Based on family history, Leavittâe(tm)s coming-of-age story is set in an 1890s Mormon settler community in Southern Alberta, Canada, at the eastern edges of the Rockies, and focuses on seventeen-year-old Rebecca. In an opening both startling and humorous, Leavitt begins: âeoeRebecca had heard her father and others call this land Godâe(tm)s country often enough that she wasnâe(tm)t as surprised as she might have been to come upon him...He was dressed in his work clothes, but you knew God when you saw him.âe Itâe(tm)s fitting that many of Rebeccaâe(tm)s consequent ups-and-downs are driven by the desire to own the very piece of âeoeGodâe(tm)s countryâe that she finds so beautiful -- an ­outlandish ambition for a woman. With her motherâe(tm)s support, she determines to earn the exorbitant $480 it will cost to buy the quarter section; in the meantime, her close-knit family and community offer rich, unpredictable ground for her efforts to learn and live with integrity -- and without complaining. Ventures into midwifery and nursing with her mother; ­calamities of weather, domestic violence, and a devastating flu; ­competition for romance and talk of womenâe(tm)s suffrage: all are fodder for Rebeccaâe(tm)s articulate, funny ­self-examination and deepening growth. Always sensitive to the ­beauties of earth and sky, Rebecca longs for a return of the elk and buffalo, part of the authorâe(tm)s tacit ­acknowledgment of local Indigenous peoples and the damage wrought by white ­expansion. Leavittâe(tm)s writing is suffused with the beauty of the earth and sky. Deirdre F. BakerMarch/April 2023 p.70 (c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A Canadian homesteader's daughter carves out a place for her feminist dreams within her 1890s Latter-Day Saints community in this enticing historical novel based on the lived histories of the author's ancestors, as detailed in an end note. Seventeen-year-old Rebecca Leavitt believes that God has sent her a sign when she discovers an unoccupied piece of land overlooking the Rockies. Though homesteading laws forbid her from owning property, she resolves to one day raise enough money so that her father can purchase the plot and sign it over to her. Her timeline is expedited, however, when she learns that, a year from now, the land will be sold to her childhood friend, Coby Webster. This episodic narrative, told over the course of a year, exposes complex layers in Rebecca's history with Coby and explores women's agency in their patriarchal community. Through deliberately paced, relationship-driven storytelling overflowing with witty humor and gritty Western imagery, Leavitt (Calvin) presents Rebecca's faith as a tender, sometimes fraught, ever-evolving dynamic that honors those struggling to define themselves within religious traditions. A plotline detailing a physically abusive relationship is conscientiously handled. All characters read as white. Ages 12--up. Agent: Ginger Knowlton, Curtis Brown. (Apr.)

Gr 6 Up--Seventeen-year-old Rebecca wants to own her own land. The problem is that she is a woman in the 1890s in the Northwest Territories of Canada and isn't allowed to purchase property. Rebecca is determined to work around that by earning enough money to pay her father who can then buy the land and put her name on it. This certainly comes with challenges, ones she could have never imagined. This novel gives readers a good picture of what life was like in the west for a young woman of the Latter-Day Saints faith at the end of the 19th century, the types of chores she was responsible for every day, and how she socialized. Rebecca is a strong and confident character who works hard to get what she wants and isn't intimidated by the fact that women are seen as "a person in matters of pains and penalties, but not in matters of rights and privileges." The author uses language and certain terminology that will make readers feel as if they have been transported to the 1800s. VERDICT This title would be an excellent addition to any YA historical fiction collection.--Elizabeth Gold

Loosely based on her ancestors' history as Latter Day Saints homesteaders in Canada's Northwest Territories, Leavitt's heartfelt novel opens in the year 1890 with her protagonist, 17-yearold Rebecca, sitting next to God and contemplating the beauty of the landscape. If sitting thus seems impossible, so is Rebecca's determination to have land of her own, as it's illegal for a single woman to own land. Though perhaps she won't be single much longer. There are two young men in Rebecca's life: Coby, practical, warm, and safe; and handsome Levi, who has a way of making naughtiness seem all right. Rebecca's story is beautifully written ("the mountains glowed as if they'd swallowed the moon") and its treatment of setting, superb, while the plot is an impressive balance of the quotidian--a Dominion Day celebration, marriage, birth--and the exceptional: a flood that carries the family's house away, a blizzard that threatens Coby's life, and a plague of the grippe that brings death to the community. As for Leavitt (Calvin, 2015), she brings all of her characters to vivid life--willful, stubborn Rebecca, of course, but also her parents, stoic Father and slightly too perfect Mother. A vivid celebration of life and insightful exploration of faith, this novel proves the enduring importance of sometimes undervalued historical fiction for YAs.

A young woman comes of age in an 1890s Canadian settlement of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Rebecca Leavitt is determined to own a piece of land. She knows the ideal spot: It has a perfect place to sit, look over Buffalo Flats, and appreciate the Rocky Mountains rising in the west. Unfortunately, only men can homestead and acquire land, but if she can raise $480, her father could purchase the land and make out the deed in her name. Over the course of a year, Rebecca works tirelessly, trying to raise the money she needs while managing the realities of life in a community that moved to Canada from Utah. In this character-driven novel, Rebecca is a funny, focused, and believable young woman who battles internally over right and wrong, especially when it comes to dealing with romantic feelings and appreciating people who are hard to get along with. The author mines her own family history to create a tale in which the landscape is viscerally described in its tempestuous beauty, and situations such as stepping in as midwife, rescuing a neighbor from an abusive husband, and dealing with life-threatening flooding give a sense of the daily struggles. Everyone is assumed White; though there is discussion of the buffalo and elk affected by settlement, only glancing mention is made of Indigenous inhabitants. Immersive historical fiction. (author's note) (Historical fiction. 13-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.