his skills to find her.

Nine-year-old Elizabeth keeps a journal of her experiences in the New World as she encounters Indians, suffers hunger and the death of friends, and helps her father build their first home.

Nine-year-old Elizabeth keeps a journal of her experiences in the New World as she encounters Indians, suffers hunger and the death of friends, and helps her father build their first home."

Nine-year-old Emma O'Fallon finds herself in increasing difficulties at home and at school as her determined efforts to break up the growing attachment between Irish nanny Annie and her boyfriend Bo cause chaos on a family camping trip and Emma's relationship with her best friend Luisa seems to be going from bad to worse.

In this book, Joshua's diary comes to an end with stories of life in Oregon, his sister lost in the woods, and Joshua starting school.

Through the changing seasons on Hairy Bear Mountain and her father's illness, Hallie continues to wish for her father's health and a china doll's head from a store window in town.

Emma's happy summer of soccer camp with best friend Luisa and visits to Rooney, the beloved old horse at the nearby stables where Annie the nanny helps out, changes when she discovers that Rooney is being sold and Luisa has some unhappy news.

When eleven-year-old Sam visits her grandfather's ranch for the first time, she finds a new life very different from the one she has known with her vagabond mother and discovers what really matters most to her.

Late in 1848, nine-year-old Joshua McCullough starts a second journal, this time recording events in Willamette Valley, Oregon Territory, as his family and others they met on the trail begin to get settled.