BUFFALO FLATS, by Martine Leavitt, Margaret Ferguson Books, April 25, 2023, Hardcover, $18.99 (young adult)
A young woman dreams beyond the confines of societal norms in 1890s Canada in Buffalo Flats, by Martine Leavitt.
Seventeen-year-old Rebecca Leavitt has traveled by covered wagon from Utah to the Northwest Territories of Canada, where her father and brothers are now homesteading and establishing a new community with other Latter-Day Saints. Rebecca is old enough to get married, but what kind of man would she marry and who would have a girl like her — a girl filled with ideas and opinions? Someone gallant and exciting like Levi Howard? Or a man of ideas like her childhood friend Coby Webster?
Rebecca decides to set her sights on something completely different. She loves the land and wants her own piece of it. When she learns that single women aren’t allowed to homestead, her father agrees to buy her land outright, as long as Rebecca earns the money — 480 dollars, an impossible sum. She sets out to earn the money while surviving the relentless challenges of pioneer life — the ones that Mother Nature throws at her in the form of blizzards, grizzles, influenza and floods, and the ones that come with human nature, be they exasperating neighbors or the breathtaking frailty of life. —Synopsis provided by Margaret Ferguson Books
The first chapter of Buffalo Flats sets the tone for what is a beautifully refreshing look at settler life in frontier Canada. And it does so through the eyes of someone who holds her faith dear but nudges the boundaries of societal dictates.
Rebecca is a complex and compelling young woman that loves her family and the land they’ve come to call home. Life is not easy, but she does her part — and then some. Rebecca’s growth throughout is lovely to follow.
Author Martine Leavitt is a master storyteller. I particularly admire her ability to create a true sense of Rebecca’s Latter-Day Saint (aka Mormon) faith while keeping it accessible to all readers. It’s so interwoven into Rebecca’s life that it just is. And that’s what moves it out of a niche novel into the mainstream.
Leavitt’s beautiful writing catches you from the first page:
“Rebecca had heard her father and others call this land God’s country enough that she wasn’t as surprised as she might have been to come upon him, one warm spring evening, sitting on the tor overlooking Buffalo Flats. He was dressed in his work clothes, but you knew God when you saw him. A sparrow swooped over him as if everything were usual. An insect lighted on him and flew away, as if it hadn’t just landed on God.
He saw her and smiled and said, ‘Rebecca.’”
Buffalo Flats is a fantastic historical YA inspired by true-life stories. It’s a lyrical read that sweeps you away and begs to be read in one go. It’s one of my favorite YA reads as of late.
Copyright © 2023 Cracking the Cover. Unless otherwise noted, all books — digital and physical — have been provided by publishers in exchange for honest and unbiased reviews. All thoughts and opinions are those of the reviewer.
