Waiting On…Sweet Home Alaska by Carole Estby Dagg

Waiting On Wednesday is a regular feature on Pop! Goes The Reader in which I highlight forthcoming titles which I’m particularly excited about and looking forward to. This weekly event is hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine.


Title Sweet Home Alaska
Author Carole Estby Dagg
Pages 304 Pages
Target Audience & Genre Middle Grade, Historical Fiction
Publisher Nancy Paulsen Books
To Be Published February 2nd, 2016
Find It On GoodreadsAmazon.com

This exciting pioneering story, based on actual events, introduces readers to a fascinating chapter in American history, when FDR set up a New Deal colony in Alaska to give loans and land to families struggling during the Great Depression.

Trip can’t wait to follow in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s footsteps…now she just has to convince her mom. It’s 1934, and times are tough for their family. To make a fresh start, Trip’s father signs up for President Roosevelt’s Palmer Colony project, uprooting them from Wisconsin to become pioneers in Alaska. Their new home is a bit of a shock — it’s a town still under construction in the middle of the wilderness, where the residents live in tents and share a community outhouse. But Trip’s not about to let first impressions get in the way of this grand adventure. Tackling its many unique challenges with her can-do attitude, she starts making things happen to make Alaska seem more like home. Soon, she and her family are able to start settling in and enjoying their new surroundings — everyone except her mother, that is. So, in order to stay, Trip hatches a plan to convince her that it’s a wonderful — and civilized — place to live…a plan that’s going to take all the love, energy, and Farmer Boy expertise Trip can muster.

There are few things I find more exciting than stumbling upon a book I had previously never heard of before. As anyone who has undertaken this wonderful pastime will tell you, one of the inevitable consequences of becoming a book blogger is a greater familiarity with the publishing industry, and nowhere is this more true than in relation to forthcoming releases and their respective publication dates. Between publishers, publicists, catalogues, events and an endless barrage of posts, emails and tweets on the subject, it feels like a special sort of magic when I’m able to discover a title all on my own. You can therefore imagine my delight and surprise when I happened upon Carole Estby Dagg’s Sweet Home Alaska on Goodreads one afternoon. From a reference to Little House On The Prairie to an exploration of a particular event in history heretofore largely overlooked, Dagg’s middle grade debut promises to offer a taste of the familiar while also providing an invigorating breath of fresh air, all the more so because Trip and her family appear to belong to a different socio-economic background than is often portrayed in YA and MG literature. All things considered, I’m ready to load up the wagons and embark on a pioneering adventure I won’t soon forget!

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Hi! I’m Jen! I’m a thirty-something introvert who loves nothing more than the cozy comfort of home and snuggling my two rescue cats, Pepper and Pancakes. I also enjoy running, jigsaw puzzles, baking and everything Disney. Few things bring me more joy than helping a reader find the right book for them!

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