ONE BIG OPEN SKY

An African American girl and her family experience hardships as they leave Mississippi for a better life out West.

Lettie is growing up in Natchez in 1879 when her father, Thomas, decides the family should join a wagon train heading to Nebraska. There he would no longer have to work on a white man’s land but could acquire his own property. Lettie’s mother, Sylvia, is reluctant to leave her family, but Thomas is determined. When the steamships taking travelers up the Mississippi River to St. Louis leave Black groups behind, they band together to take an alternate route. The families become a community, even electing leaders—although Thomas is disappointed and resentful when he isn’t chosen for a top position. The journey is arduous, but Lettie, with her head for numbers, records their miles and tracks their supplies. Their family dynamic changes when a young woman named Philomena, who’s heading to Nebraska for a teaching job, joins their wagon. Along the way, her presence becomes fortuitous. This is a beautifully crafted novel in verse: Cline-Ransome once again demonstrates her incredible literary skills as characters’ personalities are revealed by their actions. The intergenerational voices provide depth as the events unfold, and the emotionally resonant writing is rich in details that add texture and meaning to this unique depiction of African American homesteaders that’s full of resilience and hope.

A deeply moving story that centers a distinctive part of the African American story.