4. One Came Home - Amy Timberlake

2013, Alfred A. Knopf

258 pgs.

Middle Grades Historical Fiction and Mystery

Finished 1/10/15

Goodreads rating: 3.85

My rating:   (2) It was okay 

1871 Wisconsin (Placid - where current day Wisconsin Dells stands)

1st sentence/s:  "So it comes to this, I remember thinking on Wednesday, June 7, 1871.  The date sticks in my mind  because it was the day of mys sister's first funeral and I knew it wasn't her last - which is why I left.  That's the long and short of it."

My comments:  This really was an okay story - and I'm not sure why I'm not more excited about it.  I like that it was a mystery and historical fiction.  Probably I'm so used to my adult mysteries that I wanted more in that department?  The setting was excellent, a dusty town in Wisconsin in 1871.  Time was tough to follow..people dying and marrying and the pigeons arriving all happened more closely together than the story made them seem.  And I liked that the 13-year-old protagonist really did seem 13.  Random thoughts, I know....

Goodreads book summary:  In the town of Placid, Wisconsin, in 1871, Georgie Burkhardt is known for two things: her uncanny aim with a rifle and her habit of speaking her mind plainly.

     But when Georgie blurts out something she shouldn't, her older sister Agatha flees, running off with a pack of "pigeoners" trailing the passenger pigeon migration. And when the sheriff returns to town with an unidentifiable body—wearing Agatha's blue-green ball gown—everyone assumes the worst. Except Georgie. Refusing to believe the facts that are laid down (and coffined) before her, Georgie sets out on a journey to find her sister. She will track every last clue and shred of evidence to bring Agatha home. Yet even with resolute determination and her trusty Springfield single-shot, Georgie is not prepared for what she faces on the western frontier.